Welcome to fall

Yea! Fall is trying to show it's face around here. Temperatures are down, especially at night. This is Julie and my favorite time of year. Cooler temps = happier us!

Things have been happening around here. If you saw the Bears game today, you know that they did change their quarterback, but the result wasn't much different. Like I've said before, it just might be the offensive coordinator. I knew it was either the QB or the guy telling the whole offense what to do. But a truly experienced QB would still help because they make decisions on the fly which also keeps the defense on their toes.

Anyway, this isn't a sports blog so I digress. I still don't have the picture from Grace on the waverunner from last weekend, maybe soon. For the Wisconsin Badger game that Julie and I are going to, I decided to go to the homecoming game on October 27. And we decided not to take Grace with us. We'll take her to a football game around here that isn't quite as expensive. It would be a really long day for her driving all the way to Madison and back plus the 3+ hour game. Plus the extra time I'm going to - ha, ha. Julie researched what songs they played at a concert in Toronto on this same tour recently. So I've been uploaded my CD's to my iPod and I'm creating a playlist that matches that so I'm all ready for the concert.

We've been busy planning the birthday festivities for Grace's birthday that's coming up next week. My Mom is flying in for the fun and we've got a lot planned but most of it is either free or not much because we don't want to spend too much on her birthday. We don't want to be on that MTV show where they are spending thousands on their kids parties. Plus she's only (going to be) five and probably won't even remember this when she's older.

Anyway we're going to the pumpkin farm with Grace's friend from across the street like we do every year. She really enjoys doing this! We go and take a hay ride out to the pumpkin fields and we each pick out a pumpkin and they have other fun things to do there like a petting zoo and pony rides. Plus they have a huge pig that usually gives birth around Grace's birthday each year. Baby pigs are popular with all the kids.

After that we'll have a family party and then for the kids party we're taking her friends to Build-a-bear in Vernon Hills. That'll actually be on the Saturday after her birthday. Grace is calling all of this her "3 parties" for her birthday. She was even lobbying for a fourth party for a while. She's also quite concerned that she won't get the things on her birthday list. We never actually made the list, but anytime we go to a store and she wants something we tell her we can just add it to her birthday list. She likes that idea but is now concerned she still won't get those things.

We have told people what some of those things are (the one's we remember at least) so we aren't just playing games with her. Today Julie and her were shopping at Kohls and she asked if they could get something we told her that we could add to the list. Julie told her she needed to wait until after her birthday to see if she gets it as a gift. She responds "but what if I don't get it?"

We finally scheduled Grace's eye surgery. She'll be having her crossed eye fixed on Halloween. I don't know how the hospital came up with that date. We were talking about doing this in November but they called Julie and said the 31st was the day. So now we'll have to begin in earnest to get her ready for this. She's afraid to have drops put in her eyes by the eye doctor, so I'm unfortunately feeling that this might be a traumatic experience for her. I sure hope not. The good thing is that she's young still and like I said a few paragraphs ago, she'll hopefully not remember any of this when she's older. But I have a feeling she's always going to be afraid of eye doctors. Hopefully I'm wrong about that.

I don't know what time the surgery will be yet on the 31st, but this probably means she'll miss both dance class and gymnastics that day and school for the rest of that week. Plus we made a mistake for her kids birthday party and she'll need to miss her last soccer game. But as long as this corrects her eye none of that will matter. But in the short term these things are very important to Grace. She won't understand why she can't go to dance class, etc.

Speaking of Grace, she was whiny and difficult all day. Did I mention ALL DAY? Yea, she was just a bear all day long today. Everything was a struggle and nothing was fair. We're pretty sure it's because she's not feeling well, but she needs to learn to not take her frustrations out on us. It's getting really old.

I haven't mentioned HainesvilleFest yet. Julie set up a booth at the festival this year and we spent the whole day there. It was a great day to spend outside. She did pretty good and got a few new leads for her business. Grace had fun with all of her friends that were there and we just found out that she won a coloring contest that she entered while we were there. So we're going to go pick up her prizes this week. This was from the Dinner by Design tent that was right next to us. So Grace won a t-shirt and a dessert. She loves dessert that's for sure! She'd rather have a snack than a meal any day and dessert is better than a snack.

