Back in the norm...

Hello Everybody,

With the excitement and fun celebrating Jimi's birthday behind us, our week resembled the more traditional outlook.

We worked on putting together our Halloween costumes. Jimi will be a convict and I will be a sexy cop. We’ll be sure to post pictures on our blog for you. For Jimi’s costume, is black hospital attire painted with white stripes. This didn’t work as well as we had hoped, but nevertheless it will be fine. Ideally, we had planned on white attire painted with black stripes, but the store did not have white attire. The final touch will be attaching a ball to a small chain and tying it around his ankle. My costume is fish net stockings, knee high boots, and a black miniskirt with a black collared shirt. I have a black studded belt to go around my waste with handcuffs  and to top it off a badge for my shirt and a police hat. Things should look pretty good. The party is at the Longmont Moose lodge on Halloween night. Our friends Brad & Ellen are joining us, as well as Tammy & Greg.

Jimi attentively worked on midterms for a few of his classes this week. He always does such good work. Often times many of the other students rave over what he produces. One of his projects was to make a tri fold piece of work. I really wish I could show it to you, because it came out really nice and quite professional looking. I’d say there is nothing amateur about his work. He’s good!

I met up with my Wednesday night group of ladies this past week. I’ll plan on visiting with them every week now that I am not making a cake. They are still crocheting; however, I really have no interest in it, so I will take something else to work on.

The refinance saga continues. On Monday I was told we were cleared to close, except that I had to put a railing on the wall leading down to the basement. By doing this the house would meet all FHA requirements. I had taken the railing down earlier to paint the wall, and never put it back up. It was in the garage and a simple fix. I did that immediately on Monday night, took pictures and emailed them to the appraiser. I didn’t hear anything all week until Friday when I received the phone call saying that the underwriter had decided not to accept the appraisal. I was frustrated beyond frustration. How can they keep changing their minds? Luckily for me my broker is a friend of mine and fighting tooth and nail for me. She had the appraiser pull three more comps and submitted them to the underwriter. Finally after what I am told was many back and forth phone calls the underwriter accepted the appraisal (again), and approved my loan (for the 3^rd or 4^th time). Yet, on Sunday night I received an email saying that there were some exposed areas on the trim around the garage door. They would have to be painted before we could proceed. Jimi went over Monday morning and painted all the trim. We emailed pictures to the appraiser and he resubmitted his report to the underwriter. Supposedly, the documents have been ordered and upon their arrival, we will close the loan. Keep your fingers crossed and your prayers going upward because I will not believe it until the papers are signed.

Friday night we went to Denver, so Jimi could take some photos. Jimi took pictures over the city, on top of a parking garage, and of a popular Jazz bar, El Chapultepec. He is experimenting with a new form of picture taking. After taking pictures, we went inside for a few drinks. We had fun listening to the music and joking around with the staff. But, about 10:30, Jimi said it was time to go home. When we got home, we drank tequila in the hot tub.  

Saturday morning we went to Janni’s Café for breakfast. It is a small family owned café of older stature. Jimi describes it as a place found in the middle of a small Nebraska farm owned community. Anyhow, we like to go there. That afternoon, we took the boat out on the lake for a while. The winds were blowing this day. We were not really expecting it and had a difficult time keeping control of the boat while getting the sail up. Once we decided to take the jib down, we had much better control of the boat. We practiced several turns by going from one end of the lake to the other and back again; getting about three hours of practice in. I was a bit nervous simply because the water was so cold and I DID NOT want to fall in. With the winds as they were the boat was a little rocky. It was a good experience and doing it over and over, encountering as many scenarios as possible is going to prepare us for our big adventure.

Molly and Razor stayed the weekend in Mead again. Jennifer said that all went well and the dogs got along great. The puppies will all be going to their new homes next weekend. After that Jennifer will be keeping Molly and Razor permanently.

Sunday morning I clean the house for about four hours focusing on the nooks and crannies, while Jimi worked on my car and in the garage. We went for a walk, Jimi went on a photo shoot, I went to the grocery store, got a haircut, and later that evening we went to the movie theatre to see Saw V. Good movie!

I have finally uploaded some of our scrapbooks on our weblog. Click on the link below to get to the main page. The scrapbooks are under the scrapbooks link on the right side of the screen. From there you can choose which scrapbook you would like to view. The pictures are a little small, but you can enlarge one at a time by clicking on them. We invite you to look through them and enjoy!

http://dogbonegraphics.com/blog/ 

Be sure to save this link in your favorites!

