Ok, so here's the situation: Trinity and spiders

So, I crawled under the house yesterday. The spiders were a little irritated, I think, but for the most part they kept quiet. In fact, I only saw one that was alive, although I confess that I wasn't looking too hard. That one spider (must have been a female) was right in my way on the drain pipe that I needed to work on. Of course, it had to give me a piece of her mind about going where I didn't belonged. I tried to point out that it was my house, but since it wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise, I squashed it. Conversation over.

Getting my large frame down there was fun (not) but my boys thought it was cool. I remember really thinking it was neat when my dad was under the house and I remember crawling under too. But i figured my boys would be a little more squeamish and be afraid of the spiders, but boys will be boys and they got under right along with me. Alas, I had no luck getting the cap off the pipe. But I did find out that the drain line isn't as elevated as it should be which is probably related to why it drains so poorly much of the time. But, I learned that I didn't want to run any more bathrooms into that line. So, I get to run a new line. Although that doesn't sound like fun, at least I can do that more on my own terms and can stay out from under the house.

Thankfully, Trinity hasn't met any spiders yet, but I bet they wouldn't scare her. I mention her because it's just the two of us @ home right now. My stomach was bothering me so I stayed home from church and Rebekah left Trinity. She has really bonded with me. I can usually get her to stop crying when nobody else can and if she's really upset a sing a little song to her that is set to "Chim, Chiminey, Chim Chim, Cheroo" and so far that always works. Obviously parents shouldn't have favorite offspring, but is it wrong to return the same affection to a child that seems to prefer you? Me not sure. I've been working harder to spend more time with Clell to avoid any expensive psychiatry bills for him in the future, but although he likes to try and rip my face off, he seems to prefer the mom vs "not the mom." So, striking a balance is always fun. I have Trinity as the wallpaper on my phone and Rebekah has Clell on hers. I think it balances out right?

Spiders fear me

Not the other way around. Well, that's what I tell myself at least. I'm going to crawl under the house and try to break open the plug on the cast iron pipe underneath my house. I'm realistic. I doubt I can do it, but I need to try. I'll let you know how it goes.

Boressed

a combination of bored and stressed. I'm at Carl's Jr. right now with the four oldest children. I've got my cool little netbook running Ubuntu netbook remix (linux) and connected to the free wifi. Pretty cool, but a little paranoid that somebody will steal my baby. Not my children. they make too much noise.

Why am I here? because I'm such a good husband and father? Not really. because I was hungry. True, but that's not the reason. Maybe I'm trying to pick up a single mom? Nice guess, I wouldn't have thought of that one, but no. For the free wi-fi? Not that desperate. Because my wife needed to work on finances and asked me to? Wow, you're good! But right now, I'm wondering just how much work my wife is getting done since I see she's posting to facebook. I might have to nominate her to midget status if she's not careful :)

I saw a friend who used to work @ woodgrain today. He and his wife have finally decided to join the rest of zombies and reproduce. The Bible says be fruitful and multiply but I think most people divide. either 2/1 and have two kids or 2/2 and have one kid. Rebekah and I took it to heart and multiplied by 3.

My back has been hurting me prety bad, and I think I've figured out it's something in my neck. I've had a pain in my neck lots of times but they're usually of the child variety.

Titus doesn't feel well, so I'd better post this and check on him. he tends to get sick when he's tired and playing.

Bonding with the boys

I think it's interesting that "they" (not sure who they is) seem to think that in order to spend time with your kids you have to have "quality time" or direct interaction. My Dad always stated that he thought "quantity time" was more important and I think I agree. Forrest and I started watching Dr. Who and now the boys are hooked and ask regularly to watch it. Since it's a good show with a minimum of language I've been letting them watch it with me. Every once in awhile I have to brace myself ask one of them comes racing over to cower by me because something scary is going on, but it's pretty mild stuff. I compare it to some of the old radio programs that I listen to. Lots of suspense and that combined with "bad guys" and aliens seems to be a winning combination for us guys. I was amused to hear Titus and Forrest playing Dr. Who tonight after dinner. Somehow, playing star wars makes sense to me but Dr. Who? I guess they like it more than i thought :)

Well, after I worked on my fire hazard over the weekend I forced myself to go outside and try to do something with my squealing truck. At least that way I got away from the squealing girls. Anyway, I was pretty sure that it was a belt that was loose, but since I'm not a mechanic like the rest of family I'm stumbling around in the dark. So, Forrest and I went outside and he helped me put the truck on ramps and get things together. I was really pleased with the little bugger. Granted, he's a bit more motivated since when he does well I put some money towards his "Super Mario Brothers Galaxy" fund. But since the kid has been wanting it for at least a year it definitely won't be an impulse buy. The good news i think the noise was just a loose alternator belt. If not, well, I guess I'll just have to club a midget in sacrifice to the car gods and try again.

