Paint

Today is Tuesday so we had gymnastics this morning. Grace woke up around 7:30 and we were only 5 minutes late this morning. While she was working at the gym I ran to Menards to return something we didn't need and then went to pick up Grace's dance pictures. They are adorable! Here is a scan of it:



After that I played around on my laptop for a while to see what else I needed to figure out. I was actually able to turn a "feature" off that was annoying. Then we ran by Radio Shack to return something also. Then we came home and Grace played for a while, we had lunch and then she played all afternoon at her friend across the street's house. While she was there I started painting.

I got some of the shelves for the bookcase primed. Then I was working on our "Paint Organizer." It is a little notebook that lets you write down everything about the way your whole house is painted. It's pretty cool, got it from the paint store. It's made by Rubbermaid.

Then the wallpaper person stopped by. She gave us an estimate that was just a little more than I expected, but to put wallpaper on a ceiling, sounds great! The tile guy called me back today. Sounds like he wants me to get the old tile taken out and the floor repaired before we go on vacation so that he can stop over while we're on vacation and set the tile for us. So I need to get another estimate for the wallpapering and start working on other things in the family room like putting up the wallpaper on the lower portion of the walls, painting, puttying and priming the shelf I put on the ledge, painting the room, installing recessed lighting, making the cornices, having the drapes made and other things I'm probably forgetting.

After dinner which was burgers on the grill (and they were REALLY good tonight BTW) I came down and started painting parts of the bookcase I made. I got all of the face frames painted, the crown molding painted and part of one bookcase section. So we can get a pretty good idea for how it's going to look. And we both like it! Yea! And I painted one area of the room in the three colors we picked out. It looks really cool too. After I get a second coat on it and get the shelf primed and painted I'll take a picture and post that for everyone to see. Ditto for the bookcase although it's already primed and parts are already painted. Maybe we can actually have this family room looking like a room pretty soon! That will be really nice! And it'll be nice to finally be done with these darn bookcases. That's a project that has just lingered. I'm so excited to have the paint to get it finished and see how it looks and how well it will work out for us. It's fun to see an idea from your head come to fruition, but when it takes this long, it's nice just to finally be done with it and cross it off the list!

Well this isn't the most comprehensive blog posting to date, or the best written, but I'm really tired. I'll get more thoughts down tomorrow.

Keys in Cars

Went to bed late last night because I was installing all the updates Toshiba provided on their website on the laptop. I was rebooting between each update to ensure nothing crazy happened and botched the whole system. I forgot to mention the other day that when I went online to register the laptop on Toshiba's website that under "occupation" they actually had an option for "stay at home parent." I was impressed with that! After doing the updates I remembered that I had left the old tile for the entryway in Julie's car and that I needed to take it out. So I went and did that. It crossed my mind at that point that I might have left the keys to "my" car in her console, but I quickly dismissed it thinking I had already taken them out.

Went to bed and then Julie woke me up to say goodbye and it crossed my mind again when I heard her starting her car. So I jumped out of bed and ran down to look where I keep my keys and they weren't there. So I look outside and she's gone already. I think "I'll just call her cell phone and she'll turn around." Yea well that's all fine and dandy if she has the phone on. It wasn't on. So I'm assuming now that I'll be stuck at home today. I had a doctors appointment this morning just to check my weight loss progress and then I wanted to take "my" car back to the dealer since it has never run very well so they could take a look at it. Then after "A" came over and we had lunch we needed to go and pick up the new tile. So I'm thinking the only thing that really matters in this list is the doctor's appointment. I go back to bed and decided to just call the doctor when I wake up and reschedule.

Well you remember how tired Grace was yesterday. I thought that maybe she'd wake up around 8 or 9 at the latest. Well Julie calls around 9 just to let me know where she put my keys. She had gotten half-way to work and noticed the keys in the console and came all the way back to drop them off for me. How sweet is that? She's the best; super late for work, but the best none-the-less. So we talked for a few minutes and then I got up and got moving. After I was all dressed and ready to go it was actually time to go too and Grace still wasn't up. I had to wake her up at 9:40 and my appointment was at 10. So we were a few minutes late but they were running a few minutes late I think because we still had to wait a few minutes before they called me in.

The appointment itself went very well. I still need to exercise more, but at least he can tell I have been exercising and trying to work on my weight. But for the blood tests Julie and I had for our new life insurance quotes I had some liver functions that were elevated. He was concerned about that and wants to retest in about 6-8 weeks. He said my recent illness (bronchitis I think) is probably to blame. So that was good news overall and I left the office pretty pleased.

