As always, check out my website at: http://www.thomnichols.com/
Wow, I’m not sure what I ate today, but you can all be glad that you’re not here with me tonight. (I said that holding my nose) It’s Monday night again and time for my blog entry. Not a whole lot has happened this week. This is always a desperate time of the year, football is over and baseball hasn’t started yet. But, we’re muddling through.
My wife is back to a normal schedule this week. And that means that since my daughter doesn’t work tonight, she got off at six, I get to use my car. Woo hoo!!! Speaking of cars, it looks like my son is going to buy his first car tomorrow. The kids went down to the dealership today to see what they could get. I’m not going to tell you the make or model, because that kind of stuff doesn’t stick with me. They could have stenciled it into my forehead and I still wouldn’t know ten minutes after we left. But, it’s a $13,000 car and their payments will only be about $230 a month. They think they can swing that along with all of their other bills, so we’re going to go down and co-sign for them tomorrow.
I managed to finagle the taxes we owe down from $600 to $24. I’m happy about that. But, we’re going to have to do something for next year. I’m sure my youngest daughter is going to work all year, so she’ll do her own taxes and we won’t get anything from her. We’re still thinking about getting a house. Hopefully that will give us a nice credit and we’ll adjust our W4 forms pretty soon. We keep saying we need to do that, but neither of us have spoken to our HR people yet. I’m blaming mine on me working nights and sleeping during the days. Even though I haven’t called yet, I’m going to go with them being closed every day after I wake up.
It snowed again. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for me to have to shovel.
My youngest daughter took us all out to the movies yesterday. They all went to see the Vow. It’s a girl movie that I was really looking forward to missing. So, while they went to it, I went to see Chronicle. It was pretty good. My movie got out before theirs and I had to wait for over a half hour for them to come out. But, it was ok. All of the movie employees gave me quite a few dirty looks as I stood there next to the counter. No one came to try kicking me out or anything, but they kept a good eye on me.
My wife rented some DVDs from the Red Box today. When she brought them home, she popped them into the Wii only to find out that the Wii won’t play them. We had given our DVD player to my eldest daughter about a month ago, so now it looks like she’s going to have to play her movies on her computer. She doesn’t like that.
I’m still in the re-read portion of the River of Magic. I doubt if I’ll get it finished this week, because I’m a slow reader. But, it should be ready next week. I’ll keep you posted. For now, I better get to it. I’m putting in Zeppelin, Floyd, and the Eagles in the playlist tonight for background music. Talk to you next week.
-Thom
Monday, February 20, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Feb 13
Like always, please visit my website: http://www.thomnichols.com/
Fantastic news everyone. Yes, you guessed it. The official Rockies schedule was posted. It actually might have been posted before now, but today was the first time I looked at it. It is February 13th today and the first game is March 3rd. So, that means that there are only 19 days left until Spring Training and baseball. Yoo Hoo!!!!!
Our first game is against the Arizona Diamondbacks and it should be a great one. I don’t know anything about it yet, because I haven’t looked. But, I’ll let everyone know next week after I start reading what’s going on this week. So, enough about that.
The other great news is that the River of Magic is finished. I typed up the last page on Saturday. So, today I’m starting the re-read to make sure there isn’t any continuity or storyline problems, not to mention spelling or grammatical problems. There are usually more spelling and grammatical problems than anything else. When I’m typing, I’m usually going pretty fast and that’s not good. Sometimes my fingers are behind what I’m telling them to do and something gets forgotten or misspelled or even left out. So, I have about a week or so of the re-read and then it goes to my Editor (my mom). She’ll find everything that I miss.
I’m going to put in a lot more effort this time into trying to get it published the right way instead of just going right to self publishing. It’s about time to stop messing around. So, even though it’s finished, it might not be available for several more months.
