A New Look

As you can see, I have been messing around with the blog tonight. Unfortunately, there is no template that has crimson and cream or OU, so I had to do what I could. Hopefully, it is not too annoying. You might also look at my profile. I added an audio clip and I would be interested if anyone knows what it came from. I think it is pretty funny. This little friend of Abbie's is named Luke. His family worships at the congregation we do. The other day Amber babysat for them while his mom was painting at the church building. He is a cute little guy. He was quiet, docile, and almost scared at our house. He sat almost motionless with me for at least 15 minutes before Abbie came over to sit. I just had to have Amber take some pictures of the three of us. It was good to have him over. Thankfully, Abbie played nice most of the time.

Let me know what you think of the new look of the site and if you know what the audio clip in my profile is.

Foreshadowing

Tonight I first want to explain the photos just a little bit. The top photo was taken Wednesday, November 8 at the cemetary in Oilton, OK. Amber and I had not been to the cemetary since Grandma's funeral and we decided it was a good time to go. I spoke about my Mom's mother in a previous blog. We felt it would be good to start giving Abbie some images of her family. Abbie did real well on the trip and aside from some sticky burrs in her shoes, she was a good girl. My mom and dad went with us and with the perfect weather, it was a good day.

The bottom photo was taken sometime after Halloween. Abbie has not quite mastered keeping the spit generated by a sucker in her mouth, as you can see. Thanks to Grammy (my mom) this sucker also had a black jack-o-lantern face that rubbed off pretty easily. Obviously, Abbie had a good time with it.

The title of this blog is "foreshadowing." I have been seeing a behavior in Abbie that is concerning me. I am afraid it is foreshadowing of future behavior. Abbie sometimes likes to survey the house looking for any toys, dog food, books, or other assorted items to pick up, handle and deposit somewhere else in the house. The thing that has been bothering me is that she has been regularly making a bee line to our bedroom to find my wallet. She proudly walks back in with my wallet and proceeds to open it and try to remove any credit card she can find. Tonight, I said, "Abbie, give me my wallet back, please." She got a little grin and shook her head "no." Her mother really got a kick out of that. I am getting a sinking feeling that this little episode may be played out all too often in the coming years.

On a more serious note, Abbie does have an ear infection in her right ear. She saw the doctor today and is taking some medicine for it. Hopefully she will not have any further complications, but you might remember her in your prayers.

What does it profit?

Tonight I am struggling with what to say. I am not able to settle on any one thing to blog about.
I am off for the next 5 days, thank goodness. When I have this much time off, I sometimes feel like I am "cheating" and will get in trouble for it later. It is hard to not get so wrapped up in things at work. I feel like I do a good job of leaving work at work. There are the occasional rants to my wife about this and that, but other than that, I feel like I "turn it off" when I come home. One thing happened at work recently that I want to share. I do not know if it is a story that will be particularly meaningful or interesting, but I have not gotten any satisfaction about it at work, so why not blog about it?
Once a year Wal-Mart stores have an inventory day. On this day, an independent firm comes in and physically counts the merchandise in the store. This is done to reconcile the books and see how much the store has lost due to theft, breakage, and things like that. The term Wal-Mart uses for this loss is "shrink." In the pharmacy, they do not physically count every pill, rather, they count full bottles and partial bottles are considered half of a full bottle. Everything is counted and assigned a dollar value. This dollar value is then worked into the sales figures to determine the amount of shrink the store has had in the past year. Inventory day is probably my least favorite day of the year. It is never good to shrink, and if you shrink too much you are a "high shrink" pharmacy and there is an audit that is done to find out where that money went. I have not had to go through one of those, thank goodness. This year my problem is just the opposite. On the day of inventory, when the counters were done, they gave me a total page that listed the total amount of the pharmacy to be about $320,000. But, when the final numbers were given for the total store inventory, the amount for pharmacy was about $380,000. That $60,000 difference made our pharmacy look like it had an overage instead of shrink. There is no way that could happen. I have yet to figure out where the $60,000 came from. I told my boss about it multiple times, I told our store's loss prevention supervisor and his boss about it, and I was told to fax the numbers to Bentonville. That was the last I heard about it. We got our profit and loss statement for last month this past weekend and guess what was there? An overage from the inventory of about $87,000 was tacked on to our gross profit. Needless to say it makes the store look unbelieveable, but it is WRONG! I thought surely the extraordinary numbers that we posted would raise eyebrows and I would get a phone call from someone higher up. So far, I have heard absolutely nothing. I am afraid my boss does not care about it because it will add so much "profit" to the bottom line. But next year, we will have to pay the piper, big time. I just can not get over the lack of concern of everyone involved but me. OK, that is my story. I am sorry to have bored you with it, but I just had to get that out. By the way, did you notice how cute little pooter is?

