Another Week

This week just flew by for some reason. I guess when you're busy those kinds of things happen. Julie actually took a half day at work today but wasn't home much sooner than normal because she went shopping on her way home. Unfortunately she wasn't too successful as she only came home with a new swimming suit and she's been wanting work clothes.

Grace slept until 9:15 this morning so we obviously didn't do much of anything this morning. We went to blockbuster today to get our free rentals for returning our Blockbuster Total Access rentals. After that we had some lunch at McDonalds. Can you believe they actually told me they don't have double-cheeseburger meals anymore? You have to order everything separately. Anyway, then we ran over to my Aunt's work and dropped off our carpet cleaner. They are having company over the weekend and wanted to clean their carpets prior to the party. After that we ran to Target to get a few things including dinner for today. I just ended up getting some sirloin steaks to grill up and some mashed potatoes and green bean casserole.

I grilled the steak before heading over to the in-laws. It turned out pretty good, but the juice from the steak leaked in the car. I'll have to clean that up tomorrow. I've got so many things to do this weekend it's just crazy. I need to mow the lawn, paint some exterior trim pieces and replace them, pull weeds (just never ends), prime the shelves for the bookcases I made here in the office and another shelf I want to hang up in the dining room. Then there's cleaning (also never ending) and just general getting rid of junk. We plain have too much of it or I have too much. Julie doesn't save much, I'm the saver and boy do I do my part. I've also got so many unfinished projects. I guess I should make a list and start working on completing a few of them. Lists help me a lot. If it's not on a list I generally just forget about it.

I'm going to need to water the lawn on Sunday I guess. We have watering restrictions and can only water on odd days since our house number is an odd number. The other day I said that we got about a quarter inch of rain but we actually got a half an inch. That's not enough so I'll need to water since it isn't supposed to rain now for another week.

I've been getting good responses to my email campaign against Libertyville Lincoln Mercury. Thanks to everyone that has helped already. Please forward to anyone you know!

Last Day of VBS

Well Grace got up early today at 7am and we obviously were late for VBS - Ha-Ha. Grace was in the slowest mood today as I couldn't get her to do anything in a timely manner. She got dressed pretty easily but breakfast was an afterthought as she couldn't be bothered to sit long enough to actually eat it; she ate about 2/3 of her cereal. Then we get in the car to leave and we actually will be on time, but the neighbor's dog is out. So I get out of the car and go to retrieve their dog and place him back in his yard/house. It takes him a few minutes to warm up to me so it took a few minutes longer than I wanted it to to get him back there. So we were a couple of minutes late to the church. We get there and she doesn't get out of the car, she just sits there. This was how the whole morning was with her. I finally get her out of the car and she's walking as slowly as she possibly can to go in - this kid is exhausted.

So I finally get her dropped off and get on my way to run some errands. I ran to T.J. Maxx to get some clothes and then to Target for a little light grocery shopping. Then over to the park district to register Grace from some summer classes. The photography one we really wanted her to be in has no one registered yet and they need 6 kids by next Friday. So I registered her anyway just in case more people sign up before it's canceled. But I did register her for a nature bugs class where she'll learn about all kinds of outside stuff that she's always interested in. That doesn't start until July and we'll be on vacation for one week of the class, but I know she'll have a good time in that class.

After that I ran to the Home Depot in Round Lake to get my weed trimmer attachment that I couldn't find anywhere. I looked it up online and was able to see that they had one there; saved a lot of driving around--including expensive gas. Also called the Ford Store today and come to find out my car hasn't even been put on the assembly line yet. So who knows when we'll actually get this silly car. We ordered it 6 weeks ago Wednesday. Like the sales person said, maybe we aren't meant to have this car.

Went and picked Grace up from VBS and came home to have lunch. She wasn't really interested in eating that either - mostly because her friend from around the corner was here for about an hour and a half. So she would rather have played with her instead of eat. They've only played a couple of times and she is a little younger than Grace, but they get along really well and they place nicely together. After she left we just kind of hung out and watched the Cubs game in Hi-Def. Man Hi-Def is really nice. If you don't have it, you need it. Actually you will need it in the next 5 years or so (I can't remember when exactly) as standard definition TV will be no more, they're phasing it out at some point in the future.

