Thanks Jerry Johnson

Hello blogging world. Click on this link to witness the funniest forward I have ever received. I think you'll enjoy it even if you don't know who Sir Mix-a-Lot is. And please don't see this blog as permission to send me forwards. This was a rare occasion where I actually read the forward. Have a great week.

Back from vacation

We got back from vacation yesterday. We had a really great time in Florida and I miss the beach already. We basically laid out on the beach all day, or at least I did, Jeremy gets bored easily so he would join me on the beach periodically when he was ready to play in the ocean. We ate great fresh seafood every day, that was awesome. We also took a dolphin watching tour in Tampa Bay and the batteries in the camera died while we were on the boat! There were dolphins jumping and flipping right beside my seat! While on the tour we also saw the house of the guy who invented the plasma T.V. and the former house of Al Capone. There were million dollar houses all over the place, one guy had these giant palm trees lining his back yard and the guide said that it costs $5,000 to have one of those put up in your yard and this guy had 13! You do the math, all that just for giant palm trees. In the beach where we stayed, Hulk Hogan used to live there and filmed his reality show. He just put his house on the market for $25MILLION! We drove around trying to find it but we couldn't figure out which one it was. We also went to a really crappy aquarium in Clearwater Beach. I think it was more of a rescue preserve for dolphins and sea turtles that can't survive in the wild but it was really small and the areas that they had the dolphins and turtles was really dirty. I felt sad for them, and for us for wasting money on such a crappy aquarium! The last day we were there we went out on a sailing cruise in the Gulf of Mexico. It was cool, we had never been sailing before. The captain was kind of a jerk but it was cool to go sailing in the ocean. We went put-putting and drove around the different beaches and besides that, we pretty much hung out at the condo. It was great cause the sun set over the ocean right in front of where we were staying so we got to watch gorgeous sunsets everyday. We had never been to the Gulf of Mexico, it was kind of weird cause there aren't very many waves most of the time, Jeremy was disappointed, I liked it. Also, the water is incredibly warm in the Gulf so that was nice. Even the pool at the condo was warm, it always felt like warm bath water. It was very relaxing and much needed. Here are some pics, I aplogize for the length of the blog, if you find this to be incredibly boring, you don't have to read it all!

This is one of the sunsets on our beach. Isn't it pretty? The sunset that is, not Jeremy in the foreground.

Here is the dolphin at the aquarium.
The green colored water is how all of the tanks really looked.

This is Jeremy's hole in one. He only beat me by five strokes and he would not let me live it down!
This is us on our sailing adventure. Sadly, this is the only time we could get someone to take our picture!

Florida Bound

It's 5:40 in the morning and we didn't get home from softball last night until midnight. (But the guys finally won - yeah!!!) so needless to say, we are a little tired right now. We are on our way to Florida in about 20 min. and Jeremy is probably gonna be irritated when he finds out I am blogging instead of helping him pack up the car. Oh Well!!! We will miss you guys and checking your blogs like fifteen times a day to see if you have updated yet. We'll have lots to post when we return. Have a great week!!

