A new way of doing things...

Tonight I sit in a small mom-n-pop motel in Comanche TX posting on my blog as I get ready to see my daughter tomorrow. I picked this motel because several weeks ago on my last trip to visit my daughter I noticed the sign out front that said they had free wireless internet. Now I know that most motel chains now offer this but they usually cost $60 and up for a room. I usually stay at these smaller local motels because they generally offer a clean room for around $40. And just as I thought, this room cost me $44 including tax. And it is a nice, large room with microwave, mini-fridge, and coffee maker. But the internet is what I like. What does this have to do with a new way of doing things? Tomorrow when I see my daughter I am going to stress to her the importance of focusing on that which you have decided to do. I am practicing what I am going to preach to her because I am now really starting to focus on that which I want. For my wife and I that is to eventually move to the country. I am going to stress to her that she cannot let anyone allow her to stray from the path she chooses until she has accomplished the goal at the end of that path. I have never had this foresight before. I know that those that are successful in life know this, many from a very young age. I never before had the maturity to understand this concept. I do not want my daughter to have to struggle through 20 years of adulthood before she figures it out. But if I do not practice it myself I cannot be a guide for her to follow. I do not know why I could not understand this concept nor have the discipline to follow it. Looking back, I have exhibited it in my work as I learned more and more but I never put into practice regarding my personal life and the bigger picture of life itself. So while I cannot go back and redo things in my life, I can start right now with goals to accomplish and put my undivided attention on them. Keep the focus is what I am calling it. I am going to tell her that you can and will have more than one "focus" at a time. Example: While moving to the country is the big picture focus for my wife and I, the smaller "focuses" are my work, our home, etc. I have a stack of claims from our new store that go back 3 months that needed correcting and resubmitting. I made a conscious decision to get them all done by the end of work today. And I did, even though I was asked to do other things, I always returned to my current "focus". This may sound easy and it may be for most people, but for me it has not been easy. I do not know why my brain is wired the way it is but it is. So many of my beliefs that I held are changing and I know part of it is because I never wanted to be like everyone else. So I did things differently just to be different. But it has held be back in life. Also it is because I have never been confident of my abilities. But over the past year I have had to be responsible for so much that I have really started looking at my life and how others were able to accomplish their goals in life. I get so down as I see how so much of what could have been was wasted. But I hope to be able to put that behind me as we cannot change the past and just go forward with what we want to accomplish now. I just hope my wife can overcome her illnesses so that we may do this together. She is in so much pain right now. And that brings me back to focusing. I am tired and burnt out on trying to please everyone. When I say I am making decisions that are best for me, I mean for my wife and me as we are one. I believe in that principle of marriage. So many times when I talk of her sugery or doctor appointments, I use the word "we" but also whenever I say "I", I am also speaking of "we". I can no longer allow anyone to influence my decisions just because I do not want to hurt their feelings. I needed to see my daughter as I have not seen her in about six weeks. My "mil" (mother-in-law) probably feels I should go to the hospital tomorrow. But I can see my wife on Monday as I am off, even without the holiday I would have been off. I have chores to do when I get back tomorrow. She is the one that came uninvited last February when my wife got sick again and I have tolerated her attempts to remake my home into her home but no more. If she is here to help me take care of my wife, then that is what she is going to do. And I mean take of her the way I need her to do it, not how she wants to do. There will be no more of me coming home and her going to her room and to bed while I have to continue taking care of my wife. She is the one home all day resting while I am working 10 hour days to pay the rent. She does not pay rent or help with the electricity but she can run that tv 24/7. I have had enough. I need to get some rest at night and if she cannot help me the way I need her to help, then she can go back home. I know I am ranting now but I needed to get this off my chest. I feel everyone relies on me but does not ask what I need. My parents do the most of that by helping me with errands and loaning my their car to take my wife to the doctor and to see my daughter. In short, I am done with allowing others to influence my decisions because I don't want conflict. I have to take care of me first (again, meaning wifey and me) everyone else second. Focus is the word.

An ending and a beginning....

