Another At Home Daddy

I’ve smoked for almost 17 years….actually now that I think about it, it is closer to 18 years. Wow. I’ve been doing it so long that it is how I deal with stress, and I don’t have another method that seems to work. Yes, I decompress by playing Xbox online, and blowing stuff up is fun, but there are times where I seem to get so angry and frustrated while playing that it can actually make things worse. I have just (hopefully) completed the most stressful and pain-filled week of my life. I had actually started to quit smoking a couple weeks ago, but only went a couple days before starting back up. Then Tuesday, March 16, 2010 rolled around.

It was supposed to be an uneventful day. Paige had school in the morning, Aiden had school in the afternoon, Kim had a last minute Dr’s appointment scheduled to review some recent blood work results (she is still suffering from some issues from her gallbladder removal last summer). Nothing too horrible. It actually got better for me around lunch when the mail-lady dropped off my Captain Hammer t-shirt (if you haven’t watched Dr. Horrible’s Sing along blog you HAVE to!!!). Kim was off at her Dr. appointment when it arrived so I took a picture on my phone and tried to send it to her. No response, but I knew she’d been having issues with picture messages lately so I sent a regular text message. Still no response. Well, she was apparently on the phone with her mom when it came through. A little while later my phone rang and it showed Kim was calling. I just figured she was returning my call and to verbally respond to my text message. I was wrong.

Kim was hysterical. First thing that came to my mind was the doctor told her something horrible about the tests they had run. Then she calmed down slightly to let me know that she had just been rear-ended while sitting at a stop light. When Kim graduated high school she bought her own first car. Now she had been driving her parents’ old Volvo wagon, but she bought something all on her own. A brand new 1997 Toyota Tercel painted Coral Rose Pearl. It was pink, darker pink, but still pink. Anyway, this particular car has served many purposes since she got it. We drove it on our first date, it was the car we drove to Portland when we got married (most of our family was in the Portland area so it was easier than everyone coming to us), and of course it was the one that was “decorated” at our wedding, Kim drove it throughout college, and a few years later, I drove it throughout college. It has also served as our commuter car for work. With 120,000 miles after nearly 13 years, and so many memories in it, the Pink Turtle (as we called her) was part of the family. Kim and I had numerous discussions as to how we would NEVER sell her, and one day our kids could learn to drive a stick shift and use her for school commutes. Our kids love the Pink Car. If we were running an errand in town they would ask if we could take the Pink Car. She was indeed a beloved car to all of us, except maybe Finn because he’s only ridden in her a few times. She is now going to be leaving our family.

Not surprisingly, the insurance company is totaling it.  As soon as I understood Kim when she said she had been in an accident, I knew we were going to lost Pinkie (yes, we really do have lots of nicknames for her).  As a former employee of a Toyota dealership with a body shop, I’d seen Tercels that were much newer after accidents that were totaled.  These cars weren’t all that expensive when they were brand new, and parts were almost always more than the car was worth.  Especially if the airbags deployed.  I am now in discussions with two different people at the dumb-ass’s insurance company trying to get a “fair” settlement so that we can replace her.  Our home will never be the same.  I would also like to add that as sad as I am about the car, I really couldn’t care less about it until I knew for certain that Kim was going to eventually be okay.  I still ask her at least once a day how she’s feeling….just to be sure.

Then this week I was hit with something that was so incredibly hard to deal with that I smoked almost a pack in less than 20 hours.  I usually smoked about 1/2 pack a day, give or take, so this was a HUGE increase.  At one point I chain smoked 4 in a row, using the one I had just finished to light the next one.  I’ve done this before while I was drinking (why do beer and cigarettes go together so well????) and it isn’t a big deal because I have a drink to keep my throat wet.  I didn’t have a drink, and my throat was killing me after the second cig, but I kept going.  Then around 20 or so hours after I bought the pack and saw how few were left I decided I’d had enough.  I asked Paige to come help me (since Aiden was in school, although he would have been the more appropriate person to help me).  I walked into the bathroom and had Paige break a few remaining cigarettes and drop them in the toilet.  Then I flushed them away and walked out and put on a nicotine patch I had bought a couple weeks before.  I haven’t had one since.

