Thankful 6

~This Blog is part of a series for November, adapted from the series Erin is currently running over on her blog. For this month in honor of Thanksgiving I will release a blog every other day about something/one/idea I am Thankful for. I've broken the criteria down into a guideline of sorts that I will follow, the month will contain 5 People - 5 Things - 5 Ideas . The order that I post things in has no particular significance or ranking behind it.~




Mom
People - 2

My mom has been one of the most supportive people in my life, and while Casey and I tease her about some of the things she did when we were little (such as not letting us ride our bikes past the stop sign on the road) she has always been there for us.

My last post was about pets, and well Mom is the main reason we got to keep a lot of those pets and the reason Kong is an inside cat. Dad's farmers outlook on pets isn't as loving as Moms so she was influential in getting the majority of them.

It's coming up on Christmas time and that is probably Mom's biggest holiday, while she isn't that into the decorating part, she likes giving gifts. Casey and I always have lots to open on Christmas, even if some are toothpaste, deoderant and the like, she makes sure we have the same number of gifts to open and just loves the opening part in general.




I know sometimes Erin feels awkward when my Mom randomly gets her a gift, but thats one of her ways of saying she likes and and loves us.

Mom has been an elemenrtry/High School librarian for I think 28 years now, so she has always been caring towards kids, it made it easy going to Elementry School when I was little with my Mom working there. We rarely had to ride the bus because we could catch rides with her.

She is one of the few Mom's her age that I know who like to play video games, sure its mostly farmville/countrylife style games but she also has a DS and was a big Super Nintendo player back when Yoshi's Island came out.

Overall I couldn't ask for a better mother.

11-11-11

So today is 11-11-11 as well as being Veteran's Day.

I was just thinking about how intersted people get with certain dates... I guess I've been lucky enough to live through 01-01-01, 02-02-02,etc... and so forth... its the advantage of being alive at the turn of a century... most of the intersting dates won't happen again for another 100 years..

Well that is if the world doesn't in in 2012 when the Mayan Calendar ends...

I honestly don't get that excitied about dates on the calendar, I'll admit everyone at somepoint gets intersted/superstitious with numbers... I remember during the Summer Olympics in 2008, 8 is a lucky number in China so they reported a lot of people in China were trying to have babies on 08-08-08 which was during the time of the Olympic Games. Also having worked in a hotel I can tell you many more people than you would expect are superstitious about numbers, not wanting to travel on the 13th, and most hotel's don't even have a 13th floor.

I guess we should just be happy to be alive for these "special numbered dates"

Well I think I'm going to go to McDonalds here in a few mintures... in honor of 11-11-11 they are having Big Mac's for $1.11 from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. *limit 11

Thankful 5

~This Blog is part of a series for November, adapted from the series Erin is currently running over on her blog. For this month in honor of Thanksgiving I will release a blog every other day about something/one/idea I am Thankful for. I've broken the criteria down into a guideline of sorts that I will follow, the month will contain 5 People - 5 Things - 5 Ideas . The order that I post things in has no particular significance or ranking behind it.~



Pets
Things -2

I've been blessed in my life thus far by being able to have a wide variety of pets.

Now some people have told me that some of my pet stories are sad, but I look at all of them with good memories of being able to spend time with the pets, sure we had a couple bad streaks when I was little with stray dogs coming and going as our pets as well as the constant rotation that happens with barn cats.

I figure the best way to cover this is to touch briefly on some of the most memorable pets in my life

Buck - Buck was a big black dog and the first pet I remember having, he was hit on the road when I was 4 or 5

Furball -  a big gray fluffy barn cat we had when I was 6 or 7, he would come when you called his name

Muffin - muffin was a little fluffy white dog that was dumped on our road and we took in, we only had her for 2 days before she ate some poision, Dad liked her so much he even took her to the vet but it was too late

Mousetrap - Kong's mom and a kitten making machine! She once had a little of 11 that she took care of all of them, as well as a litter of 9 she cared for. Kong was from her first litter of only 3 kittens. When we got Mousetrap, Casey had a cat who was her sister named Kieko, but Kieko went crazy, Mousetrap was the longest barn cat we ever had 4-5 years.

Fudge - Can't have a pet post with out Fudge or Peppy, We got Fudge the summer before I went into first grade and would have him for over a decade, until the Summer of 2007 when we lost him in a tragic accident. He was a great little dog who was loving and cared for us. He patrolled the house and farm with the best of them despite his smaller size and was the "bark" in the team he and Pepper made.

Peppy - Fudge's best friend Peppy was orginally my Grandpa's dog who basically came to live with us and hang out with Fudge and us kids. She was super fast when she was young, and would run back and forth with the car going to the farm keeping up the whole way at 35 mph. They became a tag team one winter when it snowed hard and because of the ice on the roads Fudge could keep up, they were rarely apart after that. Later in life she slowed down quite a bit and became a fixture on our poarch, still keeping an eye on everything going on.

