Thanksgiving Cook

Momoko wanted to purchase a premade Thanksgiving dinner this year. Kit Kat and I agreed. However Little Kat protested. He said we should cook our own meal. He volunteered to do all the cooking. Momoko said she would help out a bit. It was all on Little Kat.

I worked the day before Thanksgiving. So at the end of the night I went to sleep promptly. The kids stayed up with Momoko. They stayed up really late. Bad move. Little Kat was tired Thanksgiving morning. The boy was cranky. It showed when he went to cook the meal.

I knew we were in trouble when Momoko reminded Little Kat that the turkey preparation involved some flour. He said we were out of flour. That was just crazy talk. I tried to toast myself a bagel in the morning. I was diturbed to find cooking oil all over the kitchen floor.

Later Momoko inquired on how Little Kat's cooking of the corn was progressing. He said he did not know how to cook corn. More craziness. I think this is the last time we let Little Kat cook us a holiday dinner. Either that or an adult needs to police his bed time the night before. Surprisingly, the dinner turned out okay.

Subzero Work

Momoko and the kids woke up early on the weekend to go to the movies. I could not join them because I had too much work to do. Normally Momoko gets me some breakfast on the weekend. But it had to be cancelled because their movie started really early. They save Catching Fire at the good theater.

My main job was to pick up the leaves in the back yard. Wouldn't you know it? A severe cold front came into town. It was below freezing outside. Great. My gloves and ear protection are stored in the outdoor shed. They were freezing when I brought them out.

I decided to bring them into the house and place them on top of the heating system vents. Took about 30 minutes for them to warm up nicely. During that time, I did some work that did not require ear protection. It was still very cold handling the cols tools without gloves.

I thought I might sneak out in the middle of my yard work to get a bite to eat. Then I realized that would cause me to lose my momentum. Instead I let my hunger drive me on. It was cold outside. But I kept moving as I did my work. It took over three hours to get the work done.

Afterwards I bolted to Jerry's subs and pizza. Got myself a peperjack cheesesteak meal. I guzzled down some coke without any ice. The cheese on the steak was spicy. I added hot pepper paste to my fries. I went home to shower. Could not fall into a deep sleep. It was time for my weekly visit to see my sick mom...

Bulking Up

I stayed up late last night studying for class. I was really tired. Took a long time to write code to program simple things. The bad news is that I had to wake up early today. Needed to report to my customer's site to turn in my laptop. Getting an upgrade to Windows 7. By lunch time I was very tired.

Luckily I drove home at lunch time and took a nap. Since I did not have my work computer any more, I had some free time on my hands. I collected the leaves in the front of the yard. I thought about taking care of the back yard too, but that was too large of a task for a weekday. Instead I came in.

Kit Kat was tasked with bringing some large items to school for Momoko. They were going to stay late working on chores for Momoko. That meant that today we would eat take out. We had tacos for a Taco Tuesday. Before dinner arrived, Little Kat and I went outside to haul our bulky trash to the curb for a pickup tomorrow.

I did not feel bad asking Little Kat to help. Most of the big stuff came from his room. We paired up for the really heavy stuff. Nothing was nasty since I covered up our trash with a tarp. The only mishap was that the weight from the bottom of one of our lamp feel out and crakced over top of our driveway. I cleaned that up. And we should be good to go.

Emissions Time

I was scheduled to take the day off today to look after Kit Kat. She was supposed to get her wisdom teeth removed yesterday. However she was sick and could not get the dentistry work done. I worked some extra hours earlier this week. Therefore I decided to take a half day at work.

At lunch time I ran over to Roy Rogers. I brought my truck, because afterwards I headed to the emissions testing center. It is always a guess as to whether my truck will pass emissions testing. The truck is over 20 years old. The think runs okay. But it is from an earlier era. Luckily I got a pass today.

I checked in with the office after lunch. Nobody had time to talk to me. Fine by me. I left for the day. Then began the lengthy task of collecting leaves. First I used the leave blower to move the leaves off the big driveway. I raked the leaves off the curb in the street. Used the lawn mower to collect the leaves. Bagged them up. Later I went to our large back yard. The whole affair took around four hours. Ouch.

Food Drive

I was busy at work this morning. Did not get to lunch until late. A late lunch on my school days always messes up my schedule. Oh well. I was busy at work in the afternoon today too. Could not stop at quitting time. That is a problem since I need to go to school in the evening.

