3 little piggies

I mean daughters. and in no way am i implying that they're pigs. Well, libby likes her Ramen but not a pig by any means. So, I am watching Dexter, ya know the show about the happy go lucky serial killer, Well, not happy go lucky but a serial killer with a heart. Well, not that either. Ok, well, all the judging aside on why I'm watching such a sick show (try it, I dare you) I was watching an episode and a guy (not Dexter) told his daughter that he wished she'd never been born. And wouldn't you know it, I found some emotions. Buried underneath some peanut shells (i was snacking earlier) I found something kind of shriveled and dried up. I think it's an emotion, not really sure. But I felt some weird pang when I picked it up. Not sure what it was for sure, but I suddenly felt a compelling need to go hug my daughters. So I went upstairs in the dark. I went in the girls room and I could hear Liberty and Serenity but then I felt some little creature near my feet grabbing at me. I leaned down (I can't see anything mind you) and felt around and found some hair and then a little face and then some arms. So I picked her up and then I could tell for sure it was a Trinity! Needless to say I then went and sat down on the bed and hugged and kissed all the girls until that first emotion thingy went away.

Tough Enough

So, time seems to speed up as you get older. I just turned 35. I wish I didn't feel old, but I have ever since I turned 30. I started having problems with my wrists about that time so this marks the 5 year mark of wrist pain. I think it's tendinitis in the wrists w/ inflammation but all Dr.'s want to see is carpal tunnel even though the symptoms are wrong. Nobody once suggested tendinitis even though the symptoms fit. anyway, I just pray it doesn't get any worse.

Well, we got a new pastor for our church. Our last one, my brother in law, left about 6 months ago. Thankfully we had a guy to preach who is very good. The new guy is ex-USAF so he's got a pension which is a huge relief. We will still be tight on things financially @ the church though because we are losing one family. But, it's God's church and I just have to figure out how I fit into that properly.

Trinity burned herself today on our wood stove. Out of all the kids, she was the last I would've suspected. But, she backed into it and fell down. Her burn is pretty bad, but I came home from work and helped Rebekah put Vitamin E on it and it doesn't seem to be hurting her too much. She's such a sweety. She will just sit with me for what seems like hours. Forrest has said to me that I love her the most. No, I don't, although I may show her the most affection. But that's simply because she is the sweetest. "like" is relative and I like some of my kids more than others at different times. But I try to not favor one and if I have been spending more time with the girls and Clell. Titus is probably getting the short end, but to be honest he is more interested in watching TV than saying goodbye when I'm leaving. But that's ok, he's a kid. He's a good kid and he loves to help me do things. I caught him upstairs in the bathroom after light's out and he was "cleaning." So, I told him good job, pointed somethings out to him that he could work on and left him.

Several people have told me that this is the best time of my life. This may be true, but I've heard from other people that College was the best time of their life. I haven't had the best "time" of my life yet that I know of. I love my family, but Rebekah and I are beaten down with trying to take care of them, our old ancient house and property, our vehicles, friendships, and the the church. I really hope this isn't the best time of my life, but if it is then I'm grateful because although life is challenging I have never been so happy.

Why do today what you can do tomorrow?

I've been pondering doing this for a long time now (over a year). I thought I'd do a blog post for each one of my siblings and how they'd each played a part in my life. It's a tricky thing to do because I don't like to go back and rehash many of these memories because, well, I'm a guy. But, I shall try and hopefully, even though this is in the ether it will live on somehow, somewhere after the zombie apocalypse.

Down with the sickness

About every 3 years our whole family gets sick. This Christmas time we won the lottery of illness. The boys got sick first, I came down with a fever before Christmas but didn't get really sick until a few days after Christmas. Trin got sick somewhere between those two aforementioned times. She was so sick rebekah took her to doctor. Trin was dehydrated but they weren't much help other than to tell us that she didn't have anything they could help with. It was difficult because Trin wouldn't drink, eat, take medicine or sleep. One of us had to hold her all the time. It's hard to put into words how impressed I am with Rebekah during these times. She soldiers on with no complaining through these extremely arduous times. She asks virtually nothing of me if she can do it. Sometimes, but not often, I realize that she really needs help and I give it without asking. But because of how tough and capable she is when she does ask for help I try to never complain because I know she needs it.

