Movies and More

Not a lot going on that you guys haven't already heard from someone else. There are movies from Memorial Day Weekend at Mom's. Megan is a bit of a videophile and I managed to reduce it down to 4 videos each just under 2MB which is the limit per file on my website. I also have a 25MB total limit so I will have to start deleting older ones soon.

Bryan and Jackson Play Catch

Jackson Eats

After Dinner 1

After Dinner 2

After dinner was a 20 minute movie mostly of Jackson going back and forth from the game room at the restaurant to the dining area, I tried to capture the highlights.

Megan also had her final band concert for this year. This is the final song, with a lot of percussion, I cut out the parts with no percussion but you can hardly tell that there is anything missing.

Not much else is going on, I got home on Friday in time to catch the end of Bry's T-Ball game, he made a very solid hit, not just knocking it off the tee but hitting it into the outfield. They want him to advance to pitching machine next year even though he'll only be seven and they usually start that at 8, Robin is a little nervous though about his ability to get out of the way of the ball if it is coming at him. I'm sure they'll cross that bridge next year just fine. In the mean while Robin picked up his league pictures and he looks so big.

The job is still a pain, with no end in sight. So I'll just keep going back as long as they'll have me. The estimator told me the other day that he's been there since August of last year and I've lasted in my position longer than anyone else. Doesn't completely surprise me, although I know two of the people that preceded me in the last year were related to the Office Manager.

School is out this week and it is getting hot here. Mommy is in Florida, so there is no one to talk to at night. TV is in reruns, although I did like the new Beauty and the Geek. I haven't read anything really interesting lately. The most interesting place I've been is Fowlerville. I did find lamps that I liked for the bedroom although they were black and not green, but I trimmed the shades with green trimming and they look great. Nothing else exciting or interesting.

If you like really long blogs

Okay here I go, there is soooo much. I am slaving over the computer trying to minimize way too much video footage into 1mb clips. So I figured I could start typing while the computer was doing it's save stuff, if everything goes as normal, I will overload the computer trying to do too much at once and will end up with nothing at all.

The job is still a job. I have never been wrong so many times in one day as I am at this job. It just doesn’t matter what I do, but I am learning to accept that and taking pleasure in doing things at least twice. I am becoming quite adept at single tasking, and have completed counting the spots on the wall behind the fax machine as I stand there and wait for a fax to go through so I can print out a report sheet. I am beginning to appreciate the look of everything typed in all caps in the comic font, and hey, maybe that does look professional to someone.

But the job does have its perks, I dress in jeans, and I get to leave a lot to drop off and pick up bid materials. A few weeks ago my travels took me past Grandpa Beauregard’s old house on Vine. I had to drop off a bid at the school right on Vine just down the street from Grandpa’s house. The house looks exactly the same, in fact they all do and I am not absolutely positive I was looking at the right house. A few years ago I had the opportunity to go by Grandma Van Houten’s house off Grandriver and it looked smaller to me. I also drove past where their trailer was the other day, but I was not even sure if it was the right park much less go in and try and pick out the trailer. However my trips out that way also took me down Maceday Lake. Believe me I did not realize for a minute that I was even in the right area and if Mapquest had not put me on Maceday Lake Road I would have never found it. Even then, at first it meant nothing until I was reading it out loud and had to pronounce it. I always spelled it Massaday – as in one Mass A Day, and it always made sense to me since we went on Sunday’s after Mass. Even once I figured out it was the same place, I thought why would Mapquest even know about that little street. But Maceday Lake has certainly grown. It is now fully developed with very large, very expensive homes. My first trip through I did not see the beach area and mourned the loss. However when I talked to Mom about it after I got home she told me that the beach was not right on Maceday Lake Road but off Maiden. I had the chance to return the plans I had picked up the first time and this time took a detour down Maiden with my camera. The area was completely fenced and locked with no trespassing and video surveillance signs. I managed to take a few pictures, the rest are on Yahoo. I couldn’t see the beach itself since it is (at least it used to be) down the hill behind the restrooms, which I do believe have been updated, I seem to remember a blue stucco building. The playground equipment has been updated the merry go round wasn’t there, but it does look like the very same volleyball net.

And then Melody and Mike were here, they brought Mom, Erika, and Jackson with them and we had a very fun, very busy weekend. Heather had a surprise baby shower on Sunday click here for a video, and then we had lots of really great pool time as we were the only ones there. I have reduced the hour or so of video to these three – Megan and Jackson, Practice Practice Practice, and All Swim. Mike seems like a really nice guy, we’re a tough, loud bunch of people, but he opened up first with the kids (always the key to my heart) and even managed to carry an adult conversation or two. He has family in Michigan that he had never met before down in Sterling Heights so Robin and Jeremy took him and Melody down there on Monday to have dinner with his family. We went to see Dustin on the second Sunday they were here, and then I took them down to Detroit on Monday, we had dinner with Steph at Steak n Shake and then Steph took them to the airport for the trip home. I guess there were a few problems with their flight but I’m sure she will be updating her blog soon with any details that we need to know.

And then you know it’s spring when t-ball practice is called on account of the cold. But Bryan had his first game while Melody was here and she acted as my official photographer since I had to miss the game for the always fun trip to the Laundromat. Click here for the video.

Well, my videos are done, and now I have to upload pictures while I cook dinner, for a project I started at noon I should have this up and ready by 6. I’m sure there are other things that through the past two weeks I have thought “I’m going to have to remember to put that in my blog,” unfortunately I seldom do what I have to.

Testing Movies

Lets see how this works.

And it does. The how above takes you to a video of Bryan and Sean on the Merry-Go-Round at Steph's picnic. Click here to see the kids on the slide. I can't get it to be a picture but I'm sure Erika will let me know how. I have tons of video from the pool, I just need to go through it and type up what's been going on the last couple of weeks.

Say Cheese

Here is a picture of my new room, taken with a new camera. I'm not real pleased with the quality of the pictures but I guess it's not bad for a cheap camera/camcorder/pc cam/mp3 player. But then again maybe I'm doing something wrong.

This week went well. Work was slow, I practiced closing a program down and going into my computer to open a new file everytime I needed to do something. They actually have a file called New Word Document saved to open a blank document. Things got a bit hectic Tuesday morning as we had 6 bids due. I had typed up all of the regular stuff and was just waiting for the numbers to put on them. Pat was getting confused because I had everything ready, a completely non-normal state, she would say, "you have to..." and I would say, "I already have" this would provoke the "you can't fill that in ahead of time" I so wanted to say, "Why did the company change it's name or phone number last night?" But everything got out on time. The two public bids we did not get, and the other four were private and we don't have the results yet. One was for the new IKEA being built in Canton, the estimator kept pronouncing it ickea and Pat corrected him saying it was I K E A (as in FBI), as far as I know it will be the first IKEA in Michigan.

Megan got a certificate for being something, but I'll let her tell you about that on her blog. We are heading down to Mommy's in the morning for the picnic, the forecast went from rain all day to rain in the am, so hopefully we will have decent weather.

Guess Where I Slept Last Night

Go ahead guess, if you said in your "brand new bedroom" (say it as if you're on Price is Right, cause that's how I do) you would be correct. Sorry there is no picture but I cannot get the camera to work after the field trip to Megan's school. When I came home on Friday Gordon had the radiator covers on, the closet full of clothes, my chest of drawers back in the room with my clothes all folded neatly in the drawers, and my old nightstand stripped but not finished. Yesterday Megan and I put together the new furniture (a bedroom-in-a-box: dresser, nightstand, headboard, and mirror) except for the mirror. We then loaded the new furniture and unfinished nightstand into the room. The only thing left was to get cinderblocks for the bed frame. The plan was to have Bob pick them up at the Home Depot in Houghton Lake and bring them here after work but he had picked up a dryer while on his Pizza deliveries and didn't have room. I was sooo close to sleeping in my own room! While I was waiting to hear back from Gordon on Bob's status Dad called and we were discussing how I was leery of putting 20 cinderblocks in my car he said that if I ever had to to make sure I distributed the weight through out the car. After Gordon called and said it couldn't be until some time today - maybe, Megan and I determined that if the cinderblocks weighed 10 lbs each that would be 200 pounds and we had the front seat well covered and could load the rest in the trunk and the back seat. So off we go, stop first at Wal-Mart for milk and various groceries not a lot, load that in the back seat. Into Home Depot, grab a pull cart, ask where the cinderblocks are, find them, some tiny woman comes out and says can I help you, I say I think I got it I just need some of these cinderblocks, she asked if I needed help loading them, "How much do they weigh?", "Oh, 30-35 lbx each." After saying Um Yes, I quickly did some math and determined 15 blocks would be just fine. While I was doing math this little thing started loading cinderblocks on the cart. I had assumed she was calling in some muscles, but I guess she had them already. I did help her load them trying to work out if we really needed 15, but found math is a fair weather friend and totally deserted me as I was slowly losing consciousness. I managed to pull the cart out to the car and load them all in, getting them in was terrible, once they were down moving them to a good spot so I could put another in was almost impossible, if I had had 20 there was no way they were all going in the car (and it turns out 15 was more then needed although I did use them all). I ran through the drive through at McD's to feed poor Megan who had been so helpful all day. While she ate dinner, I contemplated how I was going to get these blocks into the house before Gordon got home, and I had to before Gordon got home since I was picking Gordon and Robert up from work and could not with the blocks in the car. I pulled out small dolly type carrier that I used when I was traveling back and forth with a file box for work. We loaded two blocks on the dolly, Megan pulled that into the house and I carried one. With three in, I laid an old blanket on the floor and put one side down for the bed, we dragged the box springs in and moved the blocks around and then brought in three more, and so on five times. I used material left over from the window curtains (dark blue) and cut strips to run along the side and foot of the bed to cover the cinderblocks. Matteress, clean sheets, the new blanket I made, and 11 pillows later I was all set. Megan closed the door so when Gordon came home we could have a reveal. The old nightstand still needs to be finished, but we are not sure right now what we want to do, we had thought that we were going to mix some of the wall blue with some white to make a lighter blue, but I think that might be just too much blue, and my chest of drawers looks really out of place and old so we may redo that to. But in the meantime I'm not sleeping on the floor, or without a door to close when the kids get here in the mornings so I am good. I will post a picture as soon as I work out the camera issue. Going through all of this was so much nicer being able to share it with all of you.