The not so fantastic news is that I turbo taxed my return this last week. We’ve always had so many kids living with us that we’ve never really had to worry about getting a refund. Well, nearly all of the kids are out of the house and working. When I threw the numbers into Turbo Tax, we ended up owing $600.00 to federal but getting back about $20.00 from the state. Not very good news. So, we’re going to take all of the stuff down to H&R Block just to see if they can do anything for us. I hope so. Next, we’re going to have to change out W2 withholdings. We also want to try to get a house. We were expecting to try for one next year after my youngest went off to school, but we need that deduction, so we’ll try for one this year. That means that I need to start throwing money into our credit cards and stuff. We talked to the VA last year and they said that we almost qualified. They just wanted us to bring down a couple of the cards. We probably could have done it, but we were planning a trip and some other things and as it turned out, we maxed out those cards they wanted us to bring down. We still have some things planned this year, but I’ll plan them better this time.
Speaking of income taxes, my oldest daughter and my daughter in-law are going to get really good returns. I’m so jealous. My youngest had just started working and didn’t make enough to file this year. She will next year and the little bit we got for her will be gone, so we’re really going to be in trouble next year if we don’t get the house.
My oldest had her Army Reserve training this week. She had more to do than last month and they’re still trying to send her to another school. Since all of the military have pulled out of Afghanistan, the government is cutting military spending, so there isn’t much money to go around. They’re even kicking people out that don’t pass their PT tests and don’t measure up to their standards. My daughter is ok, but she said that there were about eight people in her reserve unit that didn’t pass their PT. They retook it over the weekend and only two of them passed the second time. She still hasn’t found a regular job yet, but she’s trying. The hard part for her is transportation. She really needs a car.
My youngest daughter is still working at the movie theater. She likes it, or I should say she likes having her own money. She likes most of the work, but some of it is kind of boring. She doesn’t like being the person that stands at the door taking the tickets because she can’t move around.
My wife had to work at a different building all last week and this week, so she had to be at work an hour early every day. It screwed up our transportation system, but we’re coping pretty well. It’s only a few more days anyway. She’s kind of tired of it because she loses an hour of sleep every night and can’t make it up during the day. So, she’s exhausted.
I taught my granddaughter a new word today and got in trouble. We were in the car when my wife went up to my daughter’s apartment to see what was keeping her. I made the mistake of saying that she probably walked in on my daughter and her boyfriend doing something funky. Well, my granddaughter liked the word funky and liked it even more putting the word monkey after it. So, when my wife came back down with my daughter and her boyfriend, she asked them if they were doing the funky monkey upstairs. I don’t think my wife is going to let me hang around with my granddaughter anymore.
My God daughter’s daughter had a birthday party on Sunday. It was nice. She’s getting pretty big. I think I got in trouble. I disappeared upstairs and ended up watching some TV. When my wife came up, she wasn’t talking to me. I didn’t intend on watching TV, it was just on and I got carried away. But, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, so I’ll make it up to her.
That’s about all for today. I’d better get started on my re-read. The sooner I get that done, the sooner I can start on the next one.
I woke up late today and it took me a while to realize that I was running late, so I’m putting in some loud music in the playlist to keep me going tonight. Dio, White Lion, Dokken, AC/DC, and Slaughter should do it.
-Thom
Fantastic news everyone. Yes, you guessed it. The official Rockies schedule was posted. It actually might have been posted before now, but today was the first time I looked at it. It is February 13th today and the first game is March 3rd. So, that means that there are only 19 days left until Spring Training and baseball. Yoo Hoo!!!!!
Our first game is against the Arizona Diamondbacks and it should be a great one. I don’t know anything about it yet, because I haven’t looked. But, I’ll let everyone know next week after I start reading what’s going on this week. So, enough about that.
The other great news is that the River of Magic is finished. I typed up the last page on Saturday. So, today I’m starting the re-read to make sure there isn’t any continuity or storyline problems, not to mention spelling or grammatical problems. There are usually more spelling and grammatical problems than anything else. When I’m typing, I’m usually going pretty fast and that’s not good. Sometimes my fingers are behind what I’m telling them to do and something gets forgotten or misspelled or even left out. So, I have about a week or so of the re-read and then it goes to my Editor (my mom). She’ll find everything that I miss.
