The best day i've had in a long time..

Yesterday from start to finish was the best day i've had in a while. I've had TONS of great days with the girls of course, taking in their day to day little quips and adventures. However, yesterday was good for just me. I needed it and absolutely loved it.

First off, i had my best day at work. Ever. Brought in the most sales i had ever brought in a day and had the best month i've ever had. Over 7 years this day and month were my most successful. So, of course, that made me happy.

Then, the coup de gras or the "tom lafleur" if you will happened...my golf league came about. I was late to it due to being busy here at work...but they waited for me anywho to tee off...so i didn't miss nothing. on the third hole..the 11th at Reddeman Farms in chelsea, Michigan, i had my first par. Felt absofuckinterrific. Before i lined up for my potential par putt i told joffe that he was gonna see some HHA (Hot Hole Action) right there on that poor little unsuspecting 11th green if it went in. Sure enuff, i lined it up..hit it a bit too hard..but it was dead nuts straight and in the cup. I did a little dance....joffe glanced at me in muffled horror on the slim chance i may actually deliver on my promise and make love to the 11th hole...and onto the next tee we went.

As great as i felt for having my best sales day ever and month ever...that par 4 felt better. Which is probably sickly misguided and a classic example of not having priorities in order. However, when i started to golf this summer...which you may remember from earlier posts..i was beyond horrible. Missing the ball...no clue at what would happen when i did hit it...really, just flat out embarressing and dreaded even playing. To actually say i got a par 4 is the biggest accomplishment i've had on a personal growth level in any area in my life in a long time. I know, it sounds petty, but i'm really beaming over that !!

heck, i even bough 2 clubs off one of my golf partners last nite..said he never uses em'...so for 50 bones i got a really good 5 wood and 3 wood..which i NEEDED. I can't use my current ones..i just borrow joffes cause mine are too wobbly. I love golf. love it. love it. love it.

PT

Nope, i don't mean playing time..i mean physical therapy. I've meant to write about this before now as i've been doing it for several weeks...but frankly, it's pretty uneventful. I'm guessing mostly due to the fact that it's 7am when i'm there and i'm basically just a warm meat stick in the gym at that time of day. Like wet clay...easily molded...i go with the flow...not willed in any particular direction..you get the point.

So, basically, what happens is I go in there..do this hand bicycle thing for 5 minutes to warm up and go to my therapist. I've had 3 different ones so far. The first one..this blond chick who's name i can't think of and is also SUPER perky was the first. She was the one that put together my 'workout plan. My workout plan consists of exercises to strengthen these little muscles in the middle upper back region. She hit it off right away with me when she said..and i quote "Well, after running these muscle tests with you...here's the problem...your chest is so massively strong that the AC joing in your shoulder doesn't like the disproportionate strength so we need to build up the smaller muscles that don't get used as often." For those of you who have heard that quote many times already..i apologize....but i needed to put it in print. That chest comment pretty much made my week.

So, anywho, after her, I go to this girl Jess....have you ever encountered someone who is obviously a girl, but you can't tell if they are gay or straight?? I'm sure we all have...but this girl is perplexing to me. Not to be stereotypical, but she has a pretty heavy 'softball player' kinda look goin...the squarish face features...pony tail at all times..boxed shoulders...no makeup.etc..etc...Then however, she'll say and do little things that are defintiely flirtatious with me (goofy smiles..batting her eyes...stretches out her back to show her chest..etc, etc..) and i think "wait a second..is she flirting? Why is she looking that way at me?? She's gay." Then, after that happens she'll tell me how she's spending her weekend at her dad's house to wax cars and re-callibrate small engines..so basically, i have no clue. She's my favorite tho so far of the three therapists.

Thirdly there's a guy called Tom LaFleur..aka: The flower..or, that's what i think of when i see his name..Well..that and the 'fleur de lils' from the davinci code. Anywho, he's this young heavier guy who frankly is awkward to have do these things with me. PT gets kinda hands on at times and i can't say i really like it with "the flower". For instance...the pt's at the end give me this arm massage type thing to loosen up my shoulder. They hold my arm and hand and tell me to relax then basically softly shake the arm and muscles for like 5 minutes to stimulate the blood flow and help the joints relax. Now, when Jess does this...it's no problem. I enjoy it..in fact it borderline puts me to sleep..esp at 7am. However, when "the flower" does this...it's the longest 5 minutes of my day. Number one..i don't like him touching or holding me. Frankly, it's flat out umcomfortable for both of us..i know it is...i can see it in his eyes. When one man starts off a sentence to another man "Okay, now while i'm holding your arm slooowwllly roll over the table onto your side and press against my stomach...." there are no winners unless you either A) Are wearing assless chaps and are gay B) Completely comfortable with man touching and are either a girl or you are gay and C) if you are just gay. The kicker is..and i know i just wrote this..I KNOW it's uncomfortable for him too. So, after that sentence gets utterd he'll say.."okay, now josh, relax your arm..just let it go..i've got it...". Only, I can't. He'll repeat it..again, and again..and again...and i always say "i'm ...trying.....tom....." but i can't do it...With Jess and the other girl, no probs...with "the flower" you could use my arm as a weather vane...stiff as a board.