 

 

Hope you all have a wonderful week.

Love Everybody,

Lorie & Jimi

Suprise...Suprise...

Hello Everybody,

This week was special because it was Jimi's birthday. He does not like a big deal made out of his birthday, but in my family we have always celebrated the life of our loved ones, which as you read on, you will see this is what I have done for him. Every year he chooses a place to go for his birthday and this year he wanted to climb Longs Peak up to Chasm Lake in with the purpose of capturing the sunrise on the Longs Peak Rock through his photography. We left Saturday morning at 4:25am, began our climb at 5:18am and arrived back at the truck at 12:18pm. Seven hours with a few stops for photographs, the round trip was 8.4 miles and the terrain was good: not too steep, only some big stair steps, minimal ice, and practically no snow. The first hour of our hike was dark, but watching the sun rise while on the mountain was beautiful. On one side the moon was going down, as the sun was coming up on the other side, which was pretty cool to see.

Jimi got some fantastic pictures of the moon with plenty of detail. While he took pictures at our destination, I explored the lake hoping from rock to rock. He didn't get the exact pictures he was hoping for. He thinks it is too late in the season, but maybe we will try again next year. In fact, maybe we will climb to the top of Longs Peak next summer.

Unbeknownst to Jimi, over the past few months I have been designing, planning and building a life size makeshift birthday cake. I took Wednesday (his birthday) off work and while he was in school, I set the cake up in our kitchen with lots of birthday balloons, a real birthday cake and an overflowing amount of birthday cheer. When he arrived home, the Happy Birthday song was playing in the back ground and I jumped out of the cake. It was really pretty cool and he was stunned. I took him to the Rib House for a late lunch/early dinner and rest of the evening he relaxed in the living room.

The weather was cold and drab the first half of the week, but by Friday the days were beautiful in the mid 70s and sunny. Jimi took advantage of the nice weather to winterize the outside windows. He put storm windows and plastic on most of the windows to prevent the cold winter drafts from entering the house. We still have three windows left, but have decided to wait until winter really sets in. The plastic on those windows will be placed on the inside of the house; therefore, the weather has no bearing on our timing.

Miller has a large lump growing on his gum just under his left side bottom K9 tooth. It is now about the size of a pea. Jimi took Miler to the Veterinarian on Tuesday. They sent a biopsy to the lab checking for cancer. Even though the test is not conclusive, we were happy to learn that it may only be a bacterial infection. Miller is taking antibiotics for the next two weeks to hopefully clear it up. The lump may never go away, but we can watch it and as long as it doesn't get any worse and we don't see any other symptoms, we think all will be fine. Jimi figured out that Miller will be 14 years old in January.

Molly and Razor spent the entire weekend in Mead with Jennifer. She said things went pretty well. All the dogs got along and she expects that once her puppies are gone in a couple of weeks there will be minimal problems with their transition.
Exciting news…Jimi has created a weblog for us. He's been talking about it and working on it for a while now, and it is finally up and running at it's minimum. I will be posting my weekly updates there, as well as there are additional pages which will hold all the scrapbooks I have created and other fun things. I am not going to send you the link right now, as we want to perfect it a little more first. However, watch for the email from me with the link….it's going to be pretty cool. We are both excited about it.

That's it for now. Have a wonderful week.
Love Everybody,
Lorie & Jimi

Short –n- Sweet

Hello Everybody,

 This week lended it's usual routine for the most part: working at Crocs, as well as Cencorp. I finished the internet ADP training I have been attending over the past three weeks. I took Razor and Molly to Mead to visit with Jennifer (the tenant), and in fact she kept Razor for the weekend. She said Razor whined  the whole time. She thought it was because the dog missed us. I thought it was more because she was separated from Molly, but after reuniting the two, she still whined. It was then that we came to the conclusion it was because she wanted to play. After annoying both Jimi and I at bedtime to play, I stayed up and played with her for a while.

 On Tuesday we watched an old 1970s movie "The Verdict" with Paul Newman.

 I went to dinner with my friend Brenda on Wednesday night. And Thursday evening we stayed home and bar-b-qued.

Friday evening I went to dinner with some girls from work. Jimi sold the little car, finally. Jimi got the furnace running, making the house toasty warm just in time for a predicted cold weekend.

