Carleen and Mike » News http://www.huggin.net/blog raising loki in okie land Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:56:43 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 en My Weekend Hurt…but in a Good way http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/06/my-weekend-hurtbut-in-a-good-way/ http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/06/my-weekend-hurtbut-in-a-good-way/#comments Mon, 06 Aug 2007 19:17:14 +0000 Mike Huxley http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/06/my-weekend-hurtbut-in-a-good-way/ Say Mike, what did you do this weekend?

Me? Oh I only laid a floor in my living room. BAM!

Before 1

Before 2

After 1

After 2

We had a nasty brown carpet (it was even nastier than we thought - the bottom side was beyond gross). The Linoleum was underneath, I laid the new, laminate floor overtop that. I got it down in about 6 hours, but of course then I had to replace all the trim - so that took me into Sunday. I am so sore from putting it down so fast, but it was worth it - this floor would make Bob Villa weep.

]]> http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/06/my-weekend-hurtbut-in-a-good-way/feed/ Made in China http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/03/made-in-china/ http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/03/made-in-china/#comments Fri, 03 Aug 2007 12:20:41 +0000 Carleen Huxley http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/03/made-in-china/ Liam’s Birthday is coming up and we have a request by anyone considering getting him a gift. 1 million toys have been recalled by Fisher Price that were made in China and found to have excessive amounts of lead in their paint. Due to the many recent Chinese recalls, we’re simply not going to buy anything made in China anymore (which could prove rather difficult, but I think we just want to be more aware of of where our stuff is coming from - especially things for Liam.

]]> http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/03/made-in-china/feed/ Running Hurdles http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/01/477/ http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/01/477/#comments Thu, 02 Aug 2007 01:44:03 +0000 Mike Huxley http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/01/477/ You know…it’s incredible how quickly your dreams and aspirations can take a back seat to the every-day routine. You spend so much time thinking about the future - a future that always seems to far away, the horizon seemingly never in view. Not only do your dreams and goals take a back seat - you almost forget you ever had them in first place. And then something happens; you take a giant leap forward and the horizon comes into glaring view and despite all the talk about the future, despite all your planning, you are literally knocked breathless with realization that the future you planned for is actually coming to fruition. It’s frightening and exciting and nerve-wracking all at once.

We just took out a $10,000 loan (using Carl’s money as collateral) for home improvements. We’re getting new windows, a new floor throughout the house, remodeling the bathrooms and replacing the countertop in the kitchen (among other things). We’ve talked about this for so long as the single thing holding us back from moving away from here, and now that this time is here, I’m a bit frightened. Mostly because I’ve never been in this much debt before, and I’m really going to have to bust ass to get everything done that I want done. Once this house is finished Carleen can finally start seriously looking for jobs elsewhere and I can finally start looking into Massage Therapy schools.

I had sort of lost track of Massage Therapy as a future career - it just felt so far away. We’ve been talking about moving away for so long it was starting to feel like a pipe dream. Now that the last few hurdles are in view, I’m a bit apprehensive about making the decision to start classes again. After all, I was so sure that photography was the career for me. Am I choosing Massage Therapy because of the money? Am I choosing just because it happens to be the Career of the Week for me? Once bitten, twice shy, you know? I like the sound of it, I like the idea of having a flexible schedule and Biology was always a strong suit for me, I just can’t help but feel just a small amount of worry.

The end is near, and although the next few months are going to be severely trying - the end result will be worth it. I’m feeling unusually optimistic about the future, so I’m just going to ride that feeling while I can.