Overall i enjoy my PT. I even have a littel routine now where i get cup of coffee at the coffee place on the way home every thursday and friday morning where i try a different kind of coffee type thing each time. I've only got about 3 more sessions...and while i think it is helping..it ain't REALLY helping. I've come to the conclusion i just need summer to end..i'm doing too many thigns that I KNOW aren't good for my shoulder, yet i do them anyway because, well, it's summer!!!

Toad Smashing

So, not sure if i've posted this before, but my yard is infested with frogs and toads. They are freakin' everywhere. These little critters are the size of a dime and can be found everytime you take a step in my yard.

Shelly and Carly love it...they collect em' and put em' in the whellbarrel in the garage to torment them till' i make them release em' back to the yard (besides the one big green "slimey" one i found...that one terrified them). Anywho, We've come across DOZENS and DOZENS of these...literally. So, today i'm going through the yard and come across another one...no surprise there..so call to shelly, she comes over and picks it up and puts in the whellbarrel.

Sooooo a few mintues pass and it's time to go in..i tell her to release the toad again..which she does...then, a moment later i look over and see her TAKING A ROCK AND SMASING IT ON THE TOAD!! I say "shelly, what are you doing that for???!!!" She said "i didn't like that toad...it was bugging me."

As a young man who as a boy had more then one misadventure with another creature, i can understand a reaction to that. HOWEVER, as a parent, Shelly needed to learn right from wrong. I came down on her hard.

LONG talk about how that was wrong and how it's not right to kill other living creatures and after 30 minutes of her crying listening to me chew her out..it sunk in. SOOOO...tonight, she has to say her prayers and ask God to forgive her....consequently, i don't think this will happen again....

My weeping cherry tree....

is weeping. In fact, it's going through shock. I thought this may happen, but it's gonna bug me all summer until either A) it pulls out of it or B) croaks. Either way, i've got a 1 year warranty...but am really pulling for this tree to make it..it's the centerpiece of my landscaping mastery....cough, cough

Grand Am Random Run in

You know how sometimes you pass a car on the road and you think.."man, that looks JUST like my old car i used to drive..". Well, I saw THE EXACT car i used to drive. Happened the other day outside of Mancino's. I was walking out of there after a nice Club Grinder and saw this white grand am and thought pretty much exactly what I wrote above.

Only, this one had a bunch of mardi gras beads hanging from the rear view mirror...one of those decals with that "T" shaped wave like symbol that i have no idea what it means, but i see it on a lot of high schoolers cars..looks like the symbol for Tulane University to me (if anyone knows or understands what i'm talkin' about please let me know..that symbol has been bugging me what the hell it is for years..i'm sure it's something hip that i'm too obtuse to realize), one of those feather bolo's in the back over the rear seat...basically it looked like it had been slutted out by a high school girl.

So, i thought.."you know, i sold this car to a lady who bought it for her highschool aged daughter about 3 years ago..." it was a vivid memory of mine as after she bought it there immediately turned out about 10 high school kids with half shirts and wife beaters on that all looked about 13 years old to me.

So, then i go closer to look at the car..and i see the fimiliar "Red Holzman" red decal sticker on the lower right hand corner of the windshield that my car had...and then i noticed the distinguishable scratch/nick on the middle of the front fender...the two things i was looking for to prove it's identity. They were the confirmation of the dental records in otherwords for me.

This was my old car.

No doubts..pretty wild. I always felt owning a white car was kinda girlish..(unlike driving a pacifica which absolutley REEKS of manliness..seriously, that car is like Helen of Troy..it attracts people from all over and can start wars)..but i felt bad for the poor car. It had been COMPLETELY Fu-Fu'd...

