Zombies, vans, and photographs

I think I know what it feels like to be a zombie.  Or at least feel like zombies look in the movies.  Sid seems to be having a pretty severe bout of insomnia the last couple nights, keeping us up off and on for hours.  Or more accurately, up, then back to sleep for an hour, then up again, then back to sleep for 20 minutes, and on and on.  Last night is a blur of getting up, picking him up, rocking with him, putting him back in his crib, bringing him to our bed, being kicked by him in our bed, Morgan getting up multiple times.  Getting up this morning was harder than the worst hangover morning.  This has to stop.   He's apparently constipated too - I wonder which condition causes the other?  Or maybe molars are coming in?  I should also mention that our dear babysitter Michelle is now our former babysitter Michelle, off to nursing school she went, so Sid is now with Alicia 3 days a week.  So maybe the change of scenery has disrupted him...but he seems happy with the switch.  Otherwise, Sid's shaping up to be quite the little man - using lots of words now, and charming the pants off of anyone he meets.

Lola still attending Noah's Ark happily, doing well there, and being her usual beautiful Lola self.

In other news, yeah, I know, the rate of updates around here would make you think we've left the country.  Still here, crazy busy, living our lives.

EcoReno moved a few weeks ago, to our new location.  Much more visible on the main drag, double the floor space, great vibrant neighborhood, and it seems like we're getting busier.  To help make the move happen, with all the financial fallout that entails, we sold our Eurovan to a nice family from Mt. Shasta, went without a 2nd vehicle for about 10 days, and as of last night, are now the proud owners of a 2002, very low mileage, Toyota Sienna.  Sigh, a minivan.  It's come to that.  I wanted a Forester or an Outback, but the practicalities of two kids in car seats, frequent cargo-hauling needs, seating for more than just the four of us, and the minivan became the obvious choice.  Should last us a nice long time.

My goal for this fall, since goals like homebrewing and writing a will (yeah, OK, I know my goals are weird and disparate) never seem to materialize, is to get some more photos posted on this site.  I'm sure there are a ton on the camera, several of which I could have posted and linked to from this writing to illustrate various things.  Time is such a fleeting resource.  But since Project Runway and Biggest Loser will kidnap my wife two nights a week, I think I might be able to get these online photo albums updated soon.

Speaking of time, I've got to wrap this up and go get ready for work.  Where I also don't have enough time to get everything done.  When do I get to slow down?  Oh yeah, every night after kids go to bed, enjoying a good beer, and watching TV for a few minutes before bed.

Yearbook photos

I guess the latest thing on Facebook is this yearbookyourself.com thing where you can make fun photos of yourself.  I don't do Facebook, but it's kind of quiet at the store today and I couldn't resist.  Marc through the decades:

[caption id="attachment_540" align="alignnone" width="210" caption="1968"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_541" align="alignnone" width="210" caption="1978"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_542" align="alignnone" width="210" caption="1986"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_543" align="alignnone" width="210" caption="1990"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_544" align="alignnone" width="210" caption="2000"][/caption]

Briefly

I've basically given up all hope of keeping up with this blog, so at least I can throw out a few informative bleats to keep you all in the loop, recorded for posterity:

EcoReno is moving!
Mice in the garage - head count = six so far.
Hot summer weather!
Selling the van :-(
Watching The Wire, two seasons down.

That is all.  We're well, dog and cat are good, life is fine.

Yes, we're still here

I guess one post per month is about the most I can eke out these days.  The time flies past without even realizing.  No excuses, other than the same ones you've seen before, just too darn busy.  And Twitter has become my big timesuck.

The main reason I logged in today was, I did want to share this article about the health care system in Canada vs. the US.

Aside from that, mainly business as usual.  Kids are OK, business is OK (but never as good as we'd like it to be!) at the store, and we long for leisure time and activities.  We are going to break free and do something fun this weekend for the 4th of July, looking like a two-night stay at the lake, so that should be GREAT!

Brian and Sonya's wedding consumed a lot of last weekend, a great time was had by all - Cosmo and Maureen visiting, me camping with the men bachelor party style in Black Rock country, the Pub and Sub dinner the night before the wedding, the wedding at beautiful Galena Creek park featuring homebrewed hefeweizen by Marc Tiar, and the reception at Brian and Sonya's house afterwards, celebratory as you might expect.  It was truly a fun-filled span of days.

