Full honors........

My grandfather's best friend (Jack) passed away of lung cancer last week at the age of 82. Certainly not unexpected since he was a lifelong smoker. He probably did well to even live that long.

He was part of the disappearing population of WWII veterans that we have left. My grandfather met Jack in boot camp where they were training for the invasion of Japan. Both of them were spared the bloody battle that would have occurred had they stormed the beaches in Japan by the dropping of two atomic bombs by President Truman. My grandfather said he would have stormed the beach with nothing but a pistol and a 70 lb. radio backpack for command communications.

Jack found out he had a week or so to live, so he had time to plan his own funeral. He was buried by his request in his Army officer uniform (yes, it still fit). It was like looking back into time to see him in his old uniform. He picked out all the songs at the memorial service.

He also requested full military honors at his graveside service. He was a big gun collector and history buff who was very proud of his service. They had a flag folding ceremony where they presented the flag to the family on behalf of the President and a grateful country. They had a full 21-gun salute and then Taps was played (via recording since there is a shortage of bugle players left in service).

You see and hear about these kinds of ceremonies in places like Arlington and some other national cemeteries, but rarely do you get to see it happen for someone you know. Far too often, this kind of honor/ceremony is bestowed on someone who has tragically been killed far too early in battle. It was nice this weekend to enjoy the full event as an honor to a lifelong servant of our country. Jack would have loved it.

The Kingdom of Kali is complete.......

Kali 2.7 slept in her royal (queen size) bed for the first time last night without any issues. Her Royal Highness only called upon me once around 3:45 AM this morning. She had kicked her favorite blanket under the bedspread during her sleep and couldn't find it. I quickly came in and retrieved it for her and she went right back to sleep.

Her bed chamber is accented with many princess and castle decals that have to be seen to be believed. I'll be taking pictures of her kingdom later this week and will post them for all to see.

Painting of the Kingdom of Kali is complete........

I still have to take the tape off the trim and touch up a couple of spots where needed. Paint is all on the walls at this point. Next comes the application of the giant princess pictures, castles, and chalkboard. Yes, a chalkboard.

I'll have pictures sometime next week. Total cost to build previously mentioned kingdom is around $350. Pretty impressive price for a kingdom I'd say.

Uh, that's weed.

Just went over to a cube in my area to have a business conversation with one of my co-workers. I had the unmistakable scent of marijuana enter my nose as soon as I got over there. Powerful stuff.

We'll use this information to make the assumption that the state of random drug testing in the federal government offices is in a total state of disrepair.

PINK!!!!!!

The Kingdom of Kali 2.7 received two coats of paint last night.

It's pink, it's bright and it's bold. She loves it.

With that said, if the light is on in that room, the hallway glows an orangish-pink color due to the light reflecting off the paint in the room. I fear we may have a nuclear meltdown in the room if we make it any brighter, so we'll probably stop right there.

Early drawings of the Kingdom of Kali are complete.....

Kali 2.7 and I made a trip over to Home Depot for the supplies for her new bedroom.

The colors: light pink and dark pink

The theme: Disney Princess

Highlights: Two five foot tall princess decals, a castle decal, and a chalkboard applied to the wall.

Total cost: $300-350 (Labor is free since I've found out that I'm not being paid for the work)

Construction estimate is 3 days. Preliminary taping of trim is complete. Tomorrow, the painting begins.

Another one bites the dust.........

Kali 2.7 continues her run of humbling full grown adults. Kali played Memory against two of my friends, Jonathan and Cindy. The report was that she beat them both in a game of Princess Memory, which has 76 cards (38 matching sets). By the end of the game, Kali was reportedly helping them figure out where the matches were located. I guess she felt sympathy for them since they were behind.

Thursday night bowling........

I've been sporatically going bowling with my friend Hightower on Thursday nights. It's usually only once or twice a month, but it's a good time. Last night I started horribly but managed to rally back to win eventually. Some thoughts.........