RIP: Josh's 1997 Grand AM GT...1997-2006

Seriously, my kids are freakin' cute

As much as they drive me up the fn' wall at times i love these little beaners to death. These pics are great. I took them at the same time and were totally spontaneous....Carly is learning how to go potty on the big girl potty and was taking no chances at falling in. Shelly was just running around waiting for me to give her a bath and threw this outfit together while she was waiting for me to finish with carly.

Yes, that is an inflatable rubber duck around Carly and yes...that is a pair of hello kitty underwear on shelly's head.

What a couple hams...

Best random run-in Ever!!

I know..I know..that's pretty bold to say...but this really was...for LOTS of reasons..but i'll only share the good ones here. What makes it the best random run-in ever? Well, it met the big three criteria of a random run-in. Normally, only 1 of the three apply..sometimes 2..but RARELY all 3.

Criteria 1: Run-in is completely random and in a place you'd expect NOT to see someone you could possibly know

Criteria 2: The person/s of which the run-in is with you haven't thought about in a VERY long time.

Criteria 3 (the rarest of the big 3 criteria): It is awkward.

I'll explain...

There's a place in Chelsea called Thompson's Pizziera...It always looks abandoned to me, yet on the weekend at night's it's always packed. I've always wanted to check it out to see what it's like inside (for the record the pizza is good..not great, but good, and they have a liquor license, and yes, it's pretty much a shrine to Chelsea highschool athletics).

Editor's note: The amount of sleevless shirts and/or tanktops in this place reached double digits...it was only 70 degrees this night in question.

Soooo..i walk in, say hi to a waitress walking past and sit down and get ready to order...another waitress comes over and i remember her. She used to come in to the party store i worked at for a year right after college on North Lake in Chelsea. She had a twin sister..they were like 16 back then, but they had a crush on me..i used to think it was cute....so, when i put this togethter and brought up who i was and if she remembered me..she didn't. I was shellshocked. Well, not really, but it REALLY bugged me!! I was throwing out desperate pieces of info trying to get her to remember me...none of which worked..when i finally remembered i dated thier older sister a few times as well..so she asked which one and i said "danielle" (*not positive on that name..but pretty sure). Anywho, Danielle was a VERY pretty girl back then...She modeled and was a Hawaiian tropic girl..whatever that is. So, the waitress says.."well, she's right over there..." and points to the waitress i said "hi" to on the way in.

DOH!!

Needless to say...she didn't look the same...you could see where she was pretty at one time...but not the same..she even had a bad straw like hair do and had the looks of someone who had been working at thompson's pizzeria too long....

So, yes, random, hadn't thought about her and awkward, especially when she brought the pizza over for whatever reason. i got of dodge at the right time...this story is really only 50% of the tale...it's actually much better...but this all i'm typing...This is the random run-in of which all random run-in's will be measured by from here on out!!

You know, when i think about it..i'm doin' good...

Seriously. I've achieved A LOT this year..especially for me....in the past year i've 1) completed a divorce..which for those of you that know what a divorce is like is a HUGE accomplishment

2) i've bought a house and well underway to furnishing and landscaping it..again...a HUGE accomplishemnt

3) Provided a good environment for the girls which i believe really has attributed them to adjusting well in going back and forth between my house and their mom's.

4)I'm having a good year at work, which I NEEDED to have as my finances are not exactly where they were pre-divorce

5)I've done really well in my phsyical improvement goals...i'm doing about 6 miles a week on the stairmaster..still lifting lightly..but only occaisionally with the whole shoulder issue. My basketball league is going great....i'm playing as good as i'ver ever played in this thing AND i've been doing it every week, which i'm most happy with. Golf has finally reached the point where i don't dread and really look forward to playing it. I'm still horrible..but i'm only slightly worse then everyone else in the league..which is a HUGE accomplishment!! I'm very happy with that...

I've used this spot as a place to gripe or tell quirky stories that bug me..but frankly..i'm just a brat. life is good.

I know when i'm not good at stuff

Two things in particular....folding laundry and cleaning. I try my best at both..i realluy do. However i just flat out suck at them. Folding is something that drives me nuts...i just can't do it. No matter how meticulous i am with the clothes when i look at a shirt that i've folded it looks like someone was sitting on a napkin. Just awful.

Cleaning is the same thing. I can maintain really well..give things a nice once over..polish em' up...but when i'm done i look at em' and say..man..it doesn't reallly look that clean. However...I've rectified this!!! Tomorrow a cleaning lady is coming. Frankly, i'm excited. This house is dirty..i can feel it. ANd there's nothing i can do about it. She has great referrals and comes highly recommended. She charges $15/hour which i should make out quite well. since i don't have that much stuff to clean of course.

