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