November 30, 2017

It's the last day of November and people already have Christmas decorations and lights up. I think the tradition is to have your tree and other Christmas stuff up during Thanksgiving weekend. People have that four day weekend to get all that stuff up. Angela has our wreath and garland. We will get them at some point this weekend. For the past two nights, we've had free dinners! It's nice not having to cook. Amir and Ashley have been added to the weekly supper club. Next week is our turn to whip up a full meal.

November 28, 2017

Trump continues to spew crap out of his mouth. He won't stop with his stupidity. He's one of those old people who think they can say whatever they want to say because they are in power and have nothing better to do. They are bored and crave the attention, whether it's a bad reaction or not, it doesn't matter. People are talking about what he said, present company included. I need to learn how to ignore his stupidity and let the true bodies of government run this country. At this point, it is the judicial branch because these federal judges make their decisions to allow or disallow his stupid executive orders and appointments. Congress continues to implode from within so the judicial branch is our last hope to ensuring civility and outright common sense.

November 27, 2017

I worked for a couple hours on Wednesday and called it a day. I then raked leaves for about 2.5 hours. The yard was looking great without the leaves for a good two days and then the leaves were back. I am going to hold off on raking the leaves until I see nothing but branches on the backyard pecan trees. We found our first Christmas tree. We wanted to shop locally at the Midtown pop-ups but they were expensive. We got the tree at Lowe's for $40. It was a good buy until we saw the tree stand. The stand itself was $50. Then it was onto ornament shopping...never go to North Pole City. This place rips you off. You can get the same stuff at At Home or Target. The tree was fully decorated as of last night when Paul picked up some last minute items from Target. He and Indira found some good deals at Target. The first year investment is huge but we won't be spending that much on decorations for next year. Angela's wreath and garland come next week for the front porch. Thanksgiving at the Bullards was fun. We were there all day helping Sharon out. I broke a ceramic fruit platter that Sharon had on her kitchen counter. I also dropped a plastic vase filled with water and tulips. The $1 vase from the Dollar Tree had a loose handle that broke away as I was about to place it on the side table. Luckily, this all happened before everyone showed up. I ate just enough to sample all of the dishes. The Secret Hitler game is by far the the most fun board game to date. Once you realize what to do, the game gets going pretty quickly. The top three for Miss Universe deserved to be top three. Unfortunately, Jamaica lost because she stressed her platform for deaf people instead of having a response that includes everyone. Congrats to Miss South Africa. She definitely deserves the crown. Now, it's back to the full work week.

November 20, 2017

On Friday night, I baked cookies for Kari but ended up keeping quite a few to give away and for personal consumption. I finally got to eat at the Jones Assembly. The food was definitely good. The only complaint was the sketchy and random people who ate and drank at the place. I think they came in from the small towns and villages all across Oklahoma. It was funny because Kaci was the only person who has been to the Jones Assembly more than a handful of times. Paul and Lauren both were there once before. It was our first time for Charli and me. Charli had to call out Kaci for her frequent visits. It was funny when it happened...not so much as I am retelling what happened. The next day, we were off to Tulsa for my firm's holiday party. Paul left his mustache in place for the party. We pregamed in Marci's room and made our way up to the party. We walked away with a Nespresso machine. The second prize we won was flying lessons from the company's owner. We had to give that prize away to Erika who sat at our table. Only one couple can win one prize for the night. Minhaj walked away with the two scooters for his daughter. It was a winning table for sure. We met up with Marci's mom for brunch the next morning. I cheered on the last runner for the Tulsa Marathon as she was clearing the marathon route with cops and trucks picking up barricades behind her. Bless her heart. We got back to OKC around 1:30pm or so. I stayed in all day as Paul stepped out a few times to do what he needed to do. Instead of getting dinner, I made shrimp lomein. I made enough to take some to work today. I wish we had limes because limes would go well with the lomein. I have today and two more days of work and then the long weekend awaits me. I like this time of year. People are not really working and the weather is dry and crisp.

November 15, 2017

It's that time of year again when I get the rake out to rake up those damn leaves. I would happy if we chop down all three pecan trees. They are a nuisance year round, not just during the fall when the leaves fall. At some points during the year, the pecans start falling off of the trees. If the pecans are not dropping, their sap is dripping on the cars leaving a sticky residue that's tough to get off. It would be nice to demolish the detached garage, chop down the trees and create an open space of greenery. I don't mind piggybacking off of the neighbor's trees for some shade. Speaking of which, Anna and Kayla had a lot to say last night at the Yelp event. We were disappointed in the timing of the service. The restaurant could have done better. We started the night at a perfect five stars and went down to a three. I think we landed on four stars before the night was over. Tonight I'm off to baking a couple more batches of cookies so we can decorate them tomorrow night. Taylor, congratulations on your partnership! MIL cannot get away from that Diez name for sure.

November 13, 2017

Wow, the month is almost halfway over and I am now getting to my third entry for the month. Where did this month go? It's insane how time flies so fast now. Hold all my calls. I'll be back soon.

November 2, 2017

I like conference calls scheduled early in the morning. You get them out of the way so you can worry about other things for the rest of the day. People are not really there when they attend these meetings. They are too busy getting coffee so they can be fully awake. They will listen to whatever you have to say and agree with almost anything. I think afternoon meetings are a bit rough because people are antsy to get the day over with. Plus, they are probably putting out fires so they really don't have time to meet with you even if the meeting was scheduled a couple weeks before. The Super Nintendo is packed and ready for delivery to Robert so he can work his magic. Hopefully he can find us a few hundred more games. Tonight is the last night for kickball. We are officially in the playoffs. We will need to win three straight games to win the championship. It's single elimination so if we lose the first game at 7:30pm, we are done for the entire season. The team captain asked a couple people to come back for the spring season but just gave us a blank stare. I then said "looks like we are not needed for the next season". He then said, "oh yeah, you guys should totally come back in the spring." Let's just say we are dedicated players who have shown up for almost all of the games. We only missed two games out of the 8 or 9 games. I think some players dropped off early in the season and never came back. Kaci is definitely our super star. She needs to stop talking to umpires and play the game. No more chatty kathy for her.

November 1, 2017

We survived our first Halloween. The first kid didn't arrive until 6:15pm or so. She didn't even have a costume. The last kids stopped coming around 8:30pm. We had plenty of candy to give away. In the last hour, we started giving three or four pieces per kid. The going rate early in the evening was two pieces per kid. We had to ration in the last thirty minutes because we were running low. I think there are about 30 pieces left. Another kid didn't have a costume and I asked where was his costume. He was quite sad in his response and said he didn't have one and was about to give me his reason. I stopped him and gave him more candy. I felt bad for asking. From that point on, no more asking "where is your costume?" A couple teenagers said "Thank you, SIR!" When Paul got home, he took over giving candy out. We then agreed to take turns after he opened the door about a handful of times. One group had three boys who were about ten years old. I opened the door and one kid said "You have a cool house bro". I didn't know how to respond but say thank you. Chang said I should have corrected him and say "excuse me, did you mean sir?" Anyways, all in all a fun night giving out candy... speaking of candy, my 3 lbs. bag of juju cinnamon bear candy came in!