A Day in a Year in a Life / Day 219

07/August/2015, Day 219.  Friday.

We woke up early, and - miracle of miracles! - actually got an early start on our drive down to Atlantic Beach, Fl, to visit Grandma and Grandpa.  Thankfully the ride down was uneventful, (except for some thunderstorms on I-10 west of Jacksonville), and we arrived at Atlantic Beach fairly free of stress.

Dodong, Sweetie, and Kuya in the back seat 

Grandpa greeting Kuya

Sweetie, Dodong, Kuya, and Grandpa

Grandma and Dodong in Grandma's kitchen

 As is our usual custom, we got dressed for dinner, then all went to eat a nice meal at the dining room in Coleman Hall.

After dinner we chatted for a bit, then went back to the hotel, to go to bed early.


 

A Day in a Year in a Life / Day 218

06/August/2015, Day 218.  Thursday.

Poor Grump!  Whilst walking outside during a break from work, a bird pooped on him, leaving a nice blob of bird poop on his shoulder.  Yuck!!

Then, when it was time to come home, it rained and rained and rained.  It rained so darn hard there was standing water on the interstate, and you couldn't go much above 35 miles per hour, else you'd hydroplane and slide off the road.  Yikes!!

Poor Grump!

But the day was a good one for the rest of us.  Early in the day, while Grump was at work, Sweetie took the boys to get haircuts.  Now they both look so cute!

Dodong shows off his new look

 Kuya had a new look too!

Here the boys are, "posing":

Kuya and Dodong "Posing"

We're driving to Jax, FL tomorrow, to see Grandma and Grandpa.  So we're gonna go to bed early tonight, so we get a lot of sleep.

Goodnight all!

A Day in a Year in a Life / Day 217

05/August/2015, Day 217.  Wednesday.

It was a rough day for Grump and Sweetie, as they both had very bad headaches for some reason.  Sweetie has had a stiff neck for about a week now; today Grump woke up with one too.  Odd!  I wonder just what those two are doing in their sleep!

Alas  -  poor Dodong had yet ANOTHER head banging incident, this time when he and Kuya were playing on the bed, and Kuya jumped, landing on him.  Poor Dodong!  

Clickworker recovered a bit tonight, after being TERRIBLE for nearly a week.  Given our latest yucky expenses, any extra money Grump can earn there will be most helpful.

I suppose that's all for today, as it was more of a day to be endured rather than enjoyed.  Let's hope that tommorow will be better for all of us!

A Day in a Year in a Life / Day 216

04/August/2015, Day 216.  Tuesday.

Well this was an interesting day!

After cashing in some savings to pay off our lingering credit card debt, we had been debating whether both Grump and Sweetie should get iPhones.  Grump was leaning towards, "No," until today in a staff meeting it was reiterated that folks where Grump works should NEVER, EVER use the internet on a work PC for personal use. 

Ugh!  Grump needs to browse the 'net from time to time, just to unwind a bit, so he relented and phoned Sweetie, telling her that they would go get iPhones after work.  Which they did.

But here's the wrinkle ..... a nasty surprise arrived in the mail today, a $1,200 bill from our dentist!  Now it appears we will never get out of debt!

Before you jump on us, asking WHY IN HEAVEN'S SAKE did we get iPhones when a new, large, unexpected bill arrived, bear in mind that the cost of these iPhones, bundled with the iPad, will actually be LESS than our existing setup of an iPad thru Verizon and cellphones thru AT&T.  Makes you wonder why we didn't do this a while ago, huh?  (It was because, until recently, AT&T's cellphone plan was much cheaper for us.)

So there you have it: we acquired new iPhones, and a new ugly lump of debt.  Here is how Grump feels about our finances at the moment:

Debt!  Bah, humbug!!

Goodnight all!

A Day in a Year in a Life / Day 215

03/August/2015, Day 215.  Monday.

Grump had to go back to work today.  UGH!!  But he shouldn't complain too much, because at least he has a job.

Back at home, Sweetie went for a morning walk, then Lola, Sweetie, Kuya, and Dodong all went out back and picked veggies from our Liquid Fence protected gardens.  (Take that, you STUPID deer!)  Now that the STUPID deer aren't ravaging our gardens we're getting lots of yummy produce to eat, such as okra, string beans, and eggplant.  I highly recommend Liquid Fence if you're having problems with deer, (or rabbits), muching on your plants.

Kuya had a very good piano lesson today.  He has only been taking lessons for a few months now, but he is already going to be in a recital.  Oh boy!  I wonder when he'll learn to play Deep Purple's "My Woman From Tokyo"?

