Cold's, fevers, bruised egos, and icy roads.

I really don’t know what to write here anymore. I’m just going to go on a rant and randomly place a few photos along the way. Addison is growing everyday. She’s such a strong healthy little girl (even though she is currently sick). She was running a fever for a few days last week. We had to keep her out of daycare on Thursday because she had a fever of 103 on Wednesday night. Other than the fever she seemed pretty good, a little lethargic, but pretty good. Then on Friday her fever came down but her chest became congested, and over the weekend her nose got stuffed up as well. Now her appetite has dwindled, we think this was because she can’t breathe through her nose while taking a bottle. And since she is not eating well she is crabby and not sleeping well. Last night she woke up around 2:30 and got all fussy and we finally got her settled down around 4. Then she slept till about 6:15. I think I am to blame for her waking up. At about 6:10, I got up to take a shower and the house was freezing. I checked the digital thermostat and it showed that the house was actually 56 degrees inside. I went down to the basement to see why the furnace was not running. I attempted to decipher the code of the LED that flashed a code number 14. According to the label on the face of the access door on the furnace, code 14 basically states that the furnace is cycling through “ignition reset – see code 34” and code 34 had a list of potential problems, that sounded like something needed to be cleaned. That’s where the engineering instinct took over and I started removing covers to take a closer look. Well here I was in a poorly lit basement, still in the process of waking up, and on the floor in my PJ’s and I removed the cover that has the label on it. Apparently that was not correct order of disassembly; the cover above this that was supposed to come off first came crashing down on my head, making a racket, which was followed by me mumbling a string of involuntary profanities. Not realizing that the duct work was acting like a megaphone to the bedrooms up on the main floor, the next thing I knew, my wife was standing behind me with our child in her arms and dog at her side asking what the heck I was doing. By then the furnace was running like a champ and I was just trying to put the covers back on the furnace. I guess all I needed to do was pull the cover off to get the thing running. I know better than that, there’s probably a service bill lurking in the near future.

I’ve been trying to get the house cleaned up and organized before Addison starts walking. I’ve been in this house for almost 9 years now and suddenly I’m realizing how much of a pack rat I am. I thought we purged a bunch of stuff last spring, the basement was fairly clean in May, but I don’t know where it all comes from. I foresee several trips to the Salvation Army / Good Will / recycling center coming in the near future. This past Saturday I spent about 4 hours just filing and purging old papers/bills/tax records/documents that are no longer relevant, useful, or for that matter worthy of taking up space. That was a good start. I found old receipts and statements that had not been filed properly for the past two years. There were stacks within stacks in our makeshift office that needed to be filed. And there were files for credit cards that I cancelled several years ago and I never got around to shredding. It was always overwhelming and I did not know where to start. Now that I’ve made the commitment I’m hoping that it will be easier to keep up with down the road. The goal is to spend a few hours each week just getting things in place before that little someone is running wild within the confines of our house.

It’s amazing how fast a person gets out of shape and how much work it takes to get back in shape, if that is even possible. Because the side walks have been all wet/icy and down right messy, Ruby and I have been going on short little 2 mile runs a couple times a week since the start of the year. On Saturday I decided to take a break from the paper work and take Ruby on a little longer run. I didn’t think it would be such a big deal to take on the task of a 4.25 mile run around Reeds Lake. Something we did on a fairly routine basis back in October, a couple times a week with out a problem. Well, it was no problem for a young steed of a dog. Back in September/October I was still able to run at close to an 8 minute mile on that route, not something I was extremely proud of but I was ok with that, now, I’m between an 11 and 12 minute mile, that’s just a touch more than walking speed. Michelle always tries to remind me that I should not be measuring my abilities, and just be grateful that I have the ability to get out and run/walk and enjoy the scenery. I know she’s correct, but it’s still difficult to handle sometimes, especially when you are plodding along just staring at your feet wondering how much further it is back to where you parked the car so you can end the madness and drive back home. It’s official…….I’m turning old. Yep, I’ve just become a father and I’m already complaining about aches and pains and how strong I used to be “back in the day”. I think that little girl is made out of kryptonite or something. I was a train-wreck for the remainder of the day Saturday. For the next few hours my lungs were burning, my feet ached all day Saturday and for a good portion of Sunday, and to say the least, my ego was bruised. Ruby on the other hand was a stallion, we got home and she ran straight to the back yard to have a microburst that lasted a good five minutes. She was just running rampid around the backyard as fast as her little body would go to blow off some steam because that run around the lake was not taxing enough.

And on Sunday I was planning to have a lazy day, just watch some NFL championship games. I love watching football, but I don’t think I ‘ve watched only but a few hours so far this season. Since Addison was sick we decided to not take her to church and expose her to all the other little ones in the “baby-bay”. We could easily download the sermon later this week. So Michelle decided to go the YMCA and go for a swim. Addison was down for a nap, and I was just watching some morning news on the TV. About ten minutes after Michelle left I heard Addsion stirring. So I went to see what the fuss was. Nothing big, she just wanted her pacifier. Then on my way out of Addison’s room I heard my cell phone ringing in our bedroom. It was Michelle, and appearently she had already called twice but I never heard it. By the time I talked to her, she seemed cool, calm and collected. She left home, got about a mile from the house, merged onto the freeway and lost control of my truck. She told me the truck had spun and she was stuck on the shoulder. Her only concern seemed to be how to get the truck from being stuck. So I asked her if it was in four wheel drive (4WD). She said not yet. You see, I grew up here in Michigan, driving an ill-handling short wheel based jeep with balloon tires in the snow. Compared to my jeep that truck darn near drives it self. She grew up driving in warm sunny California. To her the truck is squirly because there is virtually no weight over the rear driven wheels. Appearently she told me she had struck some hi-way guarding, but I failed to register that part of the conversation. She said she had the four-ways on but they did not seem to be working, so I asked why, and she eluded to there being front and rear end damage. At which time I got aggravated, looking out our front window at the street in front of our house the roads did not look bad at all. I don’t recall what I said but the bottom line is I insulted her driving skills. Then she let me have it. And rightfully so. I made several mistakes in that few moments. First and foremost, I never asked if she was OK. I can make the excuse I assumed she was OK because she seemed cool calm and collected, and she was OK, but the fact remains that I did not ask how she was. I’m SORRY. She put the truck in 4WD and limped back home. Shortly after she got home both tires on the drivers side went flat because the bead on the wheels got damaged. I had one spare tire, but had to get on the phone to find another, luckily my friend Mike had one that was the perfect size, nearly bald but good enough to get around for a few days. While I was on the phone tracking down a spare tire I saw the little message scanning across the bottom of the TV screen saying how the freeway was being shut down due to icy conditions. They even said a Michigan State Police car was involved in one incident on that same stretch. MISTAKE NUMBER TWO - I automatically jumped to the conclusion that it was Michelle's driving that caused the incident, not the conditions. Perhaps her driving skill was not the main contributing factor. All things considered I guess it’s really not that bad, mostly plastic trim parts. It looks like the front bumper, grill, valence, rear bumper, rear fender flare, and two wheels got damaged and need to be replaced. The only body panel that got damaged was the rear fender and that can most likely be repaired. My dad has already located two wheels and got the tires mounted, they are on the truck right now and he’s taking it to get an estimate. In the end I still managed to watch some football, but it was interrupted by several computer searches on the internet for car parts.