Prayers Please

Hey everyone. I have a prayer request, I just have to tell a flippin long story to get there, so bear with me please. For those of you that don't know, Jeremy and I will be leaving for Florida on Monday for a week to go on vacation. And for those of you that know me well you know that I worry about everything and drive myself nuts. Well, I don't want to do this on vacation cause I need some peacefulness next week. So yesterday, my boss decided to drop a bomb on me 4 hours before the actual beginning of my time off. On Monday I am missing one of our team meetings and it is being brought up at this meeting that someone from our team is needed to help with another program for the entire month of July. (They are only choosing our team b/c we have the lowest productivity in the agency - we also have the smallest team). This program would entail spending the entire day at an alternative school doing group therapy with rough, adolescent boys who are TICKED off b/c they have to spend their summer at the alternative school. These aren't like the other groups where we get to go fun places, they stay there and I'm not really sure what else they do. I feel totally unqualified to do this job. They are hoping that someone on our team will volunteer to do this, but no one is going to do that, and with me being at the bottom of the totem pole, they are probably gonna chose me. The problem with this is that it won't leave any time to continue with the two groups that I am currently doing that I posted about earlier, and it won't leave time for me to continue working with the families and kids that I am working with. Potentially these kids won't be receiving counseling for a month. I would also not be able to have Fridays off like I do now. I feel like the well-being of our kids and families gets lost in all of the nonsense of productivity. I was really angry about this as I was driving home and then it hit me. My attitude is terrible. Where is my faith? Do I really want to drive myself crazy about this while on vacation? So I decided that God is gonna have to decide what is best. So I asked God that he would guide this program and the decision that will be made by the administrators at work. This has the potential to turn out to be something awesome, and maybe I am being selfish b/c I don't want to do it. I just want whatever will uplift me, and more importantly will benefit whichever group of kids the most. I am asking that you guys pray about this so that these things can happen and I can have some peace about it while I'm in Florida. Sometimes I need to let go and trust that God's ways truly are higher than my own. Isaiah Ch.55 is my favorite, I need to put that into practice right now and I think I can do that knowing that the people I love are rallying behind me for the same thing. I am sorry this has been a long, complicated, boring blog. Forgive me. I'm sure Jeremy will make up for it with more sports stuff later. Thanks guys.

Ben you big dope

In case you missed the news yesterday, Ben Roethlisberger (Quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers) was injured in a motorcycle accident this week. This got me thinking about bad choices that some athletes make. I'm not about to tell Big Ben whether he can or cannot ride a motorcycle. However, he was driving a motorcycle without a license AND without a helmet. Granted it is legal to drive without a helmet in PA, but come on. I don't understand why people do that. Even if you're going 5 miles per hour, it just takes one car to knock you off that thing and whammy...your head is on the pavement. Then to be stupid enough to not get a license. He had an expired learners permit. Come on! Do these people think they are above the law. If he gets a lower fine than Jessica did for "following to close" than I'm going to be really hacked off. It's one thing to follow to close, it's another to drive without a license. Come on! This is just one of many poor choices that athletes make. It's not as big as our Cincinnati Bengal players who wave guns in parking lots and drive drunk, but it's another example of stupidity among our young rich athletes. Maybe if Jessica played a professional sport, we wouldn't be paying a stupid fine because some stupid officer was having a bad day. That's my rant and rave for the day.

Real live fun times at work

Today was actually a fun day at work for me (Jessica). It was the first day of summer groups. I'll be involved with two of these each week, the same kids come back each week. Today was 7-8 year olds. We take the kids out into the community to work on goals and skill sets. Today's goals were anger control, following directions, and not arguing. The kids actually did great and their manners were the best I have seen out of a group ever! Granted, these are the cute younger ones and it was only the first day. We took them to Burger King, the park, and Dairy Queen. These are some of the funny comments of the day that I'm allowed to tell you. 1.) Kid - "Is that your car?" Me-"Yes, it is." Kid-"That's a sweet car, you should put flames on it and spinners. Then it would be pimping." Me-"Oh, and what does pimping mean?" Kid-"I don't know." 2.)After another staff member asking if anyone has asthma problems while on a nature trail this kid starts covering his nose and mouth. Me-"Are you o.k.?" Kid (in a panic type voice, try to picture the giraffe from Madagascar)-"Is there asthma in the air?!?! Can I catch it?!?!" The day actually went by fast and it was fun. Tomorrow we have some older, more intense kids so we'll see how it goes.

RED'S GAME

Jess and I had a great time last night at the Red's game. Thanks BJ and Jessie for the tickets. The Reds lost, which makes me think that I am bad luck. Every team I root for seems to lose. The Colts, the Spartans, etc. always seems to lose in the crunch because I root for them. Maybe I should start rooting for the Cardinals or the Yankees. That would make some people happy!

They had an awesome fireworks show afterwards. Jess and I really enjoyed that. It lasted like 30 minutes. Almost as good as Boomsday in Knoxville. Those were fun times.

Jess has calmed down since the ticket. We're thinking about framing it and sending it to Lawrenceburg with a nasty note. Any ideas of what we could say? Anyways, that's been the exciting weekend of Jeremy and Jessica. Talk to you later.