It's the girl's birthday today. They are still young enough I would like to wait until we feel better but that's probably not the best attitude. the days blur together being sick. Dad always said that you wouldn't feel any worse getting up and doing stuff than you do lying in bed. Probably true. yesterday I forced myself to move an electrical outlet. I felt better then than I do now. I've just been lying in my chair watching zombie and post-apocalyptic tv. of course, that would make anybody feel sick right? Try eating pizza while watching a zombie flick? yech!

Our pump house froze sometime during the night. thankfully, it happened once before so I knew what to do to fix it. Rebekah and I went out and I climbed down into the where the sensor is for the pressure tank. it has a tiny little hose that needs to remain unfrozen. So, with some thawing of the line w/ a heat gun it finally turned the pump on again. We have a heater down there to help avoid such inconveniences, but I wasn't paying attention and didn't plug it in. It's been a hard winter so far, and I desperately want the bad parts to be over (heavy snow, below freezing temps). But I need to adjust my mindset.

well, this sicky is gonna go take a shower.

People say it gets easier

It's getting worse. As the babies get more and more mobile, the stresses increase. Right now Liberty is quite literally screaming because Trinity won't stay in bed. Clell won't stay in his bed either, but he's in a room with Titus, so that's not as huge a deal. I take one step forward and two steps back on my bathroom project. Finish work eats me alive. I'm not skilled at it and it's so time consuming for me. Then, a little girl puts glue on one of my boards and sticks a painted board onto it. I don't notice so when I go to work with it I find that it takes the strength of a gorilla to pry it apart and some of board goes with it. I guess that's why they call it gorilla glue. Of course, my babies can rip the bezel off of my media center pc that is glued on with the same glue....

Sigh. some days are harder than others, that's for sure. Usually rebekah and I make a good team, but occasionally we both hit our limit. Mine is much lower than hers and gets hit on an almost daily basis, so I guess it's really more a factor of Rebekah hitting her limit at the same time I've hit mine. I'm not trying to complain about the situation, just document. Maybe I can guilt my kids into letting me live in their guest house when i'm old and infirm. I wonder if my kids will be rich when I'm 50? STOP LAUGHING.

Well, take care. And If you see us on the evening news, please don't say "they were such nice people. I never saw it coming."

I'm hurt

not a single person called 911. I could still be stuck under there for all you know. I mean, don't you have a heart? <sigh>. Well, I made it out of the crawlspace. I was victorious. Almost 10 years of mediocre drainage were put to death by a swift (well, 2 hours) of determined plumbage. I tried to plan for all contingencies since it's so miserably hard to move around down there. I bought a couple different elbows and cut a couple different sizes of pipe to join in so I had 2 different heights and 2 different lengths. Well, 3 if you count the other elbow. Actually, I think I had more than that. let me think. Wow, that's actually a lot of combinations. I'm pretty smart. But when you're down under your house you have to live by your wits. Anywho, it was challenging to cut the pipe fitting off due to the cramped space but I managed it. I had to get kind of intimate with the main drain line but it was cool cause we had dinner first. After I cut the fitting off, I eyeballed it and yep, there was a bunch of gunk in there. But, when I tried to clean out the stub piece that went into the main drain I discovered that it was pretty much totally gummed up. I had to have one of my boys bring me a drill and use that to power through. There was definitely some rust, but after some drilling, jabbing, swearing, and poking I got it cleaned out. I then put the new fitting in and use the fernco couplers to get it all nice and snug. Was a little bit looser than I liked, but I reefed on it until it seemed nice and tight. Rebekah ran the water and no leak! wow. I topped off my final (i hope) excursion by putting a little sensor by the mainline to detect any water leaks. Kind of neat and for only $10 at home depot I think it's a good idea. The main line has a patch on it and it's seeping a tiny amount. At least this way if it gets worse I should find out before the house floats away.