I’m going to put in a lot more effort this time into trying to get it published the right way instead of just going right to self publishing. It’s about time to stop messing around. So, even though it’s finished, it might not be available for several more months.
The not so fantastic news is that I turbo taxed my return this last week. We’ve always had so many kids living with us that we’ve never really had to worry about getting a refund. Well, nearly all of the kids are out of the house and working. When I threw the numbers into Turbo Tax, we ended up owing $600.00 to federal but getting back about $20.00 from the state. Not very good news. So, we’re going to take all of the stuff down to H&R Block just to see if they can do anything for us. I hope so. Next, we’re going to have to change out W2 withholdings. We also want to try to get a house. We were expecting to try for one next year after my youngest went off to school, but we need that deduction, so we’ll try for one this year. That means that I need to start throwing money into our credit cards and stuff. We talked to the VA last year and they said that we almost qualified. They just wanted us to bring down a couple of the cards. We probably could have done it, but we were planning a trip and some other things and as it turned out, we maxed out those cards they wanted us to bring down. We still have some things planned this year, but I’ll plan them better this time.
Speaking of income taxes, my oldest daughter and my daughter in-law are going to get really good returns. I’m so jealous. My youngest had just started working and didn’t make enough to file this year. She will next year and the little bit we got for her will be gone, so we’re really going to be in trouble next year if we don’t get the house.
My oldest had her Army Reserve training this week. She had more to do than last month and they’re still trying to send her to another school. Since all of the military have pulled out of Afghanistan, the government is cutting military spending, so there isn’t much money to go around. They’re even kicking people out that don’t pass their PT tests and don’t measure up to their standards. My daughter is ok, but she said that there were about eight people in her reserve unit that didn’t pass their PT. They retook it over the weekend and only two of them passed the second time. She still hasn’t found a regular job yet, but she’s trying. The hard part for her is transportation. She really needs a car.
My youngest daughter is still working at the movie theater. She likes it, or I should say she likes having her own money. She likes most of the work, but some of it is kind of boring. She doesn’t like being the person that stands at the door taking the tickets because she can’t move around.
My wife had to work at a different building all last week and this week, so she had to be at work an hour early every day. It screwed up our transportation system, but we’re coping pretty well. It’s only a few more days anyway. She’s kind of tired of it because she loses an hour of sleep every night and can’t make it up during the day. So, she’s exhausted.
I taught my granddaughter a new word today and got in trouble. We were in the car when my wife went up to my daughter’s apartment to see what was keeping her. I made the mistake of saying that she probably walked in on my daughter and her boyfriend doing something funky. Well, my granddaughter liked the word funky and liked it even more putting the word monkey after it. So, when my wife came back down with my daughter and her boyfriend, she asked them if they were doing the funky monkey upstairs. I don’t think my wife is going to let me hang around with my granddaughter anymore.
My God daughter’s daughter had a birthday party on Sunday. It was nice. She’s getting pretty big. I think I got in trouble. I disappeared upstairs and ended up watching some TV. When my wife came up, she wasn’t talking to me. I didn’t intend on watching TV, it was just on and I got carried away. But, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, so I’ll make it up to her.
That’s about all for today. I’d better get started on my re-read. The sooner I get that done, the sooner I can start on the next one.
I woke up late today and it took me a while to realize that I was running late, so I’m putting in some loud music in the playlist to keep me going tonight. Dio, White Lion, Dokken, AC/DC, and Slaughter should do it.
