Spending Time Well

So Cathy and I had a fight last night. Hm... a "fight" implies two sides to the issue, but in this case there is only one person at fault, so it wasn't really a "fight". Anyway, I'm recording this mostly because I have a bad memory, and this is my diary-of-sorts, so here goes.

Cathy works hard. She works hard at the office, and she works hard at home. This is made more difficult by her present illness. The difficulty is compounded by my involvement in school. I don't cook fast enough or well enough to relieve her of that task, and I can do laundry only if it is sorted. So, that leaves Cathy working hard, and all I can do is help.

I don't tend to help much when I'm under pressure at school. Now that I am out of school for the summer, I went into "neutral"... but Cathy needed my help, and I wasn't thinking of her.

It is odd; Cathy thinks I am a good husband, and she knows that I love her. I believe her when she says these things. However, she also thinks I am being selfish with my time now that I am out of school. Basically, when I have unplanned time, I do what I feel like doing; sometimes it is work, sometimes I goof off. Cathy does not feel that she has the luxury of goofing off because things need to be done. And she wants me to spend my unplanned time with her rather than goofing off.

That makes sense, right? I think so. I just didn't realize that she wasn't getting my unplanned time.

So the catalyst to the fight was this: Cathy suggested we watch some "24", so we had dinner and watched an episode or two. About 10 PM we called it a night. I had promised to clean up the kitchen that night. When we got done with 24, I went to check my email and stuff, and Cathy asked me to do the dishes. I told her I would before I went to bed, she asked me to do them now, I said I didn't want to, she got upset, I got upset, we had a fight.

After we worked past the emotions, I just sat and listened to Cathy for a while as she vented her frustrations. When she was done, I realized why she was upset.

Phyllis Diller once said,

"Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight."

Well, she's funny, but she's funny because she's right. We stayed up and worked it out. And the sad truth is that I haven't been thinking of Cathy like I should, especially now that I actually have some unplanned time on my hands.

Well, I've asked God for help, and I think this is part of His way of progressively making me conform to the image of His Son. I figured I would blog this so that I would remember, so that it would humble me, and so that you could think about it, too.

Quick Update - Cathy is "Well" and Other News

Sorry, friends! Since my previous post, an awful lot has happened. First, Cathy is much better; thank you for praying!

Let's see...

• Lee burned his hand,
• Cathy got over her cold and cough,
• Cathy has only 7 shots left,
• Lee won a PocketPC at a Microsoft event (yeah!),
• Lee finished his summer class,
• Lee is now considered (unpaid) "support staff" at church,
• We refinanced our house,
• Ellen went home,
• Mom got her license,
• Lee got a new devotional bible,
• We started a new diet...
• and we'll be finishing remodeling #2 soon.
  

We're currently catching up on season 2 of "24"... it's too hot to do anything else!
I'll supply some details tomorrow, or later tonight. Thank again for praying!

A Time for Everything

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven" - Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3

Well, my summer class if finally over. Those was four grueling weeks of class, but I finished. During that time, I studied a church in Fullerton called Eastside. Nice church...

I started reading my daily devotions from the NLT. I received a copy of "The One Year Bible NLT" and decided I like it. There is a daily reading from the OT, the NT, a psalm and some proverbs. At the end of the year you have read Psalms twice and Proverbs 4 times. It is working out pretty good for my devotional reading, although I have been reading the daily allotment as well as "catching up" from January.

We also started a new diet... I've been on Atkins for over a week now. Cathy is still fat-free, so she's eating veggies and fish with the occassional bit of lean chicken. The Atkins-for-Lee & Low-fat-for Cathy thing was making it very difficult to cook (Cathy essentially prepares two separate meals), so some meeting of the minds was in order. It turns out that The South Beach Diet (article) is a refinement and, if you will, an update on the role of carbohydrates and fat in a diet. So, I can transition from Atkisn to SBD without trouble, and it really helps Cathy plan meals. So now I'm on the SBD.

Finally... another good thing kinda came to an end. Ellen the Kitten went home with her new parents a few minutes ago. We're going to miss her, but we're happy for her. She'll get spayed in approximately one month, so I'll see her again. But we are limiting contact in order to facilitate her bonding to her new mommy and daddy. *sniff*

Seven Shots Left!