Happy Birthday Grandma

Today is October 31, which makes almost everyone think Halloween. It is unbelieveable that it has come around again. It was just yesterday (or so it seems) that Abbie was a skunk (which was my idea) and she was not happy about it. This year, as you can see, she was Snow White. She took to the costume much better and I have to say it was a much better choice than a skunk. We did not go out to trick or treat, it was too cold for Abbie. But, she got dressed up and went to the door for the trick or treaters that came by. Abbie was very excited every time the doorbell rang. We would rush into the hallway and I would give her a piece of candy and she would take it right over to the kids and put it in their bag. It was fun to watch. But Halloween is not really what I have on my mind.
Today is my Grandma's birthday. It is the second one since she has been gone. As I looked at the pictures of my daughter in her costume, I thought of what my Grandma would say. "(deep inhaled breath with hand over heart) Job, she is just beautiful!" I am sad that Abbie will not get to meet her here, but she will know a great deal about her. We will talk about her, but Abbie will also see her every time she looks at my mom. I am so thankful that I had the relationship with my grandparents that I did. I do not think I really appreciated it until I saw my parents with my daughter. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I love my Grandma, and I miss her, too.

A Mastiff?

A guy came in the store today and said to me, "Did I see you crusing around the parking lot with a Mastiff?" I was a little surprised but managed to say, "No, he is a pit bull." The guy said, "Oh, well he seemed real nice." To which I replied, "Yeah, but you did not get very close to him."

Amber hates it when I say things like that. I do not mean to make Al sound mean. I just meant that if the guy would have been closer, Al would have barked and not seemed docile. Al is about the most patient dog I have ever seen. He takes all sorts of bites and bumps from Sammy (Ralph and Janice's new puppy). He also loves his sister. He will often give her kisses, even if she did not bend down to ask for them. Abbie has taken to giving him food, too. She will hold out something in her hand and of course Al is happy to receive it.

I just thought it was humorous to have a customer ask out of the blue if I was crusing with a Mastiff.

Just like her Daddy

There is a photo of me when I was a baby and I had very spiked hair. Abbie had a little bit of that herself the other day after she woke up. I tried to get her hair to really stand up, but she and her mom did not like it very much. Anyway, I think this will be as embarassing to her as my photo is to me.

A tough week

Man, am I glad this week is over. I already posted about how it started out. That was just the beginning to a bang up week. I am afraid I am going to sound too much like a crybaby if I go into too much detail. I guess if work is rough it is not that bad because I can go home and relax, but when it is rough at home, too, it makes for a brutal week. It was tough at home this week because of sickness. I gave Abbie the stomach bug and then she gave it to her mom. I really struggle with going to work when the girls are sick, because once I am there I can not leave. I have to battle through things at work while wondering how things are at home and wishing I could control the situation better. At work, one of our technicians was on vacation this week, which put us in a hole. Things are that much busier and require that much more of my attention when we are short handed. I have noticed that sometimes at work if we are busy, I feel like I am holding my breath. I do not mean that I am actually holding it, but it just feels like I am doing all these things at once and breathing gets left behind. Sounds stupid, doesn't it? It is the only way I know how to explain it. It does not freak me out or anything, I just have to tell myself to take some deep breaths and relax from time to time. In addition to the busy pace this week, my boss called Friday and said he wanted to come up for a visit. I told him it was not a good day since we had only one tech. That did not dissuade him. Talk about the icing on the cake. It just seemed like everything was going to hit this week. I have been thinking about writing this post since Thursday. I just kept thinking about making it to the weekend and getting the girls feeling better, and then it would be a breeze to my 4 day weekend next week. I do not write out to-do lists, but I do think out my days and weeks in my head as far as what I want to get done and what I look forward to. This whole week I have been looking forward to the weekend and being done with this past week. Can you believe I was looking forward to a weekend in which I had to work? Now that is a switch. I was looking forward to having a day at work when I felt more in control of things. Today was that day. It was busy, but it was nothing like this past week. Then I got to come home tonight and see the girls. Both are still on the tail end of the sickness, but on the whole are doing much better. I am thankful to God for my family, our health, and my job. But that does not mean it is not a grind sometimes. Anyway, enjoy the rest of the weekend and Columbus day. Talk to you later.

