The In-laws

I have the greatest in-laws in the world. Down to earth people who will do whatever is needed to help out, but there are a few quirks. While working on our house getting it ready for move in they both did a few things that made me laugh and almost cry. We are replacing all of our carpet in the house and I wasn't sure if after pulling up all of the carpet and all of the padding, if we had to pull all the little staples that they use to tack down the padding. I asked my wife to call the carpet company to see if we had to pull all of the little staples. (I really didn't want to be sitting on the floor pulling staples for hours.) I asked my wife again to please call after waiting for the answer for a week. Over the weekend my mother in law comes in and we start talking about the staples again and she informs me that she told my wife not to bother to call because she is sure that the staples would have to be pulled and that "we" would take care of it. When she says "we", she means her husband (my father in law) and myself. "We" almost never includes her unless it's the ROYAL "We", but that's another story. When I found out that she had told my wife not to call I almost came unglued, already being on the edge of exhaustion for the constant two weeks of work for every free second. But I just laughed it off and saw the humor in it. The funny part, my wife called and we had to pull all the staples. "We" took care of it.

My father in law was working on installing the washer and dryer in our house and found that we would have to install one of those thin periscoping vents for the back of the dryer. The connection for the vent to go to the outside was very close to the outside wall, and the periscoping vent was rectangular in shape. So when we connected the vent together we found that the corner of the periscoping vent would hit the outside wall and not allow us to connect the vent to the dryer. Looking at the problem we only needed to take a little bit off the corner and it would fit perfectly. My suggestion was take a hammer and tap the corner down of the vent or take a grinder and grind down the corner... My father in law's solution, tear the vent totally apart, snipping sheet metal here and there until there was a very nice and clean shaved corner that he actually pop riveted and duct taped to make it look like it came from the factory that way. Ahhh the life of a tool and dye maker and a machinist. Estimated time to fix using my solution to the problem would have been about 30 seconds.. his time to fix the solution his way was about 2 hours. But I really appreciated his hard work into getting the house ready for new carpet and for us to move into. He has taken time off work, bought materials, and found people to borrow stuff (scafolding and appliance movers).

I have given up on sleep

Welcoming home a newborn about 2 months ago I remember the times of trying to sleep (with our first baby) at night and the small distractions that would wake me up. As with our first child I would wake up if he coughed or made any unusual noise. Now granted, I am not the one that has to get up and breastfeed whenever the baby is hungry (I am not properly equipped), but I am the person who wakes up when my wife turns on the TV for light and so she has something to watch so she doesn't fall asleep. So with listening for the baby to make any strange noises, wife turning on the TV, listening to the baby monitor for our 2.5 year old, and just the usual stuff that wakes you up in the middle of the night there has been a real challenge on sleep the past couple of months.

But finally the baby is starting to get into a little more of a routine and cherish sleep at night like I do, so maybe he will wake up once a night to have a little snack. I am thinking "thank goodness" finally I can get to sleep. NO.. Houdini...the 2.5 year old has figured out how to escape his crib and has been making visits into our room at 5:30am the past two mornings. Luckily I just take him back upstairs, get him some water, and he goes back so sleep, but then the alarm goes off at 6:00am. I have decided to start going to bed by 10:00pm every night just to hope to get a few more hours of sleep. Hopefully once we get moved into the new house we can get everyone on a good bedtime routine again and the only one waking me up in the night will be my wife :) .. How you doin' ? Of course if that happens then there is a chance for child #3 and I am not anywhere sane enough for that.

Ouch

FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. - Police accidentally hit a naked man in the genitals with a Taser after he was caught breaking windows and asking women to touch him, authorities said.
Jeremy J. Miljour, 26, tried to run away when sheriff's deputies approached so one of them shot their Taser, said Cpl. Matt Chitwood. But one of the gun's prongs accidentally hit Miljour's genitals and got stuck, Chitwood said.

"The Taser is relatively accurate, but when someone is moving like that, it doesn't matter if you have a Taser, or a pistol. (Officers) can't aim," Chitwood said. Miljour was treated at a hospital before being taken to the Lee County jail. He was charged with indecent exposure, resisting an officer and criminal damage.

