The Clarke Family News

30 Oct 2008 [Thursday] Worked...but found out terrible news that Eric was laid off from Art.com -- totally unexpected I guess and just a horrible time with the holidays coming up. I hate business and how they only care about a profit. Just hate it. But he should be OK and able to land a new job quickly since he has great skills and is a hard worker. 26 Oct 2008 [Sunday] Keegan and I had our canoe trip down the Falls of the Neuse River in North Raleigh. Based out of a business called 'Paddle Creek'. It was AWESOME! At first when they pushed us off into the water we started spinning. Current was faster than I expected and I didn't know how to control the canoe! :) Finally got the hang out of it about a 1/4 of the way down the river and then we did GREAT as a team steering down. We went for a 1 1/2 hour trip and it was just unbelievable! Just beautiful and relaxing! I really want to do it with Amanda and the kids, but it would cost $100 total. Once my job feel...

16 May 2008 [Friday] Another work day. Had a hard time getting Keegan up because of our late night last night. Felt bad for him, but it's his last day at the Bond Park camp which he really loves. He's got baseball practice on Sunday and then we will leave for the beach probably Monday I'm guessing. I've been trying to get a Wii online now for us, but still, they are hard to come by! I should have never sold the one Amanda got near Christmas, but at the time, we didn't want the extra expense. 15 May 2008 [Thursday] Finally went back into work after over three week of working from home! Felt good to be back in the office. Only used the crutches to walk to/from work, then hobbled around the office. We all went to the Durham Bulls 7pm game after work. Peopleclick group organized it. The kids LOVED IT! We stayed until the end of the game and got home at 11pm. Amazingly, they all were still awake. Keegan really payed attention and asked a lot of questi...

8 April 2008 [Tuesday] Normal day at work so far. Carson's first day back to school after his Spring Break. Amanda took Ian to McDonalds and got him a hot chocolate, and played card games with him! He loved it, and he got special time together which I am SOOOOO happy for him. He really enjoyed it Amanda said. Ian also went to 'school' at the YMCA before that, so it was nice to get him back into his routine. I hope to go to cycling class tonight finally. I'll be starting all over and am nervous about my leg, but I will take it easy for sure on it. 7 April 2008 [Monday] I actually worked from home today as Amanda filled in for Candance as her father in-law passed away. It was a good day for me, as work was slow most of the day. After work, the kids played outside while I started mulching the mailbox area. Got it all down, but ran two bags short of mulch, so I hope to finish that on Wednesday for sure as I can pick up the mulch when I drop Carson off at schoo...

31 March 2008 [Monday] Weather is still horrible. Carson starts his spring break this week, so he's home from school. Alex and TJ are in Hawaii all week, so it's quiet at the bus stop and nice! We were going to play catch at the bus stop tonight, but it was still raining this morning, so we stood under umbrella's instead. Work is very slow right now and I worry about job security down the line, as the tickets/work just aren't coming in. We are way behind from where we should be revenue wise. Good time to buckle down and pay the bills, with my bonus check and our tax refunds. But oh, how I would like a digital SLR camera....someday. I'm going to sell the Moto Guzzi and maybe be without a bike for awhile. See if I miss it, and use the money for who knows what. Maybe a new camera, and I think I would drive the Ural more if the Guzzi is gone. :) 30 March 2008 [Sunday] Mickey headed home after breakfast and Amanda and I did the second coat of paint on the ...

23 March 2008 [Sunday] Easter Sunday today. I really wish we would attend church. I'm nervous bringing the kids there as the one time Amanda tried it didn't work out well for her. Keegan would do OK, and Carson probably would, but Ian I'm not sure about. He would probably want to sit with us instead of attending the little classes they have. Anyways, we took it easy in the morning, then we headed out to buy the kids new 'jelly' shoes as they all need them bad. Unfortunately the entire mall was closed! Sears was open so we found a pair for Ian, but Keegan and Carson will have to wait until Amanada can make it back to the mall. We stopped for McDonalds before the mall. It was a treat for sure, but Amanda didn't eat a burger or fries because she's really watching what she eats. I'm proud of her for that. It tasted good, but afterwards we all felt horrible and made me confirm that I just don't want to eat that stuff anymore. Went home then a...

25 January 2008 [Friday] Well as you can tell by the 1+ month gap (which I tried to go back and fill in from my last full entry of Dec 10th), I got overwhelmed between pulling my calf muscle at the playground with the kids and now being on crutches, to Carson's birthday party at the YMCA, then Christmas, then New Years, then Ian's birthday (on which he woke up sick and vomitting for the first half of the day) to us hosting the Y-Guides meeting at our house on the 20th of this month (which went great and everyone had a good time). All of this combined with the fact that I was just plain exhausted was too much and I let the blog slip for about six weeks. For that I appologize, especially to my family. Actually they don't even know that I am doing this. They have no idea - the kids wouldn't understand anyway probably, but Amanda doesn't know either. I've thought about that, and when I should tell her it's here....if I were to die tomorrow, no one would...