Fat bottomed girls...

...you make the rockin' world go round. Inappropriate? Yes. Offensive? Possibly. Funny? Absolutely. I mention this because Rebekah woke me up this morning by bringing Trin in to see me and for some reason I turned on the radio. Maybe to see her dance a little. maybe to wake me up. Not really sure. Don't really care. But there I was playing with Trin (and baby Clell made an appearance too) and the song "Fat Bottomed Girls" by Queen came on the radio. Needless to say this song has given me much amusement over the years and has provided an auspicious start to a day when I have much to do and little sleep on which to do it. I went and played a couple board games with some guys last night which might seem a little lame but is actually quite fun. The most unique game involved cars and violence. The goal was to score the most points in the bloodiest and most appalling way possible. Hitting organic speed bumps (ahem, pedestrians) was first and foremost on everybody's mind. Of course, they're slippery little buggers so it's easier said than done. And what would a violent game be without the opportunity to shoot your fellow players (or flame throw, or land mine, or ram) and wipe-out as you head around turns? Of course, it's modeled on real life where when you crash you get to start over after giving up an accessory card, and taking a minus to your points. I will tell you this, it was a lot more fun driving home later. Unfortunately, somebody must have been through ahead of me because I couldn't find any moving speed bumps to hit. . Last place in life AND in the game.

There I was...

...holding my jigsaw with pumpkin guts all over me and the saw. My memory was fuzzy. I looked down and in horror saw 4 dead pumpkins. The oldest was obviously a victim of my saw but what about the others? What happened? I started to think back...

It was a brisk autumn day and I decided that I was going to somewhat celebrate the pagan holiday of all pagan holidays-Halloween. But, knowing that i was far too lazy to wander around in the dark w/ my kids I decided to start small and just get some pumpkins. I rushed home from work and picked up my two boys who eagerly had been asking about halloween even though we've never done anything before. We made the quick trip over to the produce stand (on steroids) and proceeded to wander around in the cold not knowing what to do. I prefer my food to be dead, cooked and on my plate. This was a new experience. Finally I asked someone about pumpkins. After giving me a stare usually reserved for dudes and deadbeats, she gave me the low down. If we wanted to, we could take a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch and get sweet, juciy, ripe, and beautiful pumpkins there or we could look at a pile of mangy cast-offs. I chose the castoffs. I let the boys pick their pumpkins (of course I had veto power) and then I picked a couple baby ones for the girls. When we got home we started the messy business. I started Titus off first and while he was disemboweling his, I did the two girls baby 'kins. Typical girls. did not want to get their hands dirty. Finally, I got to Forrest's 'kin. I thought it odd that his had a different texture but didn't pay much attention until later. I tried using the same knives on his pumpkin only to bend them. Finally I had a hole in it but cutting was a nightmare. I alternated between a serrated knife and my gerber multi-tool saw blade. Talk about frustrating. Finally, I decided that the risk of slipping and cutting a nearby observer was too great and I went and got a bigger hammer. Figuratively that is. Literally, I got a saw. I came back to the table with a gleam in my eye and a fresh battery. I got the blade in and started cutting. It was beautiful. It was like a knife through butter. Not hot, but not cold. maybe about 60 degrees or so. room temperature if you like it cold or are trying to preserve a body and throw off the time of death for the medical examiner. But I digress. I was careful and finally got the top of the 'kin. And there I found the reason why it was so hard to cut... it was made of gold! Yes it was, wait, no. Well, it turns out it was just really thick-skinned. I'd say it was at least 1/8" thick. probably more but i'm not very good at the maths. less than 1/4 but more than an 1/8. 3/16? maybe? Anyway, everybody was happy. except the pumpkins

I'm not sure using a saw counts as carving

Sigh. somehow I wiped out my blog post. needless to say, using a saber saw on a pumpkin makes for great fun. if anyone cares to hear the whole story, comment and I'll write it up again. Otherwise, just content yourself with knowing that I have pumpkin guts on my saw.