For the Really Busy

Okay, there have been complaints in the past that those of us who blog do not blog often enough. And there has been much wasted time checking a blog, only to find that there is nothing new on there. Well Yahoo has a solution for that. I use My Yahoo as a news source, and the Yahoo toolbar for navigation, I like both very much. Last week when I was checking blogs when I pulled up Baby front a new button popped up that said Subscribe to this site. When I clicked on it I was given the option to add the page to My Yahoo, this put a section in Yahoo called Babyfront that lists the posts from the last three days and lists how long ago they were posted. When I tried to do this for the other blogs I got error messages except on Megan's. I assume this is because Babyfront and Megan are newer blogs. When I was updating my blog this morning the help stuff said something about sharing blogs and site feed the same words Yahoo used when trying to add these blogs. SO here is the upshot, if you want to have one spot that you can go to to check all of the blogs (unfortunately it does not seem to update if a comment has been added) I suggest getting a My Yahoo page. If you don't already have a Yahoo ID you will need to get one. Once on My Yahoo go to Add Content. With Find content click on Add RSS by URL, the URL is http://XXXXXXXX.blogspot.com/atom.xml with XXXXXXX being wbgerth or ezynda ...... Click add, then click Add to My Yahoo. You can then rearrange your page putting the blogs where they are the most convenient for you.

Okay, I do have other things to do today!

Can We Say "Whatever"

I have been getting a lot of mileage out of that one word this week, but on the good side I am seeing how simple tasks can take a really long time, but I am working on the patience to practice this:

Me: The network seems to be running slow, it's taking quite a while to open a document.
Pat (office manager): (looking over my shoulder) where are you, that screen doesn't look right.
I went to file 'open'
Did you go to MCCDOCS?
Yes, once I went to open I browsed to MCCDOCS
Oh you can't do that on this network
Huh? That's how you do it
No, you have to go into MCCDOCS and open it from there
I don't understand.
There's a link on your desktop (I click on 'show desktop) No you have to close your window to get there
Whatever
(Start closing windows)
Why do you have all those windows open?
I've been working in different programs
No, you have to close them, you can only have one open at a time.
Whatever
(All windows safely closed with desktop appearing (meanwhile document I was waiting for had opened and is now closed) click on My Computer, browse to MCCDOCS folder find needed document, wait) The network seems to be running slow.
There may be a problem right now, but you have to open documents from here.
But I've been opening them from within the program.
No, you can't do that on this network.
Whatever

When I first started she showed me how to answer the phones, call an extension if it was for one of the two estimators, once I tell them who is on the phone I do nothing and they pick up the line on hold. Well that resulted in people actually getting their phone calls, so it was changed to I answer the phone, put the caller on hold, tell her who is calling and who they think they want to talk to and then she decides who they get to talk to (usually her), she then goes to the person who the call was for and asks them whatever the caller wanted and then calls the person back with the new questions from the intended receiver (usally Kevin the cool estimator, rumored to have a drinking problem and be incapable of working, the only evidence of incapability on his part that I have seen is that the office manager is still able to walk). This week I was told that since I don't really know enough about what is going on she'll just answer the phone from now on. Whatever

Second week I was there:
Why don't you update the list of plans in the back room
There are four bins of plans A-E, F-L, M-R, S-Z with a listing above on four sheets of paper with the same breakdown. I pull out all the plans and check off what is on the list and write in what is not. Now ready to enter them into the computer to print the list and Pat comes out to show me where the document is. MCCDOS-Misc lists no not there, MCCDOCS-back room nope not there either, MCCDOCS-Masters hum where could it be.
Do you know what it is called, I can do a search?
You have to know where it is to do a search
Whatever
Ten minutes later, during which great restraint was practiced not to grab the mouse from her hand. We had the file, more correctly files. Four word documents one for A-E, etc.
Why don't I just put this in excel so we can....
No, it needs to be in word.
Whatever
Well, I can put it all in one document and then set page breaks...
No they need to be separate documents.
Whatever
Since we dispose of them when the bid has expired - should I put the bid date on the form?
No We don't need that
Whatever
I update the sheets, I do sneak in tables to eliminate all the tabs in the middle and to sort alphabetically once I have put them all in, but this is invisible on the printed document.
This week:
We need to start going through the plans in the back room and get rid of the ones we don't need anymore, you need to go through and get the bid dates for each set of plans. I don't know why she (the person I am temping for) didn't put that on there to start with (yeah, I wonder too, what could she have been thinking, "whatever"?) You need to call who we made the bid to and see what the status is.
So I get the bid dates and start pulling the actual proposals so I know who we made the bid to.
Why are you going through the proposals?
So I can see who we made the bid to and call them to get the status.
Well, you need to do that for every proposal not just the ones that have plans in the back room.
What do you do with the old proposals?
We scan the take off (I know what that is) and then shred the rest.
Do you put the results on Bid Results spreadsheet?
No, why would we do that (why indeed, what was I thinking), just make a note in the proposal log if we got the job or not.
So some of these we may have gotten the job, and I am calling looking totally stupid.
I'll put them in order by construction manager so I'm not calling the same company a dozen times.
It could be different project managers anyway, so don't waste the time.
Yes, yes, no wasted time here.
So I start making phone calls, mostly leaving messages, but some are so old that I'm pretty sure either the job is done or will never be done, I set those aside to ask her about later.
This one is from May of last year a residential driveway.
Did you call them?
No, I thought maybe you would know so I wouldn't have to call
No you need to call on everyone.
Whatever
People start returning my calls.
Joe Blow is on the phone why did you call him?
To get the status for the Smith driveway from last June.
Oh, you didn't need to call on that one that job is so old it's either been done or cancelled. Go ahead and talk to him since he called back.
Whatever
John Doe is on the phone, why did you call him?
To get the status on the church proposal from December.
Oh, we got that job and finished it last month. Go ahead and talk to him since he called back.
Whatever
Walking past my desk. What is all this?
The take offs from the proposals that are no longer valid.
Oh, we don't need these we only keep them if there's a possibility we may be doing the job.
Wha--Oh nevermind, whatever

Molded Curtains

We have achieved molding. Everytime I thought I had got it, I was wrong. We started this morning when I thought I understood mitering, we got the first strip cut but when we went to attach it to the wall with finishing nails the nails would not go through, when the finally did they snapped the molding into pieces. A quick call to the guru caught the guru napping so we went ahead to do laundry and see if we could get any help at Home Depot. As we walked into the store I told the cashier that I was going to need help in molding and could she have someone meet me over there. As we approached there was a kid looking for someone, I asked him if he was there to help molding and he said that he was. I showed him what we had bought and explained what happened, he asked if it was plastic or wood. I said it is this right here, is that plastic or wood? He said oh, and it snapped. Yes, yes it did. He replied with a very thoughtful, well it can do that sometimes. Ready to pull my phone out since the guru doesn't need that much beauty sleep a kindly surrogate guru came up and asked if I was putting it on the floor or on the ceililng. I said the ceiling (the floor molding had gone in with out a hitch and no mitering was required since the radiator takes up two full walls.) He said if it was the floor, you should probably drill small holes first and then nail it up, but for the ceiling you should use glue. I mentioned that my guru had said something about gluing them but was resting and unable to tell me what kind of glue I should use, I had wood glue. The surrogate explained that I would need liquid nails and showed me a tube and explained how much to put on. I thanked him profusely for being there as boy wonder had already wandered away to help some new unsuspecting soul. I bought a new piece of molding to replace the one that had fallen apart and we came home to slap that stuff up. A quick call to the guru to let him know that everything was under control and I was on my way.

