Nested ifs

Nested ifs ands or buts! Just had to say that. Ok, moving on. Nested ifs is what I am working on right now. Trying to get my mind around the logic tangle that will solve the current glitch in my game. I am trying to figure out how to determine if the two tiles that are face up are a match or not. So I am using nested for statements and nested if statements and it is all getting my little brain all confused! But I did find a website with good explanations, so I see light at the end of this teeny tunnel! Rah!

Not an exciting day, yesterday. I spent most of the day working on my project - I did do one chapter in my latest book, but I am making such good progress on the game, that I really wanted to focus on that.

As for dinner, it was eggroll day - I made shrimp eggrolls for dinner and froze 9 of them I think. Yay! And it was a decadent night - at some point late, I got some chocolate cake out of the freezer (mom had bought one earlier if you recall) and fed some to her and to me. And I added some ice cream for me. I find I only eat ice cream once every couple of weeks, if that frequently. Not abstemiousness, just no interest, usually. Though it is getting close to Watermelon Sherbert season!! Meanwhile, mom eats ice cream at least four times a week! Heck, she is 81 and can do as she pleases! Any suggestions what to do for her for her 82 birthday? Though chaperoning her on her Reunion seems like a pretty good present...

Tomorrow is my 51st birthday! Yippee.

Almost time to de-box the study again...

Yum!

That was a scary moment

Not like "ooohhhwaaaah" ghost scary. But emotionally a smidge scary. Mom walked into my room and asked "How are Ernst and Betty related to me?" It took her a few seconds to understand what "Step" children were. She was, I am guessing, thinking about the money that E&B and Juliet and Paul have put into the hairdressing place in Geneva for mom to use. She is planning on getting another haircut before the reunion and was worried that there wouldn't be enough in there. I told her not to worry, that we had enough money to cover a haircut for her. But I was shaking a little on the inside, wondering when she won't really be clear on who I am and how we are related. Eeeek.

Made some progress on Flippety (working name for my concentration like game). I asked help of a person online who had put up some tutorials with a suggestion of how to fix the problem. Instead of writing the code for me (poop) he said, yes, I was on the right track. Yippee. This morning, after putting it in my head last night, I tried a couple of things and low and behold it is working! Little baby step forward! Huzzah! Of course, this led to the next issue - how to get the tiles to remember their state of flipped-ness. Sigh. I will work on that later today. (Ok, got that fixed - onward!)

Yesterday was Ginger day. She and mom did some more work in mom's bedroom. Everything they do together is one less thing that I a) think about and b) have to do myself. Yay! Later, I went food shopping. I forgot to put eggroll wrappers on my list, so naturally I forgot to buy them. Sigh. I will have to (get to) go shopping again today. Mom stayed home and finished Extremely Loud and Terribly Close. I think she liked it overall. It wasn't as comforting and familiar as her mystery books, but I do try to expand her brain however I can!

Yesterday was also my big night out on the town. I headed to Leaf Kitchen because they had a couple of new beers. Emily actually said she had missed me. That was a surprise. The bar was, sadly, completely full, so I decided not to stay and headed to Pure instead. There, I was again surprised. Staff changes galore! Oh well, life is that way sometimes. I had a couple of French 75s (basically Gin and Champagne). Not as good as the ones I make, but drinkable. A big time was had! Ok, not all that big, but it was fun.

Daily Challenge told me to eat Lycopene ridden food, so we had Asparagus

What? Huh?

Yesterday was a mom day. We started with going to the Ear Nose and Throat people for a follow-up appointment. Mom was acting especially curmudgeonly - luckily in a humorous seeming way. She did not want to be seen by the new Physician's Assistant again. And she, of course, complained endlessly about the co-pay. First thing we got to do was a hearing test. I have been worried about mom's hearing ever since I moved in with her (almost a year ago). Turns out, needlessly. She passed all of the tests. I must admit to being a little surprised. And a little relieved since hearing aids apparently cost thousands of dollars. Eeek! The big worry was the high end - which typically gets harder to hear as one ages - and the discernment factor - being able to hear when there is competing sound. But neither are bad enough that she needs aid. Yay!