Once Grump got home from work he cut up the durian we bought at the Buford Highway Farmers Market yesterday, and fortunately it is a good one!  Grump likes durian a lot, but Sweetie absolutely CRAVES it!

Sweetie Devoring Durian

A nice glob of durian, waiting to be gobbled up

Dodong isn't too fond of durian yet, and Kuya, (silly boy!), absolutely hates it.  The last time we gave him some, he vomited.

But what do those two silly kids know anyway?  I LOVE durian.  In fact, I'm gonna stop writing on this blog and go get me some!

Goodnight all.

A Day in a Year in a Life / Day 214

02/August/2015, Day 214.  Sunday.

We got up early, and it being a beautiful day decided to skip church and drive to Atlanta, to go visit the wonderful Atlanta Botanical Garden.  Traffic on I-75 was rough, much rougher than normal, and once in town we had to take an early exit to avoid the traffic jam on the interstate, and wiggle our way via backroads to the gardens.

The gardens were as beautiful as ever, and suprisingly uncrowded.  It's shame they aren't closer; we would love to spend more time there.  It would be great if I could show you some pics from our most recent visit, (the waterlilies were in bloom, and the kiwis are ripening), but Grump forgot to bring a camera!

After our garden visit we went for a fantastic, (and expensive!), lunch to the wonderful Nori Nori sushi buffet north of Atlanta.  Yum, yum, yum!  But we could only eat so much before our bellies were full, and so, with a tear in our eye, we had to leave beckoning plates of sushi and other delicacies behind and move on to our next task, shopping at the Buford Highway Farmers Market.   

At the Farmers Market we were gonna buy fish, but the guys behind the counter at the fish cleaning area were extraordinarily confused and chaotic today, so we skipped it and instead bought lots and lots of fruit, including a durian!  Sweetie and Grump love a good durian; we hope the one we bought is a good one.

Our drive home from the Farmer Market was atrocious!  I don't know what the problem was, but we had stop-and-go traffic from McDonough practically all the way to Macon!  I've never seen traffic so bad on I-75 going south.  By the time we neared home, Grump, (our driver), was a grumpy nervous wreck.

Before stopping home we swung by Belk at the Riverside Mall real quick, to see if we could pick up a birthday gift for Sweetie before they closed.  Belk is open until 7:00 pm on Sunday, so we made it, barely.  (That traffic on I-75 was really, really bad!!)  What we wanted to buy was a KitchenAid Mixer, which these days are on sale.  (Yes, you can pick them up for even less money online, but Sweetie wanted to buy hers "in person".)  We found one Sweetie liked, (a green one!), and bought it.  So now Sweetie has her first birthday present, and her birthday isn't even until the end of the month.

As the day was winding down, unfortunately a sad event occured: Dodong banged his head again.  What happened is that Grump was talking on the phone to his parents, and didn't realize Dodong was in the living room.  So he left the gate to the hallway open.  Dodong ran out after him, fell, and landed head first on the hard tile.

Sweetie yelled and yelled and yelled at Grump for being so careless, but it is poor Dodong who gets the real injury.  We'll have to pray to Angel again tonight to help protect the little guy, and to especially keep his head from any more bumps or bruises.

Goodnight all.

A Day in a Year in a Life / Day 213

01/August/2015, Day 213.  Saturday.

The day started off poorly, with Grump being in a foul mood.  He didn't sleep well the night before, and blamed it on Bible studay, of all things!  The Bible study always tends to run late, past 10:30 pm, so by the time Grump gets home, does his "daily tasks", and crawls into bed, it is very late indeed.  But we all put up with his grumbling as best we could, and went about our daily business.

It being a weekend day, of course we went shopping, first to Sam's Club, then to Pier 1 Imports at the Riverside Mall.  Sweetie had wanted to buy a replacement for the painting we had above our fireplace for a long time now.  The old painting, while very well done, and in a beautiul frame, was too dark and somber for the setting.  She had been eyeing a wonderful new painting of a path through a birch glade for many months now, and she finally decided the time had arrived to buy it.  (With her own money, by the way!)  We took the old painting down, put the new one up, and immediately were pleased with the result.  Here is a pic, but you really have to see it in person to fully appreciate how wonderful it looks in the living room:

Our New Living Room Painting

In the late afternoon Lola, Sweetie, and Dodong went to a baby shower for Mama Sue's younger daughter, (and ate lots of the yummy food there!), while Grump and Kuya went to see a fantastic movie called, "Inside Out".  This is a GREAT movie!  We highly recommend it for kids of all ages, "from 1 to 92", as they say.  (In other words, it's good for us older "obsolete kids" too!)  So if you haven't seen it yet, stop wasting your time reading nonsense on the interent and GO SEE THIS MOVIE!

Goodnight all.