It's so quiet

with only two kids around. I don't feel well (flu-ish) and stayed home and kept Trin and Titus. Trin is so mellow that for the first hour she just sat with me or wandered around. Now that Titus is inside he's playing with her, too roughly, it's a bit louder but still much quieter than all 6. 

Last week we received a generous gift from somebody anonymously. Well, the week before last week. So, last-er week I guess. Anywho, this gift was extremely timely as I had planned some very specific things for Rebekah's birthday But our bank account went dry which was going to seriously dampen my enthusiasm for spending money. Money isn't important to me until I don't have enough to pay my bills and meet my needs then it's very important. So, the money came in and we were able to get somebody to babysit all day. We were gone from 9ish until 7 that night! Pretty wild huh? So we left our 6 urchins with supergirl Hannah and went to the big city of Boise.  After a marvelous fast food breakfast, we then hit the mall in Nampa. I like that mall better. Smaller, less crowded. Even has some guy stores (translation: no clothes).  After rebekah came down from her shopping high we went to goodwill. She got some random stuff there but I found a cool home-made bookshelf for $13! It fit our house perfectly. Rustic, yet sophisticated. Ok, not really. It was a neat design but done by an amateur. Probably some kids shop project. But even with some rough edges, I "fell in love" with it. No. No, I didn't. But I did want it. So, I crammed it in the suburban. Next up on the day of fun was lunch at the Brazilian restaurant Tucanos. Now, I'm not big on ethnic food but the way they do it is very cool. First you pay them lots of money. Then you can eat what you want off the salad "festival" and then they bring meat and stuff around to your table.  It was in a rotation, so you feel a little frustrated at first since you want your food and you want it now, but be patient and they bring some pretty groovy things around. Rebekah was even brave enough to eat a marinated chicken heart! Sheesh. After eating leisurely we left before we were stuffed (imagine that!) and journeyed to the Outlet mall. It was a bit pruned down since we had been there last, but more stores for the little woman at least. I suggested we stop in the Levi's store and that was a mistake. The chick there started trying to "help" us and rebekah threw me to the wolves. I didn't want her help. I was 15 feet away facing away from her and she tries to talk to me. Doesn't she know how this works? Talk to the female companion of the male shopper. She is the intermediary. I don't talk to chicks about clothes unless I know them. Just another example of the moral decay of America I guess <sigh>.

Anyway, things were good and the money was great and now I feel kind of rotten and I have been having headaches. I'm going to go read a book if I can. Thanks for reading, and remember Keep Smiling!

 

Clubbing

I always want to start my blogs with something about clubbing. I'm not sure why, but it's probably because my parents didn't love me enough or they didn't get me the GI Joe w/ the Kung Fu grip or something. Either way, whatever sanity I have sometimes doesn't seem quite enough. God seems to provide (if you're a heathen then I guess insert an empty space where I wrote God) what I need but it's pretty darn close sometimes. The boys have been doing better because we've been keeping a daily accounting of their behavior. If they've been bad they end up w/ a "frowny face" and their reward/punishment is bare bottom spanking. Thankfully, that's been pretty rare because we give them a reality check when I get home. Then they get the opportunity to turn it around but the best they can do for the whole day is and OK. Basically, I define that as "Kids are not small adults, and therefore they will make mistakes and I will not crush their spirits too much." A "smiley-face" is "I about passed out because when I came home my wife wasn't in hysterics and screaming "Why did you do this to me!?!" and I am able to enter the home and go to bed at night w/out almost having a heart attack. Also, you probably did something without being asked and did a good job. Oh, and you ran and got me water whenever I asked for it." 