1. The bowling alley offers karaoke after 9:00 PM on Thursdays. If there is a worse talent group to pull performers from, I'd love to see it. There are some TERRIBLE singers. At one point last night, a guy was butchering a Hank Williams Jr. song so badly that I started singing the song loudly just to drown out how bad he was.

2. We had a college-age couple bowling in the lane to our right. The guy was being a relative jackass to his girlfriend. She and I happened to go pick up our respective ball at the same time. I told her that just between her and I, I was rooting for her to beat him. She smiled and said she was doing her best. In the last frame, she was down by 5 pins and had to run to the bathroom. While she was gone, her boyfriend tossed a gutter ball for her first ball. When she came back, Hightower let her know that she only had one ball to win with since he threw a gutter ball on her scorecard. She promptly walked up and knocked down 8 pins to win by 3. Very nice.

3. The kids to our right presented an interesting group as well. They were probably all just out of high school. Three of the eight kids over there had pretty bad obesity issues already at a young age. I felt terrible for them. I couldn't even imagine what it would be like to be badly obese at that impressionable age.

Some people don't know when to shut it......

As some of you may have noted from a previous post, I was basically asked to be a whistle-blower on my office boss by company management. There was a lot of things that he was saying and doing behind peoples' backs that just didn't fly right. Since the company management was busy doing a few other things for a couple of weeks, no action has taken place yet until they resolve some issues in another town some distance from here.

Yesterday, the manager that I blew the whistle on approached me to ask a few questions. Imagine my surprise when, not only did he confide in me his trust for me, but he even went a few steps further and bashed many of the same people that he did before. He did this despite already being asked NOT to engage in that behavior and he did it to a person who, little known to him, is actually the one who reported him previously.

This won't end well at all. I'm always baffled why some people totally lack any common sense. For some, it's evidently too much to ask to just treat people well while not stabbing them in the back on a regular basis. I hope I never reach that point. My morals have been compromised if that happens.

Tinkerbell 0.11 is growing rapidly........

I was sitting in the couch last night looking over at Mrs. Lime across the room when I had a sudden realization. I could barely see Mrs. Lime. The reason? Tinkerbell 0.11 was standing between us and is getting VERY tall. Tinkerbell's back is only a couple of inches shorter than Kali 2.7 right now. She's not fat by any means, but she's very tall.

Tinkerbell also got great reviews from the kennel as usual. She's a crowd favorite and they love it when she stays there. She plays non-stop when she's there and always sleeps for the next two days when she returns from her stay at the kennel. Must be tough playing all day and sleeping all night.

Back to the grind.......

Had a short work week last week and went to Baltimore over the weekend to hang out with Mrs. Lime's sister and her husband. We had some great seafood (Baltimore's main redeeming quality) and the Chiefs almost upset the Ravens on the opening weekend of the NFL. So I can't complain too much.

Kali 2.7 had fun playing the Memory game with Aunt Shell. She also got to play with their three dogs. Kali got a kick out of their dog named Jake, who hops when he walks due to him missing a front leg. He surprisingly runs like a normal dog, but he bounces along like Tigger when he's walking. He and the other dogs loved the attention that Kali was handing out. Kali was even taking pillows off the couch for the dogs to lay on.

Now I head back into a full work week. I'm already thinking about Columbus Day and the next 4 day work week.

Time frame.......

Kali 2.6's new deal is to delay the inevitable menace otherwise known as bedtime. It's a relatively mundane attempt, but an attempt nonetheless. A couple of months ago, it was time to put Kali to bed and I told her so. She said 'no', so I thought I'd try something different and give her an option. So I asked her how much longer she wanted to stay up before heading to bed. Her response? Two days.

Of late, her demands have become more reasonable. Her current requested time is only 'three minutes'. That's easily done. She feels like she wins because she gets her three minutes. I win because she has no idea how short of a time frame 3 minutes is relatively speaking. Hopefully that will remain the gold standard for some time moving forward.

