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3/31/2008 Payton SurgeryThe surgery went well. The surgery was just under an hour... but we were at the hospital from 8 until about 3pm. Payton was a little stubborn about going to the bathroom, which was a reqirement of discharge. Also he was vomiting quite a lot, which is not that unusual- but still not something we wanted him to be doing in the car either. Turns out he did that anyway... but the bulk of it was at the hospital.
He is doing fine, just lethargic as most people feel after surgery.
 3/29/2008 WeekendWendy, Brian and Joey are coming to stay overnight today. Payton is excited, but confused and keeps thinking it is Rachel who is coming for some reason. I am not sure why he is making this switch in his head, but he probably will remember Joey once he sees him.
Monday is the big surgery day for Payton, Sunday night at midnight all food and drink is to be stopped, which isn't a big deal. The hardest thing will be telling him he can't have a morning banana, but actually when I think about it he seldom drinks anything in the morning.
How to spot a fake id? I guess put a photo of yourself AND your girlfriend in it.
 3/28/2008 Screen Printing at homeSo my latest thing is I taught myself to screen print. Well, a sort of bastardized version. I learned to screen print in college as part of a graphics design class I had, but it is a little more involved than I was willing to do for just a couple of T-shirts. This way is much less involved... and less expensive.  All you need is embroidery hoops, old pantyhose, some type of craft glue (I use Modge Podge), and your screen print ink. You can kind of see the outlines of my pattern on the big hoop- only because I marked them in green ink before I went over it with the glue. The idea is you paint the parts of the pattern in glue that you want to remain non-inked on the shirt, and then paint over the whole thing with the ink.  This was the first one I did... This is "Brain" Brain is a character from a Wii game Payton loves. He also has adopted Brain as somewhat of an imaginary friend. This is "Zuma Frog" Another character from a game Payton has taken a liking to. According to Payton Zuma frog is a "she".  This is an idea for the next shirt. This is Pigeon. He unlike the other two is a character from a book Payton likes. And he does look just like this in the book. I wish I would have thought of doing this one before I put Brain on the blue shirt, because Pigeon is light blue in color. I only have an orange shirt left.3/25/2008 Soccer
3/24/2008 Easter / Stuff3/18/2008 StuffI can't believe how quickly Easter is coming up. Our 7th anniversary was on the 16th. Tim surprised me with a jouney pendant necklace and an MP3 adaptor for the car. I wasn't expecting any of it because when he asked what I wanted I said I didn't want any gifts, and a card would be fine. But he surprised me none the less.
We had parent teacher confrences last night, and we were there for over an hour. Not because there were any problems, but because we were the last one of the night and Megan (his teacher) had to stay until 8 anyway so she had us stay in the room and chat and have Payton play with all the toys. He is going to "graduate" to Mrs. Glackins' 4 year old preschool next year along with his 'girlfriend' Jessi, but that was the only news that she had to report. He is doing just fine.
And I think we'll be getting the new car on Wednesday. We got a call Monday morning saying it the paperwork was all ready to go, and we could come in whenever we wanted to. I am going see if I can just sign off on the title and stuff here and send Tim with it by himself.
"blue screen of death"
 3/15/2008 New car... soon.Tim and I went to test drive a car today. We hadn't exactly planned on getting a car... but then well - you know how it is, you start imagining the car you have is going to go kaput on you, and you create a sence of urgency. We'll be taking posession of it next week. We had a loan lined up already and could have drove off the lot today, but GMAC had a better financing deal, so we decided to apply for credit though them. So waiting a few days until we can get back in to sign the papers is not a big deal.
We got a 2007 Malibu LT, in dark blue. We liked it primarly for the gas mileage it got (34 hwy), but yet wasn't a tiny little box. Ironically when we went to Barb and Kim's to drop off Payton while we were on the test drive, we noticed a nearly identical car to the one we were getting in the driveway... Apparantly Kristine also just got a new Malibu as well! So that was cool. We have matching cars. Hers is maroon.
 3/12/2008 OwI ran yesterday... outside, because it was nice. And after having switched almost exclusively to the elliptical this whole winter... running had concequences. Namely that I am sore today. I forgot that it is a different set of muscles. But I now remember switching to the elliptical and being sore when I made that switch.
