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.

Mon, Tue, Wed/Fourth of July

I've been a little busy with projects around the house and so I haven't written lately. Monday was depressing because of what my last post said. I've been hearing from more and more people that tell me they've sent emails to Dan Marks the owner of Libertyville Lincoln Mercury. So that makes me feel a little better. Thank you to everyone whom has done that! We had dinner at our friend across the street's house Monday night. They made buffalo that they bought from a vendor at the Grayslake Farmers Market. Wow was it really good! Very lean and tasty. We drank some beer and a lot of wine though and so it was good our "commute" was short because I couldn't have driven home. :-)

Tuesday was gymnastics and since Grace was up late Monday night she was really dragging at class. But I think most of the girls in her class were dragging. Miss Debb, her teacher, was trying to get all of them into it but they weren't responding very well. Grace did seem to kind of wake up about half way through the class. After that we just hung out for a while and then a guy that lives down the street stopped by. He is a tile-guy and was stopping to give us an estimate for putting the new tile in our entryway. He recommended that we get smaller tile. The tile we bought was 18" x 18" and he thought that 12" x 12" would fit better considering the size of our entryway. He also thought the edge piece we picked up was too small and would be lost with the trim piece we'll put over the transition from the tile to the hardwood. So we'll have to return this tile and find something more appropriate. He was over for about a half-hour and explained everything very well. I've heard absolutely nothing but good things about him and about his work plus he has 29 years of experience. So no matter the cost I'm sure he's worth it. He called later to tell us the price and it was more than I expected which is what another neighbor said to expect. But like I said, quality is what we're after and since it's the entryway and the first thing you see when you enter our house, I'd like it to be perfect.

Today was the 4th of July and we didn't really do much. I had finished painting a shelf I wanted to hang in the dining room to put my cactus's on, but I had a few difficulties hanging it so I'll have to make a quick trip to the hardware store tomorrow. Lets just say that hanging shelves on drywall isn't the easiest combination. We went to Julie's sister's house for a picnic this afternoon. We had a really fun time and Grace wouldn't hardly get out of the pool. She's going to sleep good tonight! Our lawyer was there and so we talked about our "issue" and now we have a new line of offense to start implementing.

So that is the last three days in a nutshell. We got a whole inch of rain last night. And it was humid today; hot and humid. Now we're hearing the nightly barrage of mortar rounds outside. I'm so glad fireworks are illegal here or else we might have to hear mortar rounds outside every night, ha-ha. As a veteran, I feel very strongly about my country and I'm glad to live here and I'm very happy we are a free country, etc., etc., etc. However, fireworks just don't do anything for me. Especially when we are in a drought and fire is not our friend and since the larger fireworks are illegal here. I just don't get it. I'm tired of everyone in this country only caring about themselves and not about anyone else or our country.

Speaking of our country, did you hear about Al Gore's son getting arrested today for driving his Toyota Prius at about 100 mph on the highway in California? And then they found drugs both illegal and prescription (and he didn't have a prescription for them.) Oops! Daddy's not gonna like that one.

And then in Wichita Kansas a woman was stabbed in a convenience store and people were stepping over her and taking photos with their cell phones instead of calling for help. She later died at the hospital. What is this country coming too? Do we care about ourselves so much that a person can lay dying and we'll stop to take a picture while picking up some Gatorade, and not help them? This is absolute disregard for human life. I guess I'm just old-fashioned since I believe in the old adage that you treat others how you'd like to be treated. That's what we try to teach Grace. That's what my parents taught me and that's also what the bible says. So why doesn't anyone do this any more? Are these the same people that are "horrified" at the number of civilians being killed in Iraq?

That's another issue I'm just sick of hearing about. U.S. troops are not killing civilians, and if they happen too it's not intentional, it's Al-Qaeda and the insurgents that are doing that along with killing our troops too. Does everyone really want Iraq to become another Vietnam just to prove how "wrong" President Bush was about this war? He won't be in office for much longer and I don't think "proving" anything about him, right or wrong, is going to improve our situation in Iraq or help us to select our next president. I don't blame President Bush at all for what has transpired and I think he did the right thing. Whether we should be there or not right now is no longer the point. The point now is what will happen if we just walk away without stability in the country. Granted the other side of the story is that stability will never come while we are there. But I personally feel it will be much worse without our presence.

Alright, that's enough ranting. Tomorrow will be here before long and I need some rest.

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°.

sickness

Julie stayed home sick today, but really all three of us were sick. I went to the doctor because apparently I have a canker sore on my tongue. It was so big and it hurt so much I didn't know what it was. The doctor told me to get more sleep. Should have seen that coming.

