Where'd all the money go?

Oh yes, to:

*the couple of Target runs for Target Clinic and prescriptions

*candy coffee everyday

*lunches and dinners

*Halloween costumes and treats

*back to Target again for new clothes because everything else falls in one of two buckets:

1) everything is dirty or

2) nothing fits

*fill the gas tank because of the multiple Target runs

*birthday festivities and the many indulgences such as:

1) a day-trip to Duluth

2) buying birthday gifts for other October babies and buying a $17 doodle book for patient little 6-y/o shopping companion

3) a massage

4) dinner, drinks and dessert

5) a new scarf

6) going to a movie (with popcorn and soda, thankyouverymuch)

Hmm, yeah. Not cool.

A Saturday in October

We had a fun day today since it seems Autumn isn't quite over yet. The sun came back and the temps were in the low 50s, so pleasant enough to have family pictures taken outside. A guy who works in the photo studio opens his home for a Family Photo Day and books 30-minute photo sessions. One of his stylist buddies from set production comes over and prepares the scenes. It's really quite fun and a hell of a deal. You get your 30-minute session, about 75 shots are taken and saved on a disk which the family gets to take with them. While Kyle and I had good expressions today, we just couldn't get Max to crack a smile and Catherine either had her hair in her face or slouched down. Oh well. Below you'll see one of the keepers. The kids got to wear their Star Wars t-shirts, so we also brought the light sabers. Catherine had a blast during those pictures. And Max? Well, he just stood there with a blank look on his face.

While waiting for this disc to load, I chatted it up with Jerry the photographer and his wife. While discussing the fantastic weather of the day, I became inspired to hit the apple orchard. We had a good time, albeit somewhat on the spendy side. We brought home a nice variety of apples and a couple of pumpkins. When we were down one row of trees, Kyle bit into an apple. After seeing Kyle do that, Max wanted a bite. So Kyle gave him his own apple to eat. I am fairly certain it was the first one he had eaten off the core. He dripped of apple juice, but his "mmmmm"ing really made for an audible treat.

After a somewhat dramatic dinner where Max refused to eat anything, Max and I got dropped off at home while Kyle took Catherine for an ice cream treat. I started to peel apples for Apple Crunch and put the peelings on some old newspaper. Max snuck up and tried to take some of my sliced apples and I saidn "no, but if you want these peels, you can have those." I didn't honestly think he would take. But he did and he ate up each and every peeling I cut off three apples.

Kyle and I settled in to watch some post season baseball after the kids went to bed and we had our first bites of the fresh-out-of-the-oven apple crunch. It was so fantastically good. It's hard not to have more!

(It may not look like much, but really...it tastes fantastic!)

Here's the recipe:

3 medium or 2 large apples, peeled and sliced (I use Granny Smith or Haralson)
3/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c flour
1/2 c quick cooking oatmeal
1/2 c butter

Arrange apples in 8" greased square baking pan. Combine oatmeal, sugar and flour. Cut in butter. Sprinkle over apples. Bake at 350* F for 35 to 40 minutes. Serve warm with milk cream or whipped cream. Serves 4-6.

Waiting to be diagnosed "Officially Sick"

Sad to think I am hoping I am the right kind of ill to be seen by a doctor and get some good drugs for my ailment.

I'm sitting in the waiting area...I was told it would be about a 20 minute wait to be seen. I was given a pager, so I walked the aisles for a short bit. Nothing but a pumpkin spice latte jumped out at me, so I returned to the waiting area with my drink in hand. As others come in to be seen, it grew to an hour and twenty minute wait!

As the photo shows, each corner table had a kleenex box and antigerm hand sanitizer.

People didn't seem to want to hang around there. Rather, they took their pager and multi-tasked as this generation seems to be edept at doing and hit the aisles. Even if they returned with nothing, it was a nice way to kill time and keep on spreading the germs.

I've been assessing each person coming in and wondering what they are afflicted with. I wonder how many have any type of flu including H1N1 or if they were in for different reasons. I feel somewhat guilty being there because I don't exhibit obvious symptoms other than my drip-drip-dripping nose, but with this crap hanging out for more than a week, I needed to get in so that I didn't wish I could stick a pin in my head to pop the pressure like a balloon.

