Month: November 2008

My mom was hosting a “Sip and See” for Suzy and her new baby Graham this afternoon. Suzy and I were in high school together and mom and Joyce, Suzy’s mom, have become good friends in recent years. We kicked the boys and dogs out of the house and had a fun afternoon of snacks, gifts, and baby talk.

After the Sip and See, I ran out to Wade’s Granny and Papa’s for a last good-bye. Then Mom, Melissa, Chris, Wade, and I ventured downtown to try a new restaurant. Who would have thought Paducah would have a Brazilian steak house? It didn’t quite rank up there with Fogo de Chao in Atlanta, but it was a fun experience.

I think we are going to run out of friends willing to help us sometime soon. Tonight we called in the young couples from church to get some assistance re-creating the mattress-over-the-balcony that was performed in April. The mattresses have to come out of the nursery to make room for a crib. We don’t have a crib yet, but we are taking a trip to KY, which is where the mattresses are going to be stored. I was hoping they would fit in the basement, but the darn turn in the stairs prevents that. Thank goodness Wade had already decided we needed a trailer.
Thanks to Heidi, Amy, and Nate!!

Wade and I spent the evening decorating the tree. Normally Wade can put up all the lights (yucky job), but not this year. I managed to get the lights up as he finished stringing popcorn. Now we just need some presents under the tree!

To continue our tradition of watching a movie trilogy while decorating for Christmas, we picked the Terminator movies (very much Christmas movies, right?).

I woke up this morning and there was real snow on the ground!! I don’t think it will last very long, but I don’t care. I just have to get my lazy dog out of bed so she can play with me.

On a side note: I now understand Target’s color coded labels for prescription medicines. Wade and I both are usually healthy and rarely have any kind of prescription bottle around the house. I have had my own bottle for a couple of months (prenatal vitamins) and Wade has had some pain pills due to his knee. I woke up this morning and quickly realized my bottle of vitamins was missing, but Wade’s pain medication was still on the counter. I called him and sure enough he had grabbed the wrong bottle on his way out the door. This really isn’t a big deal for me – I can take my vitamins anytime. Poor Wade had to come back home at lunch because he needed some pain killers.

Wade and I had big plans for today. We wanted to cut down our own Christmas tree! We had a little trouble finding a Christmas Tree Farm open before Thanksgiving, but Wade persevered. Because there are so few people before Christmas, the place doesn’t run the big wagon for everyone. Instead they give you a little cart (like a dolley) to bring your tree in on. This would normally be fine, but Wade’s knee is still pretty weak and I’m not quite as strong as I normally am. Needless to say I am sure we were quite a site. We did find the perfect tree and after much laughing and pulling and pushing we got it home. We also decided to leave it on top of the car for the night because we were both too tired to bring it inside.

I made a quick run to the grocery store and then started cooking. Amber and Nick, from across the street, had invited us over for their annual Friendsgiving. We had a great time, ate lots of yummy food, and met a ton of people. It turns out Wade does like green beans – when I cook them the way mom does. Grandma’s macaroni and cheese was a huge hit and I ate way too many servings of it myself. Wade’s knee has really been bothering him this weekend so we had to leave on the early side so he could stretch out and take some drugs.

I had another doctor’s appointment (I have been more this year than total in my life) and everything is fine. The nurse did make fun of me for gaining only a pound between this visit and the last. Nobody seemed worried and I’m not complaining. I have bought some maternity clothes, but I haven’t worn them yet. My favorite jeans still fit (love low-rise jeans) and my winter sweaters are still comfortable. I am down to one pair of dress pants, but since I only wear them to church I am in no rush there either. (Don’t get me wrong – a bump is now noticeable regardless of what I wear).

Wade and I have had quite a few items that we wanted to sell, but we haven’t gotten around to listing them. This week Wade finally got serious about the selling. He sold our first TiVo and got a lot more than we expected. He also finally listed his car. We’ve been meaning to sell it ever since he bought the Audi, but with his knee surgery it never happened. Now it is cold and we would love to use our garage and have one less car in the driveway. He listed the car last night and sold it tonight. The car wasn’t worth much and he listed it on the low side to sell quickly (love Craig’s list), but we were both surprised at the response he got. The car is gone and now we have some extra money for fun new stuff – like a snow blower.

I love Milwaukee! Up till now we’ve had some flurries, but today we had serious flurries. As I am typing the roofs are white and the non-paved ground has some white. We aren’t supposed to get any accumulation, but it makes me happy.

Update: It turns out there was more snow than I realized. When I went to take Madison out there was about 1/2 inch on the ground. Yippee!

Wade came home last Thursday not too happy. He had taken off his wedding ring in the shop and put it in his pocket. Later that day he realized he didn’t have it on, but it was no longer in his pocket. (The funny part here is Wade no longer takes his ring off every time he sits down – only in the shop.) He was 90% sure it fell out of his pocket when he was in physical therapy. He even went by there to check the locker room for himself, but couldn’t find the ring. He spent the weekend wearing Uncle Frank’s ring, but was still annoyed about misplacing his. When he arrived at physical therapy today they had the ring! Evidently someone turned it in a few minutes after he left. So for now the count is still 3 rings in 4 years.