Maleficent goes to dinner.

Last night, we all went out for dinner since Mrs. Lime had a night off. She was worn out (apparantly carrying around a baby in your tummy does that to you), but she's always ready for an outing.

Kali 2.6 was highly entertained by a baby near our table. Kali quickly identified that a mommy was feeding the baby. The baby was also very interested in Kali and her antics. The mom had trouble keeping the baby focused on eating because she was so busy watching Kali.

During the meal, Kali caught on to the whole feeding trend. Kali mentioned that there was a baby in Mrs. Lime's tummy. Mrs. Lime responded affirmitively. Kali then took a fork and scooped up some lettuce off Mrs. Lime's plate. Mrs. Lime said she was full, but Kali said 'Kali feed baby'. She had made the connection watching the baby get fed, so she decided she'd feed the baby by giving her mommy a forkful of food. Smart girl.

Later in the meal, I had finished my food and was stealing some of Kali's fruit on her plate. Kali said it was her fruit. I took another piece of fruit. Kali took her fork, plunged it into the fruit bowl and said "YOU'RE TOO LATE!" and then cackled like a witch. Mrs. Lime busted out laughing and then informed me of the comedic reference my daughter had just uttered. In the movie 'Sleeping Beauty', the princess pricks her finger on a sewing spindle just before the fairy godmothers can stop her. Malificient (the evil witch) then screams out "YOU'RE TOO LATE!" followed by a fiendish cackle.

My daughter is now making movie references to crack jokes at dinner. I'm so proud of her. (tears up)

You lost.........again.

Kali 2.6 has taken the game of Memory to a whole new level in our house. It's her new favorite game, replacing Candy Land. We play this memory game with 42 cards (or 21 pairs). That's a lot of cards for me, nonetheless a 2 year old. When the board is still relatively full, I still flip over the wrong card quite a bit when I think I have a match.

Kali is a sniper in this game. She KNOWS where the cards are and has a great memory. Even when she thinks she knows and she misses, you can tell that it was an accident because she usually is just one card away from the correct match. Consider yourself lucky if she misses. If you flip over a card and she knows where the match is, she'll flip over that same card before you can even cover it up and will quickly grab its match. She has no problem beating you while smiling at her good fortune.

Before, it was just a fun little game with some animals on cards. Now, it's a real competition. I've found my best chance of beating her on a regular basis is to turn on Sesame Street while we're playing. It takes her focus off the game to the point where she doesn't fully pay attention to the cards being revealed. If she's solely focused on the game, you're screwed.

Uncle Carl's food..........

Kali 2.6 and I went out to my father-in-law's project to meet with some people. While there, a family friend of ours named Carl showed up. He ran an Italian restaurant for many years in downtown KC. We said hi to one another and Kali got a kiss from 'Uncle Carl' as she knows him. She sheepishly smiled when she got the kiss, making Uncle Carl happy to no end.

Carl let me know that his son had just opened up a new drive-thru location in the north end of town that was serving all the old food that Mrs. Lime's family and my family regularly enjoyed for many years. Mrs. Lime's mom was a HUGE fan of the food. It was one of the few places we could go and know we'd get great service and also know that her mom's food would be cooked just to her liking.

So Kali and I headed over to pick up some of "Uncle Carl's Food" as Kali called it. We got the family deal, which had a big bucket of spaghetti and sauce. It also came with a huge loaf of garlic bread and a big portion of salad. Kali was a big fan of the 'long noodles'. Mrs. Lime had cut up some spaghetti for her, but Kali wanted to eat them one at a time. She'd hold one way above her head and eat the entire noodle.

Really great food and it was affordable as well. If you want to see the menu or see the location, you can visit their website at http://www.igtogo.com/.

Keeping Daddy in line..........

Kali 2.6 was sitting in her princess throne this evening eating some cookies....

Me: Are those good cookies, Kali?