Today Tammi had surgery on her left hip. The ending is that the wait to is over. The beginning is that this is the beginning of 6 months of surgeries to put her back together again. Everything went well and she is now resting in the ICU. She is expected to only spend on night there and then be moved to a regular room. Sunday she will have her first wound change with the vac so that will not be a fun day as it is extremely painful. Right now she hurts a lot but they have her on a self-administering pain release which means she does not hurt for long. I have decided to pay the $63 for a room at the hospital hotel located on the 9th floor. That way I can get a good nights sleep as tomorrow will be another long day. I am hoping she will be moved in the morning so I can get settled in to stay with her through wound care on Sunday. This past week I scanned some photos in and then uploaded to yahoo and then sent them to Target for one hour printing. I am still amazed and impressed with this setup. I scanned them enlargement from 4x6 to 5x7 and they came out great. Then I bought 8x10 frames with matting for the 5x7 size and we are giving them for gifts. Tam has been crafting modge podge containers that we filled with sugar free hot chocolate and I wanted to contribute with my creativity. I have been going through photos I have shot over the years and found some that I thought were relevent to certain family members. I don't know if these people will understand the meaning behind the picture they were given, i.e. that it was something that I had created and then spent time putting together, but I am proud of them and the job I did making the final, finished product.

Predictions and other stuff...

Time for my weekly Cowboys prediction. This week, based upon the fact the Saints have a very good offense, think the score will be: Dallas 34 Saints 21 I came to this conclusion that while both offenses are good, Dallas's defense is better than the Saints defense so Dallas will score more points. It will be close but in the end Dallas will pull away, especially if the are up by double digits at the start of the 4th quarter. New Orleans will be in catch up mode and that is when interceptions happen. I am confident in Dallas ability to win out.

Close....

On the Cowboys score. I had it 23-16 Dallas. The final score was 23-20 Dallas but I was not so close on how the teams would end up with their scores. I really thought Dallas would be more in control of the game than they were. But a win is a win and this was a good game. Alwasy better when your team comes out on top so that is just some icing on the cake. Dallas did have their chances at some turnovers but I guess the cold weather made them fumble fingers. Their was Aaron Glenn's drop of a certain interception in the end zone and Tiki Barber's fumble that three Cowboys had their feet around and yet could not come up with the ball. Romo's final figures were slightly off of my prediction as well. He through more passes than I thought he would but the yardage was about right. He did throw it down field more than I thought he would have but then what do I know?? What I do know is that the Cowboy's are 8-4 and are not afraid of any team in the league. If Rex Grossman continues to play the way he has, Chicago will be a non factor. Dallas is the only team in the league that is top 5 on both offense and defense, so they are well balanced. Which means other teams just cannot load up on side of the ball and dare Dallas to beat them with another part. Dallas runs the ball effective enough that teams have to pay attention to it and they have enough weapons in the passing game that teams must account for it. Take away the outside receivers and the tight ends and back tear up the middle. Send linebackers out to play the passing game and the running backs gash the middle for yards. Terry Glenn and Terrell Owens are too good for defenses to play man to man more than a few plays so they must give them help. On defense, Dallas a very good against the run and their corners are good enough to one on one with most teams or at the least they only have to double one opponents receivers leaving a safety to help out with tight end coverage over the middle. And then there is Ware's speed rushing that is starting to cause havoc for quarterbacks. Double him and that will leave someone else uncovered. Last night showed that Dallas can play pass defense well enough that they do not have to live and die by the blitz constantly. New Orleans is going to be a big test this week again but this team seams to be rising to the occasion with each passing game. The believe they can win against anybody and Romo's swagger is trickling to down to each player. We have seen Brees pass for over 500 yards in a game this season along with a much improved running game but the Saints are also susceptible on defense. If Dallas once again plays ball control, then Brees and company have fewer chances to do something with the ball. That in turn places pressure on them to make something happen when they do have it and that is when turnovers and mistakes happen. This is the time of year when each week is almost like a playoff game and Dallas once again has the power offense to impose their will on other teams and control the game. Even with the Giants offense success yesterday there was the impression that Dallas still controlled the game. The Giants were always going uphill and did not really demonstrate the ability to stop Dallas. That comes from the energy and attitude of Tony Romo. He is in control and the others now feel a leadership within him that has not been there since Aikmans days. I read an article yesterday about how there is the feeling in New York that how can Manning tell others what to do? He is the young one. Well,age does not matter, it is position and the responsibility that comes with it that matters. It is how a person carries themselves. There are butter bar Lt. in the military that take firm control of their units and there are some that never get more than what the enlisted has to give them. Demand respect and you will get none. Command respect and you will get it.