A frowny face on the other hand is much much grimmer. It consists of the aforementioned hysterical wife with details such as "he said i hate you." or lying and bullying the girls or wanton destruction or some such evil that is wicked (as were we all once) children. I worked with Forrest on proper nouns. Ok, forget all the complicated stuff. Proper nouns are nouns that are always capitalized. Get that, then work on what makes them special. I don't do much w/ helping schoooling (yes an extra o for the extra work) but Forrest was working on greater than/less than. Ya know < & >? I remember being confused on those. I swear I was in sixth grade. What the heck? why was I doing that in sixth grade. I gotta be wrong on that one. Anyway, I finally figured it out so I told forrest to picture the symbol < as pacman eating the bigger number. I drew a partial circle (come on, you can picture it) and threw on some eyeballs. I even added teeth. That seemed to help him a lot and it made it more fun to boot.

Anyway, something is always going on here. Rebekah and I are currently in tense negotiations over Turkey Day. Plans changed since her lazy sister moved away. Right now i'm looking at a multiple-hundred $ expense to drive to Colorado. I will stop now before I get in too much trouble. Rebekah gets these blogs. She's shopping right now while I sit here like a zombie. Granted, a zombie with higher brain function, but still a zombie.

We are also looking at refinancing our house. I'm a little frustrated over homeowners insurance of all things because our house is old. Hopefully we can put that to bed soon. I've committed to an appraisal though so if things go belly up now, i'm on the hook for $500. If not, it'll get rolled into the loan (i think). <groan!> See why driving to Colorado stresses me out? Not to mention the 6 small children and an over ten hour drive. Sanity, I'll see you on the flipside :)

Threats, lies and deceit

another day parenting. I think we do most of the threats with the kids doing the latter two. Some days I worry that we're going to be on nationwide news and not for good sweetness and light reasons. But, I have learned that most parents feel exasperated (that's an understatement) at one time or another. I deal with most of the stress by plugging my ears and yelling "nuh nuh nuh nuh" at the top of my lungs. That's is a small exaggeration. Like lilliputin small. or maybe even only dust mite small. sigh. My poor wife. Can you imagine what she has to go through every day? If we had really docile well behaved children (don't laugh, I think I've seen some demo units before) then it would still be just this side of insane. But no, our kids are typical hellions that hit each other with sticks and get stuff out of the trash and basically behave like drunken frat boys. The girls wouldn't be so bad, but there's two of them and the boys corrupt their sugar and spice into snips and snails. When I was a boy I was offended by that little poem, now I get it and agree with it. I love my boys and they are good kids but the combination of a small house with so many young kids and my wife trying to home school is, to put it bluntly, a nervous breakdown cocktail. I told Rebekah we need to form little bubbles of order amidst the chaos. partition the house. maybe make a DMZ with land mines so she can teach without being pestered. I'm considering all options. Your prayers would be much much coveted. BTW, coveted can be good as well as bad. I mean, you don't have to covet your neighbors wife. Instead, try coveting a nice bell pepper. It's better for you and there's no guilt!

your slightly insane friend,

Grant.

Moving on up

Or something. I just completed the last step to adding a toilet upstairs. Granted there's a lot of finish work left, but a major step has been completed. Of course, tomorrow I'll get a phone call with more screaming than normal and come home to a house reminiscent of Hurricane Katrina. Yes, it's a proud day in this ballard household. Now, if you'll excuse me I must finish watching a show about a serial killer trained to use his craft to right wrongs (not wongs.)

SOS

Save our Sanity... Please. I don't know what else to say.

The San Francisco Chronicles

I'm trying to write this blog while watching a movie with copious senseless violence. It's appropriate because my brain is pudding, or maybe oatmeal. I've been working upstairs all day, but I'll get to that in a bit.

