what have I been doing?

Now that I'm finished with HP7 I hope I quit having HP dreams. Each time I'm Harry Potter and all the spells that I can manage are "stupefy" and "avada kadava" but they don't work right. It's like one of those dreams where you are late for something but can never get moving and time keeps flying along, but in my case I just can't make any spells or curses work.

I'm making some headway refinishing the furniture for Peanut's room. I have a bookshelf complete and I'm in the process of sanding and stripping a shelf and the crib. It's going slower than I thought it would. That's okay, it only makes this-kid-is-going-to-be-born-soon-and-I'm-not-prepared for it paranoia increase.

I didn't want to mess around and try and get all the layers of paint off of the crib with just sandpaper so I bought some stripper and rubber gloves. My hands became so sweaty while the gloves were on that when I raised my fingertips above my wrist sweat poured out. It was funny, but really gross.

bye,

C

finished HP7

I just stayed up tonight to finish HP7. It was great. Very fitting. Rowling weaved everything in just beautifully.

Remember the movie "The Money Pit"? It's this old movie with Tom Hanks and some blonde lady. I've never seen the movie but I guess the whole premise of it is that this house that they buy costs them loads of money. Well, our house isn't like that, but Home Depot is for us. It never fails, every time we go there we drop a load of cash and today was no exception. We ended up buying a bunch of power tools for me. It was cheaper to buy them in bulk. They are all the Ryobi cordless brand which means that the drill, reciprocating saw, circular saw, sander, flashlight and wet-dry vac all run on the same battery. I'm pretty impressed with it so far.

I have dire need of the sander for my furniture refinishing projects for Peanut's room, my drills been needing replacing for some time and the rest of the stuff fell under the category of "I could have used that then, so I'm sure I'll need that again."

Anyway....HP7 was great.

D U N

D - U - N done. I think this looks much better than the John Deere yellow that it was.





My next project is to sand down Peanut's hand-me-down furniture that consists of a dresser, corkboard with trim, crib, nightstand and bookshelf.

There is nothing more manly....

There is nothing more manly than this competition....

Next year, vacation in Maine! I would try it this year, but with the whole baby being due the same month as the competition, that hoses the idea. Darn kid.

I told Hugs about it. Here are excerpts of our email conversation:
***
C: we are doing this next year....vacation in Maine baby!
http://www.sundayriver.com/summer/wifecarry.html
Hugs: Well, I suppose that gives me a year to get down to a competitive weight,
practice spending time upside down and getting used to getting my head
bumped into logs.
C: No, I think I have an idea of a different hold for us. Think T. Plus I don't think you'll be as likely to vomit.
Hugs: And I wouldn't have to sniff your butt. I know how much you fart when you
run.
***

I sure would like to do that. The competition.

Anyway, Hugs took off for the weekend so I'm a bachelor again! Boooring. However, this will give me time to get alot of crap done around the house...like paint Peanut's room and sand down the furniture and stain it. If I don't, Murphy's Law says it'll be a premature birth 2 weeks from today. If I do, Peanut will be 2 weeks late.

Oh, and the answer to the important question.... we are painting it 'Lemon White'. That's light yellow for my male readers.

C

I went golfing last friday with a bunch of people from work. I did pretty well. This is what everybody else in my house thinks of golf.

I think that too. It takes too much effort and money for me to take it seriously. I like free hobbies like frisbee golf, watching star wars movies over and over and weightlifting.

My mom came into town friday and stayed until sunday. Saturday my uncle and his wife and kids came over and we had a cookout. My cousins (13 years old) then ravaged the pond in our neighborhood. We missed the sign that said no fishing. It was worth it since they caught the "Mother of all Bluegill" and the "Granddaddy of all Bluegill".


Then yesterday we bought our first family car.

It's just accident, but the light green shirt does match the light green car. We looked all day sunday and found this one.

I did some reading online on how used car dealers try and hose you and the first dealership we stopped at used all of the tactics. He talked up the car we were interested in, he called it "our car", talked down our trade in ("what's that engine noise? It seems loud."), said that they had already had it sold to someone else for a higher price and he actually held up the calculator to show us how much money they were losing with our opening offer.

Oh, I'm sorry, like I care if you lose money. If you had it sold to someone else for the higher price, why is it still here?

Of course, he wouldn't give us enough for our trade in, so I said "fine, no deal" and we left. I felt so empowered. It may be a lame thing to feel empowered about, but we weren't falling for it.

But anyway, we found this snazy little Malibu Maxx at a little dealership in town, however they were closed on sunday. Amanda went back on monday, drove it, talked numbers with the guy and got it for under what we wanted to spend. I am very proud of my wife's wheelin' and dealin'.

The car is nice too!

So now we have not only a 4 door family car, but a wagon to boot!

weekend update

I've got myself a new workout partner now.


Ainsley likes to come downstairs with me in the mornings when I workout. Lately she just seems to be the happiest cat ever and chirps and purrs away with me every morning.