I was pretty successful at HainesvilleFest too. I entered the raffles for prizes that local businesses had donated, and I won several! One was to Panera Bread and that's my favorite place right now. Those strawberry smoothies are incredible. I've got to figure out the recipe for them so I can start saving some money instead of buying. I've been working on it and my smoothies are getting better, but not quite the same. But I'm not so sure our blender will last much longer. It's not working so well and it isn't going to get better. We'll see.

My Beloved Bears

The Bears didn't look good today. I think it might be time to get a real quarterback. I do like Rex Grossman, but he's just not cutting it. I think I've known for years that the quarterback position was one of their weaknesses. One of these years they might actually realize that.

Julie and I celebrated our 9th anniversary today. It's in a few days. I took her to see Wicked downtown and then we watched the ABC 7 news from outside their studio. They have their studio right on the street where you can watch them do all of their broadcasts.

After that we drove up to Evanston to eat dinner at Gulliver's Pizza - the best pan pizza!. While we were out having fun Grace was with her Aunt and Uncle. They were having fun too. She was at her other Aunt and Uncle's house racing around Diamond Lake on their Waverunner! I'll have pictures later.

We didn't go to the Bears game. We were considering it (at least I was) and trying to find tickets, but they are just too expensive. The cheapest I could find was about $300/ea. And considering that they lost 34-10 I'm glad we didn't spend that much on tickets. So that was a good thing. And we didn't even have to watch them losing too much since we were out late. Let's hope they can get better quickly or it'll be a long season.

But speaking of football tickets Julie got me tickets to a Wisconsin Badger football game for our anniversary. So we're going to plan a trip up to Madison. I've been wanting to go to one of their games for years. The date is open so we need to decide which game to go to. Ideally I'd like to go to the Michigan game on November 10, but I'm guessing it'll be really cold then so I'm not sure what to do.

Last year on Nov. 10 the high was 39° and on Oct. 27 when they play Indiana the high last year was 46°. Looks like the tickets for the Indiana game are cheaper than the Michigan game as one might expect. We're thinking of taking Grace with us, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea as sets of 3 tickets are hard to come by. We'd have to take someone else with us and buy 4 tickets I think if we're going to bring Grace.

Lots of stuff

Once again I haven't posted in a long time. I don't plan to make a habit of this. I do like to write every day.

Since I last posted many things have happened. I finally finished painting those pesky shelves for the built-in bookcases I made. So that project is officially DONE! YEA!

Grace had her second soccer game on Saturday the 15th and she scored three goals! Wow! Hopefully she'll be more excited about the overall process now. The first week it was "we didn't win" (they don't keep score) and "I didn't score any goals." This week was better, but she's still not really happy about something.

I'm still working on the entryway. I did get the regular trim finished, but the quarter round that goes on the bottom isn't even painted yet. So that trim will need a primer coat and two coats of paint before I can start installing it. I have stained the trim that goes between the tile and the hardwood. I still need to attach the two pieces of trim to each other and then put two coats of polyurethane on it.

I'll fill in the other things that happened later. I need to get some sleep!

Sorry once again

Things have been quite hectic around here lately and so blogging has been the last thing on my mind.

Starting where I last left off would be Tuesday the 4th. Grace had school that day and other than that, I can't think of anything else. Wednesday she had her first test of dance class and gymnastics on the same day. Plus she had a play date with a friend from down the street. She didn't seem overly tired on Wednesday night, but come Thursday morning - watch out! She was cranky. I'll try it again this week, but if she's just as cranky I'll want to move her back to Mondays.

But her friends are in this newer dance class and she really likes being with them so for that reason I'm even more torn. I don't want to make her change and not be with her friends but at the same time, she was a real bear on Thursday morning getting ready for school. I'll wait until this Thursday and see what happens.

While Grace was in school Thursday morning I mowed the grass and some silly bunny rabbit three babies right in the middle of my front yard. So I had to mow around them. On Friday Grace and I found one of them out of the nest and we were putting it back in when I took this picture. Keep in mind it's only about 2 days old - eyes aren't open yet. Unfortunately the other two didn't fare so well and got those out of the nest and we put this one back. I haven't checked on it since. Hopefully it's alright. As soon as it's gone I'm reclaiming this part of my yard!



Thursday night was the beginning of the football season! YEA! We ordered a pizza for dinner, I enjoyed a beer and then had football to watch. What more can a man ask for? It ended up being a pretty good day!