Kali: These aren't cookies! These are Oreos!

--------------------------

Mrs. Lime made the unfortunate decision to leave her iPhone sitting out on a table for two minutes at a public university over the weekend. It was gone in a flash. As a result, Mrs. Lime needed a phone in a hurry and Kali and I were on the case.

Per the usual, Kali was well-behaved, even entertaining the people at the store at some point. After a hour or so, we finally landed a phone and we were on our way.

Today (two days later), we headed over to Target. As we're going through the parking lot, I heard Kali saying something and couldn't make it out. After 3-4 tries, I finally got it. "Daddy, there's the phone store!"

Sure enough. In the distance was the phone store that we had gone to a couple of days before. This girl has a ridiculous memory for a 2 1/2 year old kid.

Do you remember?

Kali 2.6 and I sat down in the living room. She's got a memory game that has various animals that you can flip over the cards and try to match more than your opponents. Kali has just been playing around and reading the cards and what animal each card had on it.

Today, I decided to teach her how to use the cards to play a game. I showed her how you flip over two cards and if they match, you get to keep them. I tried to help out Kali a bit. In the first game, I'd point to a card if she flipped over an animal that we had already seen somewhere else. She was pretty excited to match them up. But generally, she kept flipping over the same cards instead of looking for new matches.

Then a funny thing happened. We started a second game. If Kali flipped up a card where we had already seen its match, I'd stop her and ask her if she remembered where the matching pair was. The first time I did that, she stopped and was obviously thinking about it. Then she picked the matching card out of about 40 cards. I laughed because I was so surprised to see her catch on so quickly.

And then she did it again.

And again.

She beat me in her second game of memory. The only assistance I provided was to stop her and tell her that we had already seen its match so she'd think about it. Otherwise, it was all her. It was pretty amazing. It was like playing against a good poker player who would pretend to play badly initially and then proceed to take back all the money on the table.

As I write this, Kali is begging me to come over and play memory with her again. In summary for those who may be asked to play memory by Kali in the future, no need to take it easy. She's likely going to beat you without any consideration for your feelings or ego. But at least she'll flash a cute smile at you when the bloodbath is complete.

Playtime with Kali 2.6.........

Earlier this week, I decided spur of the moment to take Kali to Worlds of Fun for a couple of hours to play around. Kali was all fired up and ready to go. So we made the five minute drive over to the amusement part and arrived........to see an empty parking lot. Yours truly had forgot to note that the park was no longer operating during the week thanks to school starting back up.

While I'm extremely fortunate to have a daughter who has a fantastic temperment, she was none too happy that Daddy was now driving out of the parking lot away from the big roller coasters. She wasn't throwing a fit by any means, but she was giving Daddy a full dress-down on why we were leaving Worlds of Fun no sooner than we had arrived. I went into Henry Kissinger mode and negotiated a truce. We were headed to the playground in the area.

All was forgiven when we arrived to see the big slides and climbing walls. Kali and I went up the ladders and down the slides over and over and over again. Tons of energy in that girl. I hung with her as best as I could for a 30-something dad. After 15 minutes, a couple of kids and their mom showed up at the playground.

The mom was probably younger than me, but her kids were older than mine by a few years. The kids were climbing all over the place, but their mom just sat on the bench. She was overweight and was texting on the bench. She seemed totally disinterested in what her kids were doing.

I'll fully admit that I'm a kid at heart (or some might say I've never fully grown up), but I don't get why someone comes to the park with their kid and doesn't play with them. I like slides. I like climbing. Kali likes both as well. Why would you not do things with your kid, including playing?

Regardless, Kali and I had a lot of fun, but I think both of us slept well that night. It's not easy being a kid.

It's dark in here.......

Yesterday, Kali 2.6 and I were up in the master bathroom. I went into the toilet room to sit down for business purposes. I hadn't turned on the light in that side room, though the main bathroom light was on. Kali wandered into the room and decided to close the door, rendering the small toilet room pitch black.