 Since the weather turned cold and rainy all weekend, Jimi and I stayed in most of the weekend other than grabbing a bite to eat. On Sunday I had breakfast with my friend Melody, whom I had not seen in months. Sunday evening we got Dairy Queen through the drive through and came back to the house where we sat in the hot tub eating our ice cream. It began sprinkling just then, but that did not stop us. We enjoyed every minuted and every bite.

 Jimi worked most of the weekend on reworking his website. I have attached a link for you and he would like to have feedback from anyone willing to offer their opinion. www.dogbonegraphics.com.

He also put two of the videos he created for class projects on youtube. One of them is an animation of silly bar jokes and the other is the animals in our house with their personalities depicted through music. They are really cute and worth watching.

 Bar jokes:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFIWesJyeQQ

 Animals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUFuWF1niwc

 Friday night Jimi gave me a 'Forever' ring; more commonly known as a promise ring only more adult like. He said the ring on my finger will publicly display that I am forever taken and everybody should know it. Then he proceeded to give me scenarios of what we will be like when we are in our 70s. The ring is white gold with three amethyst stones. I was not expecting it.

 

I talked to Daniel for a bit on Sunday evening. He is doing well. He assured me that both he and Jennifer are being taken care of and things are not as bad as Jennifer leads. I somewhat assumed that Jennifer may exaggerate things, but I also must consider that we all have our own perceptions.

 It can be difficult having all four animals here. Although it is a very difficult decision for me to send Razor and Molly to a new home, it's a no brainer that I would choose a life with Jimi rather than keeping my miniature companions.  And don't let me forget to mention that since they have moved with me to Longmont and even though we have tried to create a new routine for them, they frequently purposely misbehave. In addition, they demand a lot of time and attention, and things can get stressful here, so the sooner they can go to their new home, the better. Otherwise I may be in need of a new home as well. Lol

 That was our week and all the news I have for you right now. Don't forget to check out the links above and send Jimi your feedback at Jim@dogbonegraphics.com.

Love Everybody,

Lorie & Jimi

Doing well….

Hello Everybody,

 

Not much to report this week.

 

Again I spent a couple of nights in Mead helping Razor and Molly adjust to Jennifer (tenant) and her dog. The second night did not go so well. All three dogs got into a scuff. Jennifer and I are both convinced that they will do fine once the puppies are out of the picture. Unfortunately for Jimi and I, this will take some time. More time than we were hoping.

 

Jimi spent a lot of time working on the chopper. He took the engine apart, cleaned and reworked the cylinders, and put everything back together. After refereeing the frame of the bike and the engine, he finally got it back together. Unfortunately to his dismay, the bike still runs as it did before he tore into it. He will continue to work on it in hopes he can fix the problem.

 

Friday night Jimi and I went to dinner with our friends, Connie and Rex. After dinner, we went to there house for dessert and drinks. We were so engaged in conversation that time flew by and before we realized it, it was 11:30pm: way past my bedtime. We had a wonder visit, as always!

 

Saturday morning we stuck around the house. We cleaned, did laundry, rearranged a few things, and organized a few more. We ran some errands and then grilled hamburgers and corn on the cob. That evening we watched an old black and white James Stewart movie called " Mr. Smith Goes to Washington". It was a really neat patriotic movie. Very educational and well done.

 

Big news (for me anyhow): I finished the Hawaii scrapbook. I can carry it with me now for the next few months to make sure all my friends get to see it. It turned out well. We are happy with it. It's not as big as our Europe book. The Hawaii book is about 26 pages, whereas Europe was between 45 and 50. 

 

Sunday we went to the coffee shop (like the old days). We worked on our laptops and drank lots of coffee. That afternoon we took the dogs for a walk and that evening I made a nice chicken dinner, worked my Cencorp job and of course more scrap booking. Jimi worked on his computer and we watched a little bit of TV.

 

I was notified by Beta Sigma Phi (my International Sorority group), that I am eligible for something called "Order of the Rose". It has something to do with the number of years of membership. Earlier I had told you that I wanted to leave the group. While I have made the decision to do so, I have not officially resigned yet. Ironically, on Saturday I ran into one of the elderly ladies in the group who I had not seen in a while and was quite close with. She was talking to me about staying in the group. Now I am wondering if I will stay, though I go back and forth on my decision. I will keep you posted.

 

That's all for now. Things have really settled down for us, but I think a break form the constant going will be good for a while.