Wow, what a malaise

Anyone out there ever heard of a malaise? It is a term for a general sickly feeling all over. You know how all your joints and muscles seem to ache when you get the flu? That is a malaise. Last night I had about the worst malaise I have had in a long time. I would say the worst in my life, but that would be a little too much hyperbole. Anyway, I felt terrible. I picked up some kind of stomach flu yesterday and it got real bad real fast. I ached all over, my stomach was killing me, and lets just say "watery diarrhea" and leave it at that. The worst part of it all was the thought of giving it to Abbie and having to see her feel like that. So far so good, she is still happy go lucky with her usual consistency regular poops. I really do not get sick that often, but man this one just came out of nowhere. I hate having to call in sick and get someone else to work for me, but I would not have been able to handle it today. I am feeling better now, hopefully I will not have a relapse. I just hope Abbie does not get the bug, too. I can not imagine having to see her feel that bad, and if she gets diarrhea as bad as I had it, it could be very harmful to her little body. Please pray that she does not have to go through that and I will try to post an update later in the week. Until then, watch out for the dreaded Malaise.

Fantasy football

I was off yesterday and managed to get some pictures of Squirt. She is quite the little show-off. The last couple of days I have either been off or had to work late. When that happens, I can sleep in later if I want to. The past couple of days when I have slept in, Abbie has too. We did not get up until after 10AM on Thursday. Amber is not too pleased because Abbie seems to wake up earlier on the days when I have to get up early.
I have been thinking about posting about "Fantasy Football." Whoever came up with the concept of fantasy football was a genius. With just this simple concept, many, many people like myself are now very in tune with NFL games each week. If not for fantasy football, I might watch some NFL during the playoffs, but nothing like I do now. To explain to the non fantasy owners out there, fantasy football is a game that takes football players from different teams and distributes them amongst fantasy team "owners." Then, when the games are played, the stats that each player has create fantasy points for the fantasy owners. The trick is that fantasy owners have to choose who they "start" and "sit" each week. I have been in a fantasy football league for 3 years now and I think it is fun and it gets me into the NFL like never before. There are fantasy football leagues played for money, but I would not be able to handle that. I spend too much time on my fantasy team right now and it is just for fun. I like the "competition" of it, and I like trying to find that "sleeper." That is the guy who has a great year that no one would have predicted. Anyway, it definitely makes the NFL season more enjoyable.

Rough week for pooter

Abbie has had a rough week. Despite the jolly look with the ears, you may notice the bruise above her left eye. One night this week she was walking in front of me down the hall towards the kitchen and as she started to speed up she tripped and went head first to the floor. There was that terrible thud that a head makes when it strikes a hard surface and needless to say, she was not a happy camper after that. Then, not thirty minutes later, she was standing in front of the oven and as I reached down to pick her up, she lost her balance and fell backwards into the front of the oven. Another loud bang as the back of her head hit the oven door. Now, she has gotten the cold that I am just getting over. Not exactly pooter's best streak of days. Not to mention how broken up she was about the OU game on Saturday. I didn't think she would ever get over that one. She may write a sternly worded letter to the PAC-10 and their officials. Well, there is not too much else to talk about right now. Hopefully, Abbie will be over this cold quickly. I hate it when she does not feel well.