Then we ran over to the Ford Store. They looked at me like I was stupid when I told them how the car was running. Especially when they took it back into a bay and started it and it sounded fine. I guess I need to videotape it in the morning when I start it. I can't leave it overnight as I need to drive places. My cousin was shaking his head and said "well at least if it blows up you can say you expressed your concern."

That was a waste of time, but at least I did enter my official "might be a problem here" complaint. Then we came home and had lunch. "A" came over and Grace was really excited to see her. They played for a while and then we ran and got the new tile. My salesman was leaving as we got there, so I just went in and waited for someone to help...and waited...and waited. I wasn't impressed; especially when someone finally did help me they didn't really seem like they wanted to. I tried to ask if they carry the carpet we want just to see how much it would cost and he was like "I don't know if we carry that or not, I guess I could go look." I just said never mind.

But when I got the tile home and put a few pieces down on the floor, it looks great! It was a good idea to get different tile because this tile IMHO looks much nicer than the old tile. We just love it. Can't wait to have it put in!

For some reason my computer was acting up today. It was really sluggish and wouldn't connect to any IM service. It wouldn't open any pictures in my emails and eventually wouldn't respond to anything. Finally later this evening I rebooted for a second time and it appears to be working normally now. But in the meantime since it wasn't really working I was using my new laptop. Well I was about to type in a new address in my browser and all of a sudden the laptop just turned off. I wasn't able to revive it AT ALL. It wouldn't work plugged in, didn't work with the battery, it just didn't work at all. So after dinner I ran over to Circuit City and they exchanged it for a new one. It was the power regulator where you connect the power cord to the back. It for some reason failed. Hopefully it won't happen again. I don't want to make this a regular occurrence. They even switched out the hard-drives so I don't have to do all that work again installing all the updates.

For dinner tonight we grilled some pizzas we got from Market Day. They were really good. I had never considered grilling a pizza before. It really added to the flavor.

Tomorrow a wallpaperer is coming over to give us an estimate for putting up the wallpaper on the ceiling in the family room. Hopefully she does it; the first wallpaperer I called didn't do ceilings. I had called an electrician I know through Grace's gymnastics class about putting in some recessed lighting in the Family Room before we put up the wallpaper and paint it. I'm thinking it will be 100 times easier before the wallpaper goes up to take care of that. He never called me back, so I called a relative and he said to call him after we're back from vacation and we can setup a time. That'll be nice too to have because the lighting down in the family room isn't all that great. Speaking of gymnastics, Grace has class tomorrow and I'm supposed to pick up her dance pictures if I don't forget while she's in her gymnastics class.

So how do you feel when you're ignored in a store like I was today? I find it very demeaning. You can't be in business for just your regular customers and forget everyone else. If I wasn't there to only pickup my order, I would have walked out. I just don't have the patience for that anymore. My time is too important to spend waiting for someone else to acknowledge my existence.

Newest Tile

Hello everyone! Today was a fairly relaxing day for us. Grace was at her Aunt's house for most of the day, so we got to sleep in a little this morning. Then we went to the tile store to pick out some new tile that would work better in our entryway. We found a good one! Here is the picture:




Unfortunately, or fortunately, we really can't use a border strip with these tiles, so it will just be a straight tile job. That's good because it will be less expensive, but not so good because we really liked some of the borders we saw. So the details are that this tile is also porcelain and is 12" x 12". I'll need to return the old tile to Lowe's as soon as possible because if I don't I'll end up waiting too long and not be able to return it.

After that we went to the shoe store. I got some new shoes and Julie got some new work shoes. At first I dropped Julie off and ran by the bike store to drop off a poster and some fliers for a bike race we're going to next month. It's called Rolling on the River. You should check it out. It should be a lot of fun. We're planning to go and camp there and are volunteering to help out.

Then we stopped at Best Buy on the way home because I had seen a laptop holder in their ad this week that I may have been able to modify and use in the car. But after we actually saw it we both agreed that it wasn't going to work and that we'll have to just wait and see how the other case we ordered works out.

After a quick lunch and my Aunt bringing Grace home, we headed to my sister's house for some cake and ice cream. They were having a little get-together for my BIL and their daughter's birthdays. Just minutes after getting in the car to drive over there, Grace fell fast asleep and I got a quick picture of her.