After taking tonight's dose, there are only seven (7) shots left for Cathy's treatment!

Now we are down to shots, not months! Yeah!

I Won A PocketPC!

I won a HP iPAQ hx2490b PocketPC! I attended a Microsoft Connections event about Windows Vista (the new operating system) and Small Business Server (totally recommended once you actually need a server, install it all the time myself). There are always raffles, and I never win anything, except today I did!

Here's a diagram...

When the very fist iPAQ came out (before HP bought Compaq), Cathy got one for me for Christmas of 2000. I remember it well. When the power convertor died, it was too expensive to fix and I was too cheap to replace it. It still ran on the outlet, but that kinda defeats the purpose.

Anyway, It has WiFi (802.11b), Bluetooth, 256 MB of memory, and it is fast. I can't really blog from it, but I can manage my personal life and email from it now.

My first iPAQ was "Pocket PC 2000" and my new one is Windows Mobile 5.0.

I almost left it in the box. I was debating selling it, but decided to keep it. It is nice!

Cathy Slept Through the Night

Thank God, Cathy finally slept through the night Thursday. The coughing had been keeping her up for days, and when I woke this morning I realized I hadn't listened to her coughing throughout the night. Yeah!

So, I think she is finally getting over her cold and cough. Thank God! And thank you for praying.

I Burned My Hand!

Ouch. I was rushing off to class this morning, trying to cook breakfast and gather my stuff. I'm on the Atkins Diet now, still doing Induction, so it is just meat and salads for me. Fortunately, that includes bacon!

So I was cooking bacon, rushing around the kitchen, and Malachi (I love her) jumps on my shoulder, and she doesn't want to get off. Somehow, I end up spilling hot bacon grease on my left hand! I ran it under cold water, but I didn't have time to treat it properly. So I grabbed a bag of frozen broccoli, the first aid kit, my food and my stuff and rushed off to class.

I applied what first aid I could to my hand during class. The grease had gotten between the fingers, so it made taking notes painful. About 30 minutes into the class I called campus safety and asked if they had a better first aid kit, and they do! A thick guaze saturated with burn cream and some bandaging later, I went back to class.

UPDATE: My hand is going to be O.K. There was only a small spot between my index and middle finger that got missed and blistered.

Cathy Very Sick

My poor Cathy got sick again on Monday. It appears to be the same thing she had a couple of weeks ago. I didn't mention it, but she also got an eye infection.

Last night, Cathy was coughing so hard she got violently sick and threw up several times throughout the night. I'm pretty sure she didn't get much sleep. I ran to the store twice to pick up progressively stronger cough/throat medication. Finally, the numbing spray gave her enough relieve from the cough that she could at least sit still.

I hate feeling helpless. I prayed, but I wanted to take the suffering away myself if possible. I asked God for mercy, and He did allow her to sleep rest. Please pray that she'll get some rest this weekend!

Blogging Comments?

Saw this Pearls Before Swine comic today and thought it worth sharing.

I blog for several reasons, one of which is to give friends and family a way to keep up with us Joneses. I also do it as a brain dump and a pseudo-diary. Sorry I haven't been posting much... I'll catch all y'all up later on today... there's a lot to tell, but not much time to tell it!

Powers of 10

When I was a young warthog, I would lay in a field and stare into the night sky; I could usually shield myself from enough light to make it iteresting. It caused me to ponder the vastness of the universe, and I wondered about my place in it. Mentally, I would "zoom out" to the limits of my imagination and knowledge. It is an interesting experiment.

In 1977, Charles and Ray Eames made a nine-minute film called Powers of Ten that still has the capacity today to expand the way we think and view our world. Over ten million people have since seen the film and it continues to be shown in classrooms, business meetings, festivals and retreats everywhere. Starting with a sleeping man at a picnic, the film takes the viewer on a journey out to the edge of space and then back into a carbon atom in the hand of the man picnic, all in a single shot. It is an unforgettable experience. . . Powers of Ten illustrates the universe as an arena of both continuity and change, of everyday picnics and cosmic mystery.