"I am just not good at confrontations"

I have quoted the movie Back to the Future before. I sympathize with Marty's father in the movie. He gives a reason for why he does not stand up for himself, "I am sorry son, but I am just not good at confrontations." Some people enjoy confrontations and seek them out with most anyone. Others shy away and give up their position to avoid them. In the past few weeks I have had a couple of confrontations that I would rather have not had. One had to do with work. I had let something go on far too long because I knew what the result would be when I confronted the problem. For someone in my position, avoiding conflicts is not a desired trait. I think I am probably liked because I am not a ranting and raving boss, but that can have consequences. For one, when I do confront problems and show some energy about it, it is all the more harsh because it does not happen that often. The other side is that employees can get into bad habits because they are not "smacked around" enough. I try to find a happy medium between the two. If something needs to be corrected, I correct it and do so forcefully if needed. Otherwise, I try to remain easy going and let the employees do their jobs. I do not claim to have the market cornered on being a boss, but I do feel I do better now than when I started out. Are you into confrontations or do you like peace and quiet?

Nicknames

What is it about nicknames? Why do we come up with goofy little monikers for each other? When I was growing up, I was Snicklefritz to mom, Hammerhead to Grandpa, Jacob (Ja-kobe) to Jr. Dowler, Moby to any number of guys at school, and one of my favorites was Joebobaloopbobaloopbamboomtuttifruittionrudy. Keith Parr came up with that when I was in middle school and he would call me that every time he saw me. There are many others where the name has stuck so well as to become the preferred name. Eldrick Woods is "Tiger," Norman Esiason is "Boomer," and Anthony Webb is "Spud," to name a few. I have noticed in the past couple of days that Abbie already has a number of nicknames. I call her a number of names without even thinking of it. "Pooter-dooter," "Squirty-squirt," "Stinky-girl," "Little Miss Squat in the Bush," to name a few of the most common names. I do not know why this is important enough to write about, but it is something I have been thinking about. What if the name "Pooter" sticks and everyone calls Abbie that? I do not think she will appreciate it as she grows up. I am afraid it is too late, though. I call her "poot" without even thinking. I have a friend from college that has been called Buster ever since he was a young boy. He still went through a period when he wanted to be called Don instead of Buster. I think Buster would probably be preferable to Pooter (or Don for that matter). I am reminded of an episode of "The Andy Griffith Show" where Andy is trying to help a couple patch things up because they argue all the time. In the course of trying to get them to be nice, Andy has them say "Mornin' Honey," to each other when they first wake up. When they first start, the phrase is said, but still with the same spite and venom. My reason for bringing this up is Barney Fife's reply to their first attempt; he says, "I would rather be called skunkface than have someone say good morning to me like that!" I think that phrase is hilarious. Am I alone in noticing all these nicknames? Does anyone else have some good nicknames that they know of? Think about the nicknames that you say to people without even noticing them. Have a good Labor Day, see you soon.

CO-WORKERS 101

I did a little editing on this picture and liked the look, so for what it is worth, there's Abbie.

I have a number of things running though my head tonight. I am not the best at getting out the thoughts that come to my mind. I think I get that from my dad. He always has thoughtful insights to things, but he has to form them the way he wants to say them first. Well, I will try to do my best, so here goes.
I want to talk about work. Not necessarily my work specifically, but work in general. When you finish college and are hired to do a job, the job is easy. It is what you have been prepared for, it is the people that you have not been prepared for. I never took a class in college called "Co-workers 101". I wish there was such a thing, but in that arena it is all on-the-job training. I think the people you work with can be as much as 90-95% of the determining factor in whether or not you enjoy your job. You could be the best pharmacist in the world, but if you battle with personalities at work you will often go home frustrated. I say this not to say that I have problems at work, but to point out where I am blessed. I enjoy being around the people I work with. The other pharmacist that I work with would be a friend of mine even if we did not work together. That makes a big difference in a workday, believe me. If I was not able to laugh as much as I do at work, I think I would be a very angry and bitter person. In the healthcare field you often run into people that do not feel well and they let you know about it. That can bring a person down. I appreciate my co-workers and my job very much. God has blessed me and my family and he continues to do so every day.

Don't get me wrong, I still look forward to my days off just like every one else. You did not think I was that crazy, did you?