Isn't she just adorable? We think so but we are biased. She had a great time at the party with her cousins and we had a good time too talking with everyone. My BIL's father got a new bike recently and so we were talking about biking a lot. My BIL got himself an iPhone for his birthday present. I got to check it out and play with it. WOW is it ever cool. Julie got to talk on it and said the sound quality and reception was good. It's just really cool! If they'd just do the next step and add the few features it's missing (which I didn't know about until today) it might be a must buy for me. But for now considering the price and the fact that our cell phone contracts with Verizon aren't up until late March, it's not feasible for us to even consider it.

For those that are interested, the things it's missing are: GPS capability; It has built-in mapping functions but no GPS so you can't use it for directions from your current location, etc. There is no chat client, only text messaging. You can't personalize the main menu the way you want it, although it might not be necessary. You can't use it as a modem for your laptop. The largest capacity you can buy for the iPod functions is 8 Gb which would be plenty for me for the music I like to carry, but if you want to carry movies or TV shows to watch that's pretty useless. The user interface, while VERY slick, is a little confusing at first. There is only one navigation button and it takes you to the main menu every time you press it. So if you are surfing the internet, it leaves that application running and takes you back to the main menu. I found myself clicking a lot to get to something different. You can't edit or do anything with office documents like Word or Excel files. It doesn't have a To-Do list and it requires a 2-year contract even though you've thrown $500+ on the phone itself. Please note this doesn't mean I don't like it. I REALLY like it, I'm just pointing out the things I noticed that it didn't have that I WISH it did.

Oh, I forgot to mention yesterday that we finally bought an indoor bike trainer to use in the winter or on bad weather days. We of course don't really have room to use it in the exercise area of our basement yet, but we will. I'm really excited to finally have one. I've been wanting one for years and it was finally just the right price so we got it. I've got it put together already but haven't tried it out yet. It's a rim-drive model because since I have a mountain bike that's the only type of trainer I can use. Julie has a hybrid (part mountain bike, part road bike) and so she could have used pretty much any trainer, but I needed the rim drive one.

I also forgot to mention that we went and picked out paint colors for our family room yesterday! Can you hardly believe it? I'm really excited about that too. The medium color is the upper portion of the walls. The lightest color is for the trim and the darker color is for the bottom of the walls which will have a special textured wallpaper hung first. They only had one gallon of the black paint for the ceiling so we'll have to go back and get the second gallon later. But that's alright because we still have to install some recessed lighting and hang the wallpaper on the ceiling before we can paint it anyway. Here is how they look together:



So this means I can finally paint the bookcase I made and we can start using it! YEA! And our room will start to look the way we want it too instead of "builder beige." I'm so very sick of that color! I swear every room in our house was that color when we moved in. It has got to go! No more builder beige!

Well, that'll have to be enough for today as I'm falling asleep now. Goodnight!

Date (Shopping) Day

Julie and I were dropping Grace off at her Aunt's house so we could go out to lunch and out for a date, but it turned into more of a shopping trip than anything. We made it to Algonquin to eat at Cheeseburger in Paradise which was just alright. It wasn't a special burger, but the strawberry lemonade was good and the onion strings were really good too. After that we wanted to run over to Lowe's to look around and pick out some paint colors for the upstairs bathroom.

First though we stopped at a home theater store and were looking at furniture. They really only had one brand Barcolounger. They obviously aren't new to the furniture business as they've been in that business for about 70 years, but they are new to the theater seating furniture business and their prices likewise show that as they are trying to regain some of their R&D dollars by charging so much for their product. So we probably will stick with the furniture we have already picked out but we did learn a few new things. If you get the power version of the theater chairs it will stop in the position you stop it in. If you have the manual version which generally operates just like a normal recliner, you only have a few positions it will stop in. So the power option is the way to go; something we had never considered.

We also discovered another option for a row of seating. It's a HUGE bean bag chair that would seat two adults and probably 3-4 kids. It looked really comfy and I think it'd be a great option. Plus when you don't need it you can store it somewhere else and have the extra room.

After that we headed over to Lowe's and found the tile section. We ended up buying new tile for our entryway. Not sure when I'll start installing it, but we got the tile. There was a matching border that went with it, but it was quite expensive and we aren't sure we want to spend the money, but after bringing it home and laying it on the floor to see how it looks, we REALLY like it and we just might end up going back to get more.