She's coming at nine tomorrow....i can't wait to see it...

yes, i'm still lame...

Shelly's Graduation

It was long...but it was nice. She was really cute. All the kids from all the classes all wore hats with different animals on them. Carly wore a chicken hat and Shelly had a frog hat. Then, as a whole, the group sang "old mcdonald" had a farm and when their animal had their turn, they all stood up and sang.

Then, each graduating kid from developmental kindergarten got a memory book they had made and a little diploma saying they were now ready for actual kindergarten. I couldn't believe how different shelly looked in the picture from the first day of DK to how she looks now..she really has grown a lot..makes me sad in that sappy dad way, but proud in that she really is becoming a good kid.

The awkward part about the whole thing is that it was just shan and i and the girls there. Which, actually was cool...no problems..HOWEVER, we know a lot of the parents and other people around at this thing and not everyone realizes we are divorced. SOOOOO...there were several conversations that started like this "josh, i haven't seen you around the neighborhood lately..."...or in some form of fashion similar thereto. The best was from one of my other neighbors who moved back into the rear of the sub.."josh, so tell me, is that your new Z350 truck i always see in the driveway?" lol..."um, nooooo...that's my ex wives boyfriends i'm guessing." The look on his face was priceless..i saw him walk over to his wife and tell her as they had just been talking to me and shan and she literally rubberbanded her neck back so quick to see me she tripped over a lawnchair and almost hit the ground.

The moral of the story here is i'm very fortunate that shan and i can do these kind of things together because we BOTH have the girls best interests at heart. We put them first, well knowing that it will create awkward moments at one point or another for both of us with other people. I don't think all divorces are like that, and i'm glad the girls can still share us as parents in that way. I think it would be hard for kids to have parents that couldn't take in their activities together as well as shan and i do.

Here's some pics from the event...

"So you've got arthritis..."

There was a time in college where i wasn't feeling well. i went to the wellness center and was sitting there after my examination when the nurse comes out and hands me a pamphlet that reads..and i kid you not.."so you've got mono...." . Needless to say that sucked for a good couple weeks..right during final exams. Todd and i got it at the same time in fact...we have our theories as to how it happened..and i'm not willing to share them here..but all of them were stupid.

I'm bringin' it up cause i finaly heard back from the nurse about my x-rays on my shoulders. She called and said there "is no major separation or break.....(pauses...audible sigh).....but there is degeneration of the bone....or, in other words, arthritis...i'm really sorry to tell you this..." That last part was the part that bothered me. Arthritis i can honestly say really sucks. Hurts all the time and feels like you are being stabbed with knives. She asked if i had a traumatic event that may have spurned this on with my shoulders..of which i've never had one...i'm sure it's from liftin tho. I've had minor inconvenience with them for probably 10 years and now it's been coming to a head..so i'm sure i overdid it at some point when i was in college and figured i was indestructible.

Bottom line..it's the worst possible news because A) There isn't a cure B) It hurts and C) i need physical therapy which may or may not even help. that starts next week, of which i'm REALLY hoping it works out for me.

So, enuff of the pity party, it'll get better i'm sure. motrin really seems to help a lot...and just generally not straining it while excersing makes a HUGE difference.

Tonight is Shelly's Developmental kindergarten graduation from her daycare, which means snowcones and carnival games at her school! I'll ham it up tonight. those teachers LOVE me!!! Weekend will be fun too..tomorrow i think i'm takin' em' to see my grandparents and then to red robin...golf at nite...then sunday landscape finally....Quiet and productive weekend ahead!!

landscaping

That's my next big job..along with building a deck. I have my old neighbor ted putting together some plans for me right now since he's a licensed builder and hope that by the end of june, i'll have something...but that is really at the mercy of the mgt company and township and the county and the permits..lots of bs when you build a deck. It will be good tho..i'm tired of grilling out in my driveway shirtless looking like i'm about to be busted for ecstasy posession or something on cops.

landscaping i can start right now..i've got plans submitted...but can't decide what i want to do. They are approved..i just gotta start...but i want it to look good. Landscaping can add in upwards of 15k to the value of your home..i don't want to skimp on it...i'll keep this blog posted when i do it...but right now my biggest dillema is edging. Do i use the traditional black edging you normally see? The refabricated rubber from old tires that is easy to install? Block? nothing? i don't know.

You know, after reading this and being single now this is what i'm doing on a saturday...blogging about my landscaping...sad. sigh.