So, I left a week ago to go to San Fran for a convention for VMware. Packed. 17,000 people. Too many people. The classes were packed out unless you go to them an hour early. Getting in line for an hour before for an hour class is not my idea of fun. But I finally figured out a good way to navigate the wilderness successfully to make the most of my time. Unfortunately, I got some bad blisters and by Wednesday they were seriously painful. I thought at college I had done a lot of walking, but this took the cake. I made it up to the warf w/ my boss and we ate at a couple places up there. I bought some souvenirs and promptly left one of them when I sat down waiting for my boss to wander back. Stupid blisters. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have put my stuff down. Grrr. Anyway, I never made it to the Castro district (hehe) or anything interesting. But that's cool, because I'm not really impressed by people, or culture, or anything much. I did read a couple local publications while I was there and I surprised that they were well written and not crazy liberal. It really confused me. I guess since everybody is so liberal there anyway, they don't have to use propaganda as much? Who knows. Anyway, it was fun seeing the kids when I came back. When Trinity first saw me she got this really weird look on her face. Almost like she was going to cry. It was quite touching.

So, I've been working on the bathroom project. Estimated time of completion is 2013. But I'm making good progress. I've figured out PEX and run supply lines (mostly). But before I can actually put a toilet in I have to fix the slope on the floor. So, I'm taking up the flooring and putting in sister Joists so I can put the flooring back down and make it level. Well, when I took up the carpet and 70 year old linoleum I found tongue and groove wood and I hated to just destroy it. Thus, I am trying to remove it and reuse it which makes the job much much harder. But, i'm semi-optimistic that it won't be a complete disaster and I hope to have a big chunk done before work tuesday.

well, i'd better go. Baby Clell is up and coming for me.

bend, dont' break

Or break for all I freakin' care. It's odd how some things stress me out. Although I hate traveling, it doesn't stress me out too much. Thankfully this trip to San Fran was a direct flight and I had a friend going with me. We got in mid afternoon on Sunday and I took my first mass transit train ride. It was freakin' LOUD. I am definitely going to write Ms. Pelosi when I get back. Nobody's tried to mug me yet, but there's still time. A fair number of homeless guys out there panhandling. I wonder if they take credit cards? The conference so far has been less than I'd hoped for but meeting good people and making good connections so it's cool. One of our classes had an ethnic individual that I had no idea what he was saying. The Indian dude before him sounded like a native English speaker comparatively (and yes, I know the official language of India is English. so What!). I brought a webcam so I could say hi to the kids, but I've been so busy by the time I get ready everybody is in bed.

Rebekah told me some news from home today. Makese me want to stay here. Liberty got pushed off of a ledge by our stairway and hit her face. Blood but apparently she's still alive since Rebekah didn't say anything about coming home immediately. Also, Titus put his body through a window of our storm door. Cuts but nothing major. Good, because I need to kill him. (note to Department of Health and Welfare. This is a joke and nothing bad will happen to the boy because of this. His Dad might snap and curl up in a fetal position and cry for a few hours, but that's cool because he's over 18).

Well, I better get back on twitter and see what's happening. I'm starting to figure out why it's so cool. Real time info better than cable news.

The horn blows at midnight

Well, Rebekah's Grandma sent us some money for Forrest's birthday to use for the whole family so my excuse for not going to the zoo is shot. Going anywhere with 6 kids is difficult at best and my enthusiasm is always very low and I'm kind of lazy so hence my reluctance to go. Oh, and I'm cheap. don't forget that. But my plumbing project is in a mild lull as the parts and pieces i ordered won't be here until next week. I'm spending too much money. Nothing really expensive but it all adds up. I've got the drain lines to the upstairs and I've started putting supply lines in using Pex. Basically, Pex is some sort of plastic-ish tubing that is somewhat flexibile and it's pretty cheap. Copper costs 4 to 6x as much. But, nothing is ever simple and there are different types of ways to do pex and so it can get confusing. I think I picked a good balance between cheap and easy. Anyway, I'm learning stuff. Today at work I plumbed an ice-maker for a refrigerator with a little help with some friends. One of those things that amazes me. I've never been very good at stuff like this, but necessity is a great motivator. Oddly enough though, pride is the biggest reason I'm trying to do so much myself. Of course, I don't have the money to pay somebody either so it works well. Since my Dad did most everything himself (and still does) I try to tackle as much as I can too. I understand better why my Dad got so frustrated at some household issues though. Some things get old. Since my main drain vent is plugged that explains (probably) why our bathroom sink has such trouble. But it's an old farm house. It has character. Much like a third-world country.