I contemplated the math of mitering, and studied the mitering box. I understood the concept but just could not get from theory to practice. I had plenty of small pieces to practice on and kept cutting (I believe having Gordon cut is the same thing as me cutting). I numbered the slots on the box, I numbered the ends of the molding so I could remember what was what. But I could not get a corner that went around and not down the wall, if it matched up at all. Finally, around 6 or so it clicked that I was not necessarily paying attention to how the molding was laid in the miter box prior to cutting. Once I got that it was easy smeasy. Except of course the liquid nails. Did any one mention to me that you need a caulking gun to get the liquid nails out of the container? Did anyone mention that a $1.99 caulking gun costs $25.00 when you go to K-Mart and have to walk past the shoe department? Have caulking gun, have liquid nails, have one strip of properly cut molding. Dab glue on, hold molding to wall, let go, watch molding fall and leave streaks of glue on freshly painted walls. Use mitering box on Megan when she comes in to ask if we're going to be making dinner soon or should she just grab something to munch on. Wonder who decided we needed molding, who would ever notice the huge gaps between the ceiling and the wall, who the hell comes to my house anyway. Leave room and have confidence that Gordon will figure something out before I have a complete melt down. Gordon applies liquid nails as if he is caulking the gap between the wall and the ceiling, hold molding up, press in, watch glue ooze out, let go, it stays. Grab wet towel wipe off oozed glue. Be grateful again that Gordon was there (but then again if he had never pulled the original... oh never mind, let's just stick with grateful.) Use test piece of molding to know what corner needs what number, measure, measure, measure, measure, cut. Glue, press, wipe, repeat as needed around the room. We came up about four inches short at the end of the room, as we had originally cut that piece before I knew what I was doing, but the test piece fit fine once the end was trimmed off flat.

I proceeded to make dinner while Gordon hung curtain rods. I got my curtains up, but I'm not real happy with the valances, I like the color between the walls and the curtains but I don't really like the way they hang, but I have at least a week to consider it and can make changes as necessary. Gordon is charged with putting the radiators on, finish stripping the nightstand (maybe even painting it) and getting the stuff back into the closet while I am down state at work this week. Maybe by the time Mel gets here it will be done.

I Need To Learn How To Slow Down

I have them all caught up at the construction office where I am working so they gave me today off. The office manager (Pat) kept giving me new things that would take me a while to finish, there all done. But they want me back on Monday, so that's a good thing. There is so much there that I could do to get things organized and streamlined but Pat keeps a pretty tight control on everything as this is the way they have done it for years. As I've been typing up forms I've been cleaning them up so they are user friendly using tables and form fill in instead of tabs, but I am getting no where with the general organization. I like to touch any piece of paper as few times as possible, everyday we go through the same stacks of papers with me saying "where does it go, can I just put it there?" and Pat saying "we'll take care of it later" so there it is again tomorrow, and the next day... Oh well.

Sabrina went to see her dad last weekend and had her picture taken. She is getting so big, and smart. She read to me while I was tiling the bedroom floor last Saturday. She is behind for her age, but still ahead of the other kids. The bedroom did not progress while I was gone, I was hoping to have a few more things finished when I got back, the nightstand stripped and painted, the closet shelves painted, the radiators put back up, but I guess we'll get to that later. I have some stuff to do today - oil change, bank, shopping, so I'm not expecting a lot of progress this weekend. I'll post at the end of the weekend and let you know where we are.

Floored

We have achieved the state of being floored. Peeling the paper off that first tile and sticking it to the floor felt like the biggest commitment I ever had to make. It didn't come out with even edges but it came out well, and I was able to do the stacking three tiles to cut edges trick. I had hoped to finish the floor last night before Gordon got home but a crying four year old whose brand new bike seat wouldn't stay on took precedence and it took me quite a while to figure that out and fix it. We are now on our way to home depot to explore the world of molding.

Still Kickin'

A lot of well known people have died since I last posted, but I was not one of them.

Things are going well here. I like the job, it is interesting and usually pretty busy, the people are good people to work with, the dress code is casual, and the hours are 8:30 to 5:00. Although the office manager told me last week since I drive home on Fridays I could come in at 8 on Friday's and leave at 4:30. She told me this around 4 last Friday afternoon and thus I had not come in at 8 that day, she let me go early anyways since Jackson was at Mommy's. Today she let me leave at 3:30 since I had taken some plans to Warren yesterday afternoon and didn't leave Warren until 5:00. The job itself is in Walled Lake, for those who know the area that's Pontiac Trail and Maple, and I found a way to get to and from West Branch avoiding the traffic jam on 96 by cruising around the lakes. The mileage is about the same but the time is less.

As you can see my bedroom is now blue, but we still have floor, and molding, furniture assembly, and light fixture to do. Tomorrow I am dry laying the floor, with absolutely no trepidation, hopefully help will only be a phone call away.

I was listening to a radio program on media censorship today and they were talking about the 'need' for the government to get involved in censoring cable television. As cable is now used by a great majority of household they (the call in listeners) felt that the government needed to do something so that objectionable material (including commercials) were not played when children could see them. The guest on the show was promoting something about "couch potato weekend" encouraging people to spend the weekend on the couch watching objectionable material to send a message that we are capable of censoring ourselves. Although, I agree totally with the message, I'm not sure of the method. But I was amazed at the callers that complained that there was no way to keep their innocent offspring from seeing this objectionable material. I didn't realize that they still sold TV's without off buttons. Hell, most come with channel blockers that are password protected. One person complained about objectionable commercials during children's shows but somehow I don't see the target audience for Viagra watching Sesame Street, and then again the most objectionable commercials I've seen are the one's kids love (you put the lime in the coke you nut). I know in the past I've heard of products boycotted for sponsoring a particular show, maybe boycotting a show supported by a particular product would work also. Along that lines the food police have gotten to Sesame Street. It seems the Cookie Monster is not much of a monster anymore, more of a troll I would say. His theme song is changing from C is for Cookie, to Cookies Are A Some Time Food. Next thing you know Oscar will be polite. What is the world coming to.

Best Laid Plans

The plan was to work all day today in the bedroom, get the walls ready to paint. For me to paint tomorrow while Gordon was at work and then for all of us to go downstate on Wednesday. We have worked all day today, but I got a call for a temp job starting on Wednesday in Walled Lake, so I will be taking care of things here and packing to go down tomorrow night so I can go to the temp agency early Wednesday morning and pick up the info for the job and start working again.

Bunny Food

Dinner at Robin's was great she had way too much food, dressings, and salads, and vegetables, and macaroni things, and pies, all in addition to the required Easter fixin's. Quite a few people too I counted 19. Megan went over early and hid eggs for the kids to find. Chris called while we were there and I got to talk to him for a while something I haven't done in over a year. He's doing well, he has been transferred to a different prison, my understanding is that it is one step closer (although no where near) camp cupcake. But he has better opportunities there (school, work) to actually use this time to his advantage. He has even been thwarted already by trying to enrol in available programs that are not for his criminal type. He wanted to enrol in a domestic violence prevention program but since that is not what he is in for he doesn't qualify. Gordon scraped walls for a couple of hours in the morning while I slept in but other than that we took the day off. I'm kind of getting used to sleeping on a matteress in the living room. There are more pictures up on the yahoo site.

Easter Chair

The Easter Bunny came and left a chair with candy and plush. Fortunately, he did not leave any additional snow since we still have plenty left from his previous visit. We are stripping all of the new paint off the walls, the spots left from pulling the tape off were just too much. I picked up a gallon of rich blue, so the good news is I will not have green walls in my bedroom. Gordon seems to be fixtated on green for the bedroom walls and we have always ended up painting them green. I had almost resigned myself to having green forever since whenever I have not had Gordon I was also not willing to paint. But we went with a blue and I picked up some green and blue striped material for the closet doors. I have learned that taking paint off takes twice as long as putting it on, and the more paint there is the easier it comes off. We are going to Robin's for dinner, Megan is over there now hiding eggs. I will hopefully get some pictures and will post more later.

On To Plan B

Not quite sure what Plan B is yet, but the paint came with the tape in 95% of the place and one I don't have enough of the green to touch it up, and 2 it would look even worse than I could stand. So maybe a trip to Home Depot to see what they have in the OOPS paint today. Gordon has started to scrape the green that is peeling and there is no way to get it without taking alot of the blue with it. The stripes were cool while they lasted. I hope to keep the blue ceiling and I have navy blue curtains already made.

And Then There Was Color

I got most of the color on the stripes before Gordon got home at midnight and then he helped me finish them up. This morning we have to pull the tape off and hope that the paint doesn't come with it. It doesn't on Trading Spaces, but somehow I don't think I'm on Trading Spaces unless it's the Twilight Zone version. I figure if I give you guys blow by blow detail when I don't post again for a month you will be relieved.