I don’t crave them, but things are weird.  I forgot to get the mail yesterday until 8pm because it is something I normally do when I’m out smoking in the afternoon.  I stepped out the front door to go get the mail today (I remembered around 2pm) and immediately reached into my left front pocket to grab my lighter and pack, and realized there were no cigarettes.  First thing that came to mind was, “Crap, I’m out of smokes.”  Then after about 2 seconds I said to myself, “Oh yeah, I’m SUPPOSED to be out of smokes.”  Then just got the mail and came inside.  The only thing I’m having a hard time with is that I enjoyed smoking.  I enjoyed being on the front porch, alone with my thoughts.  I actually wrote a couple stories in my head (that I still need to write down) while smoking.  That I will miss.  I know I can go out there and chew a piece of gum or something, but it isn’t the same.  I’ve been smoking for more than half my life.  It was part of who I was, but it will not be a part of who I am and who I will be.  I want my kids to be proud of their daddy for stopping, and more importantly, I want them to know that smoking is NOT okay for them to do.

As Kim pointed out yesterday, I made it through the toughest part of the worst week of my life without a cigarette, which means I can make it through any other day without them.  That may be true, but the true test won’t be until we attend a family get-together.  All in all I can’t believe I quit smoking when things were at their hardest for me, and did it by breaking cigarettes I had in my possession.  I’ve never broken cigarettes I had when trying to quit.  I’d always wait until I didn’t have any left in the morning (meaning I’d have to go to the store first thing in the morning) and it never worked for longer than 8 months or so before.  I think this time it will be successful because of how I quit.  Scratch that.  I know it will be successful.

It has been a busy while for us around here. No excuse really since Kim has been able to not only update her blog, but update her second blog as well. Yeah, I’m slacking, but here I come with a couple of new posts!!

First up, my new tattoo. Kim and I both like tattoos. Okay, I think it is safe to say that I love tattoos. With the addition of my newest one I now have twelve tattoos. Granted, I have 4 rather small ones, the others aren’t tiny. So, in order of appearance:
1) My partial lunar eclipse came first. There is a meaning behind it, but I don’t tell people. Kim may be the only one that actually knows the meaning beyond me.  This picture was taken by the tattooist just after completion.

2) My dragon.  I don’t have a picture of this one.  This was a going away present from a few good friends at the car dealership.  Only regret I have is that I didn’t get it done bigger.  I’m going to see if Sean can work something in around it to bulk it up so that it is closer in size to the Koi.

3) The next time I got tattooed was when I flew back to Oregon when Rob got back from the Middle East.  I didn’t mess around.  I got five tattoos done in one sitting.  It helps that most of them were small.  I got my ring finger tattooed with the word “Family”.  I don’t wear my wedding ring so this was my permanent ring.  I also had a Scooby Doo tattoo done for my Grandma Vivienne.  She always used to send UPC’s away for things, and one time she sent away for a pair of Scooby Doo underwear for me.  For that reason, I own a pair of Scooby Doo’s now.  His tag usually has “SD” on it, but the tattooist changed it to “VS” for my Grandmother’s initials.  I also had a spider tattooed for my Grandma Madge.  She used to play this game with her hand as a spider and it would run across the counter at us.  We’d smack the “spider” and squash it.  My kids LOVE this game with me now.  I had “MN” put on the body of the spider for Grandma’s initials.  Next was a couple of Chinese characters.  I’ve had them verified by a co-worker that was in the USA on a work/student Visa from China.  They do indeed say what they were supposed to.  On my right top-wrist I have the character for “Family”.  Obviously, family is important to me.  Then on the inner part of my left upper arm (near the tickle zone) I have the character for “Love”.  This one is about six inches tall and on a “sensitive” spot.  I felt a couple pinches, but mainly just had fun watching her work.

4)  I took a little break in between tattoos, but rest assured, I was chomping at the bit to get back in there.  This is also where Kim and I met Sean at Blackcat.  He is the only one that will ever tattoo me again as long as he doesn’t retire or move.  Next up came my older two kids’ names.  I found a font that I really liked on Word 2002.  Once I had found the font I liked and printed up a copy of the kids’ names in it I started to canvas the tattoo shops around here.  I hadn’t been tattooed here, and I wasn’t too thrilled with the guy that did Kim’s Celtic bracelet.  Yes, it turned out great (we had my tattooist in Ashland draw it up for Kim) but the guy was just off.  He had obviously smoked about a million too many bowls of weed too many.  Not only that, but when I took in the names to show him what I wanted he kept pushing me to not use that font and to let him do the names in graffiti style.  Now, when I was 18 I would have said, “Sweet! Let’s do it!”, but I’ve grown up since then.  I didn’t want my kids’ names to look like they’d been tagged on me.  I wanted them to look nice to show the respect my kids deserve.  We had driven to most of the shops before Kim’s tattoo, so we knew where NOT to go.  Then we stumbled upon this little shop.  It is like a hole-in-the-wall restaurant.  They aren’t the biggest, or the fanciest (one here had a Koi pond in the shop), but most of the time you’re going to get the best service and product available anywhere.  Blackcat Tattoo and the owner Sean have earned out business for as long as he is in business…and we have blank skin.  He took one look at the names in the font I liked and said, “I like this font!  This will be easy to work around if you want to add things to it later.”  So, our relationship with the shop started.  