Fudge and Peppy

Kong - Our crazy cat, and the first inside pet we ever had. I make up tons of stories about him, but he does have one amazing story of his own... He once excaped outside and lived over 5 weeks lost in the corn field before he found his way back home, much skinner but over all fine.

Pepper - We bought Pepper at the Brookville Flea Market, she was small enough we carried her around in a clothes basket. She was picked knowing she would someday have to replace Peppy. Which she has now, she is a nice dog though very timid. It's sad that an accident with a horse has given her a bad leg. She still runs the show here making sure everything is in its place.

Jack- Though we didn't have Jack long I think something needs to be said about him here... Jack was a big black lab and was really too much for my parents to handle, I was living in Indy at the time and Casey going to school at Franklin. Jack was Pepper's first friend as a replacement to Fudge and he was up to trouble all the time, from chewing on metal cogs and taking out the internet to his most famous act of being kidnapped and held for ransom.... (some neighbors picked him up thinking he was someone elses dog, then he was taken to the pound where we had to bail him out) Mom gave Jack away to a family who he lives happily with as an inside dog now.

Sparky - Sparky is our beagle puppy, full of energy and out to sniff things out, he unlike Pepper likes other dogs so he likes it when the neighbors dog wanders over sometimes. Its funny though when he sees one of us coming or outside he will hurry to run off the neighbor dog because he thinks that is what he is supossed to do. But we know he is friendly with them when we aren't around.

Sparky on the day we got him last November

Living on a farm I've also had a variety of other animals as "pets"

Rabbits

Pigs

Chickens

Goats

Guinea Pig, a Fish & Hamsters,, though they aren't farm related

Thankful 4

~This Blog is part of a series for November, adapted from the series Erin is currently running over on her blog. For this month in honor of Thanksgiving I will release a blog every other day about something/one/idea I am Thankful for. I've broken the criteria down into a guideline of sorts that I will follow, the month will contain 5 People - 5 Things - 5 Ideas . The order that I post things in has no particular significance or ranking behind it.~

Health
Ideas 2

Intersting that I am writing this topic up as I have been limping around on a sore back since the 4th, from most likely pushing myself too hard at the gym this last week.

However Health is something I'm thankful for, and I'm willing to admit the majority of my life I haven't been in the best of health by being massively over weight. I was pushing 300 lbs when I was 22 years old before making a major life change and turning it around.



Unfortunatly I then probably pushed it to far the other way, getting down to 153 lbs on my over 6'3 tall body.

That said I'm pretty close to a healthy weight now (slightly over but not too drastic) and overall losing that weight was a great thing, had I waited till later in life I would probably never lose it and be fat all my life. It also helped inspire confidence in myself that I could do things. I am glad that I don't have any major problems and that for the most part my family has been healthy as well. When it comes down to it, our health effects so much of our lives... small thing that is something genetically determined can destroy someones life, stop us from doing the things we love, and just cut of thousands of oppertunities and things we really should be thankful for.

I rarely get sick and while I'll probably become diabetic and have a bad back when I'm older from my genetic history.... well I can't  really complain in the long run.

Hopefully I'm not jinxing myself here because I currently don't have health insurance

Thankful 3

~This Blog is part of a series for November, adapted from the series Erin is currently running over on her blog. For this month in honor of Thanksgiving I will release a blog every other day about something/one/idea I am Thankful for. I've broken the criteria down into a guideline of sorts that I will follow, the month will contain 5 People - 5 Things - 5 Ideas . The order that I post things in has no particular significance or ranking behind it.~


 
Dad
People - 1
 
Well since I mentioned him in my first two thankful post I figured he would be a good person to cover now. I'd have to say I have a great Dad, he has always been supportive and has really helped shape who I am today.
 
As I mentioned earlier he played a big part in my childhood, playing games, teaching me math, reading bed time stories, working with those horrible spelling test, we had to practice Monday-Thursday with him to pass our elementary spelling test as both Casey and I are horrible spellers just like him, which is why he had the patience to sit there and quiz us multiple times every night.
 
He has always loved games; video game, board games, made-up games... not so much sporting games though... (He wrestled in high school, but his brother and sister were more of the sports stars in the family)
-Board games.... he taught me chess when I was in first grade and still plays weekly with one of his friends in the winter. He is also one of the best Clue players I've met. When I was in 5th grade he bought us the game Warhammer 40k of which we spent many hours over the next 7-8 years playing together.
-Video games... He had a colecovision which was our first gaming console... from then on we were Nintendo loyal fans until the Xbox came out. He still has an Xbox360 that he plays a lot.
-Made up games.... well there was rope bridge wars... Dogs & Rabbits (which I don't think he made up but I don't know anyone else who knows it) and the G.I. Joe games we used to play when I was little.
 