]]> http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/01/477/feed/ am I still norwegian? http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/01/am-i-still-norwegian/ http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/01/am-i-still-norwegian/#comments Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:48:15 +0000 Carleen Huxley http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/01/am-i-still-norwegian/ My brother just sent me a rather disconcerting article from a Norwegian newspaper. My Norwegian is extremely sketchy and I’ve probably got most of the details mixed up here but if I’m understanding this right, a teenager wanting to renew her Norwegian passport was denied because she’s now a resident of Sweden (statsborger..right, mom?). She was born in Norway and raised there as a child but moved to Sweden later. This actually sounds like something the Norwegian Embassy in Tulsa was telling me the last time I renewed my passport just before we left for our honeymoon. Apparently another girl a few weeks before me tried to renew her passport but was denied by the embassy because she hadn’t lived or visited Norway since she was a baby. I think there was some kind of ten year limit that you could be away before they decide that “well, you haven’t lived here, bothered to pay our outrageous taxes, or even attempted to visit so you can’t be Norwegian anymore”. My Norwegian citizenship has always been very important to me, it’s part of my identity despite the fact that I can’t speak the language fluently or feel a little foreign each time I’m here. That’s just part of being cross cultural. Multi-culturalism was something I always thought Norway embraced. But this idea of stripping people of their citizenship simply because they haven’t been or lived in their Norway for awhile stinks of some sort of weird nationalism.

]]> http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/01/am-i-still-norwegian/feed/ First Lady Bush Visits Africa http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/07/02/first-lady-bush-visits-africa/ http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/07/02/first-lady-bush-visits-africa/#comments Mon, 02 Jul 2007 15:04:25 +0000 Mike Huxley http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/07/02/first-lady-bush-visits-africa/ There have been many times during the Bush Administration which I have felt disgusted at being an American; but never so much as after hearing this news story on NPR. The First Lady visited a school in Mali, Africa this week for a photo-op. In preperation for the visit, the U.S. embassy came to the school and gave it a significant face-lift. The front door, where the photo shoot would take place, was painted. Nothing else was painted, just the front door. Two water fountains were pulled out near the entrance because they weren’t visually appealing. Electrical outlets and a generator were installed in order to power fans to cool Mrs. Bush and the crowd. The trash in the courtyard was picked up, new gravel was laid in the driveway so that Mrs. Bush wouldn’t slip in the mud (only the part of the driveway that Mrs. Bush would see, of course) and bushes and plants were planted.

The photo-shoot came and went - it only took a few hours. The trash from the First Lady’s visit - water bottle lables and donut cartons - was left on the ground. Electrical outlets, generators and fans were yanked out. Would it have been so terrible to, at least, paint the whole building and maybe clean up after themselves?

]]> http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/07/02/first-lady-bush-visits-africa/feed/ A Stay at Home Dad http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/06/25/455/ http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/06/25/455/#comments Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:26:00 +0000 Mike Huxley http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/06/25/455/ This week starts my first full week as a Stay At Home Dad. Whoo Hoo! It’s been great so far, if a bit awkward for me and Carleen - we have, like, time to do stuff together. Liam has been a bit rough over the past few days, not eating so great, only eating certain foods and being generally difficult to put down to sleep. He doesn’t go down with a bottle anymore, he only goes down (for me) with a walk in his stroller. Carleen is able to get him to go down with a little rocking, but she also generally puts him down at night, where I have taken over days. We’re hoping it’s just teething. It’s kind of upsetting to me, since he’s so squirmy and fidgety it’s hard to rock him, that’s something I miss from when he was younger - rocking him to sleep. He doesn’t even like to be in bed with us anymore, he is squirmy, wakes up often and starts crawling around half-asleep, banging his head into the wall. Carleen brought this great book home called Good Nights which discusses co-sleeping with your child(ren); it talks about how great co-sleeping is for children and how it develops this great bond between parent and child and how much better children sleep in bed with mom & dad. And our boy wants nothing to do with it. To be fair, it could just be a phase of independence, maybe when he’s older he’ll be more interested in co-sleeping.

It’s good, in any case, to be away from Central States. My hands haven’t been this clean since I started working there. I don’t think I’m completely acclimated to daytime hours yet, but it should be very soon. I’m a bit overwhelmed at all the various things I can do, now that I’m back on daylight hours. I really want to have a barbeque, I think I may have to set that up soon.