Next up came the nurse.  I had been trying to decide what to get next, but hadn’t quite figured it out.  Then, Kim shocked me.  She said, “Why not get a nurse pin-up tattoo?”  I love my wife.  I always liked pin-up’s (what guy doesn’t???) but didn’t think I’d get one out of respect for my wife.  But since she suggested it….okay!  I already knew which one I wanted…I just had to find a picture.  Once I found the picture, I printed it and took it to Sean to setup my appointment.  I found out that, for the first time ever, I was going to have to break up my tattoo into two appointments.  One for line work, and one for the color.  First trip was about three hours, and it looked like this…

After a couple weeks of healing, I went back for another 2 1/2 hours for the color work.  I’d like to say that coloring the hair sucked.  Up in the knee area it is apparently a little tender (???) and he had to make multiple passes with the color.  He said he would put the needles in, drag them up and outward as he went to shading?  I don’t recall exactly, but it sucked.  In the end, it was worth it to me though.  I made her a “strawberry blonde” because, well, who doesn’t like a redhead?  Kim agrees.

Then, came Finn.  Tank joined us last March and I knew I had to get his name added as soon as possible.  Called up Sean and he enlarged the font to compensate for being on my leg.  I wanted to make sure that Finn’s name took up a good portion of my leg since Aiden and Paige’s names took up a good portion of my arms.  I was able to get Finn’s name tattooed in less than 2 weeks after his birth.  I should have timed it better however since I got snipped the next day (no more kids for me!) and couldn’t lotion it very well.  Not smart, I know, but it still looks great!

Finally, Christmas 2009 rolled around.  Kim gave me money for tattoo work for Christmas.  Told you she was awesome.  I decided to go with the Koi that I’ve wanted for a while, and after debating, it ended up on my upper arm.  My right arm was feeling a little naked compared to my left, so it was time.  Again, Sean informed me that we had to break up the work into a line day and coloring day.  The crappy part is that because of his schedule I had to wait a month between the appointments!  At the end of day one, my arm was sore, but not horrible…and it looked great even without the color!

And just a few days ago, I got to go down and get it all colored in.  I’m thrilled with it (hence the long ass post about my tattoos) and again would like to confirm that Sean is the sole tattooist for this family.  I would also like to thank Kim again for this present.  I LOVE IT!!!!

I really was going to post another blog today, but I think I’ll wait until tomorrow.  This one is long enough on its own!!

Up on the soap box I go…

So, Haiti is in a bad place right now and many have stepped up to donate to rebuilding.  I question how much will actually go to those in need, and how much will make it into the pockets of the corrupt.  This morning I got to sleep in, and was woken up by Kim softly telling me to get up.  All in all I should have been in a great mood, but I was still a little grumpy and the filter on my mouth was not working.  Enter my soapbox….

Someone (who’s name I will decline to mention) had their Facebook status with something along the lines of; ‘Why don’t celebrities do more in a time like this?  They could make such a big difference in Haiti if they would donate some of their money (which they can spare) to help others?  I heard of one celebrity that only donated $100,000 and that made me mad.  Celebrities should do more.  Repost this so that we can get the word out.’

Okay, first off…who the hell are we to determine what someone else does with their money?  I feel sorry for ANYONE that tries to tell Kim and I how to spend the money we have available.  I will tear you a new one and not feel guilty about it in the least.  Yes, to most, celebrities are a different breed.  They aren’t normal people, they are celebrities and are therefore held to some higher standard than the rest of us.  They are required to help others in need, we aren’t.  Sorry, but this is bullshit.

