Getting somewhere

Friday turned out pretty good as Grace was able to go to school; we weren't sure at first because she was coughing and was sneezing too. But when it was time to go, she was up to it which was great news for me as I needed to get out of the house; I hadn't left the house since Tuesday. This gave me time to go to my favorite home improvement store...all together now...Lowe's! More miscellaneous stuff for the family room.

After that I picked Grace up from school and we ran a few errands on the way to the chiropractor. I really needed to go there as I had slipped off the couch while working on the lights in the family room and I had been a little sore for a few days. The chiropractor was really busy; we always go on kids day because Grace is free. But normally when we go there is hardly anyone else there. This time we had to wait quite a while before we were seen. This gave Grace plenty of time to get more toys out and befriend everyone. She was really cute; she took a stuffed turtle and was walking around to the staff members saying "Hi, I'm Mzee." She was referring to a story we had read from the library about a hippo named Owen that had gotten washed away to sea somewhere in Africa I think. After he was finally rescued, he was taken to a zoo and put in an enclosure with a turtle named Mzee that really didn't like anyone else except his handler. After a few days, they were best friends and have been inseparable ever since. Anyway she loves that story and every turtle she finds or sees is suddenly Mzee.

After getting McDonald's on the way home, we pretty much just vegged out for the rest of the day.

Today was a good day too. We sold our weight bench on eBay and the buyer was coming today to pick it up. He was supposed to come around 11 am, but for some reason he didn't come until around 4:15 pm. I got up kind of early to move the weight bench from the basement upstairs to the living room. Then I was doing projects around the house. I got the cabling completed for two of the satellite lines that come in from the roof. They both now come in the attic and down through the wall into the distribution box and then through the walls again over to the TV. Before, one of them went from the attic over to a wall and down into the family room, but then the cable was wrapped around the room to get to the TV. The other went from the attic all the way across the house and then back through the basement to the family room, but across the room from the TV, so it was wrapped around the room too. So both cables are considerably shorter now plus they aren't on the floor anymore. I still need to fix the cable that goes to the other satellite receiver. It's our HDTV receiver and they installed it later and instead of running the cable through the house at all, they wrapped it around the house and brought it in behind the TV. So I need to bring this cable in from outside into the attic and that'll be another so many yards of cabling gone from our view.

So anyway I was hooking these wires up today which was thankfully easy. I mentioned that I ran the wires up to the attic the other day and then it was as easy as connecting the wires coming in from the satellite dish to these wires today. Luckily I had no problems at all. Next (besides the HDTV cable) I need to finish running the wires out to the garage; I've already run them into the attic of the garage and now they just need to be brought through the wall to a box where I can connect everything. My uncle is going to help me run a 220 line out to the garage to install a sub-panel out there. That way we'll have plenty of electricity to run the power tools and everything else. That will be really nice. The electrical situation in the garage is entirely inadequate.

After this we can concentrate on other areas of the house. But that will only be after we're actually done with the family room remodel. We still have quite a ways to go before we're done with that.

After that I was fixing the driveway since I had received complaints from a certain family member about it's condition. After we got all that snow a few days ago, I had cleared the driveway but then when the snowplows come by they just push the snow from the street onto the end of the driveway. Since I didn't remove that snow in a timely fashion after they put it there, it had frozen into a huge chunk of ice. So I spent a couple of hours chipping away at it with the ice chipper and then using the snow blower to remove the chunks of ice from the driveway and street. I'm guessing the post office was down a few mail carriers today as the mail didn't come until 5 pm or so. Usually it's not later than Noon or so and it wasn't our normal carrier either.

After that I relaxed for a while and then we had dinner at Applebee's. Grace was really good there. She ate her meal and was good and was listening. That's even bigger considering we went so late. We didn't get home until after 8:30 which is after her bed time.

Tomorrow it's a birthday party for our nephew. After that I'll keep working on the family room...

Thirteen and a half inches

We got a wallop of a snowstorm yesterday that dumped 13 1/2 additional inches on us. Thank goodness we have a big snowblower because it's just a lot of snow! Julie didn't go to work yesterday and Grace didn't have dance class. We're not sure if she had gymnastics or not, but she didn't go; It wasn't worth the effort.

  

We had a fun day though since we all spent the day together. It felt like vacation almost, except we were just at home. And we didn't feel like leaving the house either. So it was mostly a family day and I again didn't get much done around the house, but I did a few things.