Today was Grace's first day of her new gymnastics class. Wow are these kids advanced! Grace did really well though and she even made it through the whole two hours with no problem. Julie ended up coming for a little while just to watch because she really never gets to see her do any of this stuff. So she drug herself out of bed and drove on up to Antioch. And then she went right back home and back to bed I think. Grace and I went to get gas up in Wisconsin; her gymnastics place is only 1.2 miles from the state line and over the line it's only $2.99. So that's a no brainer! Then we went to get her some flip-flops or crocs; it was up to her. And all she's been talking about is flip-flops, but the only flip-flops they had at the place we went was croc flip-flops, and she didn't like them so she ended up with crocs which is what I would have rather she bought anyway.

Then we came home too and we all had lunch and soon after that is when I went to the doctor. Then after dinner a financial adviser came over to go over our current investment portfolio and he told us that basically we are on track to retire a little early and he says we should be able to buy a vacation/second/retirement home in about 10 years. We'll see! It sounds a little scary to us!

Then since we were all tired and sickly we were all getting ready for bed. But Grace had gone to play at "A"'s house so Julie went to go get her, but then I came out too and was talking to her dad. He was telling us about an accident he had at work. He basically got electrocuted, but it wasn't your standard 110 or even 220, it was more than that. He's alright, but apparently he's going to take a few days off as his work wants him too I think. So we will get some much needed rest tonight and hopefully be better tomorrow.

Day after Fathers Day

What a difference a day makes. Fathers Day is definitely over...any leeway I may have received yesterday has been withdrawn today; tempers appear to be short. That's all I'll say.

I forgot to mention yesterday that the articles did print in both papers over the weekend. Grace and I made the front page of the Daily Herald; a cute picture of us kissing before taking her to VBS. This article was really nice! It seemed more well developed, better written and just a much better article than the one in the News-Sun. No offense to the News-Sun, I just liked the writing the author of the Daily Herald article did better. Now I know why we subscribe!

The video is up on the News-Sun website now and it's really good. Julie's giving me a hard time about what I say, but it's a nice video.

So this morning we waited for "A" to come over, but she didn't so I called her Dad and he reminded us that she has summer school in the mornings. So that's why she wasn't here first thing this morning. I guess that'll be for the next 6 weeks. After she did come home we went out to eat lunch because Grace didn't want to leave the house in the morning to go to the grocery store. Then we stopped to pick up some pictures we had printed and came back home. Grace and "A" played for the rest of the afternoon and her friend from across the street came over to play later.

That's about it for today, nothing exciting. Her friend from across the street's Mom made it home safely yesterday from her home country where she had been last week for work and for a short vacation also. Tomorrow will be the test for both Grace and I as we have to be at gymnastics by 8:00am in Antioch. At least it rained a little today and hopefully that cold front they've been promising is whats coming through because I'm ready for cooler weather!

Another Tuesday

Well it's Tuesday which means we've got gymnastics. This was the last week of gymnastics before the summer session starts and they called last week and asked us to come in at 10:00am instead of Noon. So we got there almost right at 10:00 and Miss Deb wasn't there. We got inside to find out that she wasn't going to be there because she was doing something for school with her son and that Grace was just going to have open gym instead of class. All of us parents said that if we'd known that, we wouldn't have come. So anyway, we all stayed and the girls all played around but I think they were bored. Grace's friend from class invited us to their end of school party at Centennial Park just down the street from gymnastics which was really nice.

So we went there after gymnastics and Grace had a wonderful time. She got to play with her friends and made some new friends. Unfortunately it was a little cold today, I think the high was only 61 and we didn't bring clothes for Grace to change into, but at least we had jackets and sweatshirts. She never said she was cold and of course she was running around a lot. I was kind of cold, but my sweatshirt was enough to keep me warm.

After that I got gas at the cheapest place I know of around here in Antioch which was $3.33/gal which was cheaper than their sign said $3.39. So that made me a little happy. Then we went to Menards to get a new toilet flushing mechanism as ours broke in the downstairs bathroom. Actually this is kind of cool (I know; how can a toilet flush mechanism be interesting right?) Well, it's called something like silent or quiet flush and they aren't using false advertising. That toilet is really quiet now when you flush it. Alright maybe it's not so exciting, but it's interesting. I never gave much thought to the volume of my toilet when it flushes, have you?

Alright, enough of that subject. We also got Grace a new kite. I had bought her one last year at like Jewel or somewhere and it was completely useless. We couldn't keep it in the air longer than 10-15 seconds. Apparently you get what you pay for so I saw these kites at Menards for like $10 or maybe a little less and found one that looked kind of cool - nothing really for girls - and got it for her. This was the new Menards up in Antioch by the way and I just have to say WOW that place is cool. They have a very large selection including things you wouldn't expect like food (just packaged food) and the lumber yard is not just indoors like at most Menards, but it's inside the store - heated, cooled, etc. I heard they had a good selection of plants, but we never made it over there. I also got a rain gauge so I know when to water the lawn. Until this week, we hadn't really gotten much rain so my yard was looking horrible.

