Weekly rundown

I haven't posted in a couple of days and thought it would be good to get something on here on my progress. Here are a few things I have done this past week to keep up with my goals.

• I changed the oil in the car. The mileage was just under 104,000 miles. It was a nice clean quick job.
• I have kept up with taking my vitamins each morning. One day, I realized as I was leaving the house and ran back downstairs to get one. Still no days missed.
• I am keeping up with reading to the girls. Madeline has taken more to reading. Hannah is a lot more squirmy and it is tough to keep her attention, even for a 6 page book.
• I have continued to tell the family that I love them each day. I know this shouldn't be a goal, it should be a given, but it is nice to have it down to be able to ponder whether I have done it that day or not.
• I started the movie A Beautiful Mind and am about half-way through it.
• Melissa's parents bought me some tea leaves. I think I might make my sweet tea tonight. I'm a little nervous it won't go well. I've read a few different ways to try it, hopefully I pick one that works.
• I'm still shooting free throws a few times a week. Yesterday I hit 6 in a row twice. I shot about 50 times and only missed about 15 of them. I know that is a lot, but my stroke feels good and I know that it will come in time.
• Pop has been a temptation a few times, but I have resisted. I am actually enjoying water, milk and juice each day.
• Still no fast food since the first day that I started. I think I will be able to make this one right away, we will still have to wait to see. I have 33 months to get this thing done. If I don't get it this time, there is plenty of time left.
• I have made flash cards to study the presidents. I use them each day in the car on my way to and from school. I am pretty solid for the first half of the presidents. I get a little shaky around 20.
• I am a few pages into the book that Melissa got me for my birthday about raising a daughter in a godly way.
• I have an appointment scheduled for a doctor appointment on October 14th at 4:20.
• I'm still trying on centsports. It's tough to do well when you haven't won a bet in over a week. I think I need to start thinking small in my bets rather than going for a home run each time. Good thing it's free!
• Lastly, I'm typing this at school before the kids are here while wearing a tie. I picked a good day to wear it. All of the other days have been incredibly hot.

That's how I am doing. I am enjoying this goal oriented life. It makes me think about what I could be doing with my time and how I can organize things better.

74. Portage a canoe through downtown Aurora

Yesterday, Melissa's family came over to celebrate Labor Day. It was a good day. We all hung out, got Melissa's parents on Facebook, and had a cookout. Melissa's brother Mike and I have gotten into the habit that every time that he comes over we have gone out canoeing. It is a good habit to get into because both of us enjoy the activity of canoeing. The first task, (which I didn't know would be a task) was getting the canoe out of the garage. As Mike was undoing the rope that holds the canoe suspended in the garage, he didn't realize that he would need to hold onto it. This resulted in the canoe falling onto his head. Not a good start. Luckily, there was no blood or damage to the canoe. We got loaded up and got to the river. It was nice starting off going downstream. I haven't yet ventured over to the downtown area. It was nice, there were a lot of people out fishing that we were able to say hello to. We made it to the point where we would have to portage (another word for taking the canoe out of the water and carrying it around an obstacle). The city has made a lot of improvements in the last few years, one being a walking path under the main roads in Aurora, which meant, all we had to do is take the canoe out and carry it down the path to safer waters. I don't know if I was disappointed or relieved to find out that I wouldn't have to carry it up the stairs and across the street. After getting through, we canoed around for awhile. Unfortunately, after we got through downtown, the river was really rocky. On one of those rocks, we hit really hard. I got a big gash in the bottom of the canoe and took on a ton of water. We got out to get rid of some of the water, put the boat back in the water and canoed back to the portage point. After we got to that point, we realized that we would take on too much water for it to be worth canoeing the whole way back to the van. Since we were only about a half of a mile from where the van was parked, Mike volunteered to go get the van so we wouldn't have to carry the canoe the whole way back. This was a sad way to end such a joyous occasion.
For those of you wondering. The canoe is fixed. I patched it right away when we got home. All I am hoping for now is more rain to get the water level back up. One more done! Pictures will come when I get home from work today.