-Thom
Monday, February 6, 2012
Feb 06
As always, don't forget to check out my website. http://www.thomnichols.com/
Happy Monday everyone. I know that I didn’t post a blog last week, but I have a very good excuse. I was very sick. That’s the second cold I’ve gotten this winter. Usually if I get sick it’s only once, but I guess it was just my turn. This one was really bad. I thought I had it licked over the weekend. I stayed in bed all day Sunday and Monday. I took all kinds of day and night time cold stuff. But, Monday night and Tuesday it came back with a vengeance. The worst thing was that it got into my eye. All last week it looked like I was walking around with a black eye. I thought about telling everyone that my wife beat me up, but she didn’t like that idea. It’s much better now. It’s still red and it looks kind of droopy and it leaks like a faucet, but it doesn’t hurt or anything. All of the swelling is going down too. I think there was a sty in it or something. Maybe a spider bit me while I was in a drug induced stupor. Whatever it is, I can’t wait until it goes away. On Tuesday or Wednesday, I got off work and mixed up some Theraflu. I thought it wasn’t working because I expected it to knock me out. Trying to sleep, I ended up watching TV and tossing and turning. I know it was after ten when I finally fell asleep, but when I woke up, my cold was gone. That Theraflu worked like a charm. I took some more the next day, but I don’t think I needed to. I felt great. So, if I can just get my eye to work I’ll be at one hundred percent. I need to stop wiping it with my fingers. But, it’s hard to remember to grab a napkin all the time. My wife put some drops in there yesterday, and made me start carrying a napkin around. I’ve been pretty good at it today, but it is so much easier to just wipe it with the back of my hand.
It snowed big time over this last week. (Two days straight without a break) I had a great time getting off work and then spending the next hour and a half shoveling the sidewalks at the house. The first day, the roads were miserable. Thank goodness for four wheel drive. My wife got stuck in front of the house when she was trying to drop my daughter off at work. The ice and snow was sooooo bad, she couldn’t get any traction and slammed into the curb. (Better than slamming into a car or person) She had my daughter borrow a snow shovel from the corner store because neither of them wanted to go back to the house to get ours. They dug themselves out and by then the main roads were plowed.
The way we work out our car situation, because we only have one at the moment, is my wife takes it to work at seven. I get off at six, so I wait over at her building until she gets there. I take it home. My daughter takes it to work and parks in my wife’s garage. My wife takes it home at three. I take it to work when I go in at ten and park in my garage. Then, when my daughter gets off at about midnight, she comes and gets it from me. Then, we start the cycle all over again. But, since it was snowing like a monster out there, I didn’t want my daughter to drive home in the middle of the night with icy roads. So, I brought a blanket and pillow to work with me and made her sleep in the car until I got off at six. She said it wasn’t too bad, but very cold. (Before I get a bunch of nasty emails, it is an enclosed underground garage and I had a camera on her the whole time.)
We went over to my brother’s house for the Super Bowl yesterday. I’m not a fan of either team, but I just assumed that the Patriots would blow away the Giants. (That’s why I don’t gamble) The Giants ended up winning. It was a fun evening. While we watched football, the girls and the kids were playing some dance game in the other room. And, I have to tell you, that dance game was one of the better inventions of the year. It kept the wife busy and she didn’t complain about having to watch the game once. Someone should have thought about that years ago. We had finger foods and tacos. My mom brought some bacon wrapped chicken which was a big success. There was a whole platter of them and they didn’t make it until everyone got their plates ready. I know I nibbled on quite a few of them. The game pool was of course rigged. I don’t know how he did it, but my brother’s son won the first two rounds and nearly took home the big score at the end. My wife won the third round, so that means we stopped off at McDonalds on the way home. I wanted to get an ice cream, but somehow I missed out and only got an ice tea. My niece took home the big prize and my nephew didn’t even get a shout out for being close. (He wasn’t a happy camper) My other brother and his kids didn’t make it. Someone said something about him taking his wife’s birth mother to the airport. It’s too bad he didn’t show up, I had some money to give to him. Now, I’ll have to find some time to get to his house. He lives up north and I don’t get out that way very often. Actually, I don’t get anywhere very often. That’s the problem with graveyard shifts. When I wake up, the wife and kids are getting off of school and work, so I want to spend some time with them before I go to work. But, since I’m just waking up, we don’t go anywhere, or they went somewhere before they came home to wake me up.
