Preliminary Painting

Grace slept in again today. I wanted to run and get the birthday present for the party tonight after we ate breakfast but the only thing on her mind this morning was "A" and we had to wait for her to get here before we could do anything else. Her friend from down the street called and asked if Grace wanted to go to the park and I mentioned "A" and so she said she'd call after I knew if "A" would want to do that or not.

So "A" comes over and we all went to McDonalds for lunch and then they went to Grace's friends house as she was taking them to the park. So I had a little time to get a few things done before picking them back up. I ran to Wal-Mart and got the gift we needed for party later and a few other things for Grace. Then came home and started painting the wallpaper samples we're going to use on the ceiling in the family room. They look pretty cool. After Grace was in bed I stuck one of the samples to the ceiling and we both like it. I think it'll be a focal point and really cool. I just hope it's easier to paint than it was with the little sample bottles of paint that Benjamin Moore sells. But considering that it's a ceiling, I don't think easy will describe anything to do with it's installation or painting.

So then it was time to go and pick up Grace and "A" so we could make it to the party on time. Her friend from down the street wasn't so happy that she was leaving; She wanted to play longer. So Grace and "A" came back here and "A" helped Grace get ready for the party. Then I had her sign the card and we were actually ready to go 10 minutes early! WOW! So Grace and "A" played a quick game of checkers and then Grace and I left to go to the birthday party.

Grace had a wonderful time; a lot of her friends were there and they got to play for at least 2 of the 2 1/2 hours we were there. Julie showed up too; I wasn't sure she was coming because she had called earlier in the day and said she wasn't feeling well and that she would probably just go home. But she stopped and got to spend time with everyone; that was a nice surprise. On the way home we passed this house where all these people were outside holding signs that said "Round Lake Police broke into my house and killed my dog." I'm thinking, Wow that's crazy, how could that happen. So when I got home I asked my neighbor if he knew anything about it. He did - apparently it was a drug bust and when they broke in to arrest everyone their dog started attacking the police so they shot the dog. There's always more to the story isn't there...

It's still warm and very humid. The cool front that came through this afternoon and dropped .27 in. of rain in about 15 minutes including a little hail. But it didn't cool it off too much, plus the humidity didn't go away at all. The weather man says tomorrow will be much better. I sure hope so as it feels like an oven outside with the humidity.

The new gas station just a few blocks from our house opened on schedule today. It'll be nice to have a gas station that close. It's even closer than the Walgreens; that should tell you something seeing as how there are Walgreens on most every corner. The only bad thing is that it's location probably makes it be in Round Lake Park and not Hainesville so the tax revenue won't benefit our town I don't think.

I forgot to mention that I talked to DirecTV yesterday about the issue with the remote control where it's controlling both the High Definition tuner and the new DVR tuner. Yea, that's what its supposed to do and there isn't anything I can do. The two boxes weren't meant to be used right next to each other and that's just how it is. Nice. Then we get a "courtesy" call from them today asking if we're happy with our installation. Yea - couldn't be better.

It's Hot - and did I mention Humid?

Today was gymnastics and of course Grace wanted to sleep in. I woke her up and we made it to gymnastics only a few minutes late. While she was there I ran to the Super Wal-Mart in Antioch to look for a birthday present for a friend of Grace's for her birthday party tomorrow. I didn't find that gift there, but I found something we wanted to get Grace for our trip to Colorado. We got her a Leapfrog Leapster; it'll give her something to do in the car on our trip. Plus if it's something new it'll take her at least 10 minutes to figure out how to use it.

So then I ran to the post office to mail a package to my Mom and came back to get Grace. We had to take the Edge back to the Ford store today and I got my cursory Taurus. It's not pretty, but it's free and it gets us places. Can't complain too loudly. After that we went to pick up the wallpaper for the lower portion of the walls down in the family room. Also we went to Best Buy to get the gift for her friend. Actually what we got will end up being Grace's birthday present; so we'll have to get something else tomorrow for her friend.

Funny thing actually, her friends Dad called tonight to see if we've heard anything about the whole issue with Libertyville Lincoln Mercury. I've been worried about that myselth (the spelling is for Ella) so I called again today to Lisa Madigan's office in Chicago and the message again said they were out of the office. I then called her office down in Springfield and they said that the office in Chicago is where the file is and they couldn't provide any more information. So I guess I'll just have to keep calling or wait for her to call me back since I left a message yesterday.