Prime Stripes

The kids are gone and three coats of primer are on the stripes. I should be starting the blue on the stripes and yet here I am in front of the computer. It probably took three coats because I didn't feel like going to a real store and so I went to the dollar store, after the Megan did the first coat it looked like the primer had been sponged on. I assumed it was just the way Megan did it, but when I started the second coat we stopped and went to K-Mart to get some real rollers. I then did the second and third coat and am so sore. The kids are back in the morning, so maybe I'll just wait for more help.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Jail

Okay, I understand Dad’s reasoning why to start in the middle, and I almost understand how to do it. Somehow I don’t think we will get to floor for a couple of months. That gives Dad plenty of time to get here. The “assuming the wall is straight” hit right between the eyes as we started taping off the stripes. 16 Inches from the top corner does not equal 16 inches from the bottom corner. Fortunately we are not fussy people and I will be pretty damn happy just to get my bed back in the room. Gordon leaves for work in a few minutes, leaving me, Megan, Bryan, and Sabrina to color in the stripes. First though is a trip to the store to get more rollers.

In to Out or Out to In

We just picked up some floor tile at the dollar store. Someone once told me you are supposed to start in the center of the room and work your way out. This would mean pieces around all of the edges. Somehow that does not make sense to me, but I also am fully aware that a lot of this does not make sense to me. Can anyone help?

And So It Goes On

So Monday we pulled off wallpaper; Tuesday we pulled up flooring, pulled more wallpaper and plastered holes; Wednesday I sanded walls while Gordon was at work and then we finally got to paint when he got home. Gordon painted the ceiling and I primered most of the walls, Gordon was finished with the ceiling before I was done so he helped me with the upper trim as I don’t work too well above my head. Today we got two coats of the green base color on the walls and once that dries we are going to start taping off our stripes, and I got all of the radiators scrubbed down. And if I am not always poilite, I am helpful so taking a break to walk one of my favorite sisters through Mail Merge was certainly appreciated, anyone else needs help please call. The original plan had the room done on Tuesday before Gordon had to go back to work. He works tomorrow afternoon and then all day on Saturday so hopefully we can get a lot done today and leave only easy stuff for me to do while he is at work. Especially since spring break started at noon today and I may have given the impression that the boys were helpful so I will have lots of help with whatever I have left to do.

PS Dad I tried to reply to your second attempt at Women (to say the first attempt came through fine it was just that it started done a little ways so it appeared to be an empty email) but I received a MailerDaemon that I had been refused. Nothing personal I’m sure.

PSS Erika if you typpe the blog in Word including the picture stuff and then copy and paste into blogger it doesn't recognize your "" for the alignment.

Easy Smeasy

Okay so we know there is tile we can live with under the carpet, so we are going to just pull the carpet up. However a few of the trick tiles come up with the carpet showing a decent wood floor underneath. One of us –it really doesn’t matter who – said let’s just pull the tile up too. Those tiles that did not come up with the carpet, there was a reason for that, but all of the tiles are up. Now we have to figure out what we are going to do for a floor. I am amazingly more help then even I thought I would be. However I am nothing if not polite, so I must take a break when someone calls (Thanks Mel and Dad!)

It was supposed to be easier this time

That's what Gordon kept saying, since we didn't have any magic marker on the walls to cover, I didn't think he was considering the stripes but who was I to burst his bubble (yeah, yeah, I know what you are thinking!) But then he asked a really stupid question "How do we get this wallpaper that is starting to come down to stay up?" This question is not covered on Trading Spaces, they don't have walls that are paint covered wallpaper. So I say, "just rip down the wallpaper" sounded innocent enough. So we ended up with some real quality family time, nicked hands, and I think I may lose a fingernail (at least I hope so since it hurts like the dickens,) a floor covered in pieces of wallpaper and more wallpaper and paint and more wallpaper. The flower design seen in the picture is the very bottom layer to get that off you have to dig into the plaster board, on top of that was a very cleverly disguised layer of beige paint that looked amazingly like plasterboard until it peeled in one place, on top of that were varying layers and designs of wallpaper depending on where you were in the room and then of course the final layer of green paint that we had put there when we moved in. Today we will pull up the carpet with all the wall stuff and hopefully begin painting. On While You Were Out the sewing lady gets to sit in a room with her sewing machine, I don't have a machine but would be perfectly content to take my needle and thread and move to another room while the demo/paint team comes in.

Easter Snow

The Easter Bunny came to West Branch bringing with him a good dumping of the cold, wet (and much wetter than normal) stuff. Saturday had all the makings of a nice spring day when we walked into K-Mart. We came out unable to see into the parking lot for the sheet of white that had assaulted us. By the time we made it to the car we were soaked. Every snowflake had to have contained a ¼ cup of water. We scraped off the car and skidded across the parking lot to Glen’s. Finding what items we could and trying to get back home as soon as possible, Megan took the boys out and got them in the car as Gordon and I were getting rain checks for sale items.
Good Megan had waited outside the car to help load the groceries and had attempted to keep the car clean of snow, her attempts were futile and we came out to a snow Megan. Covered in the white stuff with glowing red cheeks from the cold. Somehow I managed to completely forget about the snow for when dinner time came around I suggested Hot n Ready pizzas. Realizing too late that once Pizza has been spoken out loud, it is too late to go to grilled cheese sandwiches I ventured back into the snow literally sliding my way back to Glen’s parking lot and picking up two Hot n Ready pizzas. I’m not sure if the problem was because the snow was so wet, or if the county is out of salt this late in a winter season with a lot of snow fall, but the roads had not improved.

While we shopping Steph had called and told her story of flying stand by, asking if she could get a flight into Flint if I could pick her up. I’m not sure she has a real grip on Michigan geography and realizes that Flint is much closer to Detroit than it is to West Branch but her woe included an out of town parent and a car held hostage in an employee parking lot . (One sure sign of being the next generation is you stopped listening to at least every other word in tales of woe from the generation(s) below you.) So of course I said, sure just let me know what you need when you know. After seeing the wall of white, and driving on the roads I was weighing the importance of a hamster’s haircut with the stress of a white knuckle 150 mile drive. Luckily for me, and not so luckily for the hamsters, she called later to let me know that she was unable to get a flight until Monday and would be flying into DTW where her car was being held hostage.

The temp job ended on Friday, so I am officially back to unemployed. The company I was working with hired someone else to fill the position and though I could go into all of my rationalizations of why they chose to do this, nobody really wants to read that long of a blog.

I finally got down on the floor last night and cut out two of the six curtains for my bedroom, and hopefully we will be able to paint it next week. I bought one of those laser straight line things, and it was extremely helpful in cutting out the material. I have had the material for a while, but the task of spreading it out and measuring and cutting and ironing was daunting, so I focused on all of the easy stuff for Megan’s room, and then made a few blankets out of remnants that needed to measuring, cutting, or ironing. But with the laser line I spread the material out, ironed in my bottom hem, measured down 66 inches lined the light up with the 66 line on the tape measure and Megan cut along the line. I could then just iron in my top hem. Hopefully I will get the other four cut tonight and then all I have to do is stitch them and figure out what I want to do with the extra material. We bought the laser light because we are seriously considering doing stripes in the bedroom. Can too much trading spaces be a bad thing?

If you were waiting for me to post

The interview in Standish was a wash, great job – lots of challenges, casual office (mud and smoking at each desk), no pay and absolutely no benefits. I had another interview in Houghton Lake this Friday, job looks interesting, minimal pay, minimal benefits. Meanwhile I am still at the temp job, I understand what I am doing, and what the company in general is doing but I just can’t get how they make any money at it. They really like me, and we are starting to talk permanent. I hate what I am doing, straight data entry, but if the compensation is okay and there is room to grow then it’s a great possibility.

Things are going along fine at home. Megan is student of the week this week. It’s about time, every month I get a newsletter listing the students of the week, I told her she was grounded if she didn’t put forth the effort soon, but she came through. Her room is still clean, I am actually very amazed. Even her closet. She is at the movies with Robin and the boys right now seeing Robots, last week they went to see The Pacifier.

Having lost everything on my computer I lost my list of books that I have read, and have not had to ambition to start it again. I haven’t read anything really interesting this year except Conviction by Richard North Patterson. I went to the library today to refill and they were closed due to furnace problems. Strangely enough I am not panicking, I’m sure I’ll find something to read.

Gordon is working every hour he can get, and is getting in the groove of me being gone all week again. I came home to a very shiny house, with the furniture in places it had never been before. Somehow, when I was in charge of that the furniture knew it’s place and stayed there.

