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Text Manager 2.0 is here!

May 1, 2012 By Jeff 5 Comments

Im hoping this installs right…lol using an older version of VB so some of you who have 64 bit or Windows 7+ may not be able to use it…not sure.

Click HERE to download the setup zip(extract all 3 files to the desktop, run setup.exe)

Basically its a small program that saves/reads text files you create and auto-copies them to the clipboard, if you have a lot of stuff you type up and submit to different people (such as pitches, emails, coding, or whatever), this will help you out a lot!

If it does help you out, please feel free to donate something, every little bit helps us and helps me want to develop the app further, if you have any suggestions theres also a link in the app to ask!

If theres enough interest in the app I might update it to VS2010, which is a much newer development environment so I can make it much more versatile.

Click the image to view larger screenshots.

Text Manager 2.0 Screenshots

Filed Under: Jeff

Justins at UVA

January 17, 2012 By Jeff

Yep, just an update for Jackies readers…Justin is currently at UVA, he was at RMH last night but they transported him to a larger and better hospital because RMH didnt have the resources necessary to deal with the problems Justin was having.

Heres all the Facebook posts straight from her wall, including her comments and everything else since she left, its a lot better to just post what she said rather then trying to explain it all:

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–Justin no longer sleeps soundly…I’m wondering if it’s because of his breathing he’s not getting into the deep sleep he used to…he’s also more grouchy….hurry up Feb 1st to figure out what is going to happen!

–Just put a phone call into Justin’s ENT, something isn’t right…we may head to RMH here soon if he don’t change any. I don’t think I can wait til Feb 1st.

– I will, I’m just sitting here watching his hands, they turn grey then back to normal and he just cries like he’s in pain, won’t nurse, don’t want the paci. He’s pale now…Jeffery just woke up so we’re heading out as soon as everyone gets dressed. I’ll pick up Jeff on the way from work (he gets off in 50min).

– His oxygen is 95% and that’s just barely good. He’s still only 10lbs we’re in the waiting room….waiting. they are packed tonight.

–Been waiting for 2 hours and there is still 5 ahead of him!!

– Going on 3hours and there are 3 people infront of him now….grrrrr! Good news is they checked his oxygen again and its 100%

– Update: they are transporting him (and me lol) to UVA (to those who dont know, thats a much bigger hospital) so we’re waiting on phone calls to be made and the ambulance to arrive to take us. Please pray for Justin…this is scary.

– He changes colors sometimes meaning he’s not getting enough oxygen. I just now went to burp him and his sats dropped down to 86.

– They are getting him on the stretcher and he was explaining things and i almost broke down. Im on the verge of tears….this is hard…im trying to hang in there as much as possible.

– At uva, his ent is on the way in. Plan is to at least admit him for the night…more details once dr early gets here.

– Justin is being admitted to peds here at UVA, he will have surgery later this afternoon.

– He has some anatomy issues in his throat…causes problems breathing…doing surgery sooner rather than later. As soon as his dr is out of the office today he’ll do the surgery.

– He’s taking it a lot easier than I am. They put him in PICU and put an iv in he hasnt cried a bit! Me on the other hand am a blubbering mess.

Sleeping at UVA

– Ok, 2 hours of sleep later….he’s allowed to eat until noon (although there are conflicting reports) and surgery might be this evening (different opinions on that too) the nurses here are amazing and last night one went on a mission to find a cot for me to sleep on instead of a chair. They are hoping to move him to a room with a bed for me later. He’s doing awesome, only cried when he was hungry!

– Just found out if they cant get him a room with a bed for me, i wont be able to stay the night with him i cried just thinking about it. The only reason they brought a cot in was cuz we had just gotten here…i hope they get him a room!!

– you know i’ll be sitting my happy butt in a chair beside his bed if need be and refuse to move! They said they’d call the ronald mcdonald house for me….im not leaving this hospital!

– They said i could either go to ronald mcdonald house or sleep in the family waiting room which is across the floor. I stayed up all last night, i’ll stay up again tonight if need be. He’s bf and refuses to take a bottle, i need to be with him.

–They said a few patients are leaving today so the likelyness of us getting a room are good.

