Childhood neighborhood doesn't look the same

Every time I drive through my childhood neighborhood all I can think off is how run down it looks and how it has changed. Most drivers seems to be driving slow and everyone looks crooked or shady. I get blown away at how much the neighborhood has changed over the years.

I'm house sitting in Aurora, about ten minutes from where I grew up and all I can think about is how different the area looks. The area is on Chambers between Mississippi & Iliff. Everyone has the rough & rugged style/dress and many of the stores look like they have not been kept up & are pretty run down. This are was never all that great looking and over the years it looks like it has gone down hill.

I drove by a shoppette that once had a pool hall that was a favorite spot for a while. After finishing our closing shift at the Pizza place a couple guys and I would go to this pool hall and play pool for hours. We would get there between 1 to 3 am and play until 5 am. I was in college and had classes in the afternoon so I could sleep in late and stay out late.

I don't remember the name of the pool hall but it was in that shoppette for years and I'm sad to see it is gone. It is a sign I'm getting old when I reminisce about stores closing and no longer being there. I'm also complaining about how the neighborhood looks...give me my walker and put me to bed. Gramps is getting fussy!!

Last week was awful

I am glad it is the weekend as last week wasn't easy!!

- Covered for a coworker, took on an insanely busy & stressful work load. I had a fairly busy social schedule so there was not much me time so I could decompress

- Learned that there aren't many options available to help with the pain in my jaw. One optioin is having my wisdom teeth out but the dentists & surgeons are not 100% sure this will deal with the pain I have had for the last couple years

- Learned the rehabilitation center my mother is at will not release her unless it is to an assisted living care facility. They do not believe she can provide adequate care for herself so it is time to look into some sort of full time help

- I'm house sitting again...this isn't really awful because I'm getting food & money for the deal. It would be nice to know a few comfortable places to visit in the neighbor hood I'm in considering all the stressful things going on

The weekend

I came home to a note that my cable would be permanently disconnected this Saturday unless I responded to the contact on the note. The note was from comcast...kind of funny when a cable company leaves a call us note that looks so generic it looks like it was mass produced from a copy machine.

So the love affair with silence is over as I would like to use the TV & internet from time to time. I was away for much of the weekend so I didn't use the TV or internet much. I went to the Ren fest with my nephew Noah, brother in law Matt and a few of his friends. I hung out with a friend who has been busy pursuing a biblical studies degree and we don't always connect. It is a shame as Brett has such great stuff on his brain we have always fun conversations. Sunday was spent unwinding, chilling & doing lots of landry. All in all, a good weekend and I can blog from home! Make that a great weekend!

Just a thought...

I recently read in an article which mentioned large portions of adult life passes us by while we are caught up paying bills. As I think about how true that has been in my life I become sad. What type of events have I missed out on?

My situation

After a month a way from home to house sit all over Denver I am finally back home. It is odd to return home after being away for a month. I have been back for a few days and it still doesn’t feel like home. I know I’ve been gone too long when I wake up and shower or eat breakfast and think my surroundings look familiar but I am not sure why.

While I was gone the Comcast cable has been inactivated so I have no TV or Internet. At some point in time it may bother me but for right now I’m very happy to have nothing to distract me in the house. I have gotten in the habit of vegging out in front of the TV after work or spending time surfing the web while avoiding a few projects I have been working on for a few years. One is very time consuming so not having TV or internet access will help motivate me to use my time to finish these projects. The nice thing is I can blog from work & check my email over my lunch. That is kind of a bummer as I like going for a walk on my lunch since the weather is nice. Maybe I will get the cable situation worked out sooner than I thought!

My connection with children

At work today I went down to the lobby in the office building I work in for lunch. I witnessed a mother losing control of a very small & very cute little girl. When the mother stopped paying attention to the child by engaging others in conversation the little girl wandered a few feet away and took her shirt off. She then threw it on the ground and started screaming. As I caught the elevator up I made eye contact with the mother. She gave me a why me type look and I gave her a thats rough type glance.

Even though I sympathize with the mother I agree with the child. Some days you just want to take your clothes off and start screaming. Because I work in an office full of woman I will refrain...out of respect and decency of course.

I don't know where that little kid is but the next time I drink I will toast to her defiant act!

Another busy week

I finished house sitting two places this Sunday which is a huge relief! I had to drive back and forth between each house once a day. One place was in Denver and the other was in lakewood so they were 15 miles apart. Unfortunately there aren't any quick routes on the way out but the return trip was very quick. This commute took just enough time I didn't have much time to relax after work. I did not have many activities this week so it did not put too much of a monkey wrench in my schedule but it took enough time and was stressful enough it seemed like I had a full day with work & the commute. The routes I took had many one way streets with lots of lights and if I did not catch up them just right I had what seemed like 100 stops per trip. I was not at either place long enough to make great use of the air conditioning. The entire week was hot, spent driving, and feeding animals. I will never double book house sitting gigs again!!!