After that we just took it easy; Grace's friend from across the street came over for a while and then they both went across the street for a while to swim in the little pool they have. Then after Julie made it home we had dinner and I ran out to the Hainesville Village Board Meeting. Good thing I wasn't late as the mayor started 2 minutes early. The big discussion tonight was about the budget. Basically it will be unchanged from last year, with a few exceptions of course. There will be a commercial development at the entrance to our subdivision on Rte. 120. I wondered because a week or so ago they surveyed and marked it so it seemed logical. They talked about the bike path that they are going to put on Hainesville Road from Washington Street down to Rte. 120. Apparently the portion of the path that will go from Washington Street down to the old "Softball City" location will be started in the fall and the portion south of there won't be started until next year.

HainesvilleFest '07 is sounding exciting as there seems to be more activities planned for this year but they need more volunteers. Also August 7th is National Night Out - more info to come later. Apparently IDOT is publishing results of a field test on July 5th and 12th with bidding beginning on July 26th and tentative approval by the board on August 21st (I'm guessing it's repaving.) Also there was a wetlands meeting last Wednesday with little attendance and another is scheduled for Thursday at 7 pm. Trustee Walkington is hoping for more attendance. Personally I had no idea.

By the way, the high here today was 89° with 95% humidity and the dew point is all the way up at 70°.

Pre-Fathers Day

It's Fathers Day weekend if you will and I kind of took the day off. I'll have to make up for it tomorrow. It's just so darn hot outside; 94° with 77% humidity. It's rough to be outside in that weather. I did get up and get Julie's oil changed today, but even that I couldn't get right. Here I assumed (think of the definition of assume) I had everything I needed to change her oil and actually I had none. I had to go to Wal-Mart and get the oil filter and go to Pep Boys (Pimp Girls is what I like to call it) and get some oil. So after I wasted all that time the temperature was already up to 86° but at least the car was still in the shade. So I got her oil changed and didn't spill a drop on our newly sealed driveway. Took a test drive and all seems fine; no leaks upon return either.

So after that I just kind of did a small cleaning of the garage; eg: I threw a few things out that I didn't need. I emptied the old oil drain pan out into my recycling jug to take to the oil recycling place, put all the old oil filters on wire mesh to drain the oil out of them so I can throw them away. They have to drain for 24 hours before you can throw them out in the garbage. So tomorrow I can throw all of them away and be rid of more garbage from the garage. Interesting that garbage and garage only differ by one letter... So you can also gather from all of this that I bought a new oil drain pan today and used that with the oil change I did today. I'll empty that one into the recycling jug tomorrow after that oil filter is done draining into the oil drain pan.

The article I was in was printed in the News-Sun today. It was pretty good...not entirely accurate to what I said, but overall a good article. We bought two copies of the paper and my Dad called and said he had heard from someone else that I was in the paper and since he was out of town to buy him a copy. So I went out later and got another copy. I think the other article will be in the Daily Herald tomorrow.

Alright, I just looked at their website and the article is up already. I just skimmed it, but what I read was really good. A very cool article.

Anyway, most of the afternoon I spent in front of my computer doing various things. And then Julie had a Stampin' Up workshop tonight that unfortunately only one person came too. She's starting to lose confidence in herself to do this since no one ever seems to show up to her classes. I hope she'll hang in there for at least another year, she's good at it and really enjoys it and she needs things she enjoys in her life.

I checked the Regal Cinemas website tonight to check when their free movies for the summer start and what do you know - they start this week! So Grace and I will have to go this week. The two movies this week are "March of the Penguins" and "Barnyard." I'll have to put these on the SAHD's group site to see if anyone else is interested.

Alright, I've got to get some sleep, tomorrow is already here.

Post Cubs Game Tiredness

So I got home late last night from the Cubs game and still had to get up to take Grace to VBS. I'm really dragging today - I have to get more sleep. Grandma (Julie's Mom) came with her today because it was bring a relative/senior day so she got to spend the whole time with Grace. But that time was shortened because we were really late getting there. There was a fatal accident this morning in Grayslake just a few blocks east of the church. So Rte.'s 120 and 83 were closed for three and a half hours this morning. It took us 20 minutes to drive the 2 miles or so to church. Here is the article from the Chicago Tribune. While Grace was in VBS I came back home because I thought my neighbor was having his driveway sealed and I wanted to get mine done too. Apparently I got mixed up because it's actually tomorrow.

So I went to pick Grace up and both her and Grandma had a wonderful time. Grandma was going to Libertyville to buy something afterwards, and Grace and I went to Best Buy and got a cable I needed to transfer video from my camcorder to my DVD recorder. Then we grabbed some lunch and came home because the neighbor that's helping out with Grace this summer (I'll call her "A" from now on) was going to be at our house at 1pm and we were a few minutes late. So then Grace's friend that she always plays with on Wednesdays came over and her friend from across the street. "A" had a really good time with them and had them busy doing all sorts of role playing and other fun stuff. So then I started dinner and "A" went home around 5pm and then Julie came home and we all had taco's. It's so funny that Grace loves tacos. I mean she really gets excited about them. She only puts sour cream and shredded cheese on them, but she usually has two. It's pretty much the only food she gets excited about.