Tasty is now an outdoor cat, venturing out most of the time, overnight even on some occasions, and is no worse for the wear.  Hopefully the time spent outdoors will cut down on cat dander in the house, a potential help for Lola's allergies.  She goes in for her sinus CT scan tomorrow, then back to the ENT a week or so later for assessment.  Hoping for the best.

Also since last post, Morgan and I went to see Mamma Mia, her birthday gift redeemed finally, and we had great time.  I'm not too macho to say I enjoy a good musical.  Sushi dinner before the show didn't hurt.

Well, I suppose that's all I have interesting enough to post for now.  I know I never got those videos posted.  Someday when I have some free time.  Until then, see you next month (easy to say since June ends in about 6 hours!)

Big photo update!

Finally got to clear off the memory card and upload some pictures.

• New Lola pictures!


• New Sidney pictures!


• Assorted other shots


• Sacramento zoo pictures!

After plowing through so many, it seems like I posted so few.  I probably only put about 10% on here, the rest just aren't cream of the crop enough to post publicly.  But I've got a hard drive full of memories if you ever want to kill some time...

My next big goal here is movie clips - time to load some new ones.  Not sure when, but stay tuned...

Holiday update

Memorial Day, a day off work, so I think I can squeeze out an update.  Finally.  We're supposed to be in mid-BBQ by now, but had a few cancellations so Morgan, kids, and Maggie are out back and I'm computing.  Photo update later, for now just the words.  On the plus side, the house is nice and tidy.

I feel like I've been productive in what little free time I have - we splurged on a new laptop with our tax refund, so I sold our old one on ebay, as well as our old digital camera with the half-wonky screen; made and hung a swing on the tree out front last weekend, made a raised-bed garden out back which is showing initial signs of success with tomatoes and an assortment of other sprouts coming up.  My hops are coming back this year, let's hope for success on them.

I've got a keg of hefeweizen sitting in the closet, waiting a few more weeks for Brian and Sonya's wedding, plus 3 bottles of Mirror Mirror in the garage fridge to enjoy sometime in the distant future.  As Brian put it yesterday, we're living in times of some of the best beer availability.  It's an obsession, tracking new special releases, what might be available in Reno or not, tasting sessions with friends, stowing ultra precious bottles away to age or wait for the right occasion.  I love it.

My other favorite thing besides beer (coffee) also has developments to report - Grandpa Dave sent us a big drip coffee and espresso machine recently that we just put into service.  It'll take a few pots to figure out just the right grind, amount, and setting for the perfect cup, but the iced espresso I had earlier put me into this weird "tired from antihistamines but feeling heart palpitations from the caffeine" state that I didn't like very much.  I'm reaching equilibrium now, both substances wearing off a bit.

On other fronts, we seem to be battling sickness on a regular basis.  We thought Lola's ear infection had passed, but more recently she had such a bad cough that it kept us all up most of the night, so we took her in.  She was diagnosed with asthma and put on a daily steroid mist treatment that's not much fun.  And her ear was still infected, plus a hold in her eardrum.  She seems well enough, but we're to see an ear-nose-throat specialist next week and get this all figured out.  Sid's mostly well, except for some mystery diarrhea the last couple days that we have no clue about.  Me, just allergies kicking my butt with everything in bloom this time of year, thus the aforementioned antihistamines.

EcoReno continues to keep us busy, although we could certainly use more business.  We've more or less decided our biggest impediment to raging success right now (besides the generally poor climate for business everywhere) is location.  We get virtually no drop-in serendipitous walk-in traffic, so we might be looking at moving at some point.  We'll see.  The people who do shop with us really do love our store and our merchandise, we just need more of them.  No big news otherwise, we just keep chugging along, looking for ways to grow and succeed.

My work continues to plod forward in a dismal situation - the library's budget cut 36% means doing more work with a lot less.  No layoffs for now, but lots of vacancies that means everyone's working harder.  Our hours are being cut at the end of next month, and my schedule will change, so the child care situation will need to change as well.  And then again in a few months when Sid's sitter goes to nursing school.

Well, I guess I've been a computer hermit long enough.  Time to open a cold one and relax on the deck I hosed off earlier today.  Days off are good.