Finally I busted out of work. Only had a few minutes to grab a snack. I heated up some banana bread from my mom. It tasted good with butter on top. Then I remembered that my college was having a food drive this week. I printed out the flier and searched for the type of food they asked for.

I quickly found some pasta plus sauce. Then I grabbed a jar of peanut butter. Took a while, but I also located two boxes of mac-n-cheese. It was the good kind too. I wrapped it up in a bag, and placed the bag in my backpack. Then I drove off to school.

As soon as I turned onto the highway, I knew I was doomed. The cars were all backed up onto the onramp. My trip to school usually takes 20 minutes. Today it took over an hour. Sure enough, one of the lanes was closed due to an accident. I got to school late. Before class, I did spend a minute to locate the food drive dropoff. Priorities. Hope someone enjoys this premium mac-n-cheese.

Goodbye GameFly

Previously I had paid for a GameFly account for Little Kat. It is like Netflix for video games. Little Kat put a list of his favorite games on the GameFly web site. Then they send him the games one at a time. The game comes in the mail. They are returned by mail too. As soon as one game is returned, the next one from his list is sent to him.

The goal of this GameFly reward for Little Kat was to do well in school. I set up two level of grades that I thought should be rewarded with GameFly privileges. The higher the grades, the more games Little Kat could check out at any given time. For a long while, Little Kat has earned the one game at a time service level.

This semester Little Kat had some problems with his grades at school. That was nothing new. However Little Kat did not come back and get the grades corrected prior to report card time. Today I got a copy of his report card. We already knew the results. So I had to cancel his GameFly membership. Let's hope his grades improve next quarter.

Little Kat Surgery

Little Kat got his wisdom teeth extracted this week. Momoko took a day off to bring him to the dentist. She then got him his medicine, and stayed with him at home. Unfortunately she needed to return to work the next day. I volunteered to take a day off to watch Little Kat the day after the surgery.

The night before, some manager asked me to work on that day. I told him I had arranged to take the day off. Then on the day of my vacation, I got a call from my team leader. I reminded him I was off from work, and would talk with him when I returned. That's just how I roll. I don't work on holidays and vacation days.

I woke Little Kat up and got him some breakfast. All he wanted was a chocolate shake. I told him to come down from his bedroom. We watched the first espisode from season 1 of The Walking Dead. Now I understand some of the humor on the Internet related to that show. Later in the afternoon, I got us some Chinese food.

When Momoko came home, I was responsible for getting her dinner too. I was too tired to go out to eat. So I picked up some takeout from The Outback Steakhouse. Late at night, Little Kat complained about being hungry. We went to Arbys where they have a beef sandwich you can dip in some juice. Little Kat said it made the sandwich soft enough to eat.

I think Little Kat is on the road to recovery. He is talking about going to the movies with his friend in a few days.

Mattress Shopping

I sent Momoko and Little Kat matress shopping. Little Kat needs a new twin extra long matress. I told them both that a good matress should cost around $500. Also directed them to come up with a set up Little Kat's top choices. They returns with a short list of four matresses, ranging from $250 to $650. Little Kat liked the $500 one the best.

I went to the matress store to talk details. They guy told me the matress Little Kat wanted would cost me $750. I told him, "Come on.". He then lowered the price to $650. I told him I wanted to walk out paying a total of $500 (which, with tax, would be around $470). They guy said $550 was the best he could do. I told him I would think about it.

I returned the next day. My salesman had the day off. So I started again with another salesman. He said he could sell me the matress for $899. I told him that I wanted to pay $500. He called his boss, and came down to $769. His final offer was to sell it to me for $650. No go. No sale.

Returned one last time to speak with my original salesman. He was still firm at $550. Now $550 might be a fare price for all. I was just anchored to the original $500 quote he gave Momoko. Since I did try all the matresses Little Kat pointed out, I found this $550 to be the best value. I placed an order for it.

To ensure the only extra charge I paid for was tax, I opted to pick up the matress myself with my truck at the store. We take possession of Little Kat's new matress on Wednesday. The moral of the story is that nobody pays retail for matresses. The original list price was $1200. Online the best price was $899. I might have been able to shave another $50 off the $550 price, but I was satisfied with the deal.