I always have a large list of things to get done before we have visitors. Daniel and Karen arrive tonight and the list included painting Wade’s office, painting the nursery door, and rehanging the nursery door. (Not to mention the cleaning, ironing, grocery shopping, etc.) It was late, but I got it all done. The door to the nursery is painted and hung. Wade’s office has painted trim, touched up wall paint, and a painted ceiling. The doors will have to wait for another day.
Before:

After:

We turned on the heat in the house a few weeks ago, but my office is still cold. A room full of single paned windows and no radiator is not good in Milwaukee. Wade had been hunting for a radiator but couldn’t find one to match our existing ones. Then he had the great idea of moving a radiator in the upstairs hall to the sunroom. The upstairs is always warmer than the downstairs and we are rarely up there except to sleep. We moved the radiator in to my office, but when Wade was installing it he stripped the threads on the piping. He was stumped so we called in a professional. After a week of waiting and a second visit, the man got it installed. I am now sitting in my nice warm office typing away. I love heat.

I love the snow! I knew today’s high was around 32 and snow was predicted, but I didn’t really think it would snow. We saw flurries on the way to church and they continued all day. Nothing stuck to the ground, but it still put a big smile on my face!

There are some projects I just can’t seem to start. Wade completed the closet doors and my only job was to remove the paint that had ended up on the windows. Normally this takes a straight razor blade and a few minutes. The kicker is the glass is textured and the paint was down in the grooves. Thank goodness the paint was latex and Judy told me Krud Kutter would remove latex paint. I did enough experimenting to verify it would work and then still couldn’t seem to finish. Well I did it – finally! It took three hours, a toothbursh, sponge, and dental pick, but the windows look great.

The only thing left is the top piece of molding around the door baseboards. Wade found a local place to reproduce the trim, but we haven’t installed it yet.

It seems that every house requires different tools, even if I am basically doing the same job. At the last house I was painting everything -walls, trim, ceiling, etc. My favorite tools were a heat gun and a belt sander. In this house, my favorite tools are my heat gun and an orbital sander. I think the type of sander has more to do with whether the trim was painted before (yes in the old house; no in the current house). The bad news is I am evidently hard on orbital sanders.

In the last few months I have managed to break all three of the sanders we owned – 2 porter cables and one Milwaukee. Granted we “acquired” them all used and they had already been fixed by Wade at least once before. Wade finally had enough and bought me a new Ridgid random orbital sander. I used it to finish up the sunroom and was quite pleased with how it worked. Wade picked it up to finish a door and it wouldn’t work. I claimed innocence – it was fine when I used it. He said history showed otherwise. We’d only had it a week so he returned it to Depot and got a new one, but I’m beginning to wonder if I am just bad luck.

Now for a trick to painting stained trim. I have mentioned in the past the trouble I have had with painting. No where on the internet or the local stores could I find a solution to both the stain showing through and the cracking. My best option had been to use the orbital sander with 60 grit sandpaper to try and remove all the varnish/shlack and then use Zinser BIN to seal the stain. If cracking occurred I would sand some more and apply a second coat. It was a messy, tedious process. Then by accident I discovered that my heat gun will remove the varnish/shlack. In fact, it works easier on varnish/shlack than paint. Then I can do a quick sand and paint – with no sanding in between coats or additional coats of Zinser. Too bad I realized this towards the end of my painting. Another quick fact – spackle actually works on the cracking wonderfully – especially for those areas that are almost impossible to sand.

Wade called me to his computer sounding very excited. Evidently he has just discovered that one of his favorite t-shirt websites, Threadless, now sells onesies. He now has something baby-related that he can get excited about. I have to admit that I was shocked he knew what a onesie was.

My dining room is getting closer and closer. Wade had bought a new light on Sunday, but didn’t start to install it until after the stores had closed. Turns out that there wasn’t actually a box in the ceiling, only a threaded screw. For once he didn’t have the necessary box on hand so the project was delayed till today. Now I have an installed light that is much improved over the original (which is going for free on craig’s list). The only thing left in the dining room is the windows – which are in my garage. The big question is when will Curtis come to install them?

Not to be outdone, I did stuff today too. I spent the afternoon in the basement organizing and rearranging my storage area. I am trying to convince Wade we have plenty of room to store the mattresses currently living in the nursery and our old kitchen table.

Well we were those people. We showed up to church an hour early – in time for the last few minutes of early church. Darn time change. Now the big question is do we go back at the appropriate time?

Update – It turns out we did not make it back to church. Wade’s knee was hurting so he took a long nap and I did some work. Then we were super productive – raking leaves; buying a new dining room light fixture (which is partially installed); tried a paint color for the nursery walls; cooked a few meals to freeze for Wade; and I finished off with ice cream with the girls.

Wade and I bought a dining room table today. When we moved to Milwaukee and got pregnant, we realized Wade probably wouldn’t have time to build us a dining room table for quite a while. Our old kitchen table was a little too small for the room. Thus began the hunt for a hard wood, but not too expensive, table. We finally found one we liked at World Market. Today it was on sale and we saved 10% by opening an account with them. Wade spent the afternoon assembling it as he listened to the GaTech football game on the radio (They won).