Predictions and other stuff...

Cowboys vs Giants: Dallas 23 Giants 16. This will be a game that Dallas will be in control of but will not blow out the Giants. With the weather being nice but in the 40's the running game will dominate. Romo will use a short, controlled passing attack to keep the Giants defense off balance while the running game will be strong enough to keep the chains moving. I predict Romo will go 18 for 27 for 220 yards. Alot of passes on slants and in the slot to the tight ends. Linebackers just will not be able to keep up with Witten and Fasano and that will open up the slot receiver as well. Once the defense has to account for them, the corners will be left one on one with Glenn and Owens. I see Dallas driving in the first half but the Giants will stiffen in the red zone so Gramatica will have 3 short field goals. Later, as Dallas wears down the Giants defense Dallas will have a couple of long drives ending in touchdowns to put the game away. The Giants will score some points late to account for the closeness of the score, which will be closer than the actual game. Tammi was admitted to the hospital this past Tuesday as she was experiencing some swelling and hotness on her hip. The doctors agreed something was wrong and proceeded to have more MRI's and CT scans done. On top of that they did not get the whole hip in the scans and had to do them again on Thursday. Today she told me they are changing her antibiotics as she should not have a flair up of infection while on these antibiotics. So here we are, once again praying to have this surgery done quickly and yet it seems it is getting farther and farther away. There are times the weight of all this just becomes too much, but then I hear from her or my daughter and all is better. Where this is going to I don't know but I will continue to strive to take care of them. We have much to do in life yet. I am nearly 42 years old and yet I get so excited of stuff, stuff I really enjoy doing. I am a fanatic now with notebook computers. I cannot ever see a reason to go back to a desktop pc. The mobility is something I just love. With broadband and wifi becoming so commonplace, I can go so many places and log on. Today I found out every library in Dallas and Arlington has free wifi, along with the Schlotzkys sandwich shops, and the coffee shop I go to near my work. Add in the fact that the library is such a quiet place to work I feel I will be going much more often. The main Dallas library is just a few blocks from the train station so whenever I ride the train to go see Tam I can stop off for awhile at the library. The Arlington main library is open most nights until 9pm so I will have an hour or so to be online. I predict that within 10 years free wifi will everywheres. Already I have decided that there is not reason to pay $2.99 for 2 hours at Mcdonalds or to pay $40 a month at Starbucks. Why pay for access when you can have it for free? Sure, you can't watch porn at the library but I don't have a need for that. Downloading music might be frowned upon for taking up so much bandwidth, but again I can live without that. The main thing I miss by not having it at home those moments you want to look something up right away. But acceptance sets me free and I accept that I don't have it at home so i look for other ways. Write it down and look it up whenever I do get online. Oh, and then there is my parents house where I always get online for free. So there are many advantages to being mobile and the best part is that prices are coming down so low for pretty well setup units there just isn't a reason to buy anything else. I told my wife that whenever I buy one I will purchase an extended warranty policy and when that policy is up is when I will buy a new notebook. That way I always have warranty and a fairly up to date computer. Enough of this for tonight but it is good to be blogging again. Speaking of blogging, this goes right in with a new way of thinking I have been working on. Instead of becoming upset at something, I look to what I could have done to avoid the issue. My example comes from a doctor's appointment we had a couple of months ago. We showed up for the appointment and they promptly told me the doctor was not in and that they had called and left a message for us that we needed to reschedule. Knowing how much pain it causes Tam to get out I really blew a gasket as I never received any such message. Later I thought about whatI could have done to avoid this issue and ever since then I have made a point to call and verify our appointments. What I am trying to say is, instead of laying blame on others, I find my "ownership" in the issue and work from there. Yes, it is there fault that I did not get the message, but people make mistakes. But if I had called in advance I would have know to reschedule. And since then that has happened a couple of times. This all comes from Dr. Phil and the book I read 3 years ago. I am still learning how to communicate with people and this is just another step. How does this apply to blogging? Because I do not have internet at home. Instead of stressing over something that I cannot control at this time, I look for solutions in other places.