As I read Mike’s Thanksgiving blog I realized that our Thanksgivings were quite a bit different from one another. Both were good. Just different.
Here are the things that I remember most about the Holidays.
* I walked two miles and then did an hour or so of aerobics starting at 5:00 am on Thanksgiving day.
* I get really apprehensive and nervous before holiday gatherings. I dont know why, but I just do… so about midday I start thinking about 3 million things at the same time.
* I made some little pumpkin pies that were pretty good, except no crust, they had fillo dough for the crust. I love fillo dough.
* About two Pm on Thanksgiving I began to get sick.
* I got to eat my favorite food out of the WHOLE year - which would be Oyster stuffing with turkey gravy. YUM.
* Everyone thought Zaeda was awfully cute at Thanksgiving, and loved her matching dress and tights.
* It was Mike’s sister- Arianna’s birthday. She turned 16.
* By 8pm I was feeling so ill, that I just wanted to be home in my bed.
* By 2:00 am I had a fever of about 102. I was shaking so hard that I couldnt stop, then I started not being able to move. At 3:00 am Mike got up to go to Fry’s. I couldnt even tell him that I was that sick.
* I was sick for several days, the entire time that all of our friends were here I was in a complete fog. Ugh. Being sick sucks.
but now I’m better! And I am happy that another Thanksgiving is completed, and that I saw some of my cousins that I havent seen in FOREVER!… so that was cool too!
Ξ November 30th, 2006 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Life |
So I have promised people that I would post about my awesome thanksgiving…and here it is! So, with this thanksgiving we had a couple dinners to eat and many friends and family to share it with. Now when I say thanksgiving, I don’t mean just that day…I mean the day before, the day of and the entire weekend following! I take holidays very seriously. So it started with that Wednesday before where I found out that a friend was in town. That week had already started off bad, I didn’t get the work I wanted to get done that Monday but oh well, I should be used to that by now.
My good friend Isaac was in town and as much as I want to call and talk, he is the one who actually owns up and calls me. I feel like a jerk most of the time, but thankful in the fact that we actually talk. So he was in town and like right afterwards, I check my voicemail and to my disbelief, another friend was in town, Dan! He was my best man in my wedding and another great friend to boot! Thank you Lord!
So I’m getting ready, thrilled and I find out that…of course ANOTHER friend I don’t get to see, Philip is coming up for the weekend! Bleh! Melanie and I couldn’t be happier. Maybe I should explain why we’re so happy. These people aren’t just friends to us, they’re like family, I even consider them brothers. They knew that we were pregnant before we told our families! Considering that I have known them since pre-school and went through the good, bad and ugly with them they are A+ friends in my book. But anyways…
On the day of Thanksgiving, Mel, Zaeda and I attended a couple dinners for both of our families. They were great, but I didn’t get any pie! I was really disappointed as I love holiday pie…it’s much more than just a desert, it’s the time to sit back, relax and soak in the goodness of being with family and friends. Down at the grandparents house, there was literally 10-18 people there it was insane in such a small house. Very loud, noisey and great food. I had some shrimp there that was excellent…and I’m not a big fan of seafood. Up at my parent’s house though, the food was just amazing. I think my mother doesn’t acknowledge how good her food is, how real it is. I do miss it. Much quieter and calm. We left tired and full…well at least I did.
Throughout the holiday we got together with Tyler and Lacey Auble, Isaac, and Dan & Terri at Applebee’s. Great food, and great fellowship. Stopped off at the coffee shop for even more hang time. We also went to a wedding and a movie. Which movie? Well…Bond of course! I’ve been repeating this to everyone who hasn’t seen it, but they will never think of chairs the same way again. Just go see it to find out what I mean. Over all, it was a great Thanksgiving and I look forward to the 18th when the Seth comes to town, I haven’t seen him in forever and the circle of friends can finally be complete!
-Michael
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Stuff that I’m working on lately. Beware…this is not for the faint hearted in the technical field.
Work on deploying a stable network infrastructure. Not only stable, but self healing. We’re using 3Com 4400 switches (Thanks Bruce!!!) and once I get some management software thats worth the amount of money they all want (that would be in the thousand dollar range) then we’ll be cooking with gas.
Learn SNMP, or Simple Network Management Protocol. I’ve always known what it does, but have never used it in the passed until now. Very nice features which include reporting and alerting capabilities. In example, a port or device goes down, I get a text message right when it happens and not someone the next morning telling me that they have no powerpoint for service.