So much for peacefulness

In the last post I talked about happiness and peacefulness, well let's just say that I can't find either of those things today. I had a very frustrating meeting for work this morning and on my way from that office to my own I got a dang ticket!!!!! This guy who turned out to be a cop, was on a motorcycle and I came up behind him and he slammed on his brakes and started swerving all over the road. So I was talking on the phone with Jeremy at the time (I know what you're thinking - Get off the flippin phone and drive- I don't want to hear it O.K.) and I said "Geez, people don't know how to drive!" I had to go into the other lane and go around him cause he was pulling over/still swerving everywhere. So I look in my rear view mirror and it turns out that it was a cop and he was pulling me over. He said that he was pulling me over for following too closely and walked away- No discussion about the situation possible!!!! My ticket doesn't even have the amount I have to pay, I have to call a number for it. Jerk. I am so mad, and when I am mad I cry, so I cried all the way to my office and now I look stupid with no makeup and a blotchy face. AAAARRRGHHHHHH!!!!!! Did I mention I was angry???

Thoughts from Jess

So Jeremy has been complaining that I never write on the blog so here I am but I don't know what to write about. I posted these pictures of the flowers from the garden cause they make me happy....and I need some of that lately. The top one reminds me of Hawaii which is where I try to imagine myself when I can't sleep. I'm not sure what the bottom reminds me of; maybe my dumb dog who eventually destroyed it. Maybe just peacefulness. I seem to be caught in this cycle of hating my job and then being o.k. with my job. This week I guess I am o.k. with it but I'm so tired of the rollercoaster that my job can be. I want my mind to be more peaceful so maybe that's why I like these flowers so much. Whatever it is, I hope they bring you something positive today. Whether it is peacefulness, happiness, or just bringing a smile to your face thinking of Leo digging them up like he is a treasure hunter. Enjoy.

U-G-L-Y You aint got no alibi

I really don't have much to write about today. I'm just sick of checking my blog and reading about my anal fissure. I much rather look at what our neighbor's daughter calls a "cute" puppy. That's right, someone like's his summertime hair cut.

Anyways, our propane grill went out today. I guess every once in a while I should change the propane tank. However, it did last a full year of grilling out. I guess I should go to walmart and get it exchanged. Meanwhile, I tried panfrying our JTM boneless ribs. That worked great! Now, there's smoke all in our house. But, the ribs were delicious.

Well, I've got like 25 meetings tonight at Church, so I'm outta here. I'll try to update more often. Have a great week!

Phosphosoda is not soda pop....trust me

Hey guys. I want to thank everyone who prayed for my colonoscopy today. The results came back and I have an anal fissure. The actual procedure was fine. I felt nothing and barely remember even leaving. I did find out I'm allergic to demerol and threw up everywhere. That part of the procedure I remember...it was not fun. But after that, I remember watching the beginning part of the procedure on their 42in plasma tv. Yes, live and in HDTV...seriously! Jess said afterwards all I could talk about was that cool plasma tv. HA!

The night before the procedure was awful! It actually started Wed night. I had to take two dulcolax pills and was up off and on all night. Then yesterday evening I had to drink 3 ounces of phosphosoda with a two liter of ginger ale. That, my friends, was horrible. Then two more dulcolax and I "went to bed." HA, really I was up all night. But, it was part of the cleansing process.

Now, I'm still a little drowsy from the sedatives. But, no pain! I'm actually very comfortable, just woosy and weak. Thanks again for your prayers. They are treating the fissure with medication and if that doesn't work they will do surgery. But, the doctor seems certain this will work. Give me a call when you are 40 and have to have one of these. I'll help you through it :-)

What have we done?!?!?!

As most of you know, Leo the dog has massive emounts of hair b/c of the Great Pyranese that is in him. It has been incredibly hot here lately so Leo has been miserable. How would you like to hang out in 80+ degree temps in a thick fur coat?? So we decided that we should get him shaved. I don't think he's too happy about it. I don't think I'm too happy about it. To put it mildly he looks....um....like a freak.

This is our beautiful dog before...

And this is him after........

I don't think I'll be taking him to get shaved anymore. Sorry Leo.