The big news I guess, is Heather is pregnant. I believe she is planning on (or may have already) marrying this new boyfriend Don. She is ecstatic about the baby, and I figure if they had waited till I thought it was a good time to have a baby, I wouldn’t have Beenie, Bryan, or Sean. As long as all I have to do is love ‘em we’re okay.

I don’t go on line at work, and Mommy’s computer doesn’t always like me so I’ll post again when I can, or if anything really exciting happens. But don’t let that stop the rest of you.

So where were we?

Megan’s Room: Here is the URL for Yahoo pictures if someone who doesn’t have it wants to see the pictures http://photos.yahoo.com/gretchengerth. I found the bed at Meijer’s in Bay City on my trip home from the big city, (See investigating reports) they wouldn’t let me pay for it and have someone pick it up later so I put it on Lawaway and Bob and Gordon went to pick it up the following Wednesday. The box was too heavy to carry into the house so we had to bring it in piece by piece. We got the room cleared and now had everything from Megan’s room, her old double bed, and her new bed all in the living room. She had cleaned and purged her room prior to us starting the redo but she still had way too much stuff. Gordon started painting the ceiling Wednesday night only to discover the Oops paint that I thought was bright pink was actually bright red. Mixed with some white primer however it worked out perfect. For the dresser we ended up mixing the red with some white satin that we had leftover from the office ceiling and it came out really nice. The dresser by the way is one that we bought used for Matt’s first Christmas (for those of you still struggling with counting that was 21 years ago.) Thursday began painting in earnest. Since I had two gallons of Oops light purple we did not think we would need primer for the walls, good thing since we ended up using what primer we had to mix with the red. However, magic marker just doesn’t cover very well. I remember at one point Melody wanted to write on her walls with that aerosol hair color stuff, and I was at a place where I was choosing my battles very wisely and chose not to push that one. Megan picked up where Mel left off, with permanent magic marker. We ended up needed to buy some primer, after Gordon tried four very liberal coats of purple over the writing. Gordon can still see where Megan had drawn, but the rest of us don’t notice it at all. The window curtain is from purple fuzzy material that I gave in and bought since Megan really, really, wanted it and since I found the bed for the price I wanted. I made a pillow for her out of the leftover material and picked up a remnant piece of the same material in a red that I made a pillow out of. The material feels like the new soft stuff used on stuffed animals. It would be way to hot for me to sleep on, and I had thought of them more as decorative pillows, but she uses them to sleep and loves them. The curtain on the closet is $1 a yard clearance from Wal-Mart I hemmed them but didn’t like the way they slid (or more precisely didn’t slide) on the curtain rod, so I put holes and stitched around the holes and then used shower curtain hooks to put them on the rod. We used a border on the paneled wall of plastic shower curtain and lace, and still have to frame a couple of poster Megan picked out (can we all say Hillary Duff) with the plastic shower curtain to cover the cords running up her walls. The plan was to put the bed together on Friday before Gordon had to go to work however he was called in early and I really wanted my house back, so with a lot of struggling I managed to put it together alone with only one piece left over. She absolutely loves her room. Thank you so much Aunt Mary.

Computer: I’m not sure what happened with my computer but I think I am learning that I really need to back up. I am now using Megan’s computer (an old one of Erika and Lyle) and I like it because it has a better version of Office than what I have. However it does not have a CDR so I am going to need to add one for back up purposes if nothing else. I lost all of my pictures and videos, but I have the CD’s and most of the newer pictures are on Yahoo so I can go back and get them. I lost all of the music that was loaded most of it was CD’s that I own so I can reload them, but I had a lot of songs that I couldn’t find on CD such as Olivia Newton-John that I should have burned onto CD before it crashed since I don’t have Melody here to figure out downloading music, Pepsi is running a get music promotion so maybe I’ll win a few songs from Itunes. Megan is fine with my computer since she doesn’t use it for more than listening to music (while singing along with her Karoke – loud), playing games, and checking email. Heather’s boyfriend had been using the computer frequently but since the crash I told him that I would rather he not use it and if he needed something I would look it up for him. But by viewing history I found out that he is using it when no one is home, so now there will be password protection on both computers to open. Hopefully I won’t have to get to the point of locking my doors.

Why was nobody home you ask: I got a call on Wednesday for a week to two week temp job downstate. It’s data entry work that sucks but it’s something for now. I have an interview in Standish (close to home) next week. They wanted Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, but I explained that I was working a temp job, and said they really wanted to meet with me so she scheduled me for Friday late afternoon so I can work a ½ day on Friday and then drive up.

I think that’s all for now.

I'm Down

Just a note to let everyone know that while in the midst of composing a very long blog and doing a few other things yesterday I stepped out of the office to go check something in Megan's room and came back to a loop on the screen that said "We apologize but we are not able to reboot the system at this time, what would you like to do?" I tried each and everyone of their options, tried a few of my own, made a start disk on Megan's computer and tried it on mine, nothing worked. So the computer is completely wiped off. Gone, everything gone. I was able to reload it with factory settings so it would boot. But I am having problems getting it to recognize anything in the USB ports, printer, mouse, the modem was totally fried I couldn't get it to work in Megan's computer either. Sooo for now I bought a new modem and loaded it in my computer and am putting that one in Megan's room since she does not need a printer hook up, and already has loaded on her computer the programs I need to redo my resumes and such. The original blog was on redoing Megan's room and the pictures are up on Yahoo, but the post will have to wait right now I have a resume to recreate.

Investigating Reports

While I was in the big city this week I had the opportunity to watch big city news with their investigating reports. You are not going to believe what I was able to find out. They were investigating the lottery system, particularly the scratch off instant tickets. Now these tickets advertise prizes ranging up to millions of dollars. But did you know that this may be misleading. Oh, sure they do have to have at least one ticket printed with the maximum advertised prize as a winner, but they may have already sold that ticket. Oh and sure they have to tell you if the ticket is already sold, and they maintain a website listing all of the available games and what denominations of winners have not been claimed. But they only update this on a weekly basis, and the winning ticket may have been sold just minutes before some poor unsuspecting sucker purchases what he believes could be a million dollar winner. Which in reality is not. At least it wasn’t my tax dollars that were spent doing months of investigation when they could have just called me and I could have told them: No that’s not a million dollar ticket.

Hopefully when they get around to investigating the big scandal - Pepsi - they will just call me because I think I have figured it out. Pepsi came in 8 packs of 20 ounce bottles or 12 packs of 12 oz cans. Because I prefer bottles and because Math and I are well acquainted I usually purchased the bottles. 160 ounces versus 144. About a year ago, for my convenience, Pepsi introduced 6 packs with 24 ounce bottles. Both options were available so Math and I got together and decided to stick with the 160 ounce option. Slowly this option disappeared and we were left with just the 6 packs. A few months ago, for my convenience, Pepsi re-introduced the 8 pack now with more convenient 16.9 ounce bottles. I wasn’t happy with the 6 pack 144 ounce solution, but Math was even less happy with the 8 pack 135 ounce solution. Slowly the 6 pack is disappearing from the shelves and we will be left with just the smaller bottles in an 8 pack. I foresee a 6 pack of 20 ounce bottles in my Pepsi future, for my convenience of course. Now, had Pepsi just gone from 8 20 ounce bottles to 6 the general public would have felt raped, but they didn’t, they gently massaged their way in, making the general public feel cared about – loved. End result the same, we just got screwed.

Another Day is Just Another Day

Okay so it’s been three weeks and there is nothing new to relate to anyone. I have no cute baby (well Josh will be here in a couple of hours but I see him so rarely he hardly counts), I’m not running for office, and I have no boyfriend problems. That pretty much sums up my life. I never heard back on the job interviews I went on a few weeks ago, even after being told that they would call one way or another, and leaving follow up voice mails. Oh well.

Watching American Idol I am amazed at all the orphans that are trying out. These poor people who have lived in a total vacuum never coming in contact with another human being that could have said, “your singing is offensive” they had to go on national TV to find out. I’m still not sure how the auditions work, they say that 15,000 people tried out in Cleveland they all could not have gone before the panel of judges since even at a minute each that would have taken over 10 solid days and they were only there for two. So these people had to have been screened by someone before going on to Simon, Randy, and Paula. Had I been turned away prior to getting to the main judges and then seen some of the people that got through I would have been pissed, and I know that my singing is offensive.

I don’t really like anyone left in Race, I don’t dislike Kris and John so I guess that’s who I’ll root for next week. Adam and Rebecca are fun to watch; at least they don’t claim to be in love. Hayden and Kendra are both so snotty and derogatory about the places they’ve been too. I loved it that the locals were all laughing at the contestants this week.

I could watch the commercial for the van (although it has not had the effect on me that I remember which van it is for) where they are doing the crash test and the little boys are in the booth saying, “Do another one” all day. It so reminds me of Bryan rewinding a 3rd Watch tape to watch the car crash over and over.

Other than TV shows changing nothing much else is going on here. Megan is plugging away at school, Gordon is working, and I am, well I am.

