JeffK Blog

Another snow day tomorrow!

Work was good today…busy, productive, busy. Andy and I went out for lunch to our new pizza place. It was a much needed break from work. We did our “usual” of a fountain drink and a slice of pizza. However, there was a big disappointment surrounding the fountain drink situation. Not only were they out of Andy’s first choice of Diet Mt. Dew, but they were also out of Diet Pepsi. Then when he tried the Diet Coke it was out of syrup and only carbonated water came out! 😂 The pizza was delicious and one slice was more than enough. I’m definitely glad our department encourages us to get away from our desks for lunch.

On the way home I stopped for gas at our BP since I don’t want to stop tomorrow or Thursday in the sub zero temperatures. I also picked up some Mingua beef jerky for the UK game tonight. Nicole made tuna casserole for dinner and it was very good. After dinner we gave the kids their baths then we played board games the rest of the evening.

Kenton County schools are closed tomorrow (along with pretty much every school in the tri-sate) for the cold weather. Wednesday is my work from home day so luckily I don’t have to commute in tomorrow. NKU is also closed (snow day for me!) but since my class can be in person or online, our professor might just make it an online only session tomorrow…I haven’t heard yet. Side note: If you haven’t tried Honey Bun cereal yet, I highly recommend it! Thanks to Nicole for thinking of me when she saw this…I have an addiction haha!

Now it’s time to watch the UK game, enjoy some Mingua, and read some more for class….

Today was a very “normal” Monday. Work was productive, still as busy as ever. Tonight we had ribs, mac & cheese, and baked brussel sprouts. Another one of Parker’s favorite meals! After dinner we made cards for Molly (Zac’s best friend at his baby sitter’s) because she has been sick the past few days. Zac also wanted to put some candy in a bag to bring to her. He was very excited to make a card for “my best friend Molly” to help her feel better. The rest of the night we played around the house, then some tablet time, then books & bed. Now I’m getting ready to do some reading for school.

On the way home from work I was listening to some old songs that I haven’t heard for a while when a couple of my favorite acoustic songs came on. They are “classic” Relient K songs that I had on repeat in high school and college. So since there’s not much to write about today I thought I’d post them here.

It’s hard to believe that the weekend is already ending and another work week is about to start…but here we are!

Friday was a good/busy day at work. Seemed like an extra number of meetings for a Friday, but the day did fly by. After work I picked up a new dog bed for Zoey. It is an orthopedic memory foam bed to help with her bad joints. The exact bed is a KOPEKS – Orthopedic Memory Foam Dog Bed with Pillow. The kids loved helping to open the box and get it ready for Zoey. The packaging said it could take 24 – 72 hours for the memory foam to fully expand. I’d say it’s almost fully expanded, but still has a little bit to go. Ironically, Harley is currently sleeping on the bed and Zoey is on the couch. 🙄
I also picked up Skyline on the way home, so Parker was especially excited about dinner.

On Saturday we spent the morning and afternoon playing around the house while we decided what we wanted to do that evening. Zac and I were playing downstairs when Parker said that he and Nicole picked out some things for us to do and it was going to be a surprise! We left and the first stop was plaster/ceramics painting at our local store. Parker and Zac loved it and did a great job. Zac picked out a turtle and Parker picked an alligator. The next stop was Chuy’s for dinner. Nicole and I both had a “Chuychanga” (of course) and the kids only wanted chips and dip for their dinner. Their chips are made in-house and are one of my favorite, so I don’t blame them. We ordered them each a quesadilla, but they only took one bite so we boxed it up. The third stop was Joseph Beth to browse around before heading over to the final stop: Coldstone!
Parker picked chocolate ice cream with 3 mix-ins and Zac picked cotton candy with 2 mix-ins. I got a mint chocolate chip shake. 😋
We came home and watched the UK…another great game and UK won!

Today was a normal Sunday. We did a few chores and played all kinds of games/toys, including the classic Crash Bandicoot. It was a sunny day and a little warmer (I’d say shorts weather) so we decided to all take a little walk…Parker and Zac rode their bikes. We didn’t check the mail yesterday so I checked when we got back from our walk and our drone’s battery charger had arrived. Finally the drone will be back in action…maybe I’ll be better at avoiding the trees this time. Nicole took the boys over to her parents house this evening to visit since her mom just got back from a vacation. I stayed home and worked on some school work.

I have a feeling most of my extra time will be spent doing work for my Grad school classes for a while….

I woke up this morning and found out Kenton County schools were closed…so another snow day for the kids and Nicole!! It was an icy commute into work, but luckily didn’t hit any ice patches. However, there were huge pot holes on the main road and I saw several cars pulled off onto the shoulder because they had hit the potholes and popped their tire. Also luckily for me I left a little later and so the police were out and blocked the worst potholes with their cruisers so that no more cars would be damaged.

