Cephalopod

I felt really good and got up slightly early (about 7 minutes). That might not seem like much, but it makes a huge difference. It was 540am when I finished exercise and headed outside with Ykraps. The sky was clear and the temperature fairly mild - about 47 degrees. I felt really good both physically and mentally, although my stomach burned a little. So, when delivering Mindy’s coffee, I grabbed myself a Target Tagament from the bedroom medicine cabinet. I had lots of time to play on the web before moving on to meditation and stretching. That was really nice. I used the towel behind the back trick to stretch my back muscles just like Mindy demonstrated Monday night. That felt great. I did my usual stretch routine as well. I dressed and left for a run at 6:40am. Last second I decided to stick with hand and ear covers despite the temperature being somewhat borderline. I was comfy. My knee and hammies felt terrific, so I went ahead and ran four miles for the first time since I tweaked my knee. I was very happy with the results. I didn’t mention the four miles to Mindy or the kids. I still was unsure what I would do in the coming days. However, I do know this; I want to be smart about it. Mindy made cheesy scrambled eggs. I enjoyed my eggs along with some pineapple, raspberries, watermelon and strawberries. Bella felt a lot better about her pumpkin carving this morning. She was a little jealous of Jacob’s last night before bed. Mindy left at 7:30am, and after a brief clean-up I headed up for a shower. Feeling spry, I pulled an oldie but goodie out of the closet – a mustard colored paisley print flannel shirt. Oh yeah! I was going retro! The kids were ready to head out the door earlier than we needed to, but that’s nothing new. I took my time taking care of a few daily chores before meeting them at the bus stop. We chatted with Makayla, Lillian, and Chrissy while waiting on the bus. Jacob teased the girls about going to Dairy Queen after school. Apparently Mindy forgot to tell him that his soccer trophy presentation was canceled until next Tuesday. And when I corrected him, he was certain that I was fibbing. OK, slick! I did some last minute prep before heading off to work. I went back for my golf clubs hoping to hit the range at lunch. It was a sunny drive into work, but clouds loomed just to our west. A threat of rain was in the forecast but not until later. I arrived at work around 830am. Work started off well. Early on, I drafted an email to my golf peeps asking if anyone was interested in golf Friday at Player’s Club. I am scheduled off and the weather, at least for now, is supposed to be in the 70’s with a 40% chance for rain. I am hopeful that chance of ran will diminish. Come lunch time, it had clouded over and was even raining lightly. I decided to skip the driving range idea, but still left the building. Instead, I went to Best Buy where I planned to see and touch the HP & Dell computers models that I am tossing around buying. I also planned to do a little early Xmas shopping for the kids. Best Buy stocks both the Dell & HP PC I am looking at but with limited bells and whistles. After seeing and touching I think I am gonna go with an HP. They also had the newest HP wireless Photosmart printers in stock. I was happy that I got to touch and see them as well. I looked at the newest version of my waterproof Olympus pocket digital camera on display, too. It now comes as 12 megapixels, along with a few other enhancements, but a hefty price tag too - $379. Ouch! And after a quick peek at LED TV’s I headed over to the Wii aisle to look at the Wii Fit Plus along with new games. Rather than wait, I went ahead and picked up the Wii Fit Plus and Wii Resort. Last Xmas everyone was out of the Wii Fit and popular games by TG weekend. That won’t be an issue for us now! And since I was in a buying mood, I went ahead and bought a WD 1TB external hard drive in preparation for a new PC. This way I can back-up all of my important files for easy access later. I headed back to the office after being gone just over an hour. The afternoon flowed smoothly. It was nice to have a somewhat easy day for a change. I left for home at 515pm. I called Mindy soon after hitting the road. She shared that she called my dad to see how he was feeling. Said he was feeling good but was experiencing some discomfort localized to the incision area, but more importantly, no pain whatsoever in his legs or buttocks. She shared that we’d be having Kroger rotisserie chicken for dinner. That sounded delicious. We chatted until I was a mile or two from home. I didn’t figure she would, but I still asked Mindy if she wanted to walk Ykraps with me. She didn’t. He & I walked alone. It was spitting rain and considerably cooler than it was earlier in the day. No big deal. I also carried all the goodies in from the Trooper and hid the Wii gear in the basement. Dinner was served a few minutes later. The rotisserie chicken was absolutely delicious along with the mashed potatoes and gravy. Yum-yum! All of us had two helpings, even Bella. After dinner, Jacob asked me to play Madden ’07 on his Playstation. I hadn’t played that in over a year. I agreed to do so. I was the Vikings and he was the Saints. I accused him of purposefully keeping key functionality tips from me to further his chances of beating me. He won something like 55-35. Geesh! It was darn near 8pm. This is why I don’t like to play video games, big time eaters. The kids were tucked in by 845pm. After the kids were in bed, Mindy and I watched The Science Channel – first a program about the Apollo 11 moon mission, and then one about a moonless Earth and what it would be like without it. Mindy headed off to bed just before 10pm. I stayed up and popped popcorn. Bella smelt it and asked if she could join me. I agreed. We sat on the sofa watching more of the Science Channel, a program about the Octopus. It was very enlightening.