 

Love Everybody,

Lorie & Jimi

Weekly News

Hello Everybody,

 

This past week was a good one. We put closure to some things, embarked on a new adventure, and began new projects.

 

I spent a good deal of my week working for Cencorp and scrapboooking. Jimi spent much of his week in school and working on school homework, as well as working on the chopper in the garage. I also spent a couple of evenings taking Molly and Razor to Mead to meet their new mom and introduce them to her dog. The first night was quite the scene. My dogs were confused that someone else was in their house. Jennifer's dog was not happy because of her protective mother instinct over her puppies. The second visit was much calmer.

 

I took a long lunch on Thursday to help Tom get the rest of the things out of the Cencorp building, and Jimi helped too. Tom cooked us some very tasty steaks for lunch. It's sad really; the closing of the Longmont Cencorp building. Jimi worked there for ten years and I worked there for eight. It was home away from home for us and like having another family. The company was good to us and with out it we would not be where we are today. Regardless of the closure, we still have our memories: most of which are good. In addition, we have a little piece of it in our home, as I still do part time work for them at home.

 

Friday morning I decided I needed the afternoon off the recoup my brain. I have been so busy that the house work had gone to pot. It was bothering me so much that I could not concentrate at work. I am not a clean freak, but I do like things picked up and looking nice. I went home at noon and cleaned for almost two hours, and then I worked on scrap booking. When Jimi got home from school we went to Cencorp, where he helped me gather and dispose of all the left over trash, vacuum, and sweep the entire building. Afterwards we went home, watched a movie, and then went to bed.

 

I spent Saturday morning moping the entire building at Cencorp, came home for lunch and scrap booked for a while before going back to Cencorp to wax the floors. Jimi and I went to Johnny Carinos for dinner and then back home where we vegged watching another movie.

 

Since we got the floors at Cencorp done much quicker than expected, we decided to get one final hike in before the season ended. We climbed two 14,000 foot mountains on Sunday. I was absolutely exhausted. Of course, Jimi never complains; however, I do in my head, and with what little verbal noise I do make, I sometimes like feel that is too much. It took us seven hours of climbing plus four hours of driving. The only times we stopped moving was when at the top of each mountain and another time when we had to take off our socks and shoes to remove the snow and ring our socks dry. There was more snow than I had expected, although I really didn't know what to expect since I have never hiked this time of year. The trails on the North face of the mountains were snowy and icy. Going up was not so bad, but in places, coming down was quite hairy. Jimi finally decided that we needed to get off the icy beaten path and conquer the untouched powder heading straight down rather than the vertical path the trail takes. We trenched through the deep snow, which at times was up to my thighs, but mostly just to my knee caps. In any case, during the journey I was miserable. Looking back though, I decided it was a good experience and not so bad after all.  

 

Other things this week: Jimi finished a sailing book he had been reading. I began reading a book titled "The Power of Now". My new laptop is awesome: it has more space on it than I know what to do with. We are actively planning our Thanksgiving trip to Illinois and Michigan and excited about visiting friends, Darnell and Matt & Alisha, and family, Dad and Jeff & Karen.

 

I forgot to mention in last weeks email that Jimi has confiscated the Karaoke machine. It now resides in the living room for easy access. We have sung together a little, but mostly Jimi sings, and I watch and/or listen to him. We do not have a good variety of music, so he is going to get some for us. I will sing more then.

 

And that's it for last week. Hope all is well with you. Talk to you soon.

 

Love Everybody,

Lorie & Jimi

A little more

 

Hello Everyone,

I have been at Jimi's house for two weeks now and things are going well. This week had a little more variety than last week.

 

A very important piece of information I forgot to update you on in last week's email is about MollyCat's adjustment to moving. She's lived in the same house for the past 10 1/2 years, and we were worried about her moving to Longmont. The first couple of days she buried herself in the basement and was not interested in coming out. On about the third day she began venturing upstairs. She would hang out with us in the living room and even began her nightly ritual of sleeping with me. She still is not allowed outside, but she has made herself at home going to any room in the house that she desires and seems very content.

 

The stress I was feeling of moving and cleaning the Mead house came to a halt when Jennfier (my tenant) agreed to clean the Mead house for me in exchange for my reducing a portion of the September rent; a weight had been lifted. With everything unpacked and organized in my new home and not having to go back out to Mead to clean, I was done. So, I went shopping. I bought new curtains for the bedroom and upon bringing home paint samples, Jimi and I picked out new colors for the bathroom, which we will begin working on in the next month or so. 

