Sheep Guarding Llama

Medifast Status: Day 53, Down ~29.5lbs

As expected, today was a long day.  I ended up not being able to make it into the office at all as I needed to stay home to help with the packing and watching the girls as much as possible.  There was just so much to do.

It took all day to get the car packed after the errands were run and the kids were taken care of.  Luciana had a last minute doctor’s appointment, for example.  Pushing to get everything done before we leave is tough.

By the time that work was done and we were able to get the house in order and the car all loaded it was roughly nine thirty.    It was a bit later to get on to the road than we had been hoping but not completely horrible.  It is going to be a long night, definitely.

Our goal for tonight is to get from Texas to Springfield, Missouri.  Not really that far although it sounds really far.  Dallas and Springfield are closer than they seem.  It is less than eight hours.

The girls did really well on the drive tonight.  Both Liesl and Luciana slept the whole way and were little angels in the back seat.  I can’t believe how well they handled the drive.

On the drive Dominica and I wrapped up listening to “The Epic of Gilgamesh” which I had started reading on my last drive down to Texas.  I’ve been pretty remiss on keeping up with my book reading so it was nice to knock one out.  The epic was really, really boring in general although it does offer some really interesting insights into ancient history and how our ancestors viewed the world.  The influence of the epic on later literature is really important and it definitely provides a new way to look at literature – even if the epic itself is a painful read.

We arrived in Springfield pretty late around five in the morning.  We knew that pushing on all night wasn’t going to work so we just got a Quality Inn there and spent the night.  I was decently tired when we arrived there.  I did all of the driving tonight.  The trip through Oklahoma is a long and boring one.

Tomorrow we will be driving on to Canton, Ohio.  I’m expecting that it will be decently late by the time that we wake up and make it out of the hotel.

Medifast Status: Day 52, Down ~29lbs

I worked half of the day from home today so that I could watch the girls to allow Dominica to try to get things ready for us to leave for Ohio tomorrow.  In many ways it is good that we were already planning on leaving in a week because we were partially ready and had a lot of our trip planning already done but we were planning on leaving in more than a week and the work to be done was spread out over the next eight days.  Compressing everything into less than two days is not at all easy.

I did manage to get lunch from Rockfish for Dominica today and brought it home with me to make lunch easier.

At the end of the day, most everything is ready.  The car needs to be packed and that can’t be done until tomorrow due to the heat – nothing can sit out in the Texas sun in June.

Watson came over this evening so that we could run through what needs to be done to take care of the house while we are gone.  The plants can only go a few days without being watered and the foundation has to stay watered too.

We figured out tonight that we still had meals from La Cima to use and tonight is the last night that we are in Texas until next month.  So Watson and I headed over to La Cima and picked up take out for Dominica.

Overall…. there is still a ton of work to do tomorrow.  It is going to be a long day.

Medifast Status: Day 51, Down ~29lbs

After work today I ran over to Fry’s and picked up a Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 2 and two 3TB hard drives to use as our new video and audio server in our house.  The ReadyNAS uses far less power and generates almost no noise compared to the server that we used to use and Fry’s had it so inexpensively that we decided that we just needed to have it.  Dominica has been waiting for a lot of our stuff to be available after having it be offline for nearly two years now after all of our moving from place to place and never managing to get things set up properly.  The whole thing was pretty cheap and has a built in DLNA server which should make it super easy to share audi oand video with the rest of the house.

I walked in to the house to the news that my grandfather had just had a heart attack while working in the barn this afternoon and passed away.  My cousin Monica had been trying to reach me on my drive home but I didn’t hear the phone in the car.  She had managed to reach dad and he called Dominica so Dominica told me when I walked in the door.

I managed to reach dad, Monica and Aunt Gayle by phone this evening.  Everyone was still at the hospital and there was no real news.  We did determine that we did not have to leave tonight to go to Ohio.  I got a hold of everyone at the office and prepped them that I might need to travel at a moment’s notice but our plan, until we hear more, are that we will likely leave Texas on Friday night after work and get to Ohio on Saturday evening.  We don’t know what the funeral arrangements are going to be but it seems unlikely that anything could be organized faster than that.

Just in case, Dominica started packing up the Acadia so that we would be as ready to leave at a moment’s notice.

Medifast Status: Day 50, Down ~29lbs

The menu at La Cima looked really good today and we are getting into the habit of me checking it first thing in the morning and, if it looks good, forwarding it on to Dominica right away so that she has all morning to decide if she wants to go out for lunch and then get the girls ready and pick me up from work.  She was in the La Cima mood today so she came and picked me up from work and we went out for lunch.

Lunch was very nice and it is great getting to spend a good bit of time with the family in the middle of the day when everyone is awake and vibrant.  It is really better than being home in the evenings because that is when everyone is tired and always there is someone sleeping or watching a show or something.  Our lunch times at La Cima are some of our best family time together.

The weather today was as it has been for days.  Still and incredibly hot.  The weather reports all say nothing about storms.  But tonight, just like last night, a huge thunderstorm pounced on us unexpectedly.  No warning.  Straight from hot and still to seventy-five mile per hour gusts, massive lightning and driving rain.

After work I went to my golf lesson but no one was there.  I guess I missed that the lesson was cancelled for tonight.

We hung out at home this evening watching “Glee” which Dominica recently discovered and really enjoys.  I just jumped in in the second season and just poke my head in now and then to watch so I am not following it too closely.

Another surprise storm snuck up on us tonight.  Out of nowhere on a completely warm and still night another crazy storm crept up on us. Major thunder and lighting and heavy rain.  We lost power several times.  Liesl actually got a little scared from this storm.

Medifast Status: Day 49, Down ~28.5lbs

I did not feel like pulling myself out of bed this morning.  Luciana is getting me up earlier now and I don’t want to get up so early.  It does make it easier to get to work, at least.

I came home for lunch today.  This evening we just relaxed, more or less.  The days have been hot and still but tonight, out of nowhere, a storm snuck up on us.  Suddenly there was lightning flashing and thunder.  It didn’t last real long and it barely rained but there was some violent weather going on.  It really caught us by surprise.  We even lost power for a little bit tonight.