Then on Friday Grace had school and we both got adjustments at the chiropractor. Grace only needed a couple of adjustments in her neck. She was good everywhere else. That's great news. Me, however, was a mess. He was adjusting just about every vertebrae in my back and neck. My foot has gotten much better. He did adjust it a little, but said it would continue to improve; and it has! It is much better now although not quite 100% yet.

Saturday Grace had her first soccer game. She's playing little league soccer with the park district. She seemed to have a great time and played pretty well for the first time I would say. But when they were done she was upset that they "didn't win" and that she didn't score any goals. They don't keep score, we told her that; but that wasn't good enough. She hadn't scored anything. So we tried to explain the whole "team" concept and that each player doesn't have to score for the team to win. She still wasn't happy. We'll see how that goes next week too. It's only a 6-week "season." There are also 2 other girls on her team out of 7 players.



After that we had some lunch and then took Grace over to Julie's sister's house. Lake Villa (Lakes High School) was having their homecoming parade and we were dropping Grace off to be in the parade and while she was doing that we had a "date." It wasn't a traditional date by any means, but we had a good time. We loaded our bikes on my Escape (es-KAH-pay) and went to Independence Grove Forest Preserve over in Libertyville. We rode there for a while and then went out to dinner at this new mexican restaurant in Round Lake. The service was horrible, the food was great; will we go back? Probably not, but time will tell. Maybe as carry-out.

So we were all done with our date and went to pick Grace up but she wasn't ready to go. They hadn't had dinner yet at her sister's house and of course Grace wanted to stay and eat there. We tried to get her to leave but she wanted to stay. We don't know why because her friend from across the street who has been out of the country for the last two months came home while we were on our date (their flight landed early - go figure.) So if she came home she would have been able to see her. But that didn't convince her either; so we waited.

Then on Sunday it was time for MORE FOOTBALL - like ALL DAY! YEA! We went to church with Julie's parents as it was Grandparents day. Grace say her friend from gymnastics there and they were being silly with each other throughout the service as best they could without getting in too much trouble. Then we had lunch at Panera Bread and came home in time to see the early games. The Bears played at 3:15 pm, but they lost. They didn't look particularly inspiring to me. Plus now I hear that Mike Brown is out for the season (he looked great when he was playing) and some other Bears are injured too. Lets hope they can figure out the problems and turn this season around before their record prevents them from making the super bowl again this year.

My sister came over in the afternoon and her and Julie scrapbooked for several hours and then she stayed for dinner. It was a great day - just wish the Bears could have won.

So now I'm up to today, Monday. Since Grace is going to dance class on Wednesday this week we didn't have any plans. I needed to go to GNC to buy some vitamins and we went to Wal-Mart and got a new frame for the picture of Grace we're putting in the upstairs bathroom. I had already bought one and put the picture up, but somehow it fell and broke so now I have it's replacement that hopefully won't meet the same demise as the first frame.

I was looking into what battery I could get for my new battery backup sump pump system online today. I was hoping I could use an Optima battery as they are regarded as one of the best batteries you can buy. I was reading the requirements in the manual for our battery backup and didn't really think I could use one but thought I'd check with the people at Optima before making that decision. I sent them an email at 12:45 this afternoon and they wrote back at 4:52; only 4 hours later! Anyway, they basically agreed that if the battery backup system's requirements are not flexible that they wouldn't recommend it. That's honesty! More great customer service! And I thought that was gone with today's "all about me" attitude.

So I guess I can just buy the battery they recommend and be happy with it. Hopefully I can do that tomorrow. That and a few other errands while Grace is in school. I'll write more tomorrow.

Labor Day

Today was Labor Day so Julie had the day off. We basically just took it easy today. Julie took Grace out for breakfast and shopping for a new pair of school shoes. While they were gone I was working a little on the trim around the new tile and cleaning up the house a bit. I started painting the last few shelves for my built-in bookcases. I also started getting the entry closet ready for painting. I've got to get some of these projects finished so that we can have a little organization in our house! Plus I don't really want to start a new project until these others are finished up.

I called my Gramma today to check in on her. She seems to be doing quite well which is good to hear. After that we cooked up some burgers on the grill for dinner. Julie and Grace took a quick bike ride after dinner and then Grace went to bed. She has to get up early tomorrow to go to school.

