As my wife likes to point out, I’m always wrong. I guess that means I’d be a good weatherman. My wife and I were watching the news yesterday morning, and we kept hearing things like “scattered flurries” or “scattered showers.” Never mind that outside our window it had been snowing for a good 3 hours straight. Granted, at time sit was flurries, but at times it was an all-out storm. However, it broke around 1 pm, and the weathermen weren’t calling for too much more snow until the night. I believe the forecast was 1″ during the day, up to 2″ overnight.

So we went to Uncle John’s for Jaden’s birthday party. It was still flurrying, but the roads were just wet. When we left my uncle’s house at 4:30, it was a white-out. It looked like no one had touched the roads, as there was a good 2 inches of snow down. It took us about 30 minutes to go the 10 miles from his house to ours.

When I got home, I shoveled the driveway, which I had cleared on Saturday. Without breaking out my ruler, I’d say we got about 2, maybe 2.5 inches of snow yesterday by 5:30 pm. So I was worried that we’d be in for similar problems overnight. But I woke up this morning to about an inch of snow, nothing unmanageable, and all the treated roads were fine. The problem was a lot of the roads I used to get to work weren’t treated, even Rt. 30 from Irwin to Greensburg. So it took a little extra time to get in this morning.

Like I said, since I’m always wrong, I guess I can be a weatherman too. But I don’t know the difference between cummulonimbus and cirrus clouds, so I guess I’m out.

… is pain. A group of us from work went to the All-American Paintball Park on Friday. We had set it up as a group, so we got a decent group rate for 3 hours on a private field. Having never played paintball, I wasn’t quite ready for the actual pain of being hit. For those that want to know, yes, it hurts. As true of most pain, it hurts in some places more than others. For example, I took a shot right above the mask on my forehead. While it stung a lot initially, it really wasn’t sore at all (although it is a great battle wound, as it’s still visible on my head). However, I took a few shots in my side (right above my waist), and that is a soreness that has lingered until today (although there is still pain to the touch).

Despite the pain, it was a lot of fun. My previous days of laser tag did nothing to prepare me for the strategy of hiding ever part of your body to avoid the pain of being shot. But once I got the hang of it (which only took about 4 games), it was a good time.

Yes, I know I skipped Valentine’s Day. But I hate that holiday, it’s totally commercial, so it gets skipped.

Knock on wood… After a good 5 day bout with a pretty nasty stomach bug, Deuce is finally feeling a little better. Granted he went from the stomach bug to a head cold, he seems to be getting over that as well, so hopefully he’ll return to his jovial little self. As for me, well, I was also hit with the stomach bug and spent Wednesday, Thursday, and the majority of Friday eating crackers and toast and drinking Gatorade. It aided a bit in my weight loss goals, however, as I dropped about 4 lbs. in those three days.

As for our goals, well, we’re going good, and it seems to be much easier than our previous start. Last time we were on South Beach, we really got stuck at a “plateau” and couldn’t seem to lose any more weight. We came up with a number of excuses, but the reality was we we’re decreasing our calorie count as much as we could have. I, for example, was probably easily taking in 3,500 calories a day, even without all the carbs. And that’s just not going to get me to lose weight. Since we’ve been tracking our calorie intake, we’ve been eating better and healthier, and the weight loss is a bit more consistent. My goal right now is to lose a pound a week from now until the end of the year. If I can, I will be in the upper “healthy” range for my height. And I don’t know if I’ve ever been a “healthy” weight.

January 7th is Christmas Day for those faiths which follow the Julian calendar, which includes the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. So Grandma and Grandpa G had the traditional Christmas Eve dinner on Saturday and had an open house on Sunday. Since they live about 45 miles from us, we decided we’d sleep over there on Saturday night to prevent 90 miles of excess driving. Deuce, however, had other ideas.

Now, he puked on Saturday morning, but both Dana and I thought he had choked on his morning vitamin chew, since it came up whole. He didn’t eat all that much on Saturday, with the exception of some toast and a couple of chicken nuggets. He went to sleep around 8 pm, but woke up at 10:30, probably because everyone was playing poker in the kitchen. So we sat with him for a little bit, and just as I picked him up to take him to bed, he puked again. At that point, we realized he was sick.

So we got him cleaned up and headed home so that he could sleep in his own bed. We ended up missing the party on Sunday to instead let Deuce get some good rest at home. He didn’t puke at all yesterday, and he even ate some cheese and chicken nuggets, so we figured that he was feeling a bit better and could go to day care. Alas, he puked this morning at day care, so Dana picked him up and took him home. Luckily, Dana’s mom is going to head over to our house at around 2 so Dana can make a her appointments this afternoon.

I always hate to see him sick, but such things happen, so we’ll have to keep an eye on him until he gets better.