Some of This & Some of That

A little bit of randomness today folks.

Two days ago our youngest boy Matthew turned the ripe old age of eight years old. We celebrated his birthday by going to a place called The Family Fun Center (aka Bullwinkle's). This place is a kids dream come true. Inside the building there is every video game you could possibly think of, a huge three level jungle gym/play land deal, a very cool laser tag room and of course a pizza and snack bar with unbelievably over priced food. (We opted to eat elsewhere.) Outside there is a miniature golf course, bumper boats, a rock climbing tower, bungee jump and go-kart racing.

Now just imagine all of that with about a million kids running in every possible direction all at the same time. Throw in a significant amount of screams and yells and you have all the makings of an Excedrin headache! I took a couple before heading in and boy-o-boy was that ever a good idea. As I watched a variety of children go into melt down stage because their parents were ready to go when they weren't, I thanked the good Lord that our boys were well behaved and didn't push any of our buttons. . . this time. Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Clause!

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Two days from today, on the 13th, Lisa and I will celebrate our sixteenth wedding anniversary. I can not believe she has put up with my shenanigans for that many years. I think I'll get her a medal of valor for a gift this year.

We dated for five years before getting married, so now at the age of 42, that means we have been a couple for half of our lives. That's pretty cool in my book!

Ooh, this is Friday the thirteenth too. Better watch my step.

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Our kittens better known as the eat, sleep and poop machines, are now learning about the great outdoors. Yeah-hoo, this means goodbye litter box. Damn I hate those things. So the little gray one, Bella, decided to test out her climbing skills on the maple tree in the back yard. She went up about 25-30 feet into it and then did her best impression of "I'm a poor helpless cat...rescue me". The boys were sure she was going to get stuck up there and never be seen or heard from again. I assured them that in all my years on the planet, not once have I seen a cat skeleton in a tree. Ten minutes later she was at the back door looking for the food bowl. Typical!

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I thought by now I'd have the first part of my new story posted, but it just hasn't come together. I think there's a pretty decent story line to it, but I can't seem to get the flow of it the way I like. So, I'll keep plugging away and if it starts to take shape then I'll post it. If not, it'll be back to the old drawing board.

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My segment called "What Is It?" seems to generate interest among many of you, but I never post it on a regular basis, so nobody knows when to look for it. I thought I'd try doing it on a weekly basis for a month or two or until the interest wears out on it. I'll post the pictures for you to guess at on Friday and then post the answers with the expanded pictures on Sunday.

Here's where I could use your input. I love reading the guesses in the comments so I don't know that I want to turn off the ability to comment on the post. I'm thinking I'll just leave it as is and let everybody play and guess on the honor system. First person to guess correctly gets the Cracker Jack Blogger award for the week. I also love the ones that crack me up, so I'll try to come up with something for the most creative guesses as well. Some of you may just think this is all a bunch of nonsense and could care less about the whole thing. That's ok too. Please tell me what you think.

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Well, there you go. A bunch of stuff that doesn't go together, but somehow it just did anyway.

Ciao.