I can't even begin to get caught up on this thing...

I last wrote in July??????

In the last 3 months much has happened.......I think I'll just list them instead of comment on them all, then I'll try harder to keep up.

• kids got a new wood swing set (instead of a tree house this year)
• Were supposed to go to Disney in Aug (didn't go, now going in Nov)
• Julie has a bleeding ulser
• I started anger management
• I've been SUPER depressed
• Huge wind storm (75mph) blew down a big maple in our yard (glad it feel the way it did or we'd be homeless)
• Kids all started school; Abby 5th, Isaac and Sam 2nd, Simon pre-school.
• New floor in dining room and living room
• new pantry for Julie
• New windows with my dads help
• Julie broke her right foot....then her left (no lie)
• STOPPED WORKING NIGHTS....wow does 7 hours of sleep feel great.
• started smoking again, God I missed it. Then the medication for my depression turned out to be an anti-nicorit. So I stopped smoking again. Now I don't miss it at all.
• Had a garage sale, that went well.
• Got a facebook page
• Bought Julie a car for her birthday (a PT Cruiser)
• Garden went great
• Dr thinks Simon may be on the autism spectrum
  

Now what's still not done:

• My garage is still trashed
• My barn is still a wreck
• Parts of that tree are still in the front yard
• pretty much everyting on my list. Oh, well there's always next year.
  
• trimming out the windows

Well there were lots of high and lows, but life moves on. At least Julie isn't pregnant right now....

The club house will have to wait

Julie and I were at odds anyway. I say a club house is different than a tree house. She says a tree house should be put together with what ever you find laying around the house. I'm ok with that. But I say a club house should be BIG. Have bunk beds, a firemens poll, maybe roof access and a widow walk. In other words I want to spend about $700 to build one.

I'm planning on doing it with out really getting permission. You know how that goes, don't worry she never reads my blog.....oh, crap is that her.....honey I was kidding, really-I-was......


BUT. A couple days ago the black berries in our "woods" started to ripen. I told Abby she and Isaac should pick them and we'll have pie and jams and yummy stuff.

The kids are excited and do just that, they pick berries. Good kids. They leave the new bowl of berries on the family room table. In comes their 2 year old sister. There goes the carpet. Now I have puple pok-a-dotted carpet. It's not coming clean.

I was having a bad day anyway and informed the kids that new floor is $700.00 a new club house is $700.00. Guess which one I have to do first.........

Than 2 old ladies yelled at Julie and said you can replace carpet not kids...is that a sign from God I should build the club house.

Julie still says a tree house.......what ever, ask her about pinata's......that's another story....

I had lunch with Eric Clapton...and Julie :)

So Linda took the kids for the night. Ya all 5 all night. I haven't slept that good in years. We go to bed at 12:30 Sat night and wake up at 11:00. Opps missed church. My buddy calls me and says, "this is like the pot calling the kettle black, but we missed you at church." Even the pastor was looking for us. Than he found out we had the house to ourselved and said, "if anyone deserves to sleep in a one sunday morn....."

Anyway, Julie needs to work at 3 and I plan on making the best of the day. "Where you want to go to lunch." How about Olde Bag of Nails. Sounds great.

Ok here's a side note. I've known for a few years that Eric Clapton lives in the same town as me. PROOF, so to speak.

Another 2 side notes. As a nurse (maybe as a woman) Julie loves to leaf through smut magazines. She gets to see everyones current pictures. I NEVER reconize people. I'm always saying, don't we know that person?

We walk in and sit and Julie goes, "that's Eric Clapton." I say, "Yup sure is." If Julie wouldn't have said anything I never would have known. Either way she looks at him, he at her and you could see his face go, "crap there goes lunch."

Anyway, he was having a nice lunch, leave the guy alone. So we did. He was 20-25' from us, setting with his wife and 2 other couples. They looked like they were out riding Hogs and enjoying the day.

More power to you Eric, I know it's one of the reasons you moved to Central Ohio.

Has it really been 4 months???

Well cut me a little slack, it's been a busy 4 months. We've moved-a nice 1860's farm house with a barn and 3 car garage.
I have about 15 projects all going on at once, from fixing my car (which is an ongoing thing) to cleaning out the barn (where we found LOTS of bees) to cleaning out gutters to putting in a garden to.....you get the idea.
The kids love being out here, and I love for them. Trampoline, pool, tire swing, barn w/hay loft, trails in the woods, best friends next door (hi guys). On monday we're putting up a tree house, complete with bunk beds, fire pole, slide, and porch. I don't do anything half way when it comes to my kids. Living here is great the kids go outside in the morning and don't come in till dark - isn't that the way it was when we were kids.