Celebrities earn their money just like us.  Yes, they make a lot more than we do, but I’d like to see Joe Schmoe on the street pull off a performance like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, or play basketball anywhere near the level Kobe Bryant does, or hit a 100 MPH fastball like A-Rod can (yes, I’m a Yankees fan so there WILL be a Yankees reference).  So what if they get paid millions of dollars for acting or playing a sport??? They are good at what they do, and that is why they get paid millions of dollars.  Do I agree with their payscale?  No, I don’t, but that is the way the sporting and acting worlds have gone.  I still think nurses, firefighters, and police are severely underpaid considering what they do for us on a daily basis, and don’t even get me started on those in the armed forces.  How much would it cost to put YOU in a place where you could be: shot at or blown up by something everyday?  Think that combat pay is enough to entice you?  Me neither.

Then there was the comment about a celebrity that “only” donated $100,000.  That made you mad? Really?  That a celebrity was even willing to donate that much?  How much have you donated?  How many people do absolutely nothing?  Does that make you mad?  I haven’t donated any money?  You mad at me?  Tough shit.  We have one income, three kids, a house payment, car payments, student loans, and our kids would like to eat and have clothes.  Sure we may have a little to spare, but we like things too.

Take a look at yourself before you bitch….it’ll make you look a lot less like an idiot.

There are many funny things that happen with kids….daily.  Random things they say, new challenges they attempt, or they discover new things in this world.  I see these things with all 3 kids daily, but I don’t stop to write them down.  I know they are important, and we will wish we had them when the kids are older (like Aiden swearing that the “seed the daddy plants in the mommy to grow a baby MUST be shipped in a box”) but I don’t take the time to write them down.

I should be blogging at least once a day, but it isn’t happening.  Usually when I get a few free minutes I fire up the X-box for some Call of Duty online.  It is a stress reliever, and stress adder, but the big thing is that it gets me out of the realm of reality that I still have no job.  I do have a job interview on Monday, and hopefully this unemployment will end.  I would much rather be at home with the kids, but I’d much rather Kim to be able to take an A-day from work without worrying about the bills.

Wow…been a while.  Last post was on the 9th.  Not really surprised it has been that long due to Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 being released on the 10th.  Yes, I’ve been spending far more time than I should be playing.  It is highly addictive, while being both quite fun and quite frustrating at times.

Kim’s birthday is soon.  Wednesday, actually.  Technically my shopping is already done since her present arrived a month or so ago (her new netbook).  Thankfully, she still loves that little thing, and I must say it is a pretty impressive little thing.

The kids are still doing great.  Plugging away in school and constantly talking at home.  Seems like we’ve been feeding them “Talk all the time” along with their food.  They seem to talk up until they fall asleep…Paige even continues to do so in her sleep at times.

So, I’ve got Windows 7 Pro installed (been a while actually) and I’m quite happy with it, but then again, I was happy with Vista Business as well.  Finally found an issue last night.  My built in webcam doesn’t work.  Worked fine in Vista, but nothing in 7.  Still toying with it, but using my Xbox 360 cam for the time being.  Also found out that my built-in mic didn’t work, but that was because I didn’t update the drivers for 7.  Did that this morning and it is actually working better than before.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.  Picked it up at midnight and came home and immediately started playing.  Funny thing was while we were waiting in line prior to midnight release, Puma mentioned that he’d start playing as soon as the update was done.  He was joking that this brand new game that hadn’t even released yet was going to need an update.  Sadly, he was right.  First thing I got when I put the disc in was the update prompt.  Ok, done.  No big deal.  Then came the issue with my NAT.  A couple years ago I made sure that my Xbox 360 was put outside of the firewall of my router (DMZ) so that my NAT would be “Open”, and therefore, able to match up with anyone on Xbox Live easily.  Apparently when I switched from DSL to Cable (for 2 months) then back to DSL something changed.  Well, DSL the first time was 1.5 Mb and now it is 12Mb.  With that we got a new modem.  Long story shorter…fixed it.  Course, now my $180 “Gaming Router” needs to be reset every couple days thanks to the “Updated Firmware”.  Hey, D-Link…the DGL-4500 needs a STABLE firmware!!!!! PRONTO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Over the last week I’ve had ideas come and go through my head about things to blog about.  Sometimes it is in response to Kim’s blog, and other times it is because some random event has triggered my brain on a topic.  Sad part is I usually get about 1/2 of what I’d like to say in my head along with “I gotta go put this up”….then…..I forget.  Once it is gone it is GONE.  Sucks.  I think Kim and I need to set a time at night after the kids are in bed for us to both sit down and blog.

Last bit here….anybody know how to go about getting a children’s book published?