Happy Birthday to Me

Okay one more try and then I have to go clean the house. I have been trying for a few hours to get this posted. In the meantime I have got the office cleaned up some so it has not been wasted time. First Imageshack was giving me problems loading the pictures, and then blogger puked a couple of times so here goes.



I have been off line since Saturday as we have redone the office. With Oops paint, remnant carpet and mostly sale or clearance items (the contact paper was full price) we redid the whole room in well under a $100 - beat that Trading Spaces. I still have to finish (okay start) the curtain panels for the closet door, and what Trading Spaces calls dress the room - pictures up etc. But I have the computer hooked up so that is what counts. I didn't take a before picture but those of you that have been here may remember, purple walls, no curtains, wood shelf.



Megan's room is next, but while I was looking for a twin bed for her I found a very reasonable great loft bed, that had a computer desk where a bottom bunk would go. Found though is a relative term because of course they didn't have any in stock. I have called every Meijer's between Mom's and here and it appears to be a chronic condition. I have been looking on line and a few other places and it has now become a mission to find a bed I can afford for her room. But we picked up purple oops paint yesterday so that part is ready. Now the race is to see what happens first, I find a bed or Megan gets her room clean enough to empty out and paint!

You Can't Make This Kind of Stuff Up

I just read this on the scroll on CNN - Gallop Poll shows 75% of Americans have prayed for the victims of the tsunami while only 45% have actually donated cash. Now here's the good part - the survey also showed that 6% of the people polled had thought about praying for the victims but had not actually got around to doing it while 19% had not even considered it.

Now I know that thinking about doing something and actually doing it are two different things, but praying. How do you think about praying but not do it? And how much do they pay to think up things to poll about?

Two Weeks if Anyone is Counting

Today was supposed to me my first 'normal' day in over two weeks. Megan is finally back in school, Gordon is working, no interviews. An if it wasn't for the fancy liars dressed up like weathermen I would be. They have been tracking this winter storm since the weekend with all of the snow going south of us. In fact it was supposed to stay over a hundred miles south of us. The original forecasts (and by original I mean the ones I heard yesterday morning on my was down for an interview) was that the snow was to start heavy around sunset, that it would be as far north as I-69 (which is 100 miles south of me) with sleet mixed with snow the farther south you get. I heard this all day - 4 to 11 inches depending on where you are, heaviest the farther south you go. This has been the pattern for most of my life up here, Detroit gets way more snow then we do, so I believed these charlatans. On my way home the snow line was moved to Saginaw - still 60 miles south of me. The 11:00 news kept the snow line at Saginaw and gave us flurries. My first clue was Megan coming in the room this morning and telling me school had been cancelled. HA - so much for my first normal day. I had planned on doing laundry, cleaning the house and updating my blog. Laundry now involves getting my car out of the drive so Megan can just wear to school tomorrow whatever she was planning on wearing today. I cleaned my desk off as I waited for this to come up so part of the house is done, and I will probably do the rest. Megan and Bryan are out now shoveling the driveway.

In other news I had an interview in Tawas on Tuesday - the pay is minimal but it is local and offers great benefits. I had a "Meet and Greet" for a temp job in Romulus yesterday and was assured that they would let me know by this morning, of course I have heard nothing but maybe the snow....

I went to renew my driver's license for the first time since my lasik surgery, and looked forward to having "corrective lenses" taken off. For the eye test there were three columns and about five rows with the letters getting progressively bigger in each row. The first column was empty, so I read the letters from the second and third columns, first row. The woman then asked me what was in the first column I explained that this was blank. She said no, there are letters there. I said your machine must be broke it is blank. She said, "did they only fix one eye?" Oh. She then asked me to try the test with my glasses. I don't have any glasses, I don't need glasses. She asked some one else what they did in this situation and - the good news is I only need one eye to drive in Michigan, the bad news is everyone else only needs one also.

I've been watching a lot of news these past couple of weeks, fascinated by the tsunami coverage.

There are new pictures available on yahoo in album called December 2004 http://photos.yahoo.com/gretchengerth

Just Chillin'

Not a lot new here, I went for a job on Saturday down in Novi, I didn't mention it because I thought maybe we had an odd number of things crossed and that was what the problem was. They said they would be making calls one way or the other on Monday or Tuesday but Mommy hasn't called to tell me that they called so I guess not. Sunday was bitter, bitter cold. We went to Gordon's Christmas party at G's in Houghton Lake (we brought the family standard cherry pie cake, except we made it with apples and spice cake). To say I was looking forward to going would be stretching things way beyond the imaginable, they were having free drinks and kareoke, the other employees are Bob, Robert, Ronnie, and a bunch of young kids. But I had a great time, I spent most of the time with his boss who went to Holy Redeemer until the third grade when they moved to the east side, his dad graduated from Holy Redeemer. Al, Gordon's boss, is retiring from the police force after 33 years and used to ride with the Big 4 and spent 20 years as the Harbor Master. He's a great guy that really has no clue how to run a restaurant, it's a family business his father started it in West Branch and his brother Chris has been running it for years, this past year Al bought Chris out of the Houghton Lake store and has been trying to run it from downstate with his 23 year-old daughter in as a manager. She wants to be everybody's friend and the restaurant lost money this year. Al is hoping to turn things around next year as he retires January 3rd and will be spending more time up north.

At one point I was talking with Al's wife and one of the barely legal and yet over the drinking limit waitresses asked Gordon to dance. He danced and then went to the bathroom, the waitress came over and started apologizing for dancing with him and leaving me with Pat (Al's wife), I said not to worry about it that I was doing what I wanted to do. Five minutes later she was back gushing about how she hoped that I wasn't mad at her for dancing with my husband. Like I was the slightest bit worried. I just looked at her and said that I had been married way too many years to concern myself with who he danced with. She then turned to Pat and said that she wanted to dance with Al too, but she was afraid that Pat would get mad at her, Pat laughed and said "we've been married just as long dance all you want." There was a lot of really bad kareoke and some pretty darn good kareoke. They shut down the party at 1:00 and then we had to clean up since the were open for business at 11:00. Bob and Dorothy left pretty early and I drove the rest of the West Branchers home. When we passed the bank in West Branch the temperature was registering -14! I've got to assume that the thermometer was in the wind and included the wind chill, but it was cold!

I got all of my Christmas presents wrapped, pretty easy since my list is down to almost nobody this year. (Just the kids and a couple of regifts.) Robin is going to bring hers over on Thursday for me to wrap, she used to just use my paper (I bought paper three years ago after Christmas and haven't had to buy any since) but it frustrates me, even though I have a ton of paper to watch her wrap, so it's easier for me to just do it. Plus I do enjoy it.

Bryan has been teaching me sign language, I remember most of the letters but always forget some like k and x. He was asking Megan one day if something was D and she was getting frustrated because she had no idea of what he wanted to know was D, I finally looked up and realized he was doing the sign for D. I was pretty amazed.

Tomorrow is laundry and library - how much fun can one person have in one day.

Tis The Season

For school Christmas Pageants

In other news I got a call today from the company I interviewed with and they have made an offer to someone else. The search goes on.

Is it only me?

The Sunday before Thanksgiving I went on line to my bank’s web site and paid my bills, just as I do every month. I enjoyed the holiday just as if everything was taken care of. The week after Thanksgiving I get a call from Cellular One saying that they have not received payment for my cellular phone. I explained that this was probably because I do not have Cellular One service I have NPI Wireless. They explained that NPI was now part of Cellular One and that my payment was overdue. I told them that I had paid the bill on line through my bank on 11/22/04, they said they would make a note of that and that they should receive it shortly. I got another call on Thursday that they had still not received payment. I told them that the payment showed on my bank statement. They asked what address I had sent the payment too since they do not accept electronic payments. I looked it up through my bank and read them the address. They replied, “Oh, that’s the old NPI address the payment needed to go to ‘blah, blah, blah’ Cellular One’s address. I pulled my bill, and explained that the bill came from NPI with the NPI remit address on it. This did not faze them in the slightest, “yea well the payment should have been mailed to the new address.” I was then told that I could make a payment over the phone if I liked, but without payment my service was to be disconnected on the 14th. They advised that I call them today (the 13th) to verify that they had received payment. Incredulous, I said, “I as your customer received a bill for your service I sent in payment for that bill to the address you told me to send it to, you at some point changed your mind about the address you wanted payment to go to and because of this have not yet received my payment. I would suggest that you put a post-it on your computer to remind yourself to call me – your customer – to make sure that my service is not disrupted.” They explained that they could not do this and that my service would be turned off on the 14th. I explained that I had procrastinated finding a better plan since my contract with NPI was up anyway, and that I was sure Verizon would be glad to have me. I then went to my bank’s web site and sent an email to customer service explaining that a payment showed on my statement but the company the payment was sent to claimed to not have received the payment, giving the bank the pertinent company information, amount and date of payment. On Friday I received a reply that the check had been cashed on December 2nd and if I could supply a fax number they would fax a copy to the company in question. So I called Cellular One, where I was told that my account was not overdue that they had received payment on November 29th. When asked why someone called me on December 9th to tell me that I needed to make an additional phone payment, the rep was able to read the notes on the phone call and verify that the phone call had been made but was unable to explain why. I really need to stop procrastinating.