That's all for today.

Sleepy

Sorry for falling asleep in the middle of my last blog. I was a bit tired. I've been trying to do too many things lately. I'll pick up where I left off.

I came back and he was almost done. So I at least got to see how he did it. So now the DuRock is down and the mastic or whatever he attached it with has to dry overnight. So tomorrow (Thursday) will be tile laying day. Wa Hoo! Here's how it looked with the DuRock down:



I forgot to mention also that a real estate agent that lives here in Hainesville has a monthly contest you can enter and I won for last month. She and her brother (that are RE Agents) came over and gave us our prize on Wednesday. I'll post a link after she puts the picture up on her site.

On Thursday Grace has school and while she was there I went grocery shopping. So after I picked her up we had to come home to put the groceries in the refrigerator. We were going to go to the park so we got on our bikes and started riding there but we ran into one of her friends on the way and we ended up just staying at their house. She played and I talked to the parents. Then since this was close to the neighbor that is doing the tile work for us I knew when he was home and said we had to go home. She was of course upset that we didn't get to go to the park. She would have had more fun at the park (saying this in front of her friends of course.) But we made it home and our neighbor came just a minute or two later and he got the tile in. It looks great! He's coming tomorrow (Friday) to grout it and then his part of the job will be done. I'll have to put the trim back on and get a new transition/threshold piece to put across where the tile meets the hardwood floors. The new tile is thicker than the old tile so the old transition pieces won't work. Hopefully it won't be hard matching the stain from the hardwood flooring. That should be the only difficult challenge. Here is how the tile looked before grouting it:



Then on Friday Grace had school again. I needed to get money from the credit union so I also met my step-Mom and my sister and niece for lunch. My step-Mom works at the same place as my credit union until they move down to the old Kemper facility in Lake Zurich. After that we came home and brought my niece with us so my sister could have some time to do whatever she wanted and so Grace and her could play. Good thing we came home though because our neighbor got off work early since Monday is a holiday and he wanted to start early. That was obviously not a problem. So he was done grouting the tile work by 3:30 pm. We then dropped my niece back off at my sister's house on the way to Julie's parents for Friday night dinner. Here is how the tile looks grouted:



Saturday we went to the Cubs game all three of us. It was really fun. Julie wasn't feeling very good for a while but once she took her headache medicine she was good. Grace and I always leave after the 7th inning stretch because she just can't focus for much longer than that. So we left and took the red line down to Roosevelt and walked over to Soldier Field and tried to get tickets to the Iowa and Northern Illinois college football game. Unfortunately they only had one ticket available. So we hung out until half time hoping that Grace could at least hear the bands play, but they must not have made the trip because we heard nothing. So we just took the bus back to Union Station and waited for the next train home. But we had a good time - just a LOT of walking. The weather couldn't have been any better; just a perfect day.

The good news for me is that my foot feels pretty darn good. I was carrying Grace on my shoulders for a while because she was really getting tired and I could definitely feel a difference in how my foot felt with her on my shoulders. But today it was just stiff, it didn't really hurt. So I think I'm past the worst part of my foot problems.

Today we went to our nephews baptism; Julie's sister's youngest. After that we went to their house for a picnic. It was a beautiful day (although not as nice as yesterday) and it was actually fairly pleasant being outside. So now we're home and don't really have any plans for tomorrow. If the home improvement stores are open maybe I can work on the trim for the living room.

Julie and I are also going to start a new exercise program tomorrow. We both need to lose a few pounds and exercise is what we need the most. We've really changed our diet over the last 6 months or so I think and honestly your diet is important but exercise is where your body's composition really comes into play. So we're going to start tomorrow. It's called the PACE® program and it's by Dr Al Sears. He wrote the book I read 6 months ago called The Doctor's Heart Cure. And now I'm reading the book he wrote about the PACE® program. They are both really good and I highly recommend everyone read them - not just if you're overweight - everyone! My doctor has been on me to start this program for a few months now and so I really need to listen to him and start. Here is the author's website: www.alsearsmd.com.

I forgot to mention (I think) that I was accepted to be a Bears Superfan Blogger this year. Here is the address if you'd like to read it: Bears Superfan Blog

Alright, I'd better get to bed. Write more later...