They didn't have my grass trimmer attachment either, so I guess I'll have to call around and check the internet etc. because the areas that you would normally trim are looking really bad. And since we pay someone to come and fertilize the yard, it's the least I could do to keep things looking good. Speaking of which, I REALLY need to mow the back yard now. It's looking like a field and I'm not sure when it will be dry enough to cut. I'm pretty sure it won't be dry enough tomorrow since we also have a chance for rain again tomorrow afternoon. Then it's supposed to be like 92 on Thursday so maybe Friday is a possibility. We'll see. Thank goodness I mowed the front yard when I did or the neighbors would disown us.

So after the short shopping trip, Grace and I came home. She had already had lunch at the park so I needed to eat something. Then she went to play with her friend next door. Today was the day to pick up Market Day at our church while Grace was still at her friends house. So I stopped over to ask if it was alright if she stay there while I ran to church (not literally.) They said it was no problem so I ran and got that. Just before I got home Julie called and wondered where I was. I thought I'd be back home before she got there but I was off by about a minute I think.

So we all kind of hung out for a while and I made dinner for Grace - I ate my lunch really late and wasn't hungry and I don't think Julie was very hungry either because she couldn't decide what she wanted. I offered to cook something for her but that didn't seem to help her decide either. Then while Grace was eating her friend from across the street came over and said they were riding their bikes to the library and wondered if we wanted to come with. I definitely did because I needed the exercise, but Julie couldn't decide because she was still trying to decide what to eat. But she decided to come along and just eat something later which is usually ice cream :->

So we all rode to the library and it's like 55 degrees outside in June - just crazy! We were all bundled up, the girls with their gloves on and everyone with a jacket and/or sweatshirt. The girls were having a blast and we made it there in like record time. Boy was I tired; I think we averaged about 10.6 mph on the way there, and it seemed faster. Maybe the jeans I was wearing didn't help - they made my legs feel like I was wearing a wool blanket on them. But the next time I ride with shorts my legs will feel really light! So the average speed for the whole trip which was just under 5 miles was 9.8 mph. So we slowed down about 2 mph overall I think on the way back but we made it and now my legs feel like rubber. I should try to ride tomorrow to get my legs moving. We'll see as I'm pretty sure we're going to Great America with another of Grace's friends. He's so cute and the two of them just seem to really like each other. This will be their first "play date" and I think she's excited - and I haven't even told her where we're going yet.

My Aunt from Nebraska called today. She's coming out in July (which is kind of funny because we're going to see her later in July) and was making sure we'd be around and be able to pick her up from the airport and such. So now we have something to look forward to in the beginning of July. We normally go to the Taste of Chicago before the 4th, but we haven't made any plans yet. Maybe we should start working on making those plans and then we'll have even more to look forward to.

Looks like I am going to the Cubs game next Tuesday, so I'll be missing the Village Board Meeting. I've been going to them since March I think. It's really opened my eyes to the things going on in our Village and the surrounding area. But I can miss just this one right? I called my BIL to see if he could go and it looks like he can. So it looks like the three of us are going, should be fun! I've never been to a night game at Wrigley - at least I don't think so.

Oh when I went to the library I got a book about learning Windows Server 2003. I don't know much about it and this'll help me learn how to start playing around with it since I installed it on the computer I got from my Dad. I'm not sure if it'll really work since it's only licensed for development purposes. But I can certainly play around with it until it tells me to stop or something doesn't work when it really should be working. So I now have 10 books checked out of the library. Most of them are stuff for vacation though, so I'm not reading the entire book for those, just trying to get ideas.

Tuesday

Grace slept in today too. I think she's going through a growth spurt or something. She hasn't slept this much in a long time. But she isn't really eating all that much. I think she's getting tired of eating the three things she likes to eat. But that's all she'll eat, so what else can I do.

We had breakfast and went to gymnastics today. While she was doing that I had brought my bike with me and went for a ride. I went a little over 5 miles and averaged about 9 mph. It was hot today. It didn't feel that hot when I was riding but when I was done I realized how much I had been sweating. Then we went over to Highland St which is where my Grampa built his first house. It was a small street, but I have no idea which one he built. Several of the houses were for sale. I had ridden my bike past my great-grandma's house when I was riding and on the way to see Highland St I stopped to let Grace have a glance at it through the car window. She seemed to understand whose it was.

Then we got some lunch and went over to my Dad's house to put his files from his old computer onto his new computer. We stayed for dinner and then came home. Not a very exciting day, but that's alright. Julie went to the Cub's game tonight, and just her luck they lost. My Dad, Grace and I are going on Sunday when they play Atlanta. Alright, I'm tired, so I've got to go.