Today started early with a list of errands to run, I needed to go to the court to get something notarized, go to Wal-Mart and get packing tape so I could go to the post office and ship the California package, go to the library and pick up books, and the office supply store to fax the notarized papers. The courthouse went fine, I should have known then that the day was not going to be easy. I forgot my phone so I stopped at the house to get my phone so I could call the library when it opened and give them my list of books. (Our library is closed until the new year, they had planned to stay open during construction but cannot, so they do window delivery of books if you tell them exactly what you want you can knock on the window and they will check them out for you. They are on line with a library service so I can search books and make sure that they are checked in when I make a list of books.) For some reason I thought I could do K-Mart since it was closer, but they didn’t have rechargeable batteries or barbeque fritos so I went ahead down to Wal-Mart. They had the batteries and the fritos, but would not make the 8x10 picture for Kathy since it was a professional photo. I gathered up my purchases and went to the self check out, I love those, unfortunately I’m not so good at clearing the security crap they attach to the batteries, although I did swipe it over the star like they told me and I was stopped going out of the store. They determined it was the batteries and they were on my receipt so I was cleared to go. With the wind whipping me around I got the package together (did I mention we have a winter storm warning?) and headed to the post office. There was no parking out front so I circled the block a couple of times until there was a parking spot open. I got in waited in line, put my package up and was told, “Well, you could send it first class that’ll take one or two days and is $15.75” there’s nothing that important in there, the total contents of the box isn’t much more than that. So I asked what my other options were, “well, you could send it parcel post that will take 4-6 days” “and how much is that?” “$15.35.” A decision was made to try UPS, I know we have a UPS I pass it all the time when I take the back road into town. I’m in town, so all I need to do is take the back road the other way. OOPS, must be the other back road. So now I am out of town, drive around to the other back road, yep there it is. Back up, turn into the totally empty parking lot, think aren’t small towns great, see sign that says Customer Service open 3-6pm. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to go out again later today. Back into town for the Office Supply store and library (same parking spot for both). Go into Office Supply first so I won’t have all those books in my way, hand paper to clerk and tell them I need it faxed, clerk goes into office and comes back charges me $2.12 (it’s usually $3.18 - $1 to dial phone and then $1 per page) I asked if the price had changed clerk said no $1 to dial phone and $1 per page, I said it’s two pages – oh you want to fax both of them – back into office. The library had all of my books ready and I was on my way home. Now all I have to do is my Tuesday cleaning (Wednesday morning is trash pick up) since I have a second interview for the accounting administrator position tomorrow at 1 – cross all crossable body parts!

Sean turns 4 

WB Christmas Parade

Using Imageshack,

Angels in Silent Pictures and When They Are Sleeping 

Were Not Kwadin Anymore

What a long week, but it sure was fun. First I went downstate last Friday for a job interview that went very well. It’s an accounting administration position so it incorporates that two things I enjoy the most. So start crossing fingers and toes. Then I went to Mommy’s to see Adrienne and await the arrival of Jackson and Erika. The TV was muted to the Pistons/Pacers game while we watched Jackson, and we looked up to catch what we thought was the end of a rare fight in basketball. It turned out to be only the middle of an outright ugly brawl. Another black-eye for Detroit sports. One article I read regarding this disturbance mentions John Stewart’s take on Detroit sports when he is discussing a massacre of five people, in his book John says, “this is back when 5 people dead was a massacre and not just a Detroit Piston championship celebration.”

Saturday and Sunday were busy with the kids and getting things ready for our trip to Kewadin. Mommy and Adrienne got here Sunday afternoon, after the Lions disappointing loss to Minnesota, and we went off to Ponderosa for dinner. Sunday night was relaxing in front of the TV with American Dreams for Adrienne and Mom and football for Gordon and me.

Monday morning we were off to Kewadin with Mom and Adrienne on the bus and Gordon and I following in the car. We started in St. Ignace where we said hello to our angry bees and pouting gophers. We had lunch in the new restaurant at the casino and Mom and Adrienne boarded the bus to continue to the Soo. Once we were checked into the hotel and unloaded into the room we ventured down to the casino for a while and then took a ride to Brimley for Bay Mills Casino and then King’s Club for gambling and dinner. I don’t think I have been on a Monday before and was pleasantly surprised by the lack of crowds at any of the casinos. Usually we nap around 8 pm during the casinos’ busy time and go gamble around 3 am, this time we were able to continue gambling throughout that time period and go to bed at a decent hour.

Up early (early is a relative term) to get Mom and Adrienne back on the bus to collect their package in St. Ignace. The hotel was great and allowed Mom to check in for Tuesday night before the bus left so we were able to just move our stuff down the hall instead of having to load it up and then unload it later. Gordon and I followed the bus down to St. Ignace and collected Mom and Adrienne, we gambled there for a short time and then got back on the road, more casinos to see. With a stop in Hessel we returned to the Soo and crossed the bridge to the Canadian side to check out what they had. We dropped Mom and Adrienne at the casino and Gordon and I went to the mall to pick up some favorites that are only available in Canada (Aero candy bars!), of course we were not able to leave without checking out all they had to offer. We found a great place called the Bulk Barn that had the best display of bulk items I have ever seen, and many, many items that I had never seen. I found the coolest thing there the fact that they rented cake pans and had hundreds of them lining the walls. They also had an extensive display of cake decorating items including colored sugars and sprinkles in every color imaginable. Gordon picked up some salt and vinegar popcorn salt that smelled so strong I immediately declared that it could only be ate when I wasn’t home. In Zellers we found the Aero bars and a Hershey bar called Sidekick, it is like a Three Musketeers with peanut butter in it. We also found some sea salt and pepper potato chips by Lays for Gordon. We went back to the casino to meet Mom and Adrienne who declared the casino a wash so we went back to the US to gamble there. We had dinner at the casino and drove back to Brimley in an attempt to earn enough points to get Gordon a birthday package. Unfortunately the points earned on this trip will go towards next year’s birthday but we did qualify for a $10 gas coupon. We had filled up before going to Canada so we didn’t need a lot of gas, and the coupon was only good at the Bay Mills gas station so we refilled up on the way back to the Soo ($3.45 worth, but out of habit Gordon pumped in the cheap gas), back in the Soo we played the gold tokens that Mom had accumulated. Playing $90 in tokens we cashed out $56 in quarters and split that 4 ways. By then it was nearing midnight and I was done. As Gordon and I made our way back to the lobby to go to the room we heard music coming from the concert hall in the casino. The Guess Who was scheduled to play the next day and they were rehearsing. Right out side the concert hall was a lounge area with comfortable couches and coffee, so we got comfortable and listened to them rehearse. At one point Gordon said that he wanted to go in and tell them that he would like to hear American Woman, and sure enough they started playing it. Mom joined us after a while, and they stopped playing. The lead singer came out to get a cup of coffee and we thanked him for the entertainment. With the show over we went up to the room for some much needed sleep.

Wednesday we checked out and drove down to St. Ignace for senior day (OMG Gordon qualified!) and more gold coins. We said goodbye to our gophers and bees and returned to West Branch just before the arrival of Erika and Jackson and the start of the snowstorm. Mommy and Adrienne met Erika at the hotel and helped her unpack. Gordon, Megan, and I met them up there after Megan got out of school for pizza and swimming. We then came home to begin preparation for Thanksgiving dinner.

The turkey was juicy, the potatoes perfect, and the company awesome for dinner on Thursday. Jackson absolutely loved the cat, Erika not so much. After dinner things got hectic as more people started arriving, soon we had a houseful of kids and parents. Adrienne had her camera going so look for pictures soon. We slowly threw them out of the house – although some are still sleeping on my couch.

Friday started at 5:30. Since I had not gone anywhere on Thursday I had to clear the now frozen solid snow from my car and then I made my way to Wal-Mart for the mad rush of shopping. I was extremely impressed with the way they ran the sale, as you came in they handed you a printed out sheet with their main sale items and what aisle they could be found in. They must have had every employee working as anywhere you turned there was somebody there ready and eager to help, with cashiers standing in front of the registers. I picked up everything that I remembered I wanted and was out of there by 6:45. I came home, finished my email to the interviewer from Friday, typed this up and am awaiting the boys in about an hour (Sabrina just woke up, had breakfast and is now reading a basketball card to me – did you know that Jay Humphries is a ga uh a rd?). Mom and Adrienne are stopping by before they leave for Indiana, but I’m guessing that Erika and Jackson are already on the road.

