Dean Barlow » General life

Moving Here

Dean — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 01:58:37 +0000

Posted by Von Battle

When I first moved here I watched way too much TV. Like, way more than any normal person should reasonable watch at any given time. I didn’t really have any friends and I got so many exciting new channels from www.expertsatellite.com that I really didn’t have any reason to want to go out – it was like, why would I leave home when my best TV friends are right here? That plus the fact that my job is just ridiculously stressful and I felt like I was always walking into a minefield when I got in in the mornings and by the time I got home I was totally drained…I feel much better about work now though since I got my promotion and talked to my boss and I’m even starting to make friends thanks to all the work happy hours. My next goal is to meet some people I DON’T already work with but I’m taking baby steps, you know? I can’t do it all at once and I’m working on it one thing at a time.

I hate when that happens!

Dean — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:00:34 +0000

My wife is a mystery shopper, and today she was given the job to do a mystery shop at a local grocery store. She likes doing those shops because it is the grocery store that we use all of the time anyway! So she gets paid a few dollars to go buy stuff she would have bought anyway. How great is that! Anyway, off we went to the grocery store, all ready to load up on good deals – we had sorted through our coupons and made a list and we were ready to save some serious money, since the store gives us double coupons.

We got into the store and opened up our reusable shopping bag to get the list and coupons out – they weren’t there! Oh no! Checked her purse – not there either! Went back to the car – nope, not in the car! Called home, son answered the phone. Yup, we left the list and coupons on the counter! Man, I hate when that happens! Well, we bought the stuff we could remember from the list that we knew we did not have coupons for, and luckily for us we remembered the requirements for the mystery shop. We’ll just have to finish up the grocery shopping the next time we go into town – with the list and coupons next time (I hope!)

Parenthood today is a lot easier than when our kids were infants

Dean — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:18:49 +0000

When my wife was pregnant, one of the things that she wanted to get for the baby right away was a Baby Sling for us to use so that we could carry the baby close to our bodies but still have our hands free for things like cooking and housework.

At the time, there were only two different types of Baby Sling Wrap styles on the market, one had support for a newborn’s little head, and one was designed for the older baby that did not need that kind of support. Nowadays there is a wide variety of Baby Pouch and baby sling styles to choose from. In some ways, that’s wonderful, but in other ways I think that I would have a harder time picking one out from so many different choices!

What do you mean it’s nothing to worry about?

Dean — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:09:52 +0000

My wife has been having a lot of bad headaches lately and she finally convinced her doctor to order an MRA and MRI to see if there is anything physical in her head that might be causing the headaches. She told me that the headaches feel like someone was stabbing her in her head with an ice pick.

Well, the results came back in that she has a small anuerysm in her brain, but the doctor said that it is so small that it is nothing to worry about. Well, I guess I’ll be doing some research on my own to see why the doctor would say that. I thought that all anuerysms were something to worry about!

A new bargain website

Dean — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:58:44 +0000

Have you been reading all of the rave nomorerack reviews on the Internet lately? This is a bargain shopping website that has got to be seen to be believed. My wife was telling me that she found and purchased several nomorerack bargains a couple of days ago and she was as pleased as a pig in a mud bath.

To be honest I had not heard of the website until my wife told me about it, and she found out about it from our son, who bought a few things from it to use for Christmas gifts. Isn’t it amazing how parents learn a lot of things from their own kids? I don’t know how our son heard about it, I guess from one of his friends or co-workers. Regardless, in the spirit of making every penny count, this is a great website to check out when you are thinking about having to buy presents for people; they have great merchandise at cut-rate prices.

Watch what you eat

Dean — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 01:55:48 +0000

Some people are just so stupid it is hard to believe. I was going through old newspapers and noticed a headline about people getting sick from eating a homemade stew. The story was that an ambulance had been dispatched to a residence because “a person was sick.” When the ambulance arrived at the house, there were a LOT of people sick, and they were all transported to the hospital. I don’t know how many ambulances actually were used, I just know that they all ended up at the hospital. They were calling it a “mystery illness.” Well, it turned out that the people took ill because they had all eaten a stew that was made with some herbs picked from in front of the house that had been sprayed with some kind of pesticide and was not properly washed before used in the food. I can’t believe that people are so stupid as to use pesticide on their crops and then not wash it off! To give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they didn’t KNOW that pesticide had been used, but still for goodness sake you should wash your food before eating it, a dog could have passed by and peed on it!

Taking down the tree

Dean — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 01:00:06 +0000

Over the course of the weekend, my wife took the decorations off of the Christmas tree and packed them all away. Now it’s up to me to haul it outside and put it by the curb for the trash service to haul away. This is the part where I start to feel guilty about having a real cut tree for Christmas. Although I love the smell of a real tree, I feel guilty about having taken a part in killing a tree. I think that maybe next year I’ll look into buying one of those trees with a root ball still on it so that I can plant it out in the yard in the spring.

Winter’s just begun

Dean — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:47:19 +0000

Winter’s just begun, and already I’m a little bit tired of it. I don’t usually get tired of it this quickly; I think it is probably a little bit of the “SAD” kicking in. The week has been overcast most of the time, we’ve had quite a bit of rain. I don’t mind the cold if it is sunny out, but cold and wet is just “blah” – bring me spring! It doesn’t help to be getting all of those catalogs in the mail now from the flower companies, trying to get me to buy flowers! Makes me REALLY anxious for spring! I want to get my hands in the dirt and be planting and weeding. Come on spring – I’m ready for you!

Merry Christmas

Dean — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 02:59:17 +0000

Well the gifts have been all unwrapped, the dinner eaten, dishes done. Another Christmas come and gone. This year was low key, calmer than most. There were no little ones running around the house. I’m not sure, but I think I kind of missed the energy of a young one at Christmas. And there were very few gifts exchanged; the economy has had a strong effect on everyone. It was good to see everyone, but you could tell that there was a subdued feeling because of everyone’s financial stresses. I hope next Christmas is a better one.

So many choices

Dean — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 22:53:56 +0000

I never realized when Lisa told me that she needed to get a couple of sets of scrubs for her new job, that buying scrubs would involve so many different choices! I thought that I would surprise her with a pair or two for a Christmas gift, but when I went online to http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/categories/Scrubs/ and saw all of the different ones to choose from I started to think that maybe the best thing to do for her is to give her a gift card to buy her own.

I think it is great that there ARE so many different patterns to choose from; it makes a visit to the hospital or to the doctor less frightening for children, and could be a conversation starter for other folks. It certainly lets the patients know that the nurses and doctors have a personality and a sense of humor! It’s good to know that the people in charge of your health care have a sense of humor! Makes the whole process a little less intimidating, you know what I mean?