Me: (whispering) It's dark in here.

Kali: (whispering) Yeah. It's dark in here. You making poopy Daddy?

Me: (whispering) Yes.

Kali: (whispering) You make BIG poopy Daddy?

Me: (whispering) No, just a little one.

Kali: (whispering) Oooooohhhhh! You need toilet paper Daddy?

Me: (whispering) Not yet.

Kali: (whispering) How about now?

Me: (whispering) No, thank you.

(moment of silence followed by a Kali giggle)

Kali: (whispering) I love you Daddy!

Me: (whispering) I love you too!

Kali: (giggle)

Me: (whispering) Is there a reason we've been whispering this whole time?

Kali: (whispering) No.

Me: (chuckling & whispering) OK, just checking.

Fantastic stuff. Totally silly conversation, but after she said there wasn't a reason why we had been whispering in the dark the whole time, I just lost it. We left the toilet immediately afterwards, but I was laughing for at least the next 10 minutes.

I'm 9 feet tall!

Kali 2.6 and I went over to the local elementary school to goof around for a bit. Did some swinging where she wanted to make sure she went "really high". We played around on some slides. We also walked across a suspension bridge. Kali also showed off her competitive nature by challenging me to a race. I let her win, but not by much just to make sure she doesn't get too cocky.

Later on, we headed over to the kickball/tetherball/basketball area. The school had left their play balls out on the playground, so Kali ran right over to pick up one of the balls. I picked up a different ball and started shooting some baskets. Kali saw what I was doing and immediately ran over to the base of the basketball goal post and stood there with her ball, looking back at me.

I walked over to see what she was doing. She said 'Kali go up'. I was trying to figure out what she wanted. I asked her if she wanted to climb the poll. Nope, she replied, that wasn't it. Then she said 'Kali make ball' and pointed at the basket. She wanted a boost to shoot at the basket just like Daddy did. I picked her up and lifted her as high as I could. She didn't make it, but she was pretty fired up that she got to shoot at the same basked that I did.

A poopy milestone........

Yes, Kali 2.6 had a big day yesterday. She was able to 'drop a deuce' on her potty chair for the first time. She got tons of praise and loved every minute of it. She loved it so much, that she went back an hour later and did it again. Then she went back a couple of hours later and did it again. Amazing what positive reinforcement does for the whole situation once it happens.

I'm sure we have many, many more to come. Unfortunately, Kali's being potty-trained, but another baby is on the way to start the cycle all over again. Hopefully the new baby learns quickly from Kali's poopy example.

Daycare for Tinkerbell 0.10

Tinkerbell was sent to puppy daycare today since Mrs. Lime and Kali 2.6 were going to be out of the house all day. They basically have a huge room where the dogs get to hang out, chew on things, and just be dogs. Tinkerbell loves to go to daycare. She just goes nuts. The staff has told us that Tinkerbell is the absolute last dog to run out of energy while playing. She just keeps going and going.

I went by to pick her up at the end of the day. They specified that this was the owner of the 'big' Tinkerbell. Evidently, there was a very small Tinkerbell at daycare today too. Sounds like they were only separated by 100 pounds. Tinkerbell popped out of a doorway with a teenage boy in tow. And I do mean in tow. This kid's shoes were more like skis as Tinkerbell dragged him through the office. I'd be lying if I said I didn't laugh. It was pretty funny. She eased up once she saw I was there. The kid was more than happy to let me have the leash.

Developing quickly..........

I'm amazed at how quickly Kali 2.6 is changing into a little lady. First, the reports of great advancement on potty training were accurate. Kali has gone from little interest in potty training to looking forward to doing potty training. The apparant catalyst is that you have to put a Disney Princesses potty seat on the regular toilet. If you do that, she's always ready and willing to potty on request. Who knew?