I also discovered that this mild mannered cat that is very easy going and very innocent is all just a show.....I was in the kitchen the other morning and a little half grown bunny hopped up onto our deck. I thought, "geez, I wonder if (sweet, little, innocent) Ainsley will chase a rabbit".

Dumb. Dumb. Very dumb. I should have stopped right there. I didn't think through both forks of that decision.

I grab Ainsley and very silently unlock the back door and shove the cat out onto the patio where the bunny is about 4-5 feet away. Wooosh! The rabbit bolts. Shwooosh! There goes an orange streak right behind the rabbit.

"Oh sh*t!!" Now I have to catch the cat. So now I take off into the backyard and make it to the fence at which time I see Ainsley "The Orange Lightening Bolt" racing across the neighbors backyard. So I hop the fence and chase after her thinking "oh crap, Amanda's going to kill me." I get around between the neighbors houses and see her sitting on a rock between the shrubs and the front porch of the house behind us. I have no idea what happened to the rabbit. I think the rabbit might have lost her and she just stopped to hang out.

I picked up the cat and walked home laughing the whole way.

Just got back from Sean and Elizabeth's wedding in the DC area.


We made a road trip out of it and we (Hugs, me, Scott, Mandy and Nikki) all had a great time. Nikki was great and drove us all there in a rented minivan. So I really had no idea where I was going or what I was doing all weekend until I was told I had to dress for this or that. It was a great time.

scott free---lucky SOB

4 reasons my 4th of July kicked butt!

First of all, I had the day off of work, which was a nice break from last week.

Second, we went up and visited my Grandma and had a good time. My cousin showed up and we went and got a bucket of chicken and taters (sometimes deep fried foods are just delicious) and went to a park and had a nice picnic. Then we went back to her house and kicked it and chatted. That's a nice change of pace for sure.

Third, we left my Grandma's and went and got Toft's ice cream in Sandusky. Toft's is the best ice cream in the whole world. Graeter's and UDF can just stay at home. Baskin Robbins, paaah. All you DQ's, Chilly Jilly's and any other soft serve ice cream shop can just keep themselves seated on the couch. You can't compare and aren't even in the same league.

I had a medium 'Howly Toledo' and it was awesome. Not only was it awesome because the ice cream tastes so great, but if you measured how high my ice cream was piled on top of my cone....I swear it was 9 and 1/2 inches. Nothing beats Toft's. I scarfed it down in about 5 minutes too.

**sidenote: The mean age of the employees of Toft's was 16 years. Teenagers are annoying. At one point business had slowed down and one girl was telling a story to 3 of her minions and she used the word "whatev". No, not "whatever", that last "-er" is just too much these days.

Fourth, so we are headed out of Sandusky and I ask Hugs what time it is...7:20pm. Crap! That means we won't be home until around 9:20. D'oh! So I put the hammer down as we are headed out of town from the last stop light, as I pass a state highway patrolman headed the other direction. D'oh! He does a u-turn and follows me. Double d'oh!

So I slow down to 55 and get over in the right lane, like that's going to do me any good--he's already got my number. Sure enough, he hits his lights. Well, I knew this was coming so I turned my signal on, pulled over, turned on my hazards and stopped quickly. I then hurried up and got out my liscence and insurance card out and was holding them out the window before he even got out of his car. Of course I'm laughing the whole time. Just then Amanda's mom calls and leaves a voicemail on her phone.

So the fuzz comes up "blah blah blah"..."yea, it's been a while since I've been through here"..."blah blah blah"..."yea, that's my address"..."blah blah I'll be right back". D'oh!

"Here's your warning, have safe holiday and keep it under the speed limit."

"HOLY SMOKES!! Are you SERIOUS??!! Sweet, thanks!"

A quarter mile down the road, "THANKS GOD!!".

I'd like to know how the heck I didn't get a ticket. I think it's because I don't argue and just whip my liscence and insurance out promptly. I'd it's the good looks but I never get pulled over by women.

Yea, and the voicemail from Amanda's mom..."I was just calling to make sure everything's okay."

Queue up the Hitchcock music.

Sympathy

Last weekend Ukie came over to hang out and we watched his sister's movie "Sympathy". It was a pretty good flick. It was like a cross between Kill Bill with the amount of gore (but x2 or x3) and Reservoir Dogs with the surprise ending where the truth is all unraveled and leaves the audience totally shocked. Some of it was a bit drawn out and the movie could have been sped up, however the dialog was pretty darn funny in some parts too. But that might be because I laugh at stuff other people don't.

The premise of the whole film is that his sister's character "Sara" is kidnapped by a bank robber and they are holed up in a hotel room. Then this other guy escapes from prison and holds the bank robber and Sara hostage and it ends up being a power struggle between the three of them over who really is in control and who is really hostage. That aspect of it was quite interesting. And it all takes place in a hotel room.

At certain points during the film I had to stop and remind myself that it's just a movie. I was getting worked up and thought I was going to have to kick somebody's butt for hurting Ukie's little sister.

Here is a review of it:
http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/film/1680

I heard it is supposed to be playing in Ohio sometime...if it does I'm going to see it again!