Lola got an ear infection

A mere few hours after the earlier post depicting a happy, newly coiffed Lola, she woke up in pain.  From about 11pm until about 3am, we were up and down a few times with a poor, crying in apparent agony, Lola.  Called the hotline to ask if we should go to ER, but ended up OK with Tylenol and a hot pack until morning.  And of course, as tends to happen in this house, pain leads to crying, crying leads to runny nose and drainage, and a stomach full of said drainage leads to vomiting.

Got in to see the doc, got our prescription, now we're home watching Yo Gabba Gabba and medicating.

Lola got a hair cut!

Here are a few picutres of Lola's new hair cut. She was a little anxious, but excited to have a hair cut like her Auntie's!

oops, wrong blog

Sheesh.  I just logged in here thinking it was the EcoReno blog because I needed to post some stuff there.  Duh.

As long as I'm here, I guess I'll give a quick roundup of all things us.  Not that there's much.  I seem to have lost that nagging feeling in the back of my mind, urging me to get new pictures posted, keep this site viable.  EcoReno dominates my spare time and psyche, every spare moment I think about what's on our calendar today, tomorrow, this weekend.  I do pretty well keeping work stuff off my mind when I'm not at work, except for the occasional day lately (and by lately, I mean the last few months) when I wonder if my job is in jeopardy, if I'm going to end up working at a different location, on a schedule that conflicts horribly with the rest of our lives.  When I'm not thinking about the store, I'm addicted to keeping up on all the other blogs, Twitter feeds, and other web-based crap.  Go, go, go, story of my life these days.  At least the weather seems to be getting nice again, so that means less bundling up, Vespa weather, and sitting outside once in a while.  For those keeping track, the kids are well, growing, Sid had a couple ear infections recently, and Lola's doing great in most respects.

A few pics of late, I can't be bothered to actually put them in an album.

Oh for crying out loud.  The battery on the camera died before I could get them loaded on here.   Must be a sign that I should do this proper, in the albums.  Soon.  Stay tuned.

Publicity

Life has been so busy.  That is probably very obvious by how little we get to blog. But when funny, irritating, or weird stuff happens, I feel it necessary to update you all.

EcoReno is awesome. I love doing it and I love making a difference. I have also become very receptive to free publicity. You want a news story on green cleaners? You got it!  Anything to get the word out.

I got a call from KOLO a few weeks ago wanting to do a story on green cleaning products.  A very nice reporter called and asked if she could shoot footage and then come back to shoot live for their morning show. Yep, the morning show that airs from 5am to 7am. What time should I be here Monday? 4:15am. Again, free publicity.

We shot the some footage on Friday morning - a reasonable time of 10am. We confirmed for Monday morning at 4:15. (Let me remind you that even though there is a Starbucks across the lot, they don't even open that early!) She said the only thing that would keep them is breaking news. I think she said something about WWIII.

I had been having problems with the cell phone, but never gave it a second thought. I drug my butt out of bed at 3:45 after a restless night. I kept thinking that I would over sleep. I got dressed, made myself presentable, and took off into the dark morning. There weren't many people out, a few early morning people heading to work and passed a few guys probably heading home from a bar. Oh, and I got a full moon. Who does that? Okay, besides Kelly Ricciardi?  Seriously, a big, white ugly butt thrown in my face. Ewwwwww!  Got into the store, locking myself in quickly, and disabled the alarm.

BEEP.  BEEP. Ah, a message on the phone. BREAKING NEWS!!  Not WWIII, but a body found near Caughlin Ranch. No live shoot for me. There had a been a message left on my cell phone and she hoped that I had gotten it before I left the house. NOPE, because my cell phone is acting up and I didn't do anything to try and fix it. It was a simple fix too - turn off and back on. I headed back home to bed. When I got into the bedroom, Marc asked if I had even left, that is how little time had passed.

The story did air. They used the previously shot footage and I am also happy to say that it aired again during the evening news. I heard it while cooking dinner. So, worth it, but I can tell you that I will be sure that cell phone is working before I head out for a 4:15am shoot!

Other updates: Dad was just here and we had a great visit including the Sacramento Zoo.  The kids are great - both getting so big! Sid's sitter, Michelle, is telling us that he is very interested in the potty. Trained before his second birthday? You never know.