]]> http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/06/25/455/feed/ Want to be a superhero? http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/04/27/want-to-be-a-superhero/ http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/04/27/want-to-be-a-superhero/#comments Fri, 27 Apr 2007 13:56:14 +0000 Carleen Huxley http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/04/27/want-to-be-a-superhero/ There’s been some interesting development in the superhero front…kyptonite has been discovered and…check this out…some Italian scientist has developed a super duper super glue made from the feet of a gecko lizard that would allow for a real-life spider man suite.

Comic book nerds rejoice…

]]> http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/04/27/want-to-be-a-superhero/feed/ “You can’t educate hormones.” http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/04/14/you-cant-educate-hormones/ http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/04/14/you-cant-educate-hormones/#comments Sat, 14 Apr 2007 14:56:53 +0000 Carleen Huxley http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/04/14/you-cant-educate-hormones/ ….or so says Mike…and according to a study ordered by Congress it looks like he may be right.

Study: Abstinence classes don’t stop sex

]]> http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/04/14/you-cant-educate-hormones/feed/ The Roof, the Roof is on….Water? http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/01/23/the-roof-the-roof-is-onwater/ http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/01/23/the-roof-the-roof-is-onwater/#comments Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:34:19 +0000 Mike Huxley http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/01/23/the-roof-the-roof-is-onwater/ Just spent the last hour chipping ice off the roof of our sun-room after I noticed several rather large leaks coming through the ceiling. Have I mentioned in the past, oh, 24 hours how much I hate this house? I can’t wait to be rid of it. Owning a house is not easy, that I have learned, but neither should it be this hard. I still have to fix our shower which is leaking, once again, and it’ll cost me in the neighborhood of $50-$75 to fix it, not to mention an afternoon of cursing and busted fingers. This because our fixtures are so old (”How old are they?!”), they’re so old they don’t even stock the parts anymore, plus they’re Kohler, which apparently is the Cadillac of plumbing, so they’re extra expensive. We’ve already pretty much decided that we’re going to pay a little extra in order to ensure we get a well built, solid house - if that means we have a mortgage, then so be it.

]]> http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/01/23/the-roof-the-roof-is-onwater/feed/ Dateline: To Catch a Predator http://www.huggin.net/blog/2006/12/28/dateline-to-catch-a-predator/ http://www.huggin.net/blog/2006/12/28/dateline-to-catch-a-predator/#comments Thu, 28 Dec 2006 18:00:00 +0000 Mike Huxley http://www.huggin.net/blog/2006/12/28/dateline-to-catch-a-predator/ We spent Christmas Eve visiting with Carleen’s parents, so we had one of the few opportunities to watch cable television. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, I’ll leave the reader to decide (bad, if you want my opinion), but one of the programs we watched was Dateline’s To Catch a Predator. Dateline has joined forces with Perverted-Justice, in an effort to bring online sexual predators to justice. Carleen has told me about this show, but I had never seen it. It’s a really neat show, not to mention catching some serious low-lifes. Here’s the setup if you haven’t seen it: People from Perverted-Justice pose online as under-age teens to lure online predators. They give an address where the predators can meet the “teen”. When the predators show up (from what I saw, usually with beer and condoms), they are greeted at the door by a young looking woman, coached on what to say. After some pleasantries, the host, Chris Hanson enters the room and begins grilling the predators on why they are here - holding in his hand the saved transcripts from the online chats. Hanson allows the men to leave after a short while, however, the police are already on the scene, ready to arrest the men.

Now, I don’t question what this show accomplishes, to be sure, as of the date of last nights program they had caught over 160 online predators. And obviously the way in which they lure the predators is perfectly legal. What got me thinking is the legal system in general, and this concept of luring criminals into illegal behavior. I’m not terribly familiar with the legal system in this respect, so I’m really just considering this as a mental exercise. To me it’s a question of intent versus action. If I walk into a convenience store with a concealed gun with the intent of robbing it, but I don’t, have I done anything illegal? Other than carrying a concealed weapon, that is. Shouldn’t I have the opportunity to rethink my actions before being arrested?

It’s things like this that sorta make me rethink wanting to have a girl. I mean, it’s bad enough trying to teach a boy not to be a creep, but having to worry about all those out there that never got taught?

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