Next up, a visit with another Physician's Assistant. This one has been doing her job for 20 years or so and was very professional. Much better than the one we had last month. She gave mom a prescription for more nasally inhaled antihistamine - which I think helps but mom isn't so sure. I take that with a grain of salt...

After we finally finished with the medical stuff, our next mission was to find a replacement for the plaster birdbath that I destroyed so effectively the other day. At Lowes, they had a few, but nothing that caught either of our eyes. We tried three more places without success. Next stop, the internet! We also got mom some apples and cheese at Red Jacket. After a stop at the house to relax and watch the BBC news (for mom) we headed to Friendly's for dinner. Mom does love her Friendly's visits! None of our favorite servers were there. Mom's favorite, Jeanette, certainly wasn't. And we sat in the back. I don't really like sitting back there. Oh well. At least it wasn't crazy busy, so service was decent. Except for our waitress not asking after our water levels. Whatever! \

We came home, watched Jeopardy and then three episodes of Deadwood! Yay!

I did nothing on iPhone learning - I am stymied by two issues - hiding views and button presses. Grr.

Pretty flowering tree near the doctor's office

Bacon Blue Burger

Mom had sweet and sour shrimp again

Another picture of the little blue flowers in the yard

Out on the roof

Mom and I got tired of seeing all of the pine needles decorating some of the roof, so I took a broom and went out and swept them all off! Go me! I don't think it had been done for several years at least. Now, I am just hoping for some good rain to wash them clean. I went out barefoot - the better not to slip, which might not have been the best idea. But I didn't slip, so I am happy. No pictures, unfortunately. :(

Yesterday was Beer Day at the beautiful Beef and Brew. Yay! Lorraine started me off - it is great to have her to chat with. She also shared some flowers with me for mom. I decided to have three Chimays. Blue was the best - should have saved that for last - oh well - Red was good too, and the Gold (or yellow?) was tasty, though the lightest of the three in taste and in color. In order to video, I borrowed the memory card from my camera. Yippee! I still haven't decided what to do for a longer term solution (wow, that word came and then went and then finally reappeared in my mind). Either a hard drive or another larger memory card. Or maybe both! A 4 gig memory card only costs $10 at Wal-Mart!

Dinner was a hand made pizza. It was tasty, just not pretty (as you can see in the picture below). Oh well. Tasty is more important than visual appeal for a meal here in Chez Schoen-Rene.

We get to have a doctor's appointment today and maybe buy a new birdbath. I broke the current one very effectively. Yay!

Pretty flowers from Lorraine for mom!

Not pretty - yet pretty tasty!

Thinking is overrated

I had a thought yesterday, to look and see how to get from here, Geneva, to Oregon for my friend Daniel's wedding. There is good news and bad news. When doing this, I double checked the dates of mom's reunion. Only to discover that I was off by a week. This is not a good thing. I had thought the reunion was the week before it actually is. Crunching my time. My lovely sister has volunteered to have mom come visit her for two weeks after the reunion. Before, this was perfect. Mom would get two weeks in Maine, I would get two weeks to do whatever I wanted (probably visit some Saucers and see if I could convince anyone to buy my books) (copies still available - www.renottopress.com). Then we would have a couple of weeks to drive slowly (ish) across the country for the wedding. Now, that doesn't look doable. Either I need to cut down the time that mom spends with Juliet, which lessens my free time, or I need to rocket across the US which also isn't pleasant. Especially for mom since she will have been unsettled by time not in her own home already. Glarg!

Yesterday two out of three things got accomplished! Hurrah! Today I am going to try and finish up the registration for the aforementioned reunion. Yippee! While accomplishing another of my errands, I went to the post office, only to find a huge, long line! Like Christmas time! Ok, it wasn't that bad. I had a nice companionable chat with the owner of Redman BBQ - a restaurant I keep meaning to try. One day. Maybe in the summer. I miss two chains down in NC - Smithfield's BBQ - where I sometimes went as frequently as once a month - and Bojangles, which I definitely went to once a week! I really doubt the food will be as good as either of those places, but we shall see.