7 December 2007 [Friday] Worked. Went out to lunch with the guys as we usually do. Nothing unusual. Amanda found out her speeding ticket that we thought would only be $75 is going to be $170 when court costs,etc. are added in. What a scam, and it is so aggravating! 6 December 2007 [Thursday] Worked as usual. At night after the kids went to bed, I worked on getting Ubuntu 7.10 ready to install on the new HP laptop we have. Windows Vista is just too much of a pig and I can see I will easily get irritated with it quickly waiting for the hard drive to stop running as it swaps stuff in and out and I don't want to spend another $100 now on another 1 GB of memory. I just need to get a restore disk from HP first before I wipe the laptop off - just in case. :) 5 December 2007 [Wednesday] Worked from home as I always do on Wednesday's now. Work went good and the kids did good. It was easier than Monday as Keegan's first day back at school was today. He did great as w...

9 November 2007 [Friday] Going on my lunch hour to see if I can meet up with Keegan down at the museum as I did last year. It's his last day before track out and they are going on a field trip again to the same place as he went in Kindergarten. Wish they would go to a different museum, like the art museum perhaps. 8 November 2007 [Thursday] Nothing unusual. Worked. Met Trey for lunch with Joanne and Laine. Nice to hang out with some different people for lunch. Went to Moe's in Cameron Village. Expensive for lunch, but again something different. 7 November 2007 [Wednesday] Worked from home. Amanda worked 1/2 day. Helped Jim at night go and get the ping-pong table for Steven's birthday - it was big and heavy! Funny part came when the garage door started to close on us when we were trying to carry it in, because Jim had the opener in his pocket. :) Helped Keegan at night really tackle his reading with all the books Mrs.. Martin sent home after telling us he w...

-- 19 October 2007 [Friday] Carson came in this morning, hot and saying his throat hurt. Amanda kept him home from school. I spent most of today at work, trying to get a Coca Cola ticket to work. Even got on a conference call with their people and Amy Tanner trying to resolve this. ugh. Went to Mexican for lunch. I'm really going to stop going there as I don't like it anymore. I used to love it, but it just doesn't sit well with me anymore, and they raised their prices on everything it seems. Tomorrow Keegan has a birthday party at 3pm. And we are thinking of hitting the fair in the morning before that. Then at 6pm we have the 'Trunk or Treat' at the YMCA which I hope is fun. Sunday brings Dr's Dunsmoor's baby shower for Amanda at 1pm, so I'll be alone with the kids. If Carson feels OK, I'm going to bring them swimming since we haven't been in about two months I think it is. Jim and Gina left for Tampa, FL for a few days today, so ...

4 - 7 September 2008 [Tuesday - Friday] Worked as normal. I'm working on a huge Motorola Import with Cheryl and Laura Harris. It's no fun at all and is very complicated. Taking all of my time. I need to be done by Tuesday and will be thankful to get this pushed out. Hopefully I have caught all the bugs at this point. Worked from home on Wednesday as normal, nothing else out of the ordinary. Amanada has been working extra hours at Dr. Dunsmoors since the front desk lady was fired so she has been really tired. On Wednesday night, I took the kids to see Alex and TJ at football practice at Bond Park. They were interested for about 10 minutes then went and played in the baseball diamond dirt! They were a total mess from head to toe. I had to strip them to their undies before getting in the car and try to dust off as much as possible, then in the bath and shower they went. It was like a sand pit at the bottom of the bathtub when I drained it! :) Boys will be boys I s...

23 August 2007 [Thursday] It rained last night - was so nice to hear thunder when I work up this morning as we are in a severe drought and need about 15" of rain to get back to normal. They said it would require a tropical storm to get us back to near normal! All the grass is totally dead everywhere..brown and crunchy. We have been trying to water our bushes to keep them alive as best as we could. I most likely have to work late tonight as they are upgrading our QADB server so I volunteered to help test it. Rebecca said we could come in 1/2 day late today as we will probably have to stay late. So after dropping Carson off this morning, Amanda, Keegan, Ian and I went to the Morrisville park to meet Denise and her kids. It was so hot and humid, but we still played for about :45 minutes and then all the kids wanted to go. So I headed towards work around 11am, while everyone else went back to our house to play. Hope they had a good time. Got into work and John Littlejohn and I went to...