While I was sick this last week, I had a little trouble walking and fell down the stairs at my house. There are nineteen of those bad boys and they are rickety and dangerous. But, that’s not the bad part. The bad part came as I was falling. Since I was on my way to work at the time, I was carrying the stuff I usually bring to work. One of those things is a book. The one I was reading at the time belonged to my brother. It was number three in a series and he graciously let me borrow it. So, when I was at his house on Sunday, I made sure to borrow a new book before I told him what happened to the old one. As I was falling, everything in my hands flew up into the air. Somehow, when it landed, it lost most of its back cover. I would have taped it back on or something, but I couldn’t even find the ripped part.
My granddaughter discovered knock-knock jokes. She’s only four, and she doesn’t quite get the idea of a joke. For some reason, the end of the joke always ends with poo poo or something like that. But, she’s so cute when she says them that I still laugh. She was very disappointed that one of my brothers didn’t make it to the game on Sunday because my brother has a daughter that is just a year or so older than my granddaughter. For the last two weeks, she’s been asking about her and verifying that she would be at the party. It was like her only reason for going. Then, they didn’t show up. There were still other kids to play with, but she always seems to fixate on my brother’s youngest.
My wife is working the six to two shift for the next couple of weeks. It’s throwing our schedule off, but it gets her away from her boss which is nice.
None of the kids are doing anything interesting, or I’ve been too sick to notice. I should probably ask them.
The River of Magic should be done this week or next week. I thought it was going to be finished by the end of last week, but I added a bit that I wasn’t planning on putting in it. I think it’s better for it though. We’ll see what everyone else thinks. So, on that note, I better get busy and finish it up. I’m putting Pink Floyd, Night Ranger, and the Steve Miller Band in the playlist tonight for background music.
-Thom
Happy Monday everyone. I know that I didn’t post a blog last week, but I have a very good excuse. I was very sick. That’s the second cold I’ve gotten this winter. Usually if I get sick it’s only once, but I guess it was just my turn. This one was really bad. I thought I had it licked over the weekend. I stayed in bed all day Sunday and Monday. I took all kinds of day and night time cold stuff. But, Monday night and Tuesday it came back with a vengeance. The worst thing was that it got into my eye. All last week it looked like I was walking around with a black eye. I thought about telling everyone that my wife beat me up, but she didn’t like that idea. It’s much better now. It’s still red and it looks kind of droopy and it leaks like a faucet, but it doesn’t hurt or anything. All of the swelling is going down too. I think there was a sty in it or something. Maybe a spider bit me while I was in a drug induced stupor. Whatever it is, I can’t wait until it goes away. On Tuesday or Wednesday, I got off work and mixed up some Theraflu. I thought it wasn’t working because I expected it to knock me out. Trying to sleep, I ended up watching TV and tossing and turning. I know it was after ten when I finally fell asleep, but when I woke up, my cold was gone. That Theraflu worked like a charm. I took some more the next day, but I don’t think I needed to. I felt great. So, if I can just get my eye to work I’ll be at one hundred percent. I need to stop wiping it with my fingers. But, it’s hard to remember to grab a napkin all the time. My wife put some drops in there yesterday, and made me start carrying a napkin around. I’ve been pretty good at it today, but it is so much easier to just wipe it with the back of my hand.
It snowed big time over this last week. (Two days straight without a break) I had a great time getting off work and then spending the next hour and a half shoveling the sidewalks at the house. The first day, the roads were miserable. Thank goodness for four wheel drive. My wife got stuck in front of the house when she was trying to drop my daughter off at work. The ice and snow was sooooo bad, she couldn’t get any traction and slammed into the curb. (Better than slamming into a car or person) She had my daughter borrow a snow shovel from the corner store because neither of them wanted to go back to the house to get ours. They dug themselves out and by then the main roads were plowed.