So my name gets called and I'm seen by the Medical Assistant. I take the route of making small talk with her as she checks my vitals. I learn that this is the new normal at the clinic where there is an endless trail of people streaming in to be seen for this ailment or that ailment. She said she much prefers this type of day compared to when they had the flu vaccine and they were seeing 180 patients. Holy cow! She feels badly that the shortfall to going to this sort of clinic is that they can only see one person at a time, whic attributes to the long wait. I commented that the people I've noticed today seem to take it in stride. She agreed, but also followed up that it truly depends on the day whether people deal well or not with the waiting situation.

I was seen by a nurse who was very pleasant. She asked a lot of questions regarding the onset of my symptoms, the duration of symptoms and if there are certain activities or motions that set off particular symptoms. She then proceeded with the typical examination: lungs, ears, nose, throat, eyes. Sure enough, based on the symptoms and some internal indications, I was pegged for a sinus infection. Yippee! After ten or so minutes, I walked out toward the pharmacy to wait yet another twenty minutes to get my little piece of heaven in the shape of a huge horse pill of amoxicillan. Taken 3x daily for 10 days.

Isn't is sad to be happy to be sick?

Winter makes an early appearance

Gawdamnit!

Really, truly the photo of our home was taken this morning. The kids made their first snowman of the season. My birthday isn't for a couple of weeks--there isn't supposed to be snow on the ground already!

I thought I had an unspoken agreement with Mother Nature.

I thought wrong.

My lunch date

All three of my team members are out of the office today, so the guys in my life brought lunch to me. What a treat!

What happened to Autumn?

Overnight, the wind came up; the rain turned into snow. We weren't quite prepared seeing snow, albeit a light coating on the grass that went away as soon as the sun hit it. But it's just short of mid-October and the general mental rule for me to accept wintry weather is that it can not arrive until after my birthday, which is in a couple of weeks.

As much as I'd like to influence when the snow flies around here, it just doesn't work that way.
So today the storm windows were hung, the flannel sheets and down comforters replaced the lighter weight linens for the season, winter outerwear inventory was reviewed and updated, and the backyard summer toys were picked up and stored away.

When Max picked up the shovel and the sand bucket, he was a bit surprised to find whatever rainwater that fell in it from the past day had turned into ice. It was a funny thing to behold.

So long, warm weather. See you again in another six months.

In case you encounter Cate

...she wants to be called Catherine, not Cate. Ever since she recently learned how to spell C-a-t-h-e-r-i-n-e, she has decided to be a "Catherine" versus a "Cate". I got called out by her this evening while we were at a school open house for prospective families. I pointed her out as Cate while she was drawing at the chalkboard. She overheard and corrected me saying, "Not Cate, it's CATHERINE!"

Whoa.

My email inbox

The daily grind includes a massive flood of information coming at me via email. This is the norm for just about anyone in a typical 9 - 5 office job.

Most are work related, some are life-related. This life-related email is courtesy from Jolene who is watching Max these days while my mom has a break:

-------------------------------
From: Jolene Iverson
To: Jennifer Jensen
Sent: 10/8/2009 1:31 PM

Subject: max wants a treat

Poor Max, he wants a treat of chocolate with gold on it. I have told them they are all gone. which makes him sad. :(

So, we are on the search for an adequate stand-in.

So far, a good potty day. :)

Hog Pile!

I remember when I and my siblings used to hog pile with my dad on the same living room floor. Now it's Kyle on the bottom of the pile with our two kids and two of their cousins on top! Love it.

Favre Fever?

Gotta say...I've gotta fever. A Favre Believer Fever. And the game isn't until tomorrow night.
Oh...and I also love this current campaign by Sears. Is it in your market?

What a week for Cate

This week has had its ups and downs for Cate.

She's been out of school all week on top of the almost two days she was out last week with pneumonia and a fever that just wouldn't break.

playing on the computer while on nebulizer

Cate and Max can still fit in a clothes basket together!

She lost her first tooth. The tooth fairy was good to her.

Two gold dollar coins!

Her fever finally went away, but there's no school today. We'll do something special together for sure. It's been a long week stuck at home for the little girl.

From the mouth of Kyle

"I love you because you love me and gave me two wonderful chil--okay, you gave me two children. Between the two children, we have one wonderful child."