Today the girls from across the street spent the day with us as their babysitter was sick. So Grace stayed home from school and the four of us just hung out. Again I got a few things done, but not much. A couple of things here and there. We played out in the snow for quite a while and I finally started building an igloo. Wow is it a lot of work and I'm not done, but it's really cool. Hopefully I can finish it before anything happens to it like some kids coming and knocking it down or something.

Let it Snow

Grace was much happier today. She slept in a little and we were a few minutes late for school but she was pretty darned happy. While she was in school I ran and voted and then went to Target for a quick grocery shopping trip. After I picked her up we went to get some vitamins and then to get one thing from a regular grocery store that Target didn't have.

We brought lunch home with us and ate real quick before going outside to play in the snow. Then we watched a little TV before going back outside to play in the snow again when it started to snow. Then our neighbor "A" came home on the bus and she asked or maybe Grace asked if she could play over at their house. So while she was over there I did a super quick snow-blowing and then ran to church to pick up our Market Day order.

After that we waited for Julie to make it home from work. It took her over two hours with the snow and rain and traffic. Plus then she stopped to vote on the way home so she wasn't home until after 7 pm. We had dinner and then Grace was happier than ever - she was running around and singing and just having a great time. It's amazing what a day (and a night of sleep) can do for one's attitude.

Tomorrow is supposed to be Grace's dance class and gymnastics class. We're also supposed to get eight to fourteen inches of snow by tomorrow evening. For how the roads were tonight, the schools are already talking about canceling school tomorrow. So there is a possibility that Grace's dance class will be canceled too. She'll probably still have gymnastics because it's so late in the day anyway. So tomorrow is up in the air, but worst case, we don't get to go to dance class is my best guess.

I read today that my favorite "museum" downtown is closing for about a year for renovations. It's the Oceanarium part of the Shedd Aquarium that is closing in September until sometime in mid-2009. They are shipping/lending out most of the animals/mammals that are there while the exhibit is closed. So we'll have to be sure and go to the Oceanarium this summer before they close it.

I didn't get anything on my list done today as I spent my time at the grocery store and outside mostly today. So hopefully tomorrow will bring a little more time to do a few things on the list.

Lights On

My uncle came over yesterday and my neighbor also stopped over and between the three of us we got all the lights wired and working. So now we can actually see down here in our family room - it's kind of strange. We've just had these two table lamps for years. Now we have more light than we know what to do with. We installed two switches: one for the main lights and one for the accent lights. We're decorating this room like the Academy Awards/Kodak Theatre and we have the posters from the Academy Awards on the wall and the accent lights are lighting these up.

Here are the main lights:

Here are the accent lights:

And here are all of the lights together:

Now there are just a few things to finish up before we can re-drywall the ceiling:
1. Replacing the downstairs bathroom vent fan ducting (currently flexible ducting) with solid ducting. This ducting goes through the ceiling in the family room on it's way outside.
2. Fixing one of the heating and air conditioning vents; when the builder installed this vent, it didn't have a place to screw one side in so they just kind of shoved the screw between the joist and the vent and hoped it would stay up there.
3. Running a little more speaker wire to the back of the room so that when I'm able to upgrade to a 7.1 speaker system, it will be easier to hook it up.
4. Closing in the open area between the kitchen and the family room (we're doing this so that we have room for more cabinets in our fairly small kitchen.)
5. Plus I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting and other things that will probably come up.

When we were done working and I had finished cleaning everything up it was time for the super bowl so just the three of us watched. Actually Grace and Julie weren't really into it so much, but I was watching. I wanted the Giants of New York to win because they were so bad last year and they just had an incredible year this year and as most people are, I like to see the underdog win. But I also wanted the Patriots to win because then the '72 Dolphins wouldn't be celebrating any more about having the only perfect season. So basically it didn't really matter to me; I don't really like the Patriots and was just hoping for a good game. In the end it turned out to be an exciting game, but there were a few quarters there (the second and third) where it wasn't so exciting. I read today where this was the most watched super bowl ever. I'm guessing it's mostly because of the Patriots bid for a perfect season more than anything, but I think it was touted as that it was going to be a good game. I'm sure that helped with ratings as well.

Today Grace and I slept in (she really needed that extra sleep) and then we went to Panera Bread for breakfast. After that we ran over to Lowe's (my new favorite home improvement store) and got some of the supplies to do the projects I mentioned above. But I have to tell you she was so cranky today. It was a challenging day. Lets hope tomorrow is better. Hopefully this is just fallout from not getting much sleep Saturday night when she was supposed to spend the night at her aunt and uncle's house. Tomorrow she has school so that should help too.