– Im already on the brink of a emotional breakdown, my baby is sick, i havent had but 2-3hours of sleep, i miss my big kids im here alone dealing with it all and now they want to tell me i might not get to stay the night with him…thats a good way to push a momma over the edge!

– I’ll go off once they try to tell me to leave!

– Yes! Because he’s bf they cant kick me out tonight! They are looking for me a recliner to sleep in tonight. Insert sigh of relief!

– They are having a hard time getting blood from Justin i hate standing here hearing him cry. They did it earlier but it clotted and they have to redo it

– This is how close to the edge I am…chaplain come making her rounds while i was standing next to the door to avoid seeing Justin be poked, she simply asked me how I was doing and as I tried to answer her I just started crying.

– No, its just me. Jeff is home (over an hour away) taking care of the kids

– He’s hooked up to a heart monitor and he mentioned doing a echo on him.

– Surgery is put off for now. Dr wants more data because Justin’s heartrate drops way low(70) and there may be more to this than the original diagnosis.

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And thats as far as its gone, Im sure Jackie will be making a post about this shortly after everythings done with, and Ill try to keep this post updated.

Filed Under: Family, Jeff

Just a few pictures of the baby for Jackies readers!

October 19, 2011 By Jeff

His name is Justin Paul Staples, born at 4:41pm EST on Oct 18th, 2011….7lbs 1oz 19 inches long.

Filed Under: Family, Jeff, Uncategorized

Saying Goodbye

January 10, 2011 By Jeff

As you all know, Jackie hates the house we were living in, it was falling apart around us, and I for the most part hated it too…a lot of headache trying to keep things from falling apart when you know the landlord is going to jump your case about it even though its not your fault.

Anyways the past 2 weeks has been a wild ride, if I wasn’t over there I was working and vice versa, pretty much zero time with family. I finally got the last of the things out of the house tonight, and sat down to take a break.

Thats when it hit me.

A flood of memories came rushing to me all at once, it was like watching the past 2 1/2 years go by right in front of me, kids hollering, running up and down the hall, me yelling at them to stop running, Spongebob going on in the background, dog barking…so noisy and so fun.

Now, nothing but empty rooms and silence…no kids, no smiles, no TV, no dog…nothing.

As I sat there in that lonely chair thinking of things over the past two and a half years thats happened in that house it all started becoming too much for me to bear…of course its really late at night, and when Im really tired things tend to get to me a lot more then they normally would.

The table I was sitting at, I fixed breakfast one morning and had it all laid out on the table, and I went and woke the kids up, they came in and Jeffery was like “Wow daddy, you fixed a LOT of food!” and he jumped up in the chair, I sat down in the chair I was sitting in now and Jaylin walks up to me and puts her arms out for me to pick her up, so we sat there and ate breakfast…laughing, joking, picking on each other, and its a very vivid memory that still stands out to me to this day.

Now in front of me is an empty table, empty chair, and right then I didn’t want anything else in the world but for Jeffery to be sitting across from me smiling.

Theres a lot more memories, thousands more that I could tell if I had enough time, all similar to this one…I feel like with us moving out of the house we’re abandoning all those memories, and I feel like I’m betraying the past by removing myself from the environment those memories were made in…I know we’re moving into a new house and we’ll make memories there, but a lot of the memories made in the house we’re moving out of will never be able to be recreated…first words, Jefferys speech therapy, Jaxons birth, both kids were potty trained there, the Maverick (Which was supposed to be restored for Jeffery, but I couldn’t afford it…everyday he’s ask “when are you going to work on my car daddy?” and I kept putting it off until I finally had to sell it, he said it didn’t bother him but you saw it broke his heart when they loaded it up and took it away)

Am I happy to be moving? Very much so…I’m glad I’m finally able to be doing something I thought Id never be able to do…but on the same hand I feel like I’m leaving so much behind…I don’t know, maybe I’m just tired, I can barely think and I have no idea what Ive wrote Ive just been writing as I’m going…I might be over it tomorrow…I don’t know, but I hope I am, because I hate this feeling.