The BEST in THE WORLD

I digress from writing about my daughter for a moment to reflect on greatness. Today I watched Tiger Woods win his 12th Major Championship (2nd all time to Nicklaus) in convincing fashion. Just to give an idea of the performance, Tiger was playing on the longest course in the history of the majors, yet he tied the lowest score in the history of the PGA championship (-18), and he had the fewest bogeys ever in a major championship (3). I could go on with the stats, but suffice it to say he is the best player in the world. The fact that that statement would not be argued by sane people is staggering. This is a situation where you can say "he is the best golfer on the planet," and you are not wrong. That to me is unbelieveable. I know Tiger is wealthy beyond compare, but I like him because he is the best at what he does, period. He works harder than anyone, and it shows. That inspires me. It inspires me as a parent to culture my daughter's strengths to help her be the best at what she does. Earl Woods had a golf club in Tiger's hands at 3. How did he know to do that? My child has not come with a stamp that says "Greatest ever at basketball." I would like to know how you can see what gifts your child has and then how to help them develop those gifts without burning them out or becoming obsessed with their accomplishments. I am not saying my daughter is a Tiger Woods, but how would I know the difference? I think she is a very remarkable little girl and I feel the weight of guiding and directing her paths. Even as I sit here and write these things, one thing occurs to me. There is one thing that I want for Abbie above all else. I want her to go to heaven more than anything in this world. If that means she has Tiger Woods' talent at something and does not use that talent, but goes to heaven, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. I hope to be a parent that encourages my baby in her talents, but I will be a parent that encourages my baby in her faith. Anyway, those are my thoughts after watching Tiger Woods today. I still have no new pictures yet, I tried today and did not get any good ones. Thanks for sharing with me and I will be back soon.

Seems so long ago...

Amber and I watched a slide show of Abbie and the video of one of her first baths yesterday. It has me remembering the past 14 months and how our little girl has grown from this little baby to the toddler she is now. We could not believe how little she was and how quiet, too! She did not really even peep when she was getting her bath. I remember when we held her all the time because she could not turn over. Now, she wants to be on the ground running. It was good and bad to watch the video. Good because it just makes me smile to remember all the feelings and fears we both had and how God watched over us and continues to, despite our struggles and imperfections. Bad because those times are gone and that little bitty baby is growing every day and before I know it, she will be a little girl and eventually a bigger girl (OH NO!). Well, enough of the remember whens, let's talk about what Abbie is doing now.
Abbie is currently fixated on "The Wiggles". The Wiggles are a group of 4 Australian men that sing songs and dance on the Disney channel. It is amazing to see Abbie watch them because she is completely mesmerized. She does not dance, and she hardly moves except the occasional head nod. The good thing is that they do have some good (or at least catchy) tunes. The problem is that I have been singing "the Emu Song" all day. I have not caught myself doing the motions yet, but that is around the corner I am sure. If you want to get a glimpse of the Wiggles to see what she likes, watch one of the Disney channels at 9AM on weekdays and you will see what I mean.
Amber is doing much better. The headaches have pretty well subsided and my long stretch of days is over, so we have some time to "decompress", to steal a phrase from Seinfeld. I will try and get some new photos while I am off. Thanks for being patient with my hit and miss blogging. I do enjoy writing about things, but it takes time that I do not often have. Hopefully I will be back on soon. Until then, "Keep on Wigglin'!"

Surgery for Big brother

As you can see, Little Al had surgery last Friday. He had a small growth under the skin of his left shoulder and the vet was not sure what it was. He (the vet) wanted to remove it now in case it was something that would need further treatment. Fortunately, it was just a lipoma, a fatty tumor that requires removal only. Little Al had one removed before, when he was much younger. Again he came through like a champ, and was playing some fetch with me two days afterwards. Now, taking out the stitches is all that is left, along with paying the bill.
Amber continues to have headaches. She has pretty much had a headache of varying degree for about a week. I think I have her talked into going to the doctor to see what the problem is. Please pray for her, this has been a drain and she is struggling with it. My having to work a bunch of days in a row is not helping either. Abbie is the one thing that can keep Amber smiling. Abbie can be a toot if she wants to, but generally she is busy doing her business and chattering away all the while. She is the best little girl in the world. Have I said that before? Well, please pray for Amber and I will try to update with any changes.