Deploying 802.1x. If you don’t know about this, you should (if you’re a nerd)! It is basically port-based authentication. I had wanted to deploy the newer generation of this, 802.1i which implements PKI or Public Key Infrastructure, but that will have to wait until next budget year.
Deploy client management software. This takes careful planning on what software and instrumentation we use. I have pretty much decided on Dell OpenManage, but hey…you never know.
Backup Strategy. I’ve been working on our backup situation as right now it’s not much. Not only will we be starting weekly backups by taking a removable hard drive (it’s the only way as tapes are old, expensive and too small) but I got the great idea of using the technology of RDC (Remote Differential Compression) in the DFSRS feature included with Windows Server 2003 R2. What this does is first sync a copy of our data to “branch office’s” and then when there is an update, it only updates the changes of the files. It is very important to understand this though. Typically, if there is an update to a file, most sync features just recopy the file…entirely. Not this, it breaks the files into hashes and only sends the changes in the hashes for the file. Genius!
Fix Randy’s computer. What I thought was a network hardware problem may actually turn out to be a computer hardware issue. Very rarely is it ever a computer hardware issue…there are so many tests these computers go through for quality assurance. This would be my second issue…out of 6 years in active IT support that I have ever seen this happen.
Fix EMS (I’m thinking of you, Leslie!) This is actually rather high on the list of priorities.
Becomming closer with God. (Again…not in this order)
I will write about the AWESOME thanksgiving I had in the next post!
-Michael
I’m conducting an experiment. It involves two people, both of which I know from Sunset. That’s all I can say right now. I’m not to sure how to present the findings, or…whether I want to :p. I know I’m going to have trouble with the metrics of actually calculating the results, but this is just my little secret.
-Michael
A few days ago one of my bestest pals, Liz, came up to visit me. I am always excited when Liz comes to town, or when I get to go to Salem to see her. She and I seem to actually “get” each other. I dont have to put on any facade to be her pal, and that is TRULY AWESOME.
So… back to the story. The other day, while she was visiting we were talking about our health. I had told her that my arthritis is pretty darn bad these days, and that I knew I should be looking out for my health more than I have been. She asked a really simple question ” well, have you thought about going to a natureopath?” and I replied quickly and matter-of-factly ” nah, cause if you go to some doctor expecting to get healthy you have to want to be healthy- and you have to be willing to eat right and change your way of life and really DO things right.” And that was that. I didnt even have second thoughts about it. Liz and I bothed laughed a bit about it though.. but it was the truth at the time. I just havent been WANTING to take care of myself. Why? I really dont know. Well… actually I am sure I DO know, on some level. Its a lot about willpower and wanting to be a certain way ( read that THIN) and then being scared that if I get thin will I really be happy or will it be all for someone else. It is also a lot about not wanting to have to do ’without’ any thing.
Well- that night after Liz had left I was rethinking parts of our day together. My brain stayed on that comment I had made and decided.. woah. How could I say such a thing? How could I treat myself like trash- say bad things about myself and to myself? Not care enough to even fuel myself correctly? Last week at church we heard about humility in the sermon. Wow. Dang. I have a lot to learn.
So, the outcome of this little lesson? I have decided to make real changes. Oh sure, I have sorta said this before…. to myself and maybe to those CLOSEST around me.. I vow to eat healthy- get even more active, yada yada yada. Well. I made a big step. I joined weightwatchers. Its actually really helping. I dont go to meetings. Its all online. Its streamlined around me. I have been on it for one week exactly. I have lost 6 pounds. I have done a workout every day. More than that though, I actually FEEL good about myself. I am happier. I am ready to make a change in my life for good, and I am excited!
There is a tiny bit of a downfall. My arthritis. Hurts. Like. HECK. It’s my left side. My hip, my knee, my ankle.. they all want to die. My ankle was bad before I started doing more workouts, it has been really bad for about …ohh…. 5 months. I know that parts of it will get better as I get into a more routine set of workouts.. and it is actually good to be more active, in the long run it will help. In the meantime.. I have to make the decision. Do I go to the doctor and try another medicine * I have been on approximately 4 or 5 different arthritis medications since I was diagnosed when I was about 15 or 16, all of which I didn’t really enjoy being on due to side effects- plus, I will NOT take arthritis medications if we are planning on having more children in the sorta near future ( a couple of years.) I am absolutely against having any chance of harming a child of ours with those medications being in my body ( if I get pregnant- the arthritis goes away for 9 months anyways- weird huh?) Mike says we should just have a LOT of kids… I say, I dont think so- not too many. As for right now, I guess I will wait and awake each morning feeling like I am 90 ( or what I think it may feel like.) The plus side to arthritis- I can predict weather changes. If Its going to rain, I feel it. If the rain is going to let up, I feel it! I’ll give those meteorologists a run for their money!
