In a Time Warp

I feel like i have been gone for ages. In actuality, we went nowhere. Finally got the deck stained and what does the humidity do? Of course it rises. And rises.

I'd forgotten how much smaller our last deck was. Maybe it was 10 x 12? This one is 12 x 16, and the last time I stained a deck I was in my mid-forties. The last time it was stained we had someone do it. Next time here, definitely someone else is doing it.

The first day started out with me having a reaction to the asthma inhaler. I felt like Harry Potter wearing the locket horcrux. it was a big job that took two days. Just moving the furniture and the grill off were a chore. They still sit on plastic on the crabgrass waiting for that sticky feeling to go away.

We finished on Thursday with a spaghetti lunch. Delish. Then, because the computer guys at Cardinal computer said they were getting some new Dell laptops in of the variety that I wanted, we stopped at the computer place and I brought my new baby home.

I am a memory hog when computing. I routinely have two different genealogy programs open, one a database of everyone and everything I have ever found, and another that looks for stuff I missed. Then I will have anywhere from 5-10 tabs open on Internet Explorer. Then maybe one or two windows of Windows explorer where I will be transferring photos from a file to the genealogy database. The current genealogy database which is just shy of 21000 individuals has about 6300 images linked to it. Of the tabs on IE, the most used are Ancestry.com, GenealogyNewsbank.com and Family Search Labs. Since I end up downloading images from all three, my half-gig of ram needed some help. So, I'm hoping the new laptop will help with all that memory intensive stuff. The last two days, I've been bringing this computer up to speed, getting all my prior settings set up on it. I still have lots of stuff to do on my Google toolbar so I can click and search on favorite sites but it is coming.

Wish I could figure out how I got those two extra "Personal Folders" in Outlook though.

Shame on the Press

I try to keep myself non-political. I had been enjoying the conventions and the VP selection processes UNTIL the press got its dirty little paws on the Sarah Palin 17-year-old daughter-pregnancy story. And those damn vultures won't let go of it. As a mother of two daughters who are past their teen years (Thank you God, for that) and past any chance of teen pregnancy, I can't help but deplore what the press is doing. I didn't know that Bristol was running for office. As any parent of daughters can attest to, the last thing we want is a teen pregnancy. How much control over it do we have - absolutely none. Since it is against the law to have your child sterilized or keep her in a bedroom until the age of 21, all you can do is impress your values on your child. It is up to the child ultimately to make that decision. The girl is pregnant, it is her business, not the business of the news organizations.


I think they've spoiled the RNC for me. And the bickering among themselves over whether this is an issue is so unprofessional. I hope if they are ever in the same situation, they are treated the same way they are treating Sarah Palin & daughter. I do hope their daughters never experience the same kind of treatment they are dishing out.

What Goes Bump in the Night?

Last night, DH is watching the Tennessee-UCLA football game and I am busy adding to my family genealogy, when we hear a huge crash and what sounds like glass? shattering. We each made our way around the interior of the house looking at windows and glassware, cupboards, shelves, etc. and find absolutely nothing. Is there a neat poltergeist in the house?

Not finding anything inside, we decide to venture outside. It's late and quite dark out. There is a streetlight out front at our neighbor to the west, but our tall oak trees pretty much block out that light.

So flashlights in hand we made our way outside, checking the windows in the garage, checking windows from the outside, the deck which has an aluminum table with porcelain tiles on top. None of that has even been touched.

Both of us are really questioning our sanity at this time when we check again in our bonus room (read catch-all storage). There on the floor is a thin metal strip about 2.5 feet long, of the type used in those plastic storage boxes for hanging files. Apparently the tape holding it to the now-folded plastic storage box detached itself and the metal strip ended up on the ceramic floor. So we dropped it to make sure that is what we heard. It had a sound like someone tossing a rock through a window! I sure was glad to find out we did not have a resident poltergeist.

Labor Day

Why do they call a day off from labor, Labor Day? One would think, on Labor Day you would work.

Being "retired" I've considered actually doing something in the lines of work. We have a deck that needs to be prepped for staining, but have decided to wait until after the grass is cut. I have decided to put off painting the dining room table until it cools down a bit. Somehow painting in 85-90 degree weather does not appeal to me. Then there is the artwork and family photos to be hung. Or the crabgrass to rake out - if the weedkiller ever kills it.

So the acutal Labor Day goes something like this:

TL: What do you want to do today?

DH: I don't know. (See this is typical).

TL: Why don't we go look at paint and stain. Sherwin Williams is having a sale.

Segue to SW store. No samples to take home and compare with Olympic samples. No one really able to "sell" us on some deck stain. No one to ask about paint for dining room set. Blah.

Segue to Lowes. Find sample size stains to take home and try on deck. What a neat idea. Of course, on the way home it pours, so probably not going to try today. Then sun comes out and drys up all the rain and I try all three samples on a dry spot under the overhang on the deck. Sample one is too light. Sample three is too brown. Sample two is just right. Hoping lawn guy shows up tomorrow to cut the grass. Then we can move everything off the deck onto the lawn - er crabgrass. DH thinks it is going to take several days to stain the deck. I don't think so. Having single-handedly performed this operation on our deck in Michigan, I know it is but an afernoon's work. I'm sure he'll try to make a mountain out of a mole hill, like he does all our projects. No wonder I do so many of them myself!

Happy Labor-less day!

Asking for Directions

The DH is a great driver, he really is. I say this now and I truly believe it. Most of the time. And he is never averse to asking for directions either.

There have been a couple of instances though, when we have somehow managed to be going the wrong way on a one way street.

The most memorable one was on a trip to visit a relative in western Michigan. My dad, who had been there many times, was giving us directions. He would punctuate his mapping skills by saying "Look at Me" at key spots of his instructions.

The trip time came and was uneventful until we took a turn down one street and ended up traveling the wrong way down a one-way street in traffic.

We laugh about it now, and still blame dad's "Look at me" for our wrong-way excursion.