Kali's also grown a large vocabulary in a big hurry. She's soaking up words every day and turning right around and using those words and phrases the very next day. We're not just talking words like cat and dog. These are three syllable words and they come out often. Pretty impressive.

She's also become very good at counting to 20 and saying the alphabet without any issues. She knows the letters just by looking at them and is able to tell you a word that starts with that letter. Her ability to put together puzzles has grown by leaps and bounds as well. She used to just stick the pieces together without little thought as to whether the pictures on the pieces fit together. Now she puts together the puzzles by looking at how they relate.

Crazy stuff. Won't be long before I'm the dumbest one in the house. I'm OK with that.

Kali 2.6 and Grandma.........

I was told last night in Grandma's weekend report that Kali 2.6 worked hard on her potty training over the weekend and mostly wears just underwear during the day now. I knew she was getting awfully close to that point, but it just always seemed like it didn't click for one reason or another.

One of the things you learn as a parent is that there are other ways to do things. Sometimes kids just respond to different techniques in different ways. Sounds like Grandma's method provided the magic touch in regards to potty training. We'll take it however we can get it.

Go Chiefs and (football) Tigers!

I dropped a couple of sports bets at Caesar's Palace on the way out of Vegas yesterday that could pay off well if all my dreams come true.

-I put $20 down on the Kansas City Chiefs to win the Super Bowl. If they do win it, I will pocket $750.

-I put $20 down on the Missouri Tigers to win the BCS Championship. If they do win it, I'll take in $1500.

Longshots to be sure, but it'll make it fun for the upcoming season if either of them make a run.

In addition, I would like to note that we went and saw Wayne Brady's show in Vegas our last night there. Very good show. We were supposed to sit a couple of rows from the top of the theater, but were moved down to 6 rows from the stage when we arrived. Great seats at a cheap price. You can't beat that!

Las Vegas Trip summary.......

We've been in Vegas over the weekend and had a great time. A few notes......

1. I met an Aussie at a poker table on Friday. Funny guy with a bit of a foul mouth. He humored me by saying some Aussie words like 'barbie', 'kangaroo', and 'dundee'. He also had a standard raise of $8, which he pronounced as 'aight'. As a result, everyone at the table raised 'aight' if they raised for the whole game.

2. Also met a guy at a table who had worked for a long time as a traveling businessman. When his child support payments ended (i.e. he didn't have to pay them anymore), he quit his day job and now strictly plays poker. Seemed to be very good and very tight. Walked away up $300 after a couple of hours.

3. Met a Morman at the poker table from Utah. I explained that I lived in the area near the Saw Mills massacre site and near where Joseph Smith was jailed. I also mentioned that a Mormon temple was going to be erected near my home. He said that if the home value didn't go up 75% or more in 5 years after the temple is built, he'd be shocked. Guess I'll hold on to my house for a bit longer.

4. I had a big drunk guy who was hassling a police officer run into me on the sidewalk. I saw the officer had taken away his booze bottle and had the pepper spray out. We got out of there in a hurry.

5. Mrs. Lime had a rough weekend at the poker tables. I think we'll steer her away from cash games for awhile. She was not happy about it.

6. I got to meet the Miss September 2009 Playmate at the Playboy store. I also got her magazine and got the centerfold signed. She even had a brother who spelled his first name the same way I did. So I've got that going for me. Seemed like a really nice girl.

7. Mrs. Lime got to hang out with Elvis. He was originally from New Zealand. I'm not sure how that all happened. Always interesting to hear Elvis with a Kiwi accent.

8. Vegas in August is HOT. Even with no humidity, walking on cement in 100 degree temperatures is pretty brutal. Thank God for air conditioning.

9. Saw Peepshow with Holly Madison (Hugh Hefner's most recent ex-girlfriend). It was pretty obvious that she wasn't terribly happy to be in the show. She seemed disinterested and was going through the motions. At least the crowd was thrilled when she took off her top at the end of the show. But the rest of the performers were actually very good. We had VIP seats right next to the stage. I had one of the girls even toss her feather boa on me to flirt with me (while topless). Mrs. Lime and our friends got a big kick out of that.