So I’ve been working lately on being more Christ-like. Christ is a great leader, and when I look at what he did there is so much to glean from. One of the things that I’m focusing on right now is leadership. Leadership is a trait I believe I have, and other people have told me this. But when it comes time to actually follow through I fall a bit short. Maybe not “fall short” but just not as impactful as I wanted it to be.
So when I look at what Jesus did, something I always notice is that he didn’t do it alone. Whenever he was up against something difficult, he was in prayer. Come to think about it, he was always in prayer regardless of the situation. He teaches us that we can’t do it alone either. All of this shows us that humility is essential in our walk with the Lord. What I learn from this: Without humility, you cannot lead effectively.
With this said, I admit that being a system administrator also comes with a “god-complex”. We have a sense of joy having power over a system or network. I have discussed this with other IT professionals and they all agree. This doesn’t work really well with humility though.
Thankfully the Lord is here with me, preventing the torrent of dictator-like power with a calming wave of humility. People at work say “Thank you, Michael”, while I’m praying in my mind “Thank you, Jesus”.
-Michael
There never seems to be enough time for anything. Even though I am told I get stuff done, there always seems there is way more then what I can handle. And then there is the stuff I want to do. Heh…yes different set of things to do. Just off the top of my head, I want to prepare for Vista and Office 2007, deploy a public key infrastructure, deploy an 802.1x infrastructure that takes advantage of said public key infrastructure, so on and on. And that’s just on the tech side.
I would love to take another vacation! (absurd isn’t it???) I had so much fun just not doing stuff out of the ordinary, but I know that won’t happen anytime soon. The time spent with the family and with Zaeda was amazing. So much so that she is now having a hard time adjusting back to the normal cycle and not seeing me during the day. I am told that she often points to the door and says “daddy?”, asking where I am or when I’m coming home.
I got some sleep last night, I went to bed at like 9:00pm and woke up at 5:20am. Haven’t done that in a while but, this morning I felt GREAT! I actually felt refreshed, something I haven’t felt in a long time.
Here is a picture of Zade in Hawaii!
-Michael Sainz
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Struggled with car insurance today. We have car insurance, we just want to move to a better car insurance company so that if something were to happen we would be treated like humans not just some number. We have two new cars. Well, one is new to us and one is totally new. I love our car situation as of right now. We have two working cars that can transport all three of us safely to our destination and back home again. How nice. I am the type of person that usually takes this for granted, and I usually dont even know what I am taking for granted until something bad happens to one of our cars. A few weeks ago I was still driving the Mitsubishi Montero and it broke down in the middle of the street during rush hour traffic- granted, the street was Halsey and it was in Fairview, but still there were enough cars and people who were angry with me and my car blocking the road. Plus, I had Zadey with me, she thought I was nuts to get out of our car in the middle of the street and wait for the Police to come and use their bumpers to bump us out of the road. What a day that was!
Now, I get to use the New-to-Us Mazda Tribute. I really like it and it is comfortable.
On to the next things on my mind today. Houses. Condos. LIVING SPACE.
For right now we are in this tiny- although not as tiny as it could be- apartment. It is nice, for an apartment. It has all of the things that we desperately need to make it through. We are feeling the stretch of living the apartment life. The people above us RUN through their apartment constantly. Mike and I often ponder what they are doing. Soccer game? Jousting? Could be anything. The people downstairs have a new month old baby and I feel absolutely horrid when Zaeda cries while we are getting her to sleep or throws a fit. I remember how hard it was to get a newborn to sleep and stay sleeping for any little bit.
We just need a house. Somewhere to actually unpack everything, and have space to move around in. I am constantly feeling claustrophobic, since I can only walk a series of 10 steps before I hit a wall anywhere in the apartment. There is no “me” space. There is not enough “Zaeda Space” either. She has a lot of things.
That said. We have been looking at houses around our area. We really really really want to live in Corbett. However, the prices are ridiculous and we fear that our first house will have to be in the Troutdale area. We have found several nice homes. We have not looked in any yet, just gazing from afar. It is a very scary thing to embark on a home buying journey- and we havent even embarked on it yet. It is the scariest thing to be at the brink of it. It is also really awesome and fun and adventurous. I am so excited.
