A Good Good Friday!

Good Friday and the Easter have arrived. I don’t think there is a clearer sign that spring is here! The weather in Colorado is still deciding whether or not it is to be spring or winter. Thursday was gray, cloudy and cool and this morning started in the same way. However, this afternoon things began to turn around and the sun made a return to the skies. There was still a lot of hazy in the air, but with any luck this will clear and we will have a beautiful Easter weekend. It has been a good day for Zack and me. The day started very early as I had an appointment to donate platelets and plasma at Bonfils. I got Zack to school very early and then headed to Bonfils’ Highlands Ranch center to do my donation. I have gotten used to spending 2 hours in the chair while they suck out my blood and separate out the platelets and plasma. This morning my time in the chair was only 1 hour as my platelet count was lower than normal – 201,000. (This is still a great number as the typically your platelets run 150,000 – 400,000. However my platelet count is often around 270,000.) Your platelet count can vary from day-to-day depending upon many different factors. The life span of a platelet is only 5 days, so your body replaces all the platelets in your body every 5 days – therefore there is a lot of variability in your day-to-day platelet count. It felt good to be at Bonfils this morning as the place was very busy. I don’t know that I have seen the place that busy in a long time. I guess a lot of people had the day off from work and decided to do a good deed and donate blood. The importance of blood donation is just so huge. The need for blood and blood products never ceases. Just because it is a holiday or the weather is bad, people in the hospital still need to get blood and blood products to live. So as I always keep asking everyone who reads this blog – go and be a blood donor. You are saving someone’s life. You never know it could end up being some one you love or care about who you save. After my platelet donation I had a really good phone call which set the tone for the rest of the day. During my lunch hour I took Nancy to Tony’s Meats (a specialty food store on Dry Creek) so that she could buy some things that she wanted to take to our Easter brunch. Our yearly Easter brunch is going to be at Tim and Celinde’s this year. I had wanted to do it at my house, but since Celinde is feeling under the weather with her chemo, she really wanted to host it. So, they will host the big get together on Sunday. After Tony’s I dropped Nancy off at home and then took my car to The Suds Factory to have it detailed. Zack has such a tendency to be so messy in the car that I could no longer stand it. The inside of the car was scrubbed and completely cleaned. It feels like I have a new car! I meant to take a picture of the interior and post it here – but it got dark before I could do so. After an exhausting afternoon of work, I went to pick Zack up from school and boy was he in a happy mood! They had a special presentation at school today about science. (It was kind of like a Bill Nye the Science Guy presentation.) Zack was so psyched up about it. In one part of the demonstration they learned how to make soda pop “bombs/geysers” with a bottle of soda and a menthos. I am sure there are going to be a lot of homes in Willow Creek getting covered in spraying soda tonight! We did the experiement twice, but we did it in the middle of our cul-de-sac. We got some pretty big geysers going. I filmed it so I might post it to Youtube over the weekend. Zack had his normal psychologist appointment today. The really neat thing is that Dr. Jane and I are beginning to talk about seriously cutting back on Zack’s appointments. She feels that he has made so much progress and is returning to his normal self. Over the summer we are planning to cut the appointments down to one or two the entire summer. We’ll reevaluate whether or not we need them again at the beginning of the school year. Additionally, I will be working with his other doctor to start the process of weaning him off the Lexapro. Wow is all I can say. I can’t tell you how happy I am to see Zack making this kind of progress. Though tomorrow is supposed to be a nice day I have decided that we are going to pass on hiking this weekend. Instead tomorrow is going to be a day filled with working around the house. For once and all I want to make some very serious progress on the house. It is time. I need to clear out a lot of Patty’s stuff and decided what to do with it. It is just time for us to get that done! I still have one little item to clear away in regard to my taxes. I really need to get that done this weekend so I can get them filed and completed. I’ll ask the question – are all of you done with your taxes? Only 5 more days until they are due! On a totally different note, I heard something on the radio yesterday that I found interesting. I like to listen to conservation talk radio shows to get my blood pressure going. However, there are a couple of shows which are truly informative on various subjects. In particular Hugh Hewitt often covers some pretty interesting topics. Yesterday much of his show was dedicated to the whole concept of “new media” – particularly blogging, Twitter and Facebook. There were some interesting facts discussed about “getting yourself out there”. The main lesson that I took away from the whole discussion is that you need to be an active participant in this “new media”. If you are on Facebook or Twitter – you should be active. Don’t just sit there and never post a status – engage people and get involved with what they are saying and doing. I know this little blog is just one of my outlets to be involved in it all. I really enjoy reading the e-mails that I get and the comments that are left behind. It is also so neat to see hit counter go up each day. So get involved – be part of it. Join Facebook, join Twitter, write a blog! One other side note – for any trying to get in touch with me, my home phone is not working and Qwest hasn’t gotten out here to fix it yet. So if anyone has been trying to get in touch with us – only my cell phone is going to do it at this point. Thank goodness I have a broadband card in my laptop or I would have no Internet access as my high-speed Internet access is DSL and runs on the phone line. God – what would Mr. Internet (me) do without access to the net? Go insane! Well – I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and enjoys Easter. Thanks and peace to all!