And, in an effort to do this more often, I’m giving up on my lame captions.  Pictures are worth 1000 words already, you don’t need my dumb commentary.

Ran out of time today, but I’ve got a bunch of videos to post as well, hopefully tomorrow.  Also in an effort to streamline things, for starters, to get caught up, I’m just going to mash them all together in one big stream of consciousness kidfest.  It’s been so long since I’ve done this routinely, I can’t even remember all the steps and processes I used to go through, so I’ll probably be looking for more effortless ways to post video as well.  We’ll see what happens.

Lola sings Jingle Bells, December 2008
[See post to watch Flash video]

Sidney gets fit on the Wii, January 2009
[See post to watch Flash video]

Sid dances, January 2009
[See post to watch Flash video]

Road trip with Paigey and Grandpa, not sure where we were going…March 2009
[See post to watch Flash video]

Ring around the rosie, August 2009
[See post to watch Flash video]

Lola sings “sticky”, August 2009
[See post to watch Flash video]

Sid rolls in on his Spiderman scooter, August 2009
[See post to watch Flash video]

Sid bonds with Tasty, October 2009
[See post to watch Flash video]
And the masterpiece, the grand finale, Lola presents a classic of our time, Don’t Stop Believin’, October 2009
[See post to watch Flash video] ]]> http://cheztiar.com/main/2009/11/13/videos/feed 1 http://cheztiar.com/main/2009/10/09/ugh http://cheztiar.com/main/2009/10/09/ugh#comments Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:09:03 +0000 marct http://cheztiar.com/main/?p=558 Continue reading →]]> Feeling just a bit overwhelmed right now…I tend to in general anyway, just trying to keep straight all the “stuff” in our lives: work and various obligations and deadlines there, the store and the various demands it places on us, kids and their various needs, and all the peripheral stuff like bills to pay, chores and yardwork around the house, etc.   But right now, something very specific is making me panic.

I got this harebrained idea that for EcoReno’s first anniversary/grand opening party, I would do a workshop on building your own solar oven.  I’ve always wanted to, didn’t seem too hard, and seemed like a good little “event” to have at the shop.  And now, after weeks of trying to secure the perfect sized boxes, accumulating other required items, and scrutinizing various plans, I’ve reached the conclusion that I’m totally screwed.  It’s way too complicated, I don’t have the right size pieces of cardboard, and I’m in over my head.  I really don’t want to be a quitter on this, but I just don’t see how I can do it.  I have no idea if anyone will even show up, if it’ll be just one person or a dozen, or what.  Failure.

As long as I’m here, a brief update on the assorted other stuff in our lives.  Sid is recuperating well from his little surgery recently.  Details a bit too personal to go into here, but all seems well in his recovery.  Lola’s down to two days per week at Noah’s Ark, and her time at EcoReno with Morgan seems to be good for all involved.  I was lucky enough to have pizza lunch with her at school yesterday!  And then dinner at the Santa Fe for Paige’s birthday.  Overall, everyone is doing OK, a bit of a common cold making the rounds at our house, Nana coming to visit next week, and, as always, lots of being busy all the time.

Someday, I will get some new pictures loaded here.  Really.

The main reason I logged in today was, I did want to share this article about the health care system in Canada vs. the US.

Aside from that, mainly business as usual.  Kids are OK, business is OK (but never as good as we’d like it to be!) at the store, and we long for leisure time and activities.  We are going to break free and do something fun this weekend for the 4th of July, looking like a two-night stay at the lake, so that should be GREAT!

Brian and Sonya’s wedding consumed a lot of last weekend, a great time was had by all – Cosmo and Maureen visiting, me camping with the men bachelor party style in Black Rock country, the Pub and Sub dinner the night before the wedding, the wedding at beautiful Galena Creek park featuring homebrewed hefeweizen by Marc Tiar, and the reception at Brian and Sonya’s house afterwards, celebratory as you might expect.  It was truly a fun-filled span of days.

Tasty is now an outdoor cat, venturing out most of the time, overnight even on some occasions, and is no worse for the wear.  Hopefully the time spent outdoors will cut down on cat dander in the house, a potential help for Lola’s allergies.  She goes in for her sinus CT scan tomorrow, then back to the ENT a week or so later for assessment.  Hoping for the best.

Also since last post, Morgan and I went to see Mamma Mia, her birthday gift redeemed finally, and we had great time.  I’m not too macho to say I enjoy a good musical.  Sushi dinner before the show didn’t hurt.

Well, I suppose that’s all I have interesting enough to post for now.  I know I never got those videos posted.  Someday when I have some free time.  Until then, see you next month (easy to say since June ends in about 6 hours!)

• New Lola pictures!
• New Sidney pictures!
• Assorted other shots
• Sacramento zoo pictures!