We also brought our picture from our trip to Michigan earlier this year where we were on the beach and got some great shots of the sky, the water, and the sand (and even Grace.) This was what we were looking for to pick colors to paint our upstairs bathroom and when we got there to the beach, we both knew that as long as the pictures translated the colors the way we saw them that it would be perfect. It did take us a few minutes, but the colors we picked are really close. I brought home some of the actual sand from the beach and we brought that with us too. So we have some really good colors picked out. I can't wait to work on that too! Here is the picture we based the colors on:



Here are the colors we selected:



Here is the new entry tile we bought and the one strip of the border we bought:



Here is the one sample I already painted for the ceiling of the family room:



I'll finish painting the other sample tomorrow and add that picture then.

Swimming in Hot Weather

Grace had VBS today and I had to wake her up at 8:45 to get her to church at 9:00am. After I dropped her off I came home so I could get the driveway seal coated. Today was the right day and they were here to do it. I'm so glad I had this company (Adolfo's Sealcoating - Waukegan - 847-782-0758) do it because they did a really nice job; much nicer than the previous company we had. They didn't get any of the sealer on the brickwork that butts directly against the blacktop and there isn't any on the sidewalk either. It was worth every penny!

After that I worked on the DVD recorder and transferring video. I got one show transferred to DVD using the regular video output from my camcorder. So now I can just transfer it this way. It's not how the recorder is supposed to work, but it is working. After this "A" and I went to pick up Grace from VBS. We got there a couple minutes early and were able to hear them all practicing their songs they are going to sing tonight for their mini-concert. It was really cool and actually a little moving. It's pretty cool to listen to 500 kids sing the same song and sing it so well!

After that we were headed to her friend from dance class's house for a swim party. We stopped at Culvers for lunch first and then headed over there. We stayed there until 3:30 because it's impossible to get her to leave any place, let alone when she's having fun swimming. And she did have a good time and so did "A" I think. It was really refreshing to get in a nice cool pool when it's so warm out. The official high today was 87° with 73% humidity here in Grayslake, but my car said it was 90°; although that's only 3 degrees difference. Then we had to stop at the local paint store and return some wallpaper and fabric samples. We're trying to create and finalize our decorating plan for our family room downstairs here. The overall theme is Academy Awards/Kodak Theater. We know we want red velvet drapes that imitate a movie theater, and that old tyme look of the old movie theaters. So I showed her the patterns Julie and I liked and she picked from those the ones she thought the most in line with what we're looking to do. For those she ordered some samples for us to use in determining which one we really want and what color to paint the room in. She suggested we start by deciding what to do with the ceiling both with wallpaper and color and what furniture we want to put in the room as well. After that we can finalize any plans for the walls, etc.

After that we finally came back home. Grace and "A" only had about 30 minutes to play before "A" had to go home. Then Grace went to play at her friends house across the street. I went with to make sure it was alright that she go over there and then I ended up staying and talking to her friends dad. It's nice to have adult conversations. He asked me to fax something for him so I came back home to do that and Julie was already home (oops!) and she was wondering where I had been. We didn't have much time because we needed to get back to church so Grace could do her mini-concert/ice cream social. So I sent the fax and then we were getting ready to go when I realized (pit in bottom of stomach) that I had washed the shirt she was supposed to wear again tonight and forgot to put it in the dryer. So it was soaking wet and I put it in the dryer because we did have a "few" minutes before we had to leave. While it was in the dryer I went to retrieve Grace from across the street. She didn't go too willingly, but it didn't take too long. When I got back Julie had already taken the shirt out of the dryer and it wasn't really dry yet, but it wasn't too bad. She held it in front of the A/C outlets in the car and that helped it dry some more.

Once we were in the gymnasium, it was warm enough to dry anything, so her shirt was dry when we were done. But anyway the concert was really cute and Grace did a great job. I shot video of it and will put that up on her website soon. Then since Julie and I hadn't had dinner we left without the ice cream. We wanted to go somewhere that we could have both and we headed over to DQ in Round Lake. We waited in line and come to find out they don't serve food after 8pm. So we didn't get dinner tonight, just dessert. Guess we should have just stayed and had free ice cream at the church. Hindsight is still 20/20.

Then we came home and I had to call the police since we can't park in the driveway. We can't park in the street without permits unless we call and tell them we're parking there. And since my little "run-in" with the local police recently we don't want to take any chances. By the way, still no updates/no word on our new car; and no update on the rebuttal I sent to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan about our issue with