Work is still good and Julie LOVES her job.

I'll try to be better about keeping up

The 2nd game and the fire house

Isaac had a Cub Scout "go see it" today at the Delaware City Fire Department. Ok it was cool. All the dads were there (surprise - surprise). Really it was neat; we got to see their common area, kitchen, bunks, THE POLE, the weight room, and................the trucks.

So Delaware is a town of 30000 or so. They have 3 shifts that are on 24 off 48. This is where it is a bit surprising, 13 guys between 2 stations is fully staffed. 8 at the main 5 at the sub. They can run with as little as 7!!!!! TOTAL. That's 4 and 3 between the 2. So ok there's a car accident. Send the squad 2 guys, send a mobile responce truck 1 guy. Now there is 1 guy at the fire house. What happens if there's another accident or a fire. 1 guy, 2 trucks left - the pumper and the ladder. Um.....I foresee a problem. He says it's never happened and they have good mutual responce from the surrounding area. Anyway really nice guys, Julie knows some of them from being a nurse. Oh and Goochie came with Isaac and I. He was cute and LOVED it.

Isaac had his second game today. MUCH better. Today he knew where his guy was and when to play offense and defense. When his team was on offense he put himself right under the basket. Not a very good place if you want a rebound but its a start. When he was on D he found his man (they only pla man-to-man) and did jumping jacks in front of him. There was NO way that guy was going to recieve a pass or make a shot. At one point his man was dribbing up the court and Isaac stole the ball away!!!! That was cool. So I bet by the end of the season he'll be shooting and making baskets and maybe even fouling other people. Maybe he'll get this.

Another one of those kind of days

So life with 5 kids takes a little advanced planning. This is Julies forte, she is a planner and a list maker. I'm more of a seat of your pants kind of a guy. Both are good and bad, both drive the other person NUTS. Last night I'm getting ready for work and Julie is going over what we need to get done today:
11:45 Dad and Isaac dropped off for cub scout activity (fire hall VERY cool)
12:10 Drop off Abby for cheerleading
12:50 Home to drop of Sam with care giver (she rocks BTW)
1:15 P/U dad and Isaac
2:00 Go to church for Isaac's pictures and basketball game (Abby was there already)
5:00 Home to get Sam

All with 1 car. Tell next week (can't wait)

All of this seems easy, right? B/C there is a list. So we know that we need to get going around 10 to get 7 people ready.

It all went south about 10 minutes after I got up. I got home from work at 6am. Isaac came and woke me up around 10:15. Fine I popped up and came downstairs. Julie was still resting on the sofa, tis cool with me. Until the door bell rang. Here I am in my undies, Julie has ask me MANY times not to be in my undies, I hadn't been up for 15 minutes yet after 4 hours sleep. I look at Julie like, 'get the door.' She says, "you please." At this point the kids are opening the door and Julie isn't moving. It turns out it's our neighbor, the county Recorder, out campaigning. Now I'm mad, how many times have I been sound asleep and been woke up by Julie to answer the door or phone? She's a bit of a recluse, but come on this time I was in boxers and a t-shirt (the wife beater kind). That did it for me. It's 10:45 I have to get 5 kids dressed and get breakfast ready too. WW-III starts. I started it, I was pissed. I never hold my tongue. Least of all when I'm tired.

By the time we were all dressed to leave it was 11:45 and NO ONE had had breakfast, let alone lunch; I made sure I pointed this out too. And I told Julie it was her fault. Was it? No. It's life. Should Julie have gotten up at 9 - should I have? Maybe both. These are questions that there is no right answer for, someone always will be hurt, mad, bostfull, or just plain stupid about. So we don't asked those questions. If your me you just shout out how you feel and leave damaged goods in your wake. Not very effective I know, but it's what I know.

So how did our day go? Perfectly timed and executed. Thanks in part to flying by the seat of your pants and list/planning. Dang maybe we do need each other. When her plans fall apart I can wing it, when I'm floundering her list reel us back in.

I'm not sure goochie!!