After plowing through so many, it seems like I posted so few.  I probably only put about 10% on here, the rest just aren’t cream of the crop enough to post publicly.  But I’ve got a hard drive full of memories if you ever want to kill some time…

My next big goal here is movie clips – time to load some new ones.  Not sure when, but stay tuned…

I feel like I’ve been productive in what little free time I have – we splurged on a new laptop with our tax refund, so I sold our old one on ebay, as well as our old digital camera with the half-wonky screen; made and hung a swing on the tree out front last weekend, made a raised-bed garden out back which is showing initial signs of success with tomatoes and an assortment of other sprouts coming up.  My hops are coming back this year, let’s hope for success on them.

I’ve got a keg of hefeweizen sitting in the closet, waiting a few more weeks for Brian and Sonya’s wedding, plus 3 bottles of Mirror Mirror in the garage fridge to enjoy sometime in the distant future.  As Brian put it yesterday, we’re living in times of some of the best beer availability.  It’s an obsession, tracking new special releases, what might be available in Reno or not, tasting sessions with friends, stowing ultra precious bottles away to age or wait for the right occasion.  I love it.

My other favorite thing besides beer (coffee) also has developments to report – Grandpa Dave sent us a big drip coffee and espresso machine recently that we just put into service.  It’ll take a few pots to figure out just the right grind, amount, and setting for the perfect cup, but the iced espresso I had earlier put me into this weird “tired from antihistamines but feeling heart palpitations from the caffeine” state that I didn’t like very much.  I’m reaching equilibrium now, both substances wearing off a bit.

On other fronts, we seem to be battling sickness on a regular basis.  We thought Lola’s ear infection had passed, but more recently she had such a bad cough that it kept us all up most of the night, so we took her in.  She was diagnosed with asthma and put on a daily steroid mist treatment that’s not much fun.  And her ear was still infected, plus a hold in her eardrum.  She seems well enough, but we’re to see an ear-nose-throat specialist next week and get this all figured out.  Sid’s mostly well, except for some mystery diarrhea the last couple days that we have no clue about.  Me, just allergies kicking my butt with everything in bloom this time of year, thus the aforementioned antihistamines.

EcoReno continues to keep us busy, although we could certainly use more business.  We’ve more or less decided our biggest impediment to raging success right now (besides the generally poor climate for business everywhere) is location.  We get virtually no drop-in serendipitous walk-in traffic, so we might be looking at moving at some point.  We’ll see.  The people who do shop with us really do love our store and our merchandise, we just need more of them.  No big news otherwise, we just keep chugging along, looking for ways to grow and succeed.

My work continues to plod forward in a dismal situation – the library’s budget cut 36% means doing more work with a lot less.  No layoffs for now, but lots of vacancies that means everyone’s working harder.  Our hours are being cut at the end of next month, and my schedule will change, so the child care situation will need to change as well.  And then again in a few months when Sid’s sitter goes to nursing school.

Well, I guess I’ve been a computer hermit long enough.  Time to open a cold one and relax on the deck I hosed off earlier today.  Days off are good.

Got in to see the doc, got our prescription, now we’re home watching Yo Gabba Gabba and medicating.

EcoReno is awesome. I love doing it and I love making a difference. I have also become very receptive to free publicity. You want a news story on green cleaners? You got it!  Anything to get the word out.

I got a call from KOLO a few weeks ago wanting to do a story on green cleaning products.  A very nice reporter called and asked if she could shoot footage and then come back to shoot live for their morning show. Yep, the morning show that airs from 5am to 7am. What time should I be here Monday? 4:15am. Again, free publicity.

We shot the some footage on Friday morning – a reasonable time of 10am. We confirmed for Monday morning at 4:15. (Let me remind you that even though there is a Starbucks across the lot, they don’t even open that early!) She said the only thing that would keep them is breaking news. I think she said something about WWIII.

I had been having problems with the cell phone, but never gave it a second thought. I drug my butt out of bed at 3:45 after a restless night. I kept thinking that I would over sleep. I got dressed, made myself presentable, and took off into the dark morning. There weren’t many people out, a few early morning people heading to work and passed a few guys probably heading home from a bar. Oh, and I got a full moon. Who does that? Okay, besides Kelly Ricciardi?  Seriously, a big, white ugly butt thrown in my face. Ewwwwww!  Got into the store, locking myself in quickly, and disabled the alarm.

BEEP.  BEEP. Ah, a message on the phone. BREAKING NEWS!!  Not WWIII, but a body found near Caughlin Ranch. No live shoot for me. There had a been a message left on my cell phone and she hoped that I had gotten it before I left the house. NOPE, because my cell phone is acting up and I didn’t do anything to try and fix it. It was a simple fix too – turn off and back on. I headed back home to bed. When I got into the bedroom, Marc asked if I had even left, that is how little time had passed.

The story did air. They used the previously shot footage and I am also happy to say that it aired again during the evening news. I heard it while cooking dinner. So, worth it, but I can tell you that I will be sure that cell phone is working before I head out for a 4:15am shoot!

Other updates: Dad was just here and we had a great visit including the Sacramento Zoo.  The kids are great – both getting so big! Sid’s sitter, Michelle, is telling us that he is very interested in the potty. Trained before his second birthday? You never know.