Now this would truly make that time of the month all the more bearable.

Busy, busy, busy.  Seems as soon as you get one day that remotely says that Spring is here, the buzz starts.  The house seems less gloomy, curtains are opened wide, winter cob webs are removed and the world wakes from it’s winter coma.  We’re suppose to get in the 60’s tomorrow and I can’t wait.  It’s my day off and I’m looking forward to taking Gavin outside for some much needed fresh air.  Unfortunetly, Spring also means.. the dreaded spring cleaning.  We need it bad.  I swore that over the winter I would spend just 15-20 minutes each day in my basement, and figured I have it cleared out by spring.  But did I follow through? Nada.  For starters, my computer is in the basement. So I may start of going down there to organize, but then end up "taking a break" and sitting at the computer.  We want to house shop this year, so I know we’ve got to get it done eventually.  I’d love to just have a few days alone at home to get it done.  I don’t know why, but I hate trying to clean or organize around Dave.  He turns into this General and ruins my whole motivation to want to get organized.  Kind of like how when you were younger and you had to do chores.  You knew you had to do them, but when your parents remind of those chores, it maked you want to do them even less.  It’s like this extra little dig that really annoys me.  Plus, I keep imagining getting into these little tiffs with Dave as we’ll probably disagree on several things regarding the whole "keep-toss-donate" scenario.  Ugh, I just don’t want to deal with it.

This past weekend was great.  Dave was off Sunday and Monday.  My normal weekend is Saturday thru Monday; and ordinarily, when Dave is off the same days, I end up going crazy.  I can’t be around him 24/7, I just can’t do it.  But this weekend was quite pleasant.  Dave called home Saturday to say that since he is off, why don’t I book a room at the Sterling Inn.  The Sterling Inn has a little indoor water park.  So that’s what we ended up doing.  We took off mid-Sunday afternoon, it’s only about half an hours drive, and we spent one night at the Sterling Inn.  We truly enjoyed ourselves.  The water park there is, of course, much smaller than say those at Great Wolf Lodge where we go at least once a year, but we really needed this little get away, even if for only a night.  Gavin had a blast. He just loves the water park.  It was his naptime when we left home, thinking he’d take a little cat nap during the drive, but he faught it the whole way.  At one point he drifted off and in his sleep was reciting, "I wanna go to the water park."  We were cracking up.  Pictures here are just promotional pictures I found on the net, but I took several while we were there, I’ll post some this week.  I know I still need to post pics from date night last weekend.  Dave and I were pretty intoxicated and got pretty silly, it shows in some of the pictures.  I’ll try and get those up tonight after Gavin is in bed.  My sisters visit 2 weekends ago was great. She was here for my neices birthday. It was great to see my neices again.  They’re growing up so fast.

I’m still here.. still alive. My sister was in town last weekend, and I had 2 "date nights" out with the hubby.  Got lots to write about, but it’ll have to wait till I get home (I’m at work) so I can post pics to go with it.

Traffic has been down, probably cause I’ve been a bad blogger lately.  So often I think I’ve got nothing to write about, then once my fingers start typing, it’s likely that I can just keep going and going, like now.  All I have to do is find the time to actually sit down.

Okay.. more later, I promise!

Thanks everyone for the comments and private messages of sympathy.  Things have gotten better, but I do miss her every day.  Last Wednesday (2/22) I ended up taking her remains to a pet crematory to have her cremated. The fee included your typical vase-looking urn, but I plan to buy something that’s not so.. what’s the word I need?… morbid? Something like this is what I really have in mind for my Nikki. Something I can put on a shelf as more of a keepsake for her ashes.

That aside, things are going well.  My mother-in-law is watching Gavin Saturday night so that Dave and I can have a much needed evening out.  However, what is it with men?  We’ve been planning this night out for a couple weeks now and yesterday he informs me that he’s taken on a couple hockey games to referree that afternoon and that he’d be home by 8pm for us to go out.  Now am I out of line for being a little upset with him on this?  He says 8pm gives us plenty enough time to go out.  Is he kidding me? By the time we sit down anywhere for dinner it’s going to be close to 9pm. Forget a movie by that time unless it’s a midnight movie which would leave us no time afterward to stop for a nightcap.  I’m just a little perturbed that he would take away from our time together for a few extra bucks.  Mind you, the extra cash he makes as a referee is what allows us to take an extra vacation each year, have dinner out a few times a month with Gavin, or to splurge now and then on something fun for the house (last year we bought a new gas grill).  As much as I know that extra cash gives us those things.. I also like to be able to spend some time alone with my husband. We don’t get that time very often and it upsets me that it was, in my opinion, underminded.