When I totalled his truck he never said a mean thing to me about it, totally took it in stride and said it was his fault for making me drive it. He has always been supportive in that way... I remember telling him I didn't want to farm when I was little, and he always supported me in whatever I wanted to do.. I mean right now I'm back home living with them and he has never made me feel bad about being a college graduate who is living at home again.
 

• So for being a great Dad I put him in this list.

Thankful 2

~This Blog is part of a series for November, adapted from the series Erin is currently running over on her blog. For this month in honor of Thanksgiving I will release a blog every other day about something/one/idea I am Thankful for. I've broken the criteria down into a guideline of sorts that I will follow, the month will contain 5 People - 5 Things - 5 Ideas . The order that I post things in has no particular significance or ranking behind it.~



My Car
Thing - 1

While in someplaces of the world having your own transportation isn't important... in rural Indiana it is a key to freedom that I have been lucky to have since I was 16.

Which is good considering I totalled my Dad's truck on my 13th birthday... I vowed I wouldn't drive again after that, but my parents were supportive and wanted me to have my licence as soon as possible. I took my drivers ed at Waldron and my Dad got me my first car... a 1986 Monte Carlo SS with T-Tops, I actually really liked this car, despite it being a gas guzzler and only a year younger than me.



My friends and I had a lot of fun driving around in it as I was basically the driver for everything we went to in high school. It also got me through all four years at Purdue before I retired it due to the cost of gas / basic age and needed repairs.

Next I drove my parents old mini-van for almost a year while I was looking for something else to drive. The Mini van was nice in that it got much better gas mileage than the Monte Carlo despite not being as cool. (22 mpg is a big improvement over 15 mpg)

Finally after a lot of looking around I made my choice.... a Kia Soul...



I bought it on my Birthday, in 2009. I originally wanted a white one but they didn't have one in the model I wanted and I knew if I waited it would take me even longer to make a move on a car.... Spending that much money was a big leap for me. So I pulled the trigger and bought my car on my birthday. I actually really like the care and haven't felt much buyers remorse on it (which is unusual, so I think it was a good choice).

I was telling Erin today it was cool having the only soul I knew around for a long time (they were a brand new model when I got mine) and it sort of sucks seeing more of them around nowdays. This may be the most expensive purchase I make in my life (other than a house hopefully) so it was a big leap for me and I'm thankful I've had the car and that so far I haven't had any real problem with it.

Thankful 1

~This Blog is part of a series for November, adapted from the series Erin is currently running over on her blog. For this month in honor of Thanksgiving I will release a blog every other day about something/one/idea I am Thankful for. I've broken the criteria down into a guideline of sorts that I will follow, the month will contain 5 People - 5 Things - 5 Ideas . The order that I post things in has no particular significance or ranking behind it.~


Education
Idea - 1

As I write this I am currently sitting in a little cafeteria/lounge area of IUPUC where Erin goes to school, so it seems an appropriate place to start this blog series. I have been lucky in life that my parents helped me get a good education and that I was born with what I would consider an above average compacity to learn. My mom working as an elementry school librarian certainly helped but my Dad was always their too, reading to me when I was little and giving me Math Quizzes on rides to the sale barn. Dad even taught me how to multiply at Chucky Cheese's when I was in kindergarten as well as having a boatload of patience when helping Casey and I practice spelling.  So I've always had good a lot of support when it came to expanding my knowledge base.





A series of books Dad used to read as bed time stories.

To say that I have liked school wouldn't be correct... I remember in elementary school telling my mom I didn't like school, and sadly I guess I never really liked Elementary or High School. I always did well in my classes and for the most part excelled, Going to State with the Academic team twice (the only team that ever wanted me lol) I guess it was school was never that challenging and/or I never enjoyed the social aspect.

I told my parents I didn't want to go to college... which was met with a great deal of opposition... So I went to school on the agreement that after one year I could quit if that's what I felt like... I started Purdue in the school of Biochemistry... because well I had to pick a major and I never knew what I wanted to do... that first year didn't go too great but I still didn't know what I wanted to do with my life so I decided to finish out the whole school thing (hey why pass up those Purdue football games and Basketball games?) I switched majors to History and did well in school the rest of the way.


I am thankful that I got my college education, sure I haven't had the best jobs thus far... graduating just before the economy took a dive in 2008 didn't help. But I know I don't have to pursue a dead end job, people look up to me as someone who is knowledgeable and competent, and I know that I gained some skills to be successful. Currently I know that I'm still in the stepping stone phase of my life, just needing to find the next step, but without having a good education I would most likely be stuck in a dead end factory job having reached the peak of my earning potential.

I know that when I have a kid/kids I will push them towards getting a good education and I hope they are smart and succeed. I know Erin gets grumpy at me when I comment sometimes about her schooling, but its because I want the best for her and I guess that starts with getting an education when you think about it.