It was a busy day at work with a lot of meetings. A co-worked said it just felt like a “blah” day and I agreed…I think we’re all feeling the effects of having a lot of work, plus seeing all the additional work that’s upcoming in the next couple of months. But it’s better to be busy than not needed 🙂

I was fortunate today and was able to actually get away from my desk for lunch. Andy wanted to take me to a “hidden gem” he found that serves up fresh pizza. It’s actually a grocery story, but they have fresh lunch foods and pastries every day! So he drove and we each got a large slice of pizza and an XL size drink, all for only about $3 a person…a steal of a lunch deal! They didn’t really have a place to sit and eat so we just ate it in his car. It was nice to get away from my computer and talk about something other than work for a while. I need to try to do that more often. The pizza was great! Mine was pepperoni and the one slice filled me up. I think we’re going to try to make this a weekly tradition, as long as we’re able to both have a day where we are free during lunch.

After work I came home and had a bowl of chili and worked on some schoolwork for a while. Nicole had spent most of the morning at the YMCA with Melissa and JJ and then back at their house for the afternoon…from the pictures I received it looked looked like the kids had a blast! They then all went to Nicole/Melissa’s aunt Kim’s house for dinner. When they got home I played with Parker and Zac until it was bedtime.

Now I’m doing a little more schoolwork before bed…

“The time is always right to do what is right.”

On Saturday it rained almost all day. Nicole took Parker and Zac to watch JJ play soccer in the morning, but I stayed home and caught up on a little sleep and did a few things around the house. We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon playing inside. Parker and Zac were going to spend the night at JJ’s house that night so they kept asking, “Is it time to leave yet? Now is it time to go? Can we leave?” haha. They packed their overnight bags and were ready to go! We dropped them off around 4:00pm and came back home to watch some of the UK game and to decide what we wanted to do the rest of the evening.

The forecast was calling for heavy snow and “blizzard-like conditions” beginning later in the evening, but we decided that we could make it out to dinner and back home before the bad weather started. We chose to go to Texas Roadhouse so we put our name down on the online wait list so we could stay home and watch some more of the game. When we got to the restaurant we only had to wait about 3 minutes before our table was ready…a win for technology! It worked out great because we got to catch the end of the UK game, which was very close. UK won and dinner was great! We stopped at Kroger to fill up on gas and use our points and then went to Whit’s on the way home for dessert It was delicious like always. It was a great date night!

On Sunday we shoveled the driveway because we got about 5 inches of snow. Then we drove to pick up Parker and Zac…they had a great time at their sleepover 🙂

Unfortunately, Zac’s eye was red and watery so we went to the Little Clinic to get it checked out and get some drops. It turns out he most likely has some sort of eye infection/irritation related to a cold/virus that he has because he was also running a low grade fever. The rest of the day we just played inside because it was too cold to go out and sled ride and we wanted Zac to rest because he continued to have a fever the rest of the day. The boys loved watching Adam plow each of our neighbor’s driveways with is Ranger…we’re extremely lucky to have the neighbors that we do! After dinner Zac said he was “freezing” so he went to bed early so that he could rest and feel better.

Today Nicole and I were both off work. Nicole took the boys to the dentist because they all had appointments in the morning. Mine is next week so I went out and got a haircut and dropped off some jewelry at Kay’s to add a gemstone to a necklace. Nicole picked up Amie and then brought McDonald’s home for lunch. We just had a family day today and stayed home again. Zac still has his fever so it’s been good to let him rest and try to feel better. Nicole was going to take a sick day at work tomorrow to stay home with Zac, but then we found out the Kenton County schools are closed tomorrow! The roads must still be bad in some really rural areas.

Back to work for me tomorrow…

This has been a long week!

I went into work early today, arriving at the office a little before 5:30am to prepare for a project migration to Production. I had already stayed late Thursday evening helping our deskside support reinstall a scanner on a PC that had been refreshed at our Liberty location (assisted by phone and Remote Desktop)…part of my “many hats” as a business analyst. Overall, this was a very busy work week with having to stay late most evenings. Plus I also started my Grad school classes, did not get solid sleep most nights, and had to come into work extra early. I’m exhausted tonight! 😴 Fortunately the migration went well. And they restocked the Honey Buns!

After work my parents came over. We ordered some Bdubs for dinner because Nicole and I were both craving some wings. Delicious like always. Parker and Zac were full of energy and played with my parents the whole time…board games, pretend kitchen, wresting alligators, the usual haha. It was a great evening!

And so now we wait for Snowpacolypse part II