After that Grace went to swim at her friend across the street's house and I finally got serious about what to make for dinner. But it was really too late to do anything about dinner. We don't really have much except pork chops that are frozen solid and hamburgers with no buns to eat them with. I thought of making egg salad but we didn't have all the ingredients for that either. Obviously I should have decided this before my light grocery shopping or just decided on something while actually shopping. But for as hectic as the morning was we were lucky to get out of the house with any hope of getting their close to on-time. So I'm sure you know what's coming, we just went to pick something up for dinner. It didn't make Julie too happy, but it was dinner and it wasn't very expensive ($18 for five people) and it was taken care of. I'll do better next time - no really I will.

At least I got the other things she wanted me to do today done like giving a donation to her sister who is doing the Relay for Life tonight in Buffalo Grove and also finally registering Grace for those park district classes, plus washing Grace's new mattress pad and sheets as we are out of pull-ups and have decided not to buy any more. So she's likely to be wetting the bed fairly regularly for a while. Hopefully it won't take too long for her to recognize when she needs to go while she's sleeping.

So the weekend comes tomorrow and hopefully I can actually get some projects around the house done. Julie's talking about shopping in the morning, hopefully she'll take the loaner car as her car needs an oil change desperately. I will need to get up fairly early to do that so I have some shade as it's supposed to be in the mid-90's tomorrow. Julie has a workshop Saturday night and Sunday is Father's Day. Both articles are set to run in the newspapers this weekend and if I can, I'll put a link in here when I find out about them.

Cubs Game V3.0

Grace woke up late today like 2 minutes before the photographer from the Daily Herald got here. She let him in with her pajamas on. So he waited while she got dressed and then he took some pictures of her brushing her hair and of us eating breakfast and then getting in the car to go to Vacation Bible School (VBS).

While she was at VBS, I went to Best Buy to look around and then to Target to get Grace a second waterproof mattress pad for her bed. We're going to cut her off from the pull-ups at night, so we need the extra mattress pad.

She had fun at VBS again today and was pretty excited about it. After I picked her up we came home and were going to have lunch, but she got to playing with the neighbors outside in their new slip-n-slide and refused to eat. So she missed eating except for a snack. Then other neighbors were over and lots of playing took place. It was kind of a crazy afternoon. Then I sent Grace over to the neighbor across the street since I had to leave to go to my 3rd Cubs game of the season. I was stopping at one BIL's house on the way to the other to pick them up and our nephew came with too. So we left a little after 5pm and didn't get to the parking lot by Wrigley Field until 7:30pm. So we missed the first inning and a half. But the game went 12 innings so we got our money's worth (they were free tickets anyway.)

It was a good game, but they didn't win, so that wasn't so good. But we had a good time and actually since the game got over so late it was good after all that we drove instead of taking the train because we would have been home much later if we were waiting for a train to take us home.

I never really wrote anything about the recital on Sunday. It went really well; albeit a long day as well. We got there before Noon and Julie just dropped me off as she was going to get some snacks and some video tapes for me and I had to set up the video equipment and then help sell tickets. The videotaping went well except there was one dance where I accidentally pressed pause instead of record in the middle of the dance. So I missed at least a minute of that dance but other than that it went pretty well. Everyone danced really good and Grace and Julie looked great. I'm still working on transferring the video - I've been so busy I haven't had the 4 hours it'll take to finish that. Plus I needed a new cable to be able to transfer it straight from the camera to the DVD recorder I bought a month or two ago.

It's really cool to be able to record from the satellite straight to DVD; that's all I've done so far--plus recording from TIVO to DVD. Now if I could just convince Julie that we need a new Plasma TV and a new a/v receiver. Actually the receiver was acting up the other day. I was trying to make sure a DVD recorded properly and all I could hear was the TV; I couldn't hear the DVD playing at all. It had me worried more about the DVD recorder because I wasn't sure that it was recording the sound onto the DVD's. But it was fine the next day, so I'm not sure how long the receiver will continue to work plus the TV's sound hasn't been working in a long time which is why we rely on the receiver to provide the sound for us. So that's about it for today and for Sunday.