 3/9/2008 Cookie Trial and ErrorsI worked on my sugar cookie recipe again this weekend. I think I have got the icing part perfected. The secret it would seem is that you can use the basic powdered sugar/milk formula for making the icing and then a little corn syrup makes it nice and glossy of course... but my problem was that while it looked great, it TASTED bad. Way too icky sweet. Some people like that maybe- not me. So this time I do the cup of powdered sugar. The dab of milk and corn syrup... then I added lemon extract AND lemon juice. The lemon juice toned down the sweetness enough for it to taste good. It made a lightly sweet lemon icing. I tried the same thing with lemon juice and orange extract and it worked well too, you could'nt taste the lemon flavor, but it toned down the sugaryness and just left you with a nice mild orange flavor. In the future I will probably just stick with my old favorite Almond extract.
As for my cookie part, I have the TASTE for the most part right, but the WRONG texture. They are sort of soft, but not pillowy soft (you know the kind you get at the store that just melt in your mouth?). Perhaps I need to just roll them out thicker than 1/4" as I have been doing. Thinking of adding an extra egg yolk and more butter next time. Obviously I do not believe in healthy baking. Maybe I just need more baking powder to help them fluff up during baking.
Every now and then I work on a recipe until I get it right. Then when I do, I move on to the next one. Since this one is almost done I guess I should think about my next baking challenge. I have never ever made Rice Krispie treats believe it or not. I hear they are very easy. I guess I never have made them because I never have Rice Krispies on hand, and then I always think they will be really messy to do.
 3/8/2008 SaturdayWe have no specific plans today. Tim is off to a meeting this morning for the Boyscouts, and although I could have gone, someone needed to stay home with Payton. I assume we'll play more Wii games. Tim got a couple new ones from the Rental place. Maybe I'll shower today. So as you can see BIG BIG plans for this day.
Math Teacher's bookshelf
 3/6/2008 Success!My first project was accepted at Energique, pending some minor tweaks to format, and they gave me some new ones to work on, so I'll take that as success.
Today I am doing my taxes. It's with the new tax guy I picked out. This year is a "quiet" tax year and was a good year to make the change I guess (assuming this guy works out). Next year will not be a "quiet" year and actually I might shed a tear or two when the tax bill comes in (it's going to be painful) but there is going to be the further minor tax complication of this new job, which currently I am not having any taxes taken from my check... So there will be the addition of the schedule 1099 form.
 3/4/2008 TuesdayI finished up my first project for Energique late last night. I shouldn't say finished, I should more say emailed my first three rough drafts of my flyer ideas over. I'll get the feedback on it later today perhaps. I am anxious to know if they were liked. Or even if they they weren't, I still am anxious to know what direction I should be heading in. Being the first project, I of course want it to go well.
 3/3/2008 New WeekThis weekend we did some shopping (Tim Payton and I) and we rented some Wii Games, figuring we could test if we liked them first before buying them since they are kind of expensive. Some being $50, you don't just want to buy them and not like them. So we rented 4 games that we thought would be family games that all of us could like. Elbits, Playground, Mario Party8, and Cooking Mama... but none really wowed us that much. Mario Party8 was the biggest surprise, Tim really felt he would like that one. Even with the disappointment, I am still glad we did this, because it just drives home the point that there are a lot of games for the Wii but not all are the right ones for us. But we still have others in mind that we want to try so this isn't the end.
Today I have to go into "work" for a couple minutes to sign a confidentiality agreement, and pick up the "theme" for my first project. I'm flying blind until I get that little piece of information. I know what the project is - designing a small flyer insert, but without the subject of the flyer it would be hard to create it. It will be some health related issue of course since that is along the lines of what Energique does (natural remedies - herbals, nutritionals, homeopathics) but that is all I know.
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Here is Payton in his Soccer duds for the first day of practice yesterday. Cleats and shin guards, and windbreaker with fleece underneath because it was cold. He was so excited he wanted to get dressed several hours before practice. Finally, at 4:00 I gave in. Practice was at 6:00. He really likes the cleats. They (like all shoes now for kids) light up when he walks.
He was slow to want to get involved when we got there, partly because the wind was really cold (which he hates) and partly because he didn't know anyone and I had told him he probably would see some school friends. I was disappointed more kids weren't out for soccer in the little kid division. Payton seemed to be the youngest... there was a little girl who may have been 5ish.. it is hard to tell... but those other boys were definately a couple years older as you can tell in the picture by the height difference. At any rate I sat on the sidelines during practice and watched so he would feel more comfortable, and by the end he did join in. At the finish of practice he told me he was pretty tired from all the running.
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