 

I started training on new payroll software with ADP for Cencorp, and my new laptop arrived. Jimi decided to sell the backup vehicle he bought for us and listed it on Craig's list. I am still trying to sell off various pieces of furniture, etc.

 

Some fun things we did this past week are we rode the motorcycle to Loveland to visit with our friend Spartak and had dinner with him. We met with our friend Keith after work for drinks and ended up staying until the brewery closed. Keith went home, while Jimi and I went to Perkins for a late night snack. On Sunday we took the dogs to the mountains for a hike. We started out bushwhacking it, which about kicked my butt. Once we found the trail and decided to stay on it, I was fine with the hike. That evening we ordered pizza and watched a movie.

 

Friday evening I went to dinner and a movie with some friends from work. We saw the movie "The Women". It was an OK movie. Probably not something I would go see again, but worth seeing once. An interesting thing about the movie is that there are no males in it; not even in the background as extras. If you ever see the movie, be sure to keep an eye out.

 

I helped Jennifer (my tenant) move on Saturday. Of the furniture and things I left behind, she will decide what she wants to use and doesn't want to use. I still have things I am trying to sell. It's starting to hit me and I am beginning to feel as though I have nothing left. Feeling somewhat sorry for myself as I tend to do from time to time, I had a few depressing nights this past week. I felt alone, as I have lost my children, my home, most of my belongings, and my dogs. I have some worthless pieces of furniture, my cat, and my car left; however, after returning back to reality, I realize that this only makes me a free spirit without baggage to hold me down. And of course I do have Jimi, who is my rock. He is always around supporting me with a steady beat of emotion.

 

I spoke with my daughter, Jennifer, several times this past week. She hates it there. She has realized that her father has not changed and the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence. However, she can not come back, so she just has to stick it out and make the best of it. She says Daniel still likes it there, but is also experiencing some issues with their father and wife to be. She says Daniel sticks up for her a lot. Daniel called me over the weekend too. He is working at a local motorcycle shop, but hoping to get hired on at Home Depot.

 

Well that's it for now.

 

Love Everybody,

Lorie & Jimi

Not Much Here

 

 

Hello Everybody,

 

My Monday morning emails are getting closer and closer together, or at least it seems as so. None the less I am always happy to keep in touch by writing to you.

 

My week was much of the same...moving. I finally have the things out of my Mead home that I am taking except for boxing up my Precious Moments and Snow Buddies collections. This task will take some time, and speaking with Jennifer (my tenant) we decided that I can do it a little at a time after she moves in. This will give me a chance to visit with Molly and Razor, as well as keep Jennifer company while she is getting settled. I am leaving some of my furniture for her to use while she rents from me. 

 

I have everything unpacked and put away at Jimi's house. I loaded Jimi's truck of things he took to the Humane Society Thrift Store for me today, and I have a small pile of things I will begin selling on E-Bay just as soon as my laptop arrives. Jimi's house is packed to the gill. It's really not that bad, but seeing his house mostly empty before I moved in gives it a drastic change and thoughts of what have you done to this poor man's house? Lol He's been a good sport about it though.

 

I have been so busy and consumed with moving that Jimi and I have not had the time together as we are accustomed to. We did go for a quick dinner on Friday night, and we went on a motorcycle ride in the mountains for a couple of hours on Saturday. We decided to do a nice dinner or breakfast once a week, and Jimi was thinking we should join the volleyball team again at the church. We will have to make sure we don't fall into a routine forgetting to do fun things and spending time together as we did before combining houesholds. Unfortunately, my next two weekends are somewhat consumed though.

 

Tom had a BBQ at Cencorp last Thursday which, Jimi and I both attended. Tom is trying to get the building emptied and close it down by next week. I met my girlfriend, Ellen Cole, for a drink on Thursday evening in Denver. Jimi worked on his classes, helped me with the moving and organizing, and worked in his garage for a bit.

 

I spoke with Jennifer on the phone Saturday night. She is still doing well and is finally making friends to hang out with, but she does not like Dawn (her dad's fiance). I have not talked to Daniel lately.

 

I'd like to report something more interesting and fun, but unfortunately I cannot, otherwise things are good here.

 

Until next week.

Love Everybody,

Lorie & Jimi