Then, one day I came across a video entitled "Powers of 10". I found this video very fascinating and tried later on to reproduce similar effects on Google Earth, but nothing really does justice to the movie. If you have not seen "Powers of 10" you can watch it on YouTube (also embedded below).

Ellen chasing her tail

Ellen Eating

OK, NOW we're moved in

With the help of our friends Chris & Laura we moved the living room and kitchen over on Saturday. Today I moved Cathy's office (where I'm sitting now, in facet). It finally feel like I'm home again!

No More Support for Windows 98 and ME

In a post to the Microsoft Security Response Center Blog, Christopher Budd indicates that

support for Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Millennium Edition (Me) ends on July 11, 2006, which is the July 2006 Monthly Bulletin Release date. This means Microsoft will end public and technical support on July 11, 2006. This also includes security updates.

Windows XP with Service Pack 1 will also no longer be updated.

Still using Windows 98 or ME? It is really time to move up. Get ZoneAlarm now while the getting is good. Most companies will drop support for Win98 and ME very soon. ZoneAlarm's personal (free) firewall is currently version 6.0 and works on Windows 98 and ME, but their system requirements page indicates Win98 and ME will not be able to run version 6.5.

If you are still running WinXP SP1, it is time to go to Service Pack 2.

Mostly Moved In

We're mostly moved in now. Moving from one apartment next door isn't nearly as difficult as moving across town.

At this point, we have the bedrooms and bathrooms moved, and part of the kitchen. This weekend, after class, I'll move the office and living room. I'm hoping to rent an appliance dolly to move the fridge and oven.

The cats have settled in O.K., although Malachi is still freaking out a little. We will have to be careful to keep the cats indoors for the next two weeks until they think of this new place as home.

On the plus side, the place is bigger, and that gives Cathy's mom a room and a bed (she was sleeping in the office). And it is nice to be able to shower again instead of taking baths. On the down side, we put in much nicer flooring (thicker carpet pads and better tile) and counters in the other apartment. Oh well.

Update on Ellen the Kitten

Cathy took Ellen to get tested on Saturday, and I got a call on Sunday indicating that everything came back negative! Yeah! So, it is confirmed that Ellen is as healthy as she looks.

The other cats all investigated her now that they are allowed to touch her. Zechariah was quick to pin her down and bathe her... :-)

She eats solid food now, so we're about done weaning her. As soon she gets spayed, she can go home to her new mommy & daddy, who have picked out a new name for her. So we'll get to enjoy Ellen for a few more weeks.

We're Moving

From the "what's up with Lee & Cathy" department... we're moving again. We're not going far, however, just next door.

Apartment 1 of our triplex opened up when two of the girls decided to get married in June. So we made plans to rent it out. The main person we were looking at flaked out a week before the move and we had already turned other people away, so we had no renters. You plan for vacancy, so we were not terribly worried, and then I had a conversation at church that led to our move.

A friend at church asked if I had an apartment open. As a matter of fact, apartment 1 had just opened up. It is for his wife's parents, but they don't need a three-bedroom place. He mentioned his parents might want to move into our two bedroom and suggested we move into the larger unit and make our current available. The only problem is I have not finished our unit yet. So, he suggested the following scenario:

• The Joneses move to #1
• He helps me finish remodeling #2
• His parents move into #2

I told him I would think about it and see what my wife thinks. He'll see what his wife thinks, and we'll talk again. A few days go by and I finally remember this and bring it up to Cathy. She gets so excited about the idea that, regardless of what my friend says, she has her heart set on moving into the larger unit.

The girls that moved out did a pretty good job cleaning, so the effort will be minimal. I'll probably move non-essential stuff tonight (winter clothes, etc) and move in earnest once electricity is restored. I'm not sure about all the utilities, but I'm hoping they all just transfer. We'll see. Hey, who knows... maybe my friend's parents will still move in! That would be convenient...

Ellen playing with a ball

Ellen is growing... here she is, playing with a jingly ball.

14 Years - What a Difference

Here's my new license... it has been 14 years since my first license photo!

Let's see... in 14 years I have...

• Gained 1 inch :-) and 20 pounds :-(
• Grown hair on my chin :-) but lost hair on my head :-(
• Lived at eight different addresses!

Boy, does time fly.