Filed Under: Jeff, Uncategorized

First post, and a back story

September 17, 2010 By Jeff

Well, figured since I’m now an author, I should do some authoring…and what better way to bring in my initial debut to this blog then with a back story of where I came from?

As you probably know from Jackie’s previous posts, I came from a VERY different background that she did, and we are total opposites of each other…I was born and raised in Chesapeake, VA from 1982 to 1997, we then moved to Norfolk, VA, I went to Booker T. Washington High School, and eventually dropped out after the school removed credits from me because they claim the teacher did the grades wrong(which they didn’t) and dropped be down to 10th grade.

I started hopping from friend to friend with places to live, I had no car, no job, nothing…I woke up, went and hung out with my friends all day, came home, slept, rinse and repeat.

So fast forward 2 years, still doing the same thing, couple of dead end jobs here and there, low pay, couple of failed relationships, life was looking like this was the way it was going to always be, and I couldn’t do anything to get out of the rut because I didn’t have an education to the work places eyes, and I didn’t have a car because I didn’t have a job, cruel cycle…and honestly I did really consider suicide a few times because of that vicious cycle….I really believed I would be destined to be a “bum” for the rest of my life.

Then in October 2003 I started talking to Jackie, and it started out like all my internet flings did, sweet talk them, get them to come over, have some fun, move on(although admittedly it rarely worked out that easily),and she came down October 31st just for the weekend. Yeah…just for the weekend.

Well….fast forward yet again to November 6th, she’s still here, she won’t leave, and I don’t want her to either lol, we concocted a scheme to get me out of there and move me up here in Shenandoah, she called one of her friends who had a boyfriend who just happened to have a room available for us to move in to…I agreed without hesitation, any place has to be better then this.

So, at 3:30 at night, I left, no one knew, I left my friends, my family, and my past behind to embark on a new journey which would throw me into an uncertain future…I had no idea what the future would hold, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be worse.

I’m not going to bore you with the story of my life anymore, I am currently writing a “book” of sorts that will contain every memory I have from since I was 3, so if you’re interested in my whole life story, you can read that when it makes its online debut…haha

Anyways, now it is, 2010, 7 years since that fateful night. Who knew that talking to a random person online could change someones life so drastically, and so much for the better? I look at my kids, and wife, everything we own, everything thats happened, and its just mind-boggling that the person I am now used to be the person I was then.

I do believe my kids were the ones that made me realize that there is a purpose in my life, and that even in the most desperate of times, when it seems all hope is lost, and you are destined to fail, that it is possible to prove to yourself, and others, that you can stand back up and succeed…before I met Jackie, I would have seriously never thought, ever, that in ten years Id be half the person I am today, and although I don’t always show it, I owe everything I am today to her, for giving me the chance to experience fatherhood, and allowing me the chance to be the person I’ve always wanted to be.

People may look at our situation and think we’re struggling, me having the only income in the family, car payment, soon-to-be mortgage payment, cell bills, power bills, and everything else. Indeed, we are somewhat struggling, but I’m enjoying every minute of it…all too often people take for granted the opportunities they’ve been given, and they don’t even realize it…things can change in the blink of an eye, be it good or bad, be thankful for where you’re at now, even if it’s a bad situation, because it really can always be worse. If you are in a bad situation, turn it into a good situation, theres always a silver lining in any situation, no matter how bad you need to find it, hold onto it and never let it go. Let that lining be the thing that gives you the inspiration to do better, and be a better person, I did, and I’ve never looked back.

Filed Under: Jeff

May See Something New

September 14, 2010 By Jackie

Tonight, while our power was out for 4 hours, Jeff and I were texting back and forth. He mentioned that I should make him an author on my blog…here. I was taken aback at first. But, this is Monkey Mayhem and he is part of the mayhem, may as well get his point of view in this crazy jungle of ours!

He made a good point, there are days that I don’t feel like writing (this depression sucks!) and he could fill in for me…that way there isn’t a long period between posts. That is going to be a key time for him to post. Plus, there is no harm in having a guy’s view on things, he posts in my comments all the time, just as well let him do an actual post once in awhile lol.

I hope you enjoy reading Jeff’s posts!

Filed Under: Jeff