On another note, I am really really behind on Gavin’s blog, I’m so horrible.  I haven’t even updated it for Christmas or more recently his 3rd birthday that was almost a month ago already.  I hope to bring it current this weekend and attempt to keep up with it.  Hope everyone has a great weekend.

I came home from work yesterday to find my cat, my beloved Nikki kitty of 17 years, had passed away.  What hurts the most is that I wasn’t there to be with her. She was alone. I know her last thoughts were of me because I found her in our spare room in the basement on top of my old bed where she and I slept many nights together over the years when I was single. She was MY cat. My Nikki Kitty. Dave called me at work yesterday to say that when he checked on her yesterday morning she wasn’t doing well and that her breathing was very labored. She had been eating less and less over the past couple weeks. These last couple days she barely got up from her "spot" on Gavin’s mini-recliner in the basement. But in her final moments, she managed to get up and jump up onto my old bed. That tells me she wanted to be close to me. I know my scent had to still be on that bed. I just wish I was there to comfort her, to tell her that she’s been such a wonderful companion over the last 17 years. I have so so so many memories with her. It’s going to be hard to let go, she was my baby. Oh, Nikki, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there. I will miss you so so much.

Nikki at about 5 weeks old, taken back in May of 1989 when I was living with my mother. I was just 19 years old myself.

Here she is Dec. 1989 at about 9 months, we were living at my grandmothers.

This was taken summer of 1995 after she and I moved into our first apartment together. I was in my mid-twenties, boy the stories she could tell.

And here she is with my husbands cat, Boots in 2002. We had just moved in a month earlier and she and Boots were still getting acquainted, this was the first time they sat peacefully together.

Here she is last summer, she loved laying in the sun on the landing at the backdoor

Did you know that 85% of all Valentine’s cards that are purchased by women and that on that same token, of the 50 million roses purchased each year on Valentine’s Day, most are purchased by men.  Approximately 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year.  In order of popularity, Valentine’s Day cards are given to: teachers, children, mothers, wives, and sweethearts.  So in honor of this romantic day, I give you 14 [random] things that I love, in random order of course. Thank you Heidi for the inspiration.

1.    Lakeshore campfires
2.   My son’s laugh
3.   Maine Lobster with melted butter
4.   Extra dark, bittersweet chocolate
5.   Viewing the world through my camera lens
6.   Pink lemonade
7.   A summer thunderstorm
8.   Las Vegas
9.   Being in my own little world out on the dance floor
10.   My husbands luscious full lips
11.   That new car smell
12.   Laughing to tears with my sister and girlfriends
13.   Wearing a new pair of jeans
14.   Hayrides in the fall

Hope everyone feels loved today.  Dave paid for me to get my hair done over the weekend for Valentine’s Day.  A fresh haircut AND foil highlights.. gotta love it! More on my weekend later.

Kid Rock Saturday night was just as my subject line says… "Off The Hook!" What a kick ass concert.  We had a absolute blast Saturday night.  About 8 of us piled into a big ol’ minivan and took the treck to downtown Detroit.  Since my hubby works down there, he knows all the best ways to get down there.  We were in front of Joe Louis Arena in literally 15 minutes flat, with no traffic.  Very surprising considering all the Superbowl hoopla going on.  We walked around a little bit then headed back to "The Joe."  We were in our seats during the intermission before Kid Rock took the stage.  He literally rocked the house.  I had such a blast.  Through out the show he had a few guests join him on stage including Hank Williams, Uncle Kracker and Bob Seger.  It was my first Kid Rock show and man, what a show. He truly is an entertainer.

On a final note.. while watching Jay Leno tonight I saw a commercial that made me think of our good friend Janet.  This just released, right on time for Valentine’s Day, it’s the Pink Motorola Razr. Oh but won’t that go well with her pink graduation regalia?

Seems a lot of my blogging friends are causing me to get all nostalgic lately.  I’ve been thinking back to the days before husband, before children.  Back to when life was all about me and where my girlfriends and I were going to go for the night.  We had a club to go to every night of the week.  And we never grew tired.  I don’t know how we did it.  We were young twenty-somethings and that’s truly all that mattered.  We’d conference call each other and discuss what time we were meeting, where we were going and what we were going to wear.