Meanwhile, Publisher's Clearing House has been mailing us a lot of stuff! Which means that mom asks me everyday if I have mailed in her entries. Sigh. Maybe I will do those when I am at Beer Day today. We shall see. I am planning on making pizza for dinner tonight - and more spinach triangles. I need more butter!

Spinach Pockets! (Spanikopita sort of)

Thank you Cate for your directions. I had planned on making Spinach Triangles (as Cate calls them) and asked her for her recipe. I didn't use it exactly, but it was a start! Wow, there was a lot of butter used! Good thing I love butter. I wonder how well they reheat. My mom and I only ate about six of them and I think I made sixteen. I still have a lot of filling leftover. I guess I need to make more and freeze them. Apparently they freeze just fine. Goodness, the phyllo dries out quickly! Good thing I was forewarned to keep them covered and moist! Yippee!

Today is Monday! Yippee! I really need to get through a pile (literally) of crap. Tax time is looming and Karl, my brother, is doing the hard work for us. Have I mentioned lately that I really don't like money. Perhaps that is why I have so little of it. Over the years I have worked on this issue with no definitive results. Sigh and glarg. Anyway, the deadline for signing up for my mom's 60th reunion is coming up quickly too. So that is two things I need to accomplish today. And I want to mail my Daily Challenge friend Laura a few of my almond rocas. I figure four is plenty, they are so rich! And she lives an amazingly healthy lifestyle, so I will be surprised if she eats more than one of them...I can do this - it is only three things, though they all are made of of many smaller tasks. I would rather sit and work on my programming all day.

Right now, I am working through a new to me book. It is pretty good, not perfect, but not bad. I might even find out how to fix a few of the problems I am having with my first project - the concentration like game. And that makes me happy. I like to fix problems. I have, sadly, been reading really depressing things about publishing apps. Oh well, nobody buys my books, so if nobody buys my apps, it will be par for the course. Won't stop me from putting them out there, though...

Currently, I am listening to the 13th Wheel of Time Book. I have only read it once and only recalled the very highest points. It is great to be able to listen to it and get a lot more out of it. I may just have to listen to it again. And I am still frustrated that the last book's publication date was changed from March of this year to January of 2013. Grrr.

Saw two more Deadwood episodes this weekend. Wild Bill is dead, which is sad. And still watching Bones. I am on Season 5 I think. Maybe Stargate next...

Buttered phyllo

Some spinach triangles being folded

Pretty!

I have decided to become a Nun

I have been thinking about this for a long while. Trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. As those of you who have read my blog for a while, you know that I have been trying to find a direction, a path. And I think I have finally realized what I want to do. I want to be a nun. Not just any nun, but a flying nun - the one's who get to wear the big headgear! That would freakin' rock! Tubular even! Now, if only I can get the nunnery to overlook the fact that I am a guy...

In other stories, I have been eating the almond roca like candy I made. Yum city! I am hoping to get my act together and make the sesame candy today. We shall see. Again, my pile of things I ought to do (and probably should do) is getting a tad large. Sigh. Last night's dinner didn't turn out quite the way I envisioned. Turns out that phyllo takes 7 hours to thaw in the refrigerator! Ooops. Maybe I will know next time. I did make the stuffing, though. So we shall see if I get it together for tonight's dinner - which will be breakfast. Yay!

Other than that, I did get a couple more programming books in the mail. But I have stalled on my flipping/concentration game for the time being. I haven't figured out how to tell the flipping method which button was pressed without repeating it over and over again. I need to pass some sort of variable from somewhere to somewhere and haven't figured out how to do it. I am hoping that I will stumble across an answer sometime. Soon, I hope. That is the next major step. Oh, and I am having a problem with views not getting hidden which isn't the way I want the application to work. Sigh. Maybe the next thing I will work on is to figure out how to implement difficulty levels in the application. That seems doable.

Happy Sunday everyone! Happy April Fool's Day! One week till my 51st birthday! Yeekee! (Combintation of eek and yippee...)