As an example of how today was, when Grace got up around 9 am, I told her to get dressed while I took a shower and then we could go to Panera Bread for breakfast. I got out of the shower and she was watching TV...in her pajamas. So I went out and started the car and wiped the snow off too. I came back in and she wasn't watching TV anymore, she was picking out a necklace to wear...in her pajamas. So after much discord we finally made it to the restaurant at 10 am. She was pretty good while we were out but returned to her cranky self when we came home.

If your state votes tomorrow (22 of them), please get out there and cast your vote! That's what our country is all about; every vote counts! So I'll be dropping Grace off at school and then running over to vote. After that I can work on the projects I listed above!

Have you heard about a rise in animals being given up to shelters or being abandoned because of foreclosures? It seems there has been a large increase in these animals being given up because their houses are being foreclosed upon and they can't take their animals with them. Speaking of foreclosures, there has been talk that this is similar to the depression from back in 1929 and the years afterward. But this doesn't even compare number wise to the devastation of the depression. Here are some facts to consider: "Back then, about half of all mortgage debt was in default. Unemployment had reached 25 percent, thousands of banks and savings and loans had failed and annual mortgage lending had fallen by some 80 percent. Similarly, new residential construction had dropped by 80 percent as well. By comparison, only 3 percent of all today's mortgages are labeled seriously delinquent, meaning roughly 1.5 million loans are 90 days past due or in foreclosure. In sheer numbers, that's a lot of troubled borrowers. But as a percentage of a much, much larger base than in the early 1930s, their number is relatively small." These quotes are from this article. I don't think we're anywhere near where we were then, but clearly regulators have let some things be swept under the rug that shouldn't have been.

Announced today was Microsoft's bid to purchase Yahoo!. That's scary. Yahoo needs to remain independent in my opinion. How will Google be able to search anything under Yahoo!/Microsoft control after that? I'm not sure how fair and open Microsoft would be in that situation. They hate Google and the fact that Google is a more popular search option than MSN is. Plus something else I read today is even scarier than that; Yahoo! openly supports open-source software development. Why would Microsoft continue that? And how would Yahoo!'s purchase of Zimbra fare as an open-source competitor to Outlook? This is just not right. I would be very sad if this happens. Hopefully something will happen to stop this or find someone else to take over Yahoo!.

Ground Hog Day

We took a break today and sent Grace to her Aunt's house and set out to enjoy a little time together. We had dinner at PF Changs in Schaumburg and then saw the movie "Juno." Dinner was incredible; I've never eaten there before and Julie has only had an appetizer before for lunch. We had the calamari for an appetizer, Julie had Kung Pao Scallops and I had Crunchy Honey Shrimp. All the food was just great. I also tried the Johannesburg Riesling wine from Hogue Cellars. They are our favorite Riesling right now, but we've never tried this particular varietal (sounds official huh?) of Riesling from them. Wow was it good! Highly recommended! Our usual favorite is the Late Harvest Riesling.

So we had a great dinner and then we saw Juno. Not sure if you've seen it, but we loved it. It was funny and fun and heartwarming. There were lots of good lines and it was really good. Here's one: "Well, honey, doctors are sadists who like to play God and watch lesser people scream." The movie is about a 16-year old girl who finally has sex with this boy that she toys with and gets pregnant and then the ensuing issues that follow. There were many good performances in this movie. I have to say Juno herself was very well played - Ellen Page played Juno. Her father (JK Simmons) was a great character too although he didn't have a huge role throughout the entire movie, Juno is the real star of the movie. Her step-mother (Allison Janney) is just hilarious; she played the part really well and I liked her too. Here's another line: "There's no guarantee they'll do a better job raising this child than my dumbass step-daughter will." And OK, just one more: Vanessa: "Your parents are probably wondering where you are." Juno: "Nah... I mean, I'm already pregnant, so what other kind of shenanigans could I get into?"

Then we came home and got a call that Grace wanted to come home so Auntie just brought her home a few minutes ago and now she's sleeping here. This has never happened before; she's always happy spending time over there. We're guessing she was just overtired and couldn't get to sleep.

Tomorrow my Uncle is coming over to do the electrical work, so I can't wait for that. I'll write more tomorrow.