All of that was suddenly amplified recently when I happen to catch what our local news calls "The Problem Solvers."  If you’ve got a problem that can’t seem to get resolved, you call The Problem Solvers and they’ll help get you results and put your story on the news, to either enhance whatever sympathy you’re hoping for or to shame the company or person who did you wrong in the first place.  Sometimes they look to viewers to offer help.  Well, some guy got the shaft on some paint job done to his car and was getting no results from the company that did it.  As a result, another auto finishing company stepped up to the plate and offered to repaint his car.  During the story, they interviewed the gentleman that owns the company who so kindly donated their services.  It took but one glance at his piercing green eyes and I was at the edge of my seat.  Turns out this was a guy I dated back in the early nineties.  Wow, what a blast from the past.  I remember being head over heals for this guy and he sort of faded out without my ever really knowing why.

So yesterday, I found myself digging through some boxes.  Boxes containing over twenty years of memories.  Going through old pictures, love letters, even the occassional dried flower that must have meant something, but now years later I can’t remember what or whom.  I came across a picture I just had to share.  Yep, this is me back in April of 1989.  I waited over 3 hours in line to meet and have my picture taken with…  yes folks, that’s Kip Winger from the hairband days.

Yeah, so I know I’ve been neglectful here lately.  The occassional blogging rut can be expected, right?  You think I’ve been neglectful here; shit, it’s been since Thanksgiving that I updated Gavin’s blog. 

So what’s been going on.  Well I finally got my computer back up and running at home.  The new harddrive makes a world of difference.  It’s kind of refreshing to know that I’ve got an untainted drive, no secret spyware or corrupt files.  It’s all brand spankin’ new.  I spent the first few days reloading all my software like messengers, easy cd creator, photo editing, printer drives and stuff like that.  I’m so glad to be back up and running again.  With my boss wanting more help, I offered to pick up the occassional extra day until I can find something more permanent with regards to child care.  So I’ve been a little extra busy at work to help prove that he doesn’t need another assistant, that I can be just plenty.

I saved the best thing to share for last, and that is… I’M GOING TO KID ROCK!! My dear dear husband called me up and asked if I wanted to go on the Saturday before Superbowl.  I’m like "are you kidding?"  He said we can head downtown early, go to dinner, rock out at the show then hang out downtown to take in all the Superbowl festivities.  You have to know my husband to understand my excitement in all of this.  He is very anti-crowds, whereas I love crowds.  He didn’t even want to go downtown during the Auto Show.  I’ve felt so couped up lately that I’m absolutely thrilled he’s taking me.  Then Sunday, we’re going to a Superbowl party to watch the game.  Babysitters are all set, and I’m looking forward to this weekend.  WooHoo!

First things first; bought my new hard drive yesterday.  I had to wait until pay day.  I know $100 doesn’t seem like much but when you’re on a budget, $100 can cause quite a shift.  We’re taking my computer over to hubby’s friends this weekend.  He’s a computer tech and said that he has all the capabilities there at home to retreive most of my data from the crashed drive.  So that’s good news.  I’m going crazy at home.  It’s been 11 days since the darn thing crashed and I’ll probably have to go another 3 or 4, depending on how long it takes for Dave’s friend to get it back to me once we take it over there this weekend.

All in all, a pretty normal week.  My boss announced to me today that he really needs more help.  I’m here 3 days a week and it’s not enough.  So he said he wants to hire someone to come in and help on the 2 days that I’m not here.  I managed to save face, but inside it was like hearing a guy tell you "I want to date other people".  Weird huh?  I have a system here, and my boss and I have a strong boss/employee relationship.  I don’t want someone else to come in and mess that up.  My boss assures me that there’s no way he’d find anyone as good as me.  Plus I’d have to share my cubicle with this person.  Someone else would sit here at my desk when I’m not here.  Who know’s what they’d get in to.  This is MY space.  I don’t want to share my space, my computer, my radio, and especially not my boss.  So now I’ve got to figure out a way to be able to come in at least one more day.  Dave’s mom already watches Gavin the 3 days I work.  She has a job of her own, though she works from home as a realtor, she still needs a couple business days free, so there’s no way I could ask her to take Gavin another day.  I’m hoping I can convince my mom.  She’s a tough one though; and I say that meaning that she’s all about having her time to herself these days.  Don’t get me wrong, she adores her grandchildren.  She’s the most loving and giving mom anyone could ask for.   She’s just been rather independent lately and enjoys her freedom.  I really hope she’ll agree to it.  Maybe I can offer her some sort of compensation for taking Gavin one day a week.  Gavin will probably start preschool for 3 yr olds this fall so that’ll create some freedom.

Have a great weekend!