54: Read a book for parenting Toddlers

I have finished my first book off my list. I read the book "Fathering Your Toddler: A Dad's Guide to the Second and Third Years" by Armin A. Brott. It was a good book. There were definitely areas that I will have to store in my memory bank about what they will be like in the future. The book covers them from their first birthday until their third. It was a pretty long book with small font, but I made it! (This is probably where I will get comments mentioning how the classic novels will be longer with smaller font) I enjoyed reading the book because it gave me perspective of what the next few years will be like. It also gave me some pride in knowing how much of being an active father for my girls will boost their development in the future years.

The next book I will read is the one that Melissa got me for my birthday. I will be reading it to help me know how to raise the girls in our world today.

I watched a couple of movies this weekend

Last night and today, I watched 2 of the 29 movies I will need to watch in the coming months. I saw Rain Man and Platoon. Both Academy Award winning pictures.
I enjoyed watching Rain Man again. I have channel surfed many times and come across this movie. As I watched it last night, I realized that I had never really seen the entire movie straight through. I think that is the point of me taking on this task. There are always things in each movie that I hadn't caught the first time.

The movie Platoon was one that I had never really seen or heard of before. Charlie Sheen is the main character. Johnny Depp also has a small role in the film. This movie was not a very uplifting one. It is a Vietnam movie that gives you an idea of what life was like at the front lines. Boy am I glad I was not around during that time. It looked horrible. The thing that I left with after watching this movie was how thankful I am for the veterans that fight for our country.
I'm looking forward to being able to watch more movies in the near future. 27 still left to watch. Although, a couple of them haven't even been awarded yet.

I bought a stock!

#76
If Matt thinks his last post was boring, get ready for this one. I bought a stock. I knew where to start but didn't really know what to do. Last spring sharebuilder.com was running a promotion that if you set up an account and purchased stock from them, you would get a $50 bonus. The stocks had to total at least $5. I signed up back then, but didn't buy the stock. The promotion still worked so I guess it is just a bonus now. I actually have no idea what I was looking for. I really was looking for a cheap stock. That was my criteria. That is it. This morning I logged on to the site and started looking.

The company Evergreen Energy Inc. caught my eye. I don't know why, it just did. I purchased 3 shares. I hope I don't find myself checking in on this company regularly to see if it gained 5 cents or lost 10. Investing $5 and looking for anything big in return is worse than playing on centsports.com. The big thing is though, I bought my stock. Shareholders meeting here I come...

Journaling and Dinner

43: I started the journals for the girls. Melissa got me them for my birthday and last night I entered my first entries into each of them. I wrote to them about how special they are to me and mentioned some things that I had observed about them over this past week. When I got to the end I signed it "Dad." I teared up just realizing that some day my girls would each be reading what I had written to them. They are so special to me.



47: Melissa and I were able to go out to Red Robin tonight. Jenean watched the girls tonight while we went out. Dinner was also special because it was to celebrate my birthday. I was able to get a free dinner because we were celebrating my birthday. I like Red Robin because there is such a variety of burgers. I was hoping to get something in the meal that would have qualified as something I would not normally try #21. Unfortunately/fortunately there wasn't anything that caught my eye to try as new. Because it was free for me, I had my choice of having virtually anything on the menu, I got the prime rib sandwich. It was really good. Overall, it was a really good night. It is always nice to have a night where it is just Melissa and me.

90: 82982

I have got to say that just doing little tasks are tough. Before we had the girls I had a ton of time. I could go anywhere and do anything without time restraints. Tonight I put the girls to bed at 7:50 and headed outside to change the oil. I had purchased new air filters and oil filters this weekend and wanted to put them in the cars. I put the air filters in on Saturday when I got them, but didn't have time to change the oil at that time. To change the oil it took me about 40 minutes. I had a really hard time getting the drain plug out, that is what took me the longest time. I worked at the end of the driveway and used both the street lights and a flashlight. It wasn't ideal, but it was what had to happen. I got it all done. The mileage on the van is 82982. I have 3,000 miles until the next change for the van. 85982 here I come. Next task, getting the oil changed in the car.

On a side note, I wore a tie today. It was pretty hot at school today. No air circulation mixed with 80+ degree temperatures made for a tough day. It was good, I had a lot of people asking why I had a tie on. I just told them that I had an interview and left it at that.