10. Kali 2.6 had a fun-filled weekend with Grandma and Grandpa. I'm sure she hardly even missed us. It was nice to sleep in for a few days. We're recharged and ready to get back to see her. 3 more months until baby #2 enters the fold!

Sesame Street!

I started recording Sesame Street episodes for Kali. She watches a DVD of Sesame Street from time to time, so she knows a lot of the characters. I'm amazed at how excited she gets for the episodes. She knows all the names. If she doesn't recognize something, she'll ask what it is or who it is. She hops up and down and sings the theme song pretty well.

I used to watch Sesame Street all the time when I was little. It still does many of the same things that it did long ago. Lots of emphasis on the letter and number of the day. Many of the same people are still on the show from when I watched it, although they're 30 years older than they were in the past. People like Mr. Hooper have passed away. The characters are obviously ageless. It's fun to watch it after not watching it so long. It's even better that it's recorded on a daily basis. That way I can watch it with her if there's any new episodes rather than miss out. Thank God for technology.

Kali 2.6's big weekend........

Kali 2.6 was with her college-age babysitter for the past three weeks or so with Mrs. Lime doing some side work at a local hospital. Not surprisingly, three weeks with a college-age person can have an explosive effect on a child's conversational abilities. We wen't from a somewhat talkative child to a child who carries on conversations non-stop. Not only that, she's giving more specific answers to questions as opposed to just saying 'mmmmm-hmmmm'. Ask her what she had for lunch and she'll tell you the whole menu and then add in some random comment about someone she saw while at lunch. Ask her whether she played today and she'll tell you what she did. It's still a work in progress, but the evolution is pretty impressive.

She's also pretty excited about the upcoming weekend. She's been informed that she's going to hang out with Grandma, Grandpa, and her cousin Gwen. We've left out the part that we're not hanging out with them and we're doing something else, because she wouldn't be too keen on that. Kali knows that Grandpa is getting a new boat and Grandpa has said there's a potty on the boat. While Kali is still using diapers at this point, she has emphatically noted on a daily basis that "Kali go potty on Grandpa's boat!".

She's also very excited to go to the fair with Grandma and Grandpa. She knows that there will be horses and princesses at the fair. She has said on multiple occasions that she's going to "see princess ride horses". I'm not sure we'll see any princesses riding horses, but she's got it in her mind that she's going to do so. Who knows? You never know what you'll see at the fair.

Kali 2.6!!!!!!!

Yes, today is Kali's 2 1/2 year birthday. I think we can officially stop using any reference to 'months old' at this point and now look to 'years old'. Even more frightening? She's halfway to kindergarten.

**shudder**

Look out PTA meetings. Here I come.

Organization?

As I mentioned previously, I have taken on some work with Kali's Papa involving some meetings and paperwork for a project he's working on. In addition, I occasionally have some things like swimming lessons for Kali. This has forced me to do something I have never done before.......organize events on my phone calendar.

I've always been one to just work from day to day. But now, I'm having an increasing number of things that I have to do and I'm too damn forgetful to rely on my grey matter alone. So I now have pop-up alarms going off on my phone to remind me when I have something to do an hour or two before I have to do them. It drives me nuts, but I have little choice in the matter. I'm getting old AND busy, neither of which helps me remember what the heck I'm supposed to be doing at a given time.

I've also started to add people to my phone address book when they call me. I'm now dealing with new people in business where I need to learn/remember their name. I'm terrible with names, so this is the only way for me to fight that battle and win. If I add them to the phone the first time they call me, then their name will pop up right before we chat and I'll be able to better associate the name with a face/voice.

It'll be a struggle for me initially, but I'll work it out. It's probably for the best. Hopefully my wife won't find me to be forgetful going forward as a result.