So I'm seating in the bathroom yesterday - that's not important to the story, I just thought you needed the mental image - when Simon (goochie) bust through the door and yells, "what the heck!!!" he his eyes wide like that of a drug induced physco. Don't worry he looks like that a lot.

"Yes," I reply; "may I help you?"

"What the heck," he answers. Now that in it self always makes me laugh. You see a 3 year old yelling "what the heck" with his hands on his hips and his eye brows turned upside down and his eyes blazing is just cute. If he were 16 and 6' tall 200lbs I wouldn't say it was funny, I'd say scary.

"Simon, um.... daddy's a little busy."

Scoof......"stupid cat," is all he says. "stupid cat, stupid cat........." he continued to mumble as he walked away.

I'm still not sure what the cat did. But I agree, he is stupid.

"Stupid cat"

Isaac's very first basketball game

So I just watched Isaac's first game. He's 6 and has NEVER watched or played basketball. In fact no one in our house even likes the game, it's part of Upward through our church - Delaware Christian

He loves it, but has NO idea what's going on around him or where he should be. I think he was discouraged a lot. I'll lift him up and make sure he knows I'm proud and we'll go over some of the finer points. I said I didn't like it, not I didn't understand it.

So I hope he'll play baseball again this year. He was pretty good at that.

I wish he didn't get discouraged so easily. He gives up on everything if he can't figure it out the very first time. He still can't ride a bike.

It's my fault I guess, who else could it be? I'll have to work harder to make him into a strong little, independent man.

Pointers would be good.

O, what a life

I've been holding off blogging for sometime.......

Why you ask?

Because we've been waiting to see if we would get the house/mortgage that we've been trying for sense November. Well guess what, it's a go. We should close by 2/8/08.

So what's the big deal. It feels like we've come in a big circle. 2 years ago this week we walked away from our lives. We left the new house we had built and moved into a little apartment. Julie was pregnant and so sick. Sam was still in preschool, Isaac was 4, Simon was 18mos., Abby was 7 and changing schools again. It was a low point.

5 months later, July '06 we discharged out bankruptcy. It's a long story.

That bring us to today. We're moving into the county. 1.8 acres, barn, 3 car garage, and a 1860 farm house. EVERYONE is excited. The boys can't wait to build a tree fort, Julie can't wait to have a garden, Abby can't wait to have an animal and play in the hey loft.

Our poor kids suffered more than Julie and I. They've had their lives on hold b/c of mom and dad. I want better for them and here it comes.

So how did we get to a point that we could get a house? Thanks to Julie that's how. She started working in Nov. She took a full time position so her kids could have a house, this house. Now b4 you start with the kids should have a mom, blah, blah, blah. We agree. She works nights so her kids don't miss her. Her working doesn't take away from her kids. I'm so lucky to have Julie. My kids are lucky too.

Thank you Jules.

That was close

About 6 months ago at work they changed the order in which courses are taught. We used to do a transition course after check rides, now it's during training. I never got the memo (if there was one). Well in Nov and Dec I noticed that there was an extra hour during my sim session. I neglected to look at what the extra hour was for, I assumed it was for mock orals. I was wrong. Very wrong. I signed off their training as complete and it wasn't. What I did was falsified records. Very BIG deal. A very big FEDERAL deal. I came with in moments - inches of losing my job today. I wasn't just that one thing. I also was late to work 2 nights in a row about 2 months ago. It was the first week our new center manager was there.

So what did happen. My our DOT and ACM came to bat for me, they saved my job. I'm sure with out their help the new CM would have had no choice but to let me go. Thank you SC and BS. I was put on probation for 1 year and had my promotion taken away (that's a hit), but those are better than unemployment.

What a way to start the year

The year started with Simon setting on the sofa with me as i watched Scrubs (love that show). Julie had worked all day and was asleep next to me. I tried to wake her, she grunted. I tried again with about :30sec. left in 2007 and she grunted again. So the ball dropped, I gave Simon a high-5 and he looked at me like, WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT. Than he drifted off to sleep.

So I was alone. Suddenly I felt alone. My kids were all here, my wife was here, but I was alone. Lately I've felt that I've been sliding on wet ice. I have no traction, I can't stop, I can't react b/c I don't know what's coming next.