The Best Laid Plans

The plan for yesterday was to drive down state, leaving here between 2-3 in the afternoon, go to the tobacco store, go to Mommy's, go to a meeting and be back home around 11. The reality is around 11 Monday night Bob called and asked if I could take him and Dorothy down state with me on Tuesday since he bought a new car down there that they needed to pick up and Dorothy can't drive at night. They do a lot for us so of course I said yes. He then said that he got off work at 5 and should be ready to go by 5:30, eew. I said the sooner the better as my meeting started at 7 and though you are never late for a meeting I would like to get there as early as possible. He said no problem. As Bob was Gordon's ride to work on Tuesday, Gordon would be getting off at the same time and could go with us. Gordon called around 4:15 and said that they would be leaving Houghton Lake in about a 1/2 hour and be here around 5:30. He then called at 5:10 and said they were at Dorothy's and ready to go. Now ready is a relative term and I know what my relatives mean when they say ready so I went to Dorothy's. Ready there means, we still have a few phone calls to make, put some chicken on for those not making the trip down state, and oh yeah make a pot of coffee to drink on the way down.

Finally on the road several comments were made about Mario Andretti and about my pilot's license but nothing was said about hurtling through space.

At one point we had a visitor who wasn't a freeway traveler as we were making a trip to Bay City I offered to take the side roads but was told the freeway was fine. As I was getting on to the freeway, with a speed limit of 70 where I knew the only two people going the speed limit or less were somewhere in front of me riding side by side, I heard, "Is it just me or does it feel to anyone else that we are hurtling through space?" I slowed down and drove under the speedway the rest of the way.

So I just continued on my way. Many comments were made about where they get gas, and the lack of space in the back seat. But I said I'm planning on stopping at Grand Blanc at my gas station unless anyone needs to stop sooner. They all said they were fine, and my gas station came through for me with the best price on the freeway. Of course stopping for gas is also relative and in this case included fixing up hotdogs, changing minds on drinks and going back in to get napkins. We made it to the car dealer at Plymouth and Telegraph by 7:45 (they closed at 8:00) I assume all went well since I dropped Bob and Dorothy off and have not heard from them yet.

We made it to the meeting and then to Mom's dropped off stuff, picked up stuff, took stuff out, down, and off. Missed the tobacco store but I will be back down on Friday for a job interview. The interview is on Northwestern between 13 Mile and Middlebelt. I picture 13 Mile and Middlebelt crossing, so Northwestn must run crosswise. I will stay and see Adrienne but can't stay for the pizza party as I have kids on Saturday. But Adrienne and Mommy will be coming here on Sunday and then Kewadin on Monday.

Watching Football

Watching football with Bryan used to be a struggle. He loves watching the game and spent the entire game saying “who’s winning?” “who do you want to win?” “is that the white team or the blue team?” “how many touchdowns do they have?” from the moment the game started until the final buzzer. At which point became “who’s playing the next game?” “who do you want to win?” “is that the blue team or the white team?” “how many touchdowns do they have?”

But he’s finally starting to get it. Watching with him on Saturday (MSU v WSU) was like watching with a whole new kid. When the game came on he said, “they’re tied – nobody’s winning and nobody’s losing.” We moved on to explaining first downs, that if they went past the yellow line they moved the line and got four more tries. He would watch real close and if the didn’t make it would count down the number of tries they had left. All the while watching the top of the screen to see if a flag was thrown. He was amazing, then the quarterback threw a pass out of bounds and he reminded me of Erika as he yelled “Foul Ball!”

We didn’t really root for MSU as we much as we rooted against WSU. A loss for WSU meant if U of M beats OSU this weekend they (U of M) go on to the Rose Bowl. MSU came through with a final score of 14-49, lots of touchdowns. (Pronounced sushdowns.) GO Blue!

Photos

Okay anyone trying to get to the yahoo pictures try again and let me know if it works. Apparently they updated their system, just signing in seemed to work and I was able to access them after signing out but I may have had a cookie on my system.

All is fine here, I have all three boys today and Megan. Megan can be extremely helpful unless she's not. She gets along with Bryan a lot like Melody got along with her when they were the ages she and Bry are now. Of course Megan does not remember it that way, Melody was mean to her for no reason and Bryan is a brat that deserves for her to be mean to him. But she will be leaving soon for cookie booth, and then I will be on my own.

Playing with the toys. We have under the tree all the fun noisy christmas stuff we have collected over the years. With the boys here we had many different carols going all at once. Tomorrow when we have Sabrina and not Joshua the kids will be putting on the rest of the ornaments which are in the cookies boxes right now. 

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas 

Family Values

Yesterday as I watched reality TV it hit me that this is the best reflection of Family Values we have. Through these mommy switching shows we have 'met' 20 or so different families. All real families, this is not the Brady Bunch where everything works itself out in a 1/2 hour, or Springer where - well you all know who goes on Springer, but real families. Now I am willing to admit that the producers picked the quirkiest of the quirky for the show, and of the two weeks that are taped we only see the juiciest moments, but we are given an insight to the daily lives of a wide variety of families. Each of these families has their own set of family values. And what a wide range of values it is, there seem as many variances in family values as there are in red nail polish. And yet each family works in its own way. In each family the kids were taken care of and loved. There was no abuse or neglect. I think one of the clear differences was this week's Monday episode, one family had walls full of animal heads the other more crosses than the unknown soldier cemetary, and yet each family had their own unique connection with a god. America is great, and unique, in that diversity. The ability to worship at the altar of your choice, whether it be synagogue, mosque, chapel, church, TV, or refrigerator. This is what I am fearful of when the family is no longer allowed to pick their own alter, as laws designed to make us better people are decided by people who clearly define what 'better' is based on their own altars.

The other great line from TV last night was on West Wing when a homosexual senator wanted an ammendment to ban all marriage he said, "You don't approve of my lifestyle and I don't approve of yours, so let's take the government out of the business of marriage and put it back where it belongs in synagogues and churches, and casinos and department stores."

Day of Mourning

I must have slept through the announcement that today was a day of mourning and no new blogs could be posted!

I'm not sure who Milo2020 is but here is my reply:
Depends on your concept of God. Personally, I would have to believe that someone who considers this election proof that God hates America, or that God had any say it in at all would see this as a move towards God. To me this election clearly shows that the American people are ready to remove the separation of church from state and move towards a society closer to the Taliban. The proposal in 11 states that passed adding the definition of marriage to being between one man and one woman, is clearly a biblical declaration bent on stripping human rights from a section of the American population. The election of a man clearly against Roe V Wade, who created Faith-based initiatives (one of which the Helping Marriage initiative goes into homes of low-income, non-married with children couples counseling on the benefits of marriage and assisting the father - the mother needs to be home to take care of the children - in getting a job) shows that the American people see government and religion as serving the same purpose in their lives. And the willingness to demand the same religious beliefs of the general public as religious beliefs become law. It's starting to seem to me that the terrorist have already won, all of the freedoms that they hate us for will slowly slip away under a Bush administration and a republican run congress.

In other news, locally we were successful in ousting our local prosecutor. One huge ego which will have to find a new nest.

I have not seen any new commercials, with the 3 hours per day that have been freed up by political ads one would think they would find something interesting to fill it. But I guess it's like a baby getting potty trained, you feel like you should have all of that diaper money just lying around but even the first week it is sucked up without notice.

All in all a pretty blah day with no new posts to give a ray of sunshine.

Never Underestimate the Stupidity of the American Public

I know that they said it was going to be a close race, but I really just assumed that the pollers weren't talking to the correct people. I mean Danielle had my phone number, and yet not one poller called. I certainly thought Kerry had it in the bag when Green Bay beat the Redskins on Sunday.

Listening to the radio as I drove back home tonight they were talking to a nineteen year old student named Emma waiting to vote in Ohio. She got to the poll at 2:00 in the afternoon and was finally able to cast her vote at 11:57, almost a full ten hour wait to vote. How many people couldn't wait that long? How many had jobs or families that they had to go to?

As I type this some networks have given Ohio and 269 electoral votes to Bush meaning the best Kerry can hope for is a tie to be broken by a Republican House of Representatives. I am totally stunned at the thought of another 4 years of Bush.

Locally, Michiganders are no smarter than the general American population and have passed the casino and the ban on gay marriage proposals. Speaking with someone the other day who herself had been married three times, she said she was against gay marriage as that would damage real marriages. I asked her which one of her marriages it would have affected? What I wanted to ask was which one of your husbands would not have married you had he had the option of marrying another man? I really just don't get the way some people think. But with another four years of Bush I'm sure I will be seeing more and more that is harder and harder to believe.

Oh well, California came through, Michigan is still to close to call but Kerry is leading. Indiana only needed 500,000 more flip-floppers and we could've had 'em. And we all know in Florida "My brother Jeb has some votes set aside for me, for me!"

This election will probably not be official for days, and even those of us unemployed must sleep.