The way we work out our car situation, because we only have one at the moment, is my wife takes it to work at seven. I get off at six, so I wait over at her building until she gets there. I take it home. My daughter takes it to work and parks in my wife’s garage. My wife takes it home at three. I take it to work when I go in at ten and park in my garage. Then, when my daughter gets off at about midnight, she comes and gets it from me. Then, we start the cycle all over again. But, since it was snowing like a monster out there, I didn’t want my daughter to drive home in the middle of the night with icy roads. So, I brought a blanket and pillow to work with me and made her sleep in the car until I got off at six. She said it wasn’t too bad, but very cold. (Before I get a bunch of nasty emails, it is an enclosed underground garage and I had a camera on her the whole time.)
We went over to my brother’s house for the Super Bowl yesterday. I’m not a fan of either team, but I just assumed that the Patriots would blow away the Giants. (That’s why I don’t gamble) The Giants ended up winning. It was a fun evening. While we watched football, the girls and the kids were playing some dance game in the other room. And, I have to tell you, that dance game was one of the better inventions of the year. It kept the wife busy and she didn’t complain about having to watch the game once. Someone should have thought about that years ago. We had finger foods and tacos. My mom brought some bacon wrapped chicken which was a big success. There was a whole platter of them and they didn’t make it until everyone got their plates ready. I know I nibbled on quite a few of them. The game pool was of course rigged. I don’t know how he did it, but my brother’s son won the first two rounds and nearly took home the big score at the end. My wife won the third round, so that means we stopped off at McDonalds on the way home. I wanted to get an ice cream, but somehow I missed out and only got an ice tea. My niece took home the big prize and my nephew didn’t even get a shout out for being close. (He wasn’t a happy camper) My other brother and his kids didn’t make it. Someone said something about him taking his wife’s birth mother to the airport. It’s too bad he didn’t show up, I had some money to give to him. Now, I’ll have to find some time to get to his house. He lives up north and I don’t get out that way very often. Actually, I don’t get anywhere very often. That’s the problem with graveyard shifts. When I wake up, the wife and kids are getting off of school and work, so I want to spend some time with them before I go to work. But, since I’m just waking up, we don’t go anywhere, or they went somewhere before they came home to wake me up.
While I was sick this last week, I had a little trouble walking and fell down the stairs at my house. There are nineteen of those bad boys and they are rickety and dangerous. But, that’s not the bad part. The bad part came as I was falling. Since I was on my way to work at the time, I was carrying the stuff I usually bring to work. One of those things is a book. The one I was reading at the time belonged to my brother. It was number three in a series and he graciously let me borrow it. So, when I was at his house on Sunday, I made sure to borrow a new book before I told him what happened to the old one. As I was falling, everything in my hands flew up into the air. Somehow, when it landed, it lost most of its back cover. I would have taped it back on or something, but I couldn’t even find the ripped part.
My granddaughter discovered knock-knock jokes. She’s only four, and she doesn’t quite get the idea of a joke. For some reason, the end of the joke always ends with poo poo or something like that. But, she’s so cute when she says them that I still laugh. She was very disappointed that one of my brothers didn’t make it to the game on Sunday because my brother has a daughter that is just a year or so older than my granddaughter. For the last two weeks, she’s been asking about her and verifying that she would be at the party. It was like her only reason for going. Then, they didn’t show up. There were still other kids to play with, but she always seems to fixate on my brother’s youngest.
My wife is working the six to two shift for the next couple of weeks. It’s throwing our schedule off, but it gets her away from her boss which is nice.
None of the kids are doing anything interesting, or I’ve been too sick to notice. I should probably ask them.
The River of Magic should be done this week or next week. I thought it was going to be finished by the end of last week, but I added a bit that I wasn’t planning on putting in it. I think it’s better for it though. We’ll see what everyone else thinks. So, on that note, I better get busy and finish it up. I’m putting Pink Floyd, Night Ranger, and the Steve Miller Band in the playlist tonight for background music.
-Thom
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