Dancing little Abbie

As you can see by the 2 bottom pictures, Abbie has taken to dancing. She used to shake her hips and shoulders if she heard some music, but she has now started a full dance step. She loves to run around and step to music. It is hilarious to see her dancing. Last night I was really getting a kick out of her antics. I decided to get some pictures tonight and I got a couple of good ones even though it is hard to see how she moves in a still picture. Trust me, it is funny to watch. After I got home from work tonight, Abbie and I had some time together while Amber was teaching at VBS. The top picture is from our swinging session outside tonight. Al was with us, too, he was patrolling for us while we were outside.
I have to cut this short, so I will try to write some more soon.

Long time no see...

Goodness, it has been quite some time since I have written anything hasn't it? First let me say that Amber is doing some better. Her CT showed no stone and she had a treatment today to try and help her pain. Please keep her in your prayers, it has been a long couple of weeks.
As you can see from the pictures, Abbie is just blooming with her little personality. Her talking consists of about 4 "words," but she says much more than that with her facial and vocal expressions. The top two pictures are from the 4th of July parade on our block. She rode in her little car and was escorted by her cousins, Zach and Jake, her Nanna Janice, and her Daddy. It was fun for all, but Abbie frowned most of the time because it was pretty hot in her little cheerleading outfit. The other 2 pictures were taken today. As you can see, Abbie is using a straw (not quite perfected) and she loves to read her books. When she finds the book she wants, she will carry it over to the appointed reader and plop it in their lap. If the book-reading does not begin forthwith, whining and carrying on may follow. It is fun to see her reactions while reading to her. I hope she continues to like reading with her mom and dad. I feel much more like a dad when she is in my lap and we are reading together. Not that I do not feel like a dad with her normally, but I feel more connected at those times. It is hard for me to explain, I figure most parents would understand and hopefully agree.
I could write more, but it is late and I have other things to tend to. I hope to not take such a long break between blogs next time. See you later.

Walkin' and talkin' (somewhat)

I finally took some new pictures of Abbie. Her Aunt Jami and Uncle Scott came up this weekend and I took some pictures at mom and dad's with them. I think it has been a long break in between photo sessions. The last time I took any pictures, she was not walking yet. Well she sure is now. It is the coolest thing to see her walk in her not-so-smoothe baby walk. She was a good girl at mom and dad's, even though she missed her afternoon nap. I am still amazed at the percentage of the time that she is happy, or at least content. I am by no means complaining, I know God has blessed us with an even-tempered little girl and I thank him for it every day.
We are planning to have Abbie in the little 4th of July parade on our block. Sadly, this will be the first year we have had anything to do with it. Abbie has a patriotic outfit to wear, and we will take any opportunity to show her off. I hope it will be fun. If I do not post anything before then, Happy Independence Day!

Usual stuff...

Well another week is almost done. Sometimes it is easy to get caught up in the grind of work on the job, work on stuff around the house, and various tasks so that time seems to compress and speed up. Before I knew what happened, it is already mid-June of 2006. I have a feeling that this "time change" gets worse as you age. Sorry for the philosophy break, but I just started thinking about how fast things have come and gone.
There are some juicy things that happened at work this week, but I have to keep quiet about them for awhile. Remind me in a couple of weeks and I will tell you all about it. There is one thing that will make it interesting at work that I can talk about. One of our technicians left for another job. It is a good move for her, but it means having to find and train a new technician. My track record in that area is not stellar. In fact, the last couple of hires I have picked have bombed. I have decided on one of the girls already working in the store, so as to cut down on some of the Wal-Mart training that we have to endure. I just hope that she will be able to pick things up quickly and that everyone "jives" OK. Tensions at work are not a good thing to have to deal with. I often feel responsible for any little spats that come up because I am the manager. But as George McFly says, "I am sorry son, but I am just not good at confrontations." The other thing about hiring the new tech that will be fun is that she is not able to come over to pharmacy until July 7th. That means the week of July 4th will not be pretty. I am thinking about working by myself on the weekend of that week just so we can have 2 techs on each of the weekdays. It is going to be brutal.
Enough about work, I have not said anything about Abbie yet, have I? She is walking now. She has not quite perfected it, and she crawls when speed is required, but she is walking nonetheless. She is growing so fast (all except her hair). She is making more demonstrative actions of affection and there is nothing better than a smile or kiss from that little girl.
Once again, I will try not to let so much time elapse between blogs but I can not promise anything. Have a good weekend everyone.