Tonight I decided that I needed to cut something and my finger still hasn't healed so I got my saws out and started working on making a crawl space in one of our bathroom closets. In case you haven't guessed, using power tools is therapeutic. So, after a couple hours cutting and whatnot, I now have a big hole in the floor. All in a days work right? I am looking forward to communing with the spiders and crawling down there soon to try to tap into the plumbing.

Must do something

Right now I haven't gotten anything accomplished today other than deal with my electrical outlet. I took the outlet out and the house wiring was good and it didn't look like there was anything wrong. So, I put an expensive GFCI outlet in (no wonder I normally shop @ home depot. It cost twice as much in here). I don't think the GFCI will help with that sort of an issue, but it make me feel a little better.

In other news (if you can call it that) our girls had to go cold turkey on Little Einsteins. But after talking to a friend I started recording Clifford and Curious George. Now my government dollars are doing something worthwhile as my girls are rabid Clifford (the big red dog) fans which is broadcast on PBS. And it's free! I think we'll totally cancel the satellite in a couple months (right now it only has "family" programming) and save $30. But, I'm taking baby steps because I love my wife (and to a lesser extent my family).

Except for Trinity. She ties with Mom me thinks.

Fun @ 4

AM that is. We woke up to the sound of an incessant beeping. Rebekah investigated as I was totally out of it. She reported that the breaker had tripped and now it was smoky upstairs. I assumed that without power the pellet stove couldn't vent properly and thus it was the cause of the smoke. We had a oil heater plugged into an outlet and so I figured that tripped the circuit. Odd, but not unheard of. I was holding Clell and so Rebekah in her jammies went out and flipped the breaker. As we debated the cause in the dark, a few minutes later I heard a pop and the power went off again. Again, the brave beka went outside, but this time when she flipped the breaker I heard more pops and flashes of light and then one solid wavering light. While still holding Clell I ascertained that the outlet was emitting something commonly known as "fire." I reached down and unplugged the heater and thankfully the fire went out. But needless to say, we were and are greatly disturbed. It was old wiring in the house and now that we think about it we have had some issues before, just nothing near this magnitude. The power to that circuit is currently off, but I have to turn it back on eventually. I am going to remove the outlet and make sure the wiring up to the outlet is ok. Then, i'll put in a GFCI outlet. My Dad thinks that the problem is with the heater since the problem seems to be external to the plug. I hope this is the case as that's a much easier "fix." I'm gonna go get started working on it and if there's anything eventful I'll post back here. If I don't get electrocuted or burned up in a house fire that is :)

itty bitty polka dot

computer. Well, it's itty bitty at least. No polka dots though. It is blue for what that's worth. I've had my eye on one of these for awhile but didn't really need one. It's a netbook. Too small for most people but perfect for facebook and blogging. I bought it from a friend who is taking the funds and redirecting them towards an iPad. Unfortunately, my wife is eyeing this poor defenseless netbook with a lustful eye. Kind of inappropriate if you ask me. I mean, she is a married woman. But anyway, I am hoping to be able to blog a bit more now. Probably won't really, but the point is that I am happy. I even put Ubuntu Linux Netbook remix on it. Fast little bugger. I think it's pretty amazing myself, but without being able to see it, it's hard to understand. I had it at church tonight (ya know, so I could play Farmville on Facebook during the service) and people just thought it was my Bible. Anyway, I got it for a nice price because I was patient and my friend gets to further Apple's invasion. Win win if you ask me.

It slices, it dices!

my finger that is. I cut my ring finger really bad with a box cutter tonight. Usually, I use dull knives so the damage isn't bad. This cut was deep though, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to stop the bleeding. But, pressure does wonders and a tight bandage seems to be keeping the green (oops. I mean red, my blood is red. not green. nope. no green blood here. move along) RED blood in pretty good. A bit hard to type, but not too bad. The good news is that Titus' little play area is almost done. I have some mudding and trim left to do and Rebekah has to paint it, but I think I'll let the kid move in this weekend. Then I'm onto my super big project--putting a new bathroom in upstairs. Gonna be fun!

Haunting

Most people like Nostalgia. It's cool when it's controlled and all warm and fuzzy, but I just spent an hour going through a couple old shoe boxes of college mementos and sorting out stuff that didn't have any real meaning from stuff that sort of did. Wow, are those some acidic memories. Not necessarily bad, just traumatizing. Of course, going through all that turmoil enabled me to endure the whirlwind romance with Rebekah later on in life. I was watching a documentary on Joseph Goebbels (google it you lazy bums) and they read from his diary. Man, I guess everybody has the same emotional problems regarding love (and life). Even my friend Kelly admits to being human in this area at some point in his life. Anywho, I found some neat stuff including a MAC-10 tie tack my Dad sent me. Well, nothing incredibly pithy or anecdotally amusing, just some mental drivel emitting since the house is quiet.