Sooo much stress

Well, I wrote a post about what was on my mind but with my luck even though heavily sanitized I would've ended up saying something wrong so I deleted it. Them;s the breaks I guess. 

Life is stressful as always although a bit more than normal. Won't bore you with why, but if you're of the praying mind then see if you can get something to not bounce off the ceiling for me, mmmh-kay?

We had our big maple tree trimmed a little over a week ago. Between those huge branches and some Poplars that were dead we have a bunch more wood for winter. Of course, I have no more room on my property to store branches. I can't burn the ones I have or I'll lose my carport, my woodpile and my shop. Yesterday I raked branches (yes, there were that many) into a pile in the driveway and burned them. Fire is cool. I like fire. But it's scary too. The local Wendy's burned down due to a careless attempt to thaw some AC pipes. Yep, no more square hamburgers for me.

In other news, my plumbing project is creeping along. I made the mistake of buying some professional plumbing books that were highly rated on Amazon. Now I know all the things I was doing wrong, or rather, not as right as I could be. Gentle Bends, my friend, Gentle Bends. No, that's not a bear! That's Ben, not Bends. Sheesh. I also think I'm going to invest in plumbing supply companies cause their margins have to huuuge! A two foot piece of ABS (4") cost $10!! But, I have the pipe in my closet where I need to drill a hole to run it to the second floor where it shall be its home. I figure I need about another $150 in pipe and fittings just for the drain line. But in different yet related news, while I was reading my expert/pro plumbing I got to thinking that maybe my main drain vent was plugged up. So, yesterday I climbed on the roof with my snake and found that it only went down 15 feet and no amount of pushing or prodding would make it go farther. Well, I think that explains at least part of the problem with our drain that we've had for years. Now, how do I fix it? I guess I'll just try some things. This is technically known as "winging it" and I practice it with great aplomb.

I've figured it out

For those of you who didn't know, the reason remodels are so costly is because you have the time and expense of the whatever, plus you have the time to move stuff that's in the way. Then you have to move it somewhere else which requires more time and expense. Then you have to destroy somewhat serviceable walls and floors to run pieces through. Then you run stuff through them. Then you spend more time and money fixing them. etc. etc. etc. Yep, good times.

The day after

Before I forget, I face dialed someone the other day. In case you're confused, face-dialing is an arcane art praticed by budhist monks in outer mongolia and jedi knights (pre-clone wars only). It is similar to pocket dialing but has the added twist of using the face/cheek while on the phone with one's father. It is extremely dangerous and I admonish you to not try it at home lest you invoke a golbal thermonuculear detonation. You have been warned.

Moving on... So, been doing more digging and I'm hoping my communion with the backyard soil is near an end. I have run pipe as of this weekend from the drain line into the basement. Just a trial run mind you. I'm not brave enough to glue it yet. But I've now had a couple nights to think and regret and nothing has come to mind so I think I'll try it. It'll all end in tears I know, but I have to try.

The fourth was interesting. We spent most of the day @ church because we had a monring service, lunch, then afternoon service. Looong day. Of course, then we had to do some fireworks ourselves but it doesn't get dark until 10 or so. Man was it hard keeping the kids behaving until then. And the boys were so excited it was really hard to keep them in line. That combined with the fact that where we had decided to set them off (i wasn't consulted and was too lazy to make people move) was below a tree that is dying. Man, was I scared that something would land in it and we'd have a 4th that we'd never forget.

well, I'm going to reboot my ubuntu now. first linux OS that I've ever used that is easier in most ways than windows. but they have mac envy.