Grocery shopping sucks with a toddler. Thats the other thing on my mind right now. I went to Winco tonight. Yeah- Winco- but ya know… We have to save money and we have to eat, so its better than nothing. Zaeda is absolutely cheesy for the first half of the shopping adventure. She smiles at people, she says hi and bye, she tries to get peoples attention by coughing or waving coyly. Then, she gets angry about sitting in the shopping cart. She begins to throw things out of the cart. She threw about 15 things tonight. I really couldn’t blame her. Those carts seem awfully uncomfy and the store was very cold, even though she had a coat and a blankie. Thankfully, we arrived home safe and made Mike unload all of the groceries. That was nice of us!
-Melanie
My day was full today! I cleaned our whole apartment, except the bathroom (which I will save for 11 pm tonight, because its easiest to clean with everyone else asleep and out of my way!)
Zaeda and I played together, we looked at rocks outside in the courtyard, we visited my parents, we read books and she drooled on things, tasted a bar of soap, bit herself on the hand (she was aiming for my hand, but missed) and force-fed grandma and grandpa’s dog Zoot some dog treats.
When we finally arrived at home, I quickly ran to make dinner and get the house tidy for my husband to return home (dont I sound like such a 1950’s housewife! thats awesome- my mom made fun of me several months ago for saying something like ” that dish soap leaves my skin dry” but.. DANG.. I am enjoying being a house-mommy and wife!)
Then.. my husband gets home. He promptly falls asleep on the couch until dinner is ready. Then he eats and says to me.. “today was a GREAT day!” and I ask him why- thinking something great has happened at work, or he found out that we could save a bunch of money on car insurance, or …. you know.. something INTERESTING… what does he say
” Office and Vista went GOLD early this morning!” His eyes were bright and he was smiling ear to ear…… what could I do?
I LAUGHED MY BUTT OFF! He is a true computer geek. I love him for it though. His passion is clear. He was put here to do these tech styled things… He loves it and is happiest while having some sort of techie issue to solve. Hey that’s totally cool- but… just one thing..
When does he get time to be a TECH guy at our house??????? My computer (if you can call it that) is running Vista- which quite promptly ruined everything when Mike installed the beta version. It runs slow, it is garbled, it has so many glitches. I cant even listen to music or anything due to it! We have a TiVo (sorta) box running…. Vista- but it cant record, or even show any information on the guide! and we have to use a mouse to turn channels… that is NOT easy with a toddler. Zaeda likes to chew on mice! ARGH! Technology can be amazing and fun, and also annoying and irritating
* a side note- for those of you that dont know or understand techie crud…. well.. going “gold” meant that they are out of the test phase and are allowing the public to use their product now (I think.)
Allrighty- I am off to clean the bathroom. The fun never ends!
So Mike introduced himself, and it seemed to flow so well, and come so easily to him… what a great post! Now, as I sit down to write.. I think I have actually written SEVEN different posts ( which all got deleted by me as I wrote the last line of them.) I am my worst critic, and I feel like everything I write must be a close to perfect as possible before I submit it for others perusal. Now, as most bloggers know, thats JUST CRAZY. No blog is going to be perfect, or else.. how would anyone get to know me… I wouldnt be very true to myself if everything were perfect, as I am above all, NOT A PERFECT PERSON.
I can’t quite understand how to make this blog feel like it’s mine… it would need to have a lot of chaos and stress mixed in with priceless moments of sharing pure joy with my family and friends. Haha. Lots of chaos and stress. That’s how my life has felt for the majority of the years I have lived.. and Yeah, I am only 24. But, these past few months I am trying to learn how to live more peacefully. It has been one of the hardest adventures that I have ever tried to take on, and I am now positive that it will be a life long journey. The majority of time I feel more like I am 40 than 24. I feel caught in between young people and older people. I dont feel like I fit anywhere in a “normal” setting. In the past my career has been based on dealing with crisis. People in crisis, families in crisis, children in crisis. In turn, I have learned to live in crisis. This takes a lot out of my family and myself, hence the aforementioned trying to learn to live in peace. When I take enough time off from my career I will be heading back into it, I am currently just regrouping and learning how to help others while keeping a firm grasp on peace for myself. As for right now, I am sharing the most beautiful of gifts with my husband. Every day we get to watch our child grow and learn. She is so awesome. Together our family is growing every day. God has truly blessed our family.
-Melanie
Mike has the laptop at work with all of our pics on it, I will post them soon! This photo is at Zaeda’s grandma’s house. Zaeda is having a “chair ride”
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