Then Julie was getting ready for her monthly Stampin' Up meeting which she was hosting this month. Right after her friends got here, Grace was saying that the friend from across the street wondered if she could go to the park with her. I was confused because it was 7:30 and they usually get ready for bed then, but she wasn't kidding, they were going. So we all went down on our bikes to the park for a few minutes. I was pulling Grace and her friend from across the street in the trailer on my bike. And her Dad was pulling her sister in another trailer. And then "A" and her brother came with too. So when we got home Julie's meeting was almost over. I helped Grace get in her PJ's and then while Julie was putting her to bed I had to return some books to the library. While I was out I stopped at Wal-Mart to get a few things.

I forgot to mention much about transferring video from my camcorder to the DVD recorder. That's what I was trying to do most of the afternoon while "A" was playing with the girls. I mentioned that I needed a cable. This cable is a firewire cable that you would normally use on your computer to transfer video. But our new DVD recorder has a DV-In port which is firewire, but it's the 4-pin variety and usually on a computer it's the 6-pin. So I needed a 4-pin to 4-pin cable instead of the normal 4-pin to 6-pin cable. That's what Grace and I got at Best Buy (plus the first season of Las Vegas on DVD) and I got it all hooked up and the DVD recorder wasn't showing anything on the TV screen. So I'm thinking their is something wrong with either the cable or the input for the DVD recorder. I wrote LG's customer service and they want me to call about getting it serviced. So I guess tomorrow I'll try using regular video cables and see if that will work. I'll get is serviced later after I get everything transferred (as long as I can without using my computer.) It was very frustrating though especially since I went and bought a special cable to get everything working and then it didn't.

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.

Friday!

So today was Friday - YEA! Grace slept in. I know you're surprised. I sure was - ha, ha! By the time she got up and I got up and showered, it was 11:00 or so. She was watching TV and came downstairs at like 12:00 or 12:15 and wanted to have breakfast. I said you slept through breakfast, it's time for lunch. She wasn't too happy about that, but asked for a grilled cheese sandwich (she only has 3 or 4 choices on her menu.) I said we don't have any cheese (we didn't go to the grocery store this week) how about a peanut butter and sandwich (as she likes to call it.) She finally agreed, so I made one for her and one for me (did I mention we haven't been to the grocery store?) and we had lunch.

I then called a friend to ask what her child would want for their birthday since Grace is going to their birthday party tomorrow. We ended up talking for over an hour and a half, maybe two hours all together. We were talking about our kids and our kids friends and their parents and about how to bring up kids and just a lot of stuff. We never seem to have much time to talk since we are both busy. So it was really nice to talk to this friend.

So after that, Grace and I went to Wal-Mart to get the gifts for the birthday party tomorrow morning. She was a bear in the store. She wanted this and she wanted that and can she have this, AHHH. So I explained that if she didn't ask every 3 seconds for something and that if she helped me pick things out for her friends that we'd get her one thing when we were done. That worked pretty well, but I didn't put a limit on what she could get, so of course she picks a $15 item that wasn't marked with a price. I know that somewhere in the store they have a scanner that will tell you how much it is so we set out to find one. We finally find it on the other side of the store and it doesn't work. So by this point I'm like I don't care how much it is, lets just get OUT OF HERE! So we check out and spend lots of money and leave. I dropped a book off at the library and we came home.

Get home and she watches another episode of Fetch with Ruff Ruffman. Then her best friend from across the street comes over. She really hasn't seen her all week since we've been so busy. Then I look out and see her friends Mom and sister coming over too, so I meet them outside and we were talking. Then Julie comes home and the girls come outside to play chalk on the sidewalk. So we were all outside talking and having a good time and then we realized what the time was and were trying to hurry to get to Julie's parents house. Unfortunately we got over there pretty late - after 7:00pm. But dinner was good and dessert was good and (I was starving since I had only had a peanut butter sandwich) we had a nice relaxing time. And another week is in the books.

But did you catch the Cubs game today? I didn't see much of it since we were at Wal-Mart during most of the game, but holy cow! Apparently either Carlos Zambrano (my favorite Cubs pitcher) is getting really frustrated since his season hasn't been going well or maybe he just didn't like the way Michael Barrett the catcher was calling the pitches, but they actually had fisticuffs in the dugout and in the locker room. It'll be interesting to see how Lou Piniella deals with this. He's a real class guy and I really respect him as a coach. Hopefully he can get this team turned around. I'd say he's had a pretty good impact already even though their record doesn't really show that. I wouldn't think Carlos was upset with Michael for the passed ball (even though that really screwed up the inning) since there really isn't much you can do about that, but you never know.