I keep kidding my wife by telling her she does not need to generate situations for me to write about; I have enough stuff happen to me as it is. :) Anyway, I am overdue for an update:

We finally had our garage sale. Anything we could not sell was donated to Goodwill and the local library. It is nice to park (at least one vehicle) in the garage again. Now, if we could only get the garage door open to work.

I hope everyone had a good holiday. Unlike most years, Rachel and I actually dressed up and went out to celebrate. It is the first time since our wedding since she has worn a dress! She looked wonderful in it. She will probably post the pictures we took on her site.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas or whichever holiday your family celebrates. It has been a crazy past couple of weeks. Pizza Hut finally contacted me about our past dining experience. They sent me a couple of coupons for free pizzas. In addition, the regional manager contacted me and gave me a $25 credit for my next order. That is fine, just as long as their products improve. I am not going to eat a crummy pizza even if it is free.

Recently, Rachel and I received mail stating we won a contest. Considering the recent problems with our bank account, we initially thought it was a fraud. But, after doing some research, we found that it was indeed legitimate.

It has been a busy past few days. On Wednesday, I started my next school term. This term I am taking IT350: SQL, IT274: Intermediate C#, and EL205: Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) II. The PLA classes, I hope, will let me earn credits for experience. If I earn all the credits I am attempting, I knock out six classes.

On Monday, I was reviewing transactions on my bank's website. I noticed two charges at a local gas station that totaled over $540! I knew that they did not belong to me. I know gas is expensive, but I have never spent that much at a gas station in one day. As it was past banking hours, I had to call my bank on Tuesday. They closed our account. They also mentioned that whoever stole our information also tried to charge our account another time at a different gas station.

On Monday, Rachel and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary. Actually, "celebrated" is probably not accurate. With our current situation, it does not seem appropriate to celebrate. But, we did we did remember the event. Last night, we went to dinner with friends and family.

It is bad enough being out of work. Being sick is only worse. Over the weekend, I had major breathing problems. It felt like my chest was in a vice. Fortunately, I am feeling much better. At least I did not have to take off any sick days.

I go in to work today like normal. But, it was taking an awful long time to log into the network. I got down on my hands and knees to trace my cable back to the switch. Everything was connected as it should be and I was getting activity lights, but my network connection was still down.

I need a break. A few Fridays ago, Rachel started feeling sick. A few days later, I was also sick. I was out of work from Monday through Wednesday of last week. As I spent the majority of my time either sleeping or only marginally coherent, I did not accomplish a lot. Both my work and schoolwork suffered.

I was starting to get back to normal when my mother-in-law called Friday night. She was suffering from bad indigestion and was having a panic attack. Her indigestion medication only made problems worse. We ended up calling the rescue squad and going to the hospital.