Cubs Game

Today was mostly occupied with going to the Cubs game. Got up early and before showering fixed the dining room table so that Julie could have her Stampin' Up class today. Then I got everything ready. Julie mostly watched Grace and got her ready so it was a pretty easy morning. Dad came and followed us to the train station so that he could leave from there when we got back. The train was a few minutes late, but we were early - too bad it couldn't work the other way around sometimes in that they'd wait for you. Train ride was uneventful, Grace was excited to be going and was pretty good. We brought a lot of extra stuff with us as there was a chance of rain today and after the rain it was supposed to get cooler. Plus it's always cooler by the lake. But as it turned out, it didn't rain at all downtown until it sprinkled as we were about to get on the train to come home.

The bus trip to the park was horrible. The only thing I can think to blame it on would be traffic. The first bus we got on was making all stops, then when we got to the blue line they put everyone that was going to the Cubs game on a different bus that wasn't going to make any stops. But it still took us about 50 minutes to go the 8 miles or however many it is from the Grayland Metra stop to Wrigley Field. Normally that's a 30 minute ride with stops. But we still were there before the game started and Grace got her batting helmet that she seems to really like. This was her best game yet which makes sense since she's getting older. She pretty much sat in her seat the whole time and either watched people or the game or colored in her notebook. She ate most of the lunch I brought and she only had to go to the bathroom one time while we were there. Last year we must have gone an average of 4-5 times each game.

The game was really good as the Cubs pulled out a can of whoop-a$$ and beat the Atlanta Braves 10-1. Neither my Dad nor I knew before we got there that Lou Piniella had been suspended indefinitely and we both noticed he wasn't in the dugout. So I looked on the internet on my cell phone and read the article about how he was suspended indefinitely and fined an undisclosed amount. That seems a bit extreme to me especially considering what other coaches have done in years past. But what can us fans say about it?

So we took the bus and train home without any incident unless you include the idiot underage drinkers that could hardly walk to the bus or train. When we first got off the train and were headed to the bus stop we saw them all drinking before they got on the bus. Then we didn't see them again until after the game when we were waiting to get on the bus. The one kid was helping the other kid walk and he was clearly out of it. We met another guy on the bus on the way to the park who was also waiting for the train to go back home and he said they were on his bus coming back to the train stop and the guy was sick the whole bus trip. Apparently the bus drivers weren't even letting him on, but he snuck on through the back door I guess and finally got on. He didn't look too good waiting for the train and still didn't look so good when he got off the train in Libertyville. I hope his parents find out.

Speaking of parents, there was some kid about 12 or so at the train platform that had bought a baseball at the Cubs game that he was throwing at the fence and on the tracks. And he was picking up rocks from the tracks and throwing them and standing on the tracks and then was playing catch with whom we all thought was his Grandpa across the tracks. I guess they don't take the threat of a train coming by and hitting them and the signs that say to keep off the tracks very seriously. Everyone was commenting among themselves about it. I just don't understand people.

So we came home and just hung out for the night. We were pretty tired. All of us went for a walk around the block with the neighbors from across the street and then the girls all played together for a while then Grace had to have some dinner. Julie and I never did eat anything. I was excited about what I got in the mail yesterday that I forgot to mention. I got an Ipod Nano 2nd Generation 4 Gb mp3 player off of eBay. I'm so excited - have I mentioned that? I've been wanting one for a long time and finally just got one. I had some money that my Dad had given me for my birthday and I had saved some of my weekly "allowance" since I haven't been able to go anywhere for a while so I had enough to get one. It is used, but it appears to have been used quite gently as it looks and works like new. So now I feel the need to get all the accessories that go with it so I can use it the way I want to. The biggest reason I wanted it was to use while I go bike riding (when I'm riding alone.) So anyway, while Julie was putting Grace to bed I ran out to Target to see if I could get the cable that hooks up the Ipod to the car stereo. In the loaner I'm driving and the car we have on order, there is an input for that so I needed the cable to do that. I had looked at Wal-Mart yesterday, but the cable they had looked pretty cheap so I didn't get it. So I ran to Target at like 8:30 and they were only open until 9:00 and of course they didn't have it they were out of stock.

So as soon as I realized they didn't have one, I got back in the car and drove across the parking lot to the Best Buy, but they were already closed. So I went back to Target to look at the other stuff they had. I got an armband so I can wear it on my arm while I'm bike riding instead of trying to stuff it in a pocket. So I'll have to go to Best Buy tomorrow and see what they have to offer. Then on the way home, I stopped at the grocery store and picked up a few things that I knew we needed since I need to go there tomorrow also. I thought it would make the trip a little easier tomorrow since I'll have Grace with me.