Where did this come from you ask. I've never been a great husband or father, I'm an equally bad friend. Don't misunderstand me, I love my wife and kids. I'm just very selfish. Julie has needs, I've never taking the time to learn how to meet them, 16 years we've been together. We've both changed in that time. We've both grown in different areas of our life. She's told me what she needs. Kind words. Every time I say something negative it crushes her, everything I say therefor she believes has a hidden meaning. It doesn't but this allows her to feel safer I think. If she let that guard down I would be bound to say something stupid and hurt her. Why do you do that Nik? I don't know. Words don't bother me, you can say what you want to me. I grew up fighting with words, they don't affect me, but I know how to use them to hurt people. And I do. (Lame excuse) I can't help it. Does she deserve it? Sometimes. Well not the words. I don't know how to say it in a kind manner. I'll start out kind, but I'll get interrupted and I'll just blow up. I need to say what I have to say a quickly as possible, Julie interrupts and the kids are always here. Well saying things quickly and making a point means using very strong and harsh words.

So today started when I WOKE UP AFTER 6 hours sleep and my back hurt so bad I thought I was going to die (from sharing the sofa with Simon). I took and bath and felt better. I came downstairs and gave the baby to Julie. This is when I blew it. I didn't say anything to Julie. I wasn't mad, I wasn't overly excited, I wasn't anything........I went to make breakfast and Isaac was getting to me like nails on a chalk board. He's planning his birthday (has been since yesterday), it isn't till June. So I was breathing deeply, trying not to explode. Julie saw this, she wasn't sure why I was "acting like that." In the last 1.5 weeks I haven't been away from the kids at all. I haven't worked and Julie has, my parents have been here too. I really am in need of a drink or smoke; both of which I quit years ago. Anyway......at some point I said something (God's honest truth I don't know what). I think Julie was on the defencive again and thought I met something that I didn't. She disappeared upstairs and was giving the kids a bath. I came upstairs to try to talk to her about the way I'd been feeling. This is what she said..."I miss my kids, I just want to see them. I letting you off the hook, you're not going to change; you're not going to be there for me. This isn't going to work." Well that did something to me. Last night I lied there looking and Simon and Julie, feeling all alone and empty, sliding on ice, lost. I wanted to share that with Julie. What did I do? I walked out. She wanted time with her kids, I wanted time away from the kids. So I left. I didn't say a word, just left. I figured I'd run a few errands, of course it's New Years Day and all the places I wanted to go are closed. Wonderful.....

I was gone for 2 hours when Julie called me, I told her I was coming back and why I left. She asked if, "I thought that was helpful." No, I guess it wasn't, but I know that if I stayed I'd hurt someone with words. I feel better, amazing what 2 hours alone can do (I think work allows me that escape).

So how do I want to start the 2nd day of the new year. How about happy. How about with a closed mouth and open ears. How about getting to know my wife again. How about getting my wife to fall in love with me again. That would be a good start to day 2.

So, if you'll let me I'd like to take a mulligan for day 1.

Lord, you have blessed my with a woman with unlimited intelligence and almost infinite patience. I've taken advantage of her and you. I need to change who I am, how I treat her and other people. Please show me - give me the ability to inspire her, love her, lift her up, and support her.


Steven Curtis Chapman captured it perfectly:

Well you know it's not the first time
And it will not be the last
When You find me here on my knees
Praying for the storm to pass

But what I am really needing
Is much more than just relief
I am crying out for wisdom
Only You can give to me
Cause it's such a mystery
I'm a clueless man
When it comes
To knowing how to love a woman

How do I love her?
How do I let her know she means more than anything to me?
How do I love her?

Out of all the gifts You've given
Besides the very gift of life
There is none as precious to me
As the treasure of my wife

And still all the love in my heart
Is like a raindrop to the sea
When compared to Your love for her
And thats why I ask You please
Will You teach me what she needs
I'm a earnest man
When it comes
To learning how to love this woman

How do I love her?
How do I let her know she means more than anything to me?
How do I love her?

Well I know it's gonna to take a lifetime
To answer this prayer I pray
But that's okay
Cause I've given You and her my lifetime anyway

How do I love her?
How do I let her know she means more than anything to me?
How do I love her?

Won't you tell me, tell me please

Stephen Curtis Chapman links: Lyrics | Biography

I'm sorry Julie. You really are my best friend. I've come to the end of my rope again, with out telling you I was slipping. Now I expect you to be there, even though so many times I've let you fall. Maybe it's not to late. I love you.