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...and we're going to paint the mother pink

Upon buying a new house, we decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to put a fresh coat of paint on the inside of the house. One, because we wouldn't have to worry about furniture, children, and the cat.. and two because the person before us had smoked in the house. Another thing making the decision easy was that we were going to replace all of the carpet in the house which is a good thing since I am a real messy painter. 8:00am saturday morning I show up with my father in law and we start preping the rooms in order to start painting. Little did I realize how long it takes to prep three bedrooms (including gutting the closets and removing some wallpaper) to get them ready for wall and ceiling paint. It wasn't until after lunch that I finally got a chance to put a roller into a pan and start rolling on fresh white on the ceilings. All I can say is thank God we are replacing the carpet since it would have taken the entire staff of Stanley Steamer to clean up what I spilled. One because I am a messy painter and two because the roller that it takes to paint over popcorn ceiling is very thick and takes alot of paint. So finally after doing just the ceilings in the two smaller bedrooms, the master bedroom closet ceiling, it's 8:00pm at night and I figured that 12 hours of this is long enough. Another 7 hours on sunday just to finish the ceiling of the master bedroom. Looking ahead to what is still left to do, I just look at my father in law and say "damn". I am thinking in my mind that I want to be moving stuff into this house in 3 weeks. I was planning on just killing myself on the weekends, but it looks like I am going to have to put some after work weekday hours into it to make sure it is done by Dec 1st.. the day the carpet arrives. Oh, and we also have to tear out all of the old carpet before that date as well..... "damn"

F***ing Leaves

Over the weekend I decided to help my mom out and get rid of some of her leaves. Where the roof sections meet, a ton of leaves get caught there every year so this year I decided to help her out and get rid of them. I decided to do it Saturday afternoon since a rain storm was predicted Saturday night and I figured that dry leaves are easier to get rid of than wet leaves. Looking at the pitch of the roof, it looked real real steep. I remember than someone told her never to get onto the roof because it was too steep, but I figured they just told her that so they could keep comming back every year and charge her a ton of money to clean the eaves. I found out soon after I got onto the roof they might have been right. Taking my life in my hands and with a leaf blower I ventured onto the roof where it became quite the circus act where I would get to the top of the peak and then actually slide down to the eaves to blow them out. Of course the leaf blower is electric so I had to deal with a cord catching on everthing making the chore just that much more fun. And of course I had unplugged the blower by accident and had to trudge all the way down the ladder to plug it in and then back up Mt. Everest.

I had cleaned out most of the eaves and figured that was good enough and ended up working on the rest of the yard until it became too dark. Story sounds good enough??? well that's not the end of it. I get up Sunday to find out that the storm that blew through Saturday night also contained high winds and so basically everything that I had done the day before was gone. Even the eaves on the roof were just as full as the day before. All I could say was S***. But that's not the end of the story either. I was getting dressed Sunday morning and saw that I had a hole in my back pocket and then I thought "where is my wallet?". After searching the bedroom and asking my wife if she had seen my wallet (she takes it out to get receipts out of it) I tried to retrace my steps. How would I get a hole in my back pocket?..... Maybe by sliding down a roof in effort to get all the leaves that are now back in bigger force than ever. So back outside I go thinking S***, I don't want to get back on this roof, especially since I wasn't sure where it was. But looking at the roof from the ground I was fortunate enough to see my wallet in the eaves of the house. I get the ladder out and retrieve my soaking wet (did I mention the storm Saturday night) wallet. I hate leaves.

Invisible Punch

A few years ago a company called Wylers invented a powdered drink (like kool-aid) that when you made the drink even though it had all of the flavor, it was totally clear. To me this was one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century due to the fact it was totally unique. I had bought a few packets of this drink about 9 years ago with the idea of making up the drink, adding alcohol, and having a party. When I was living with my brother and best friend we did that and had a blast. It looks like you are drinking fruity water, but actually the taste hides the alcohol quite well (just don't eat the fruit). I had tried buy more of this punch drink back then when it became harder and harder to find, and finally impossible, but I had my stash. I found out later that the Wylers company was no longer in business, and I guess the idea of Clear kool-aid didn't catch on because no one else had done it since, and there just isn't enough novelty of drinking a clear Kool aid that looks like water.

So Anyway 9 years later I finally decide to put together this punch for a Halloween party with a few of the precious packets that I have left. There is nothing like walking into a party with a container that everyone assumes is water. Even before I get into the door someone asks me "Why are you bringing water to a party?". I put the punch out and really no one wants to drink the "water" on the table. So finally I tell a few people about the "invisible punch" I brought and they all decide to try a glass. The look of fear is priceless of people trying to guess what is in the drink because it is totally clear (and because I am the guy that brought jello shots to a party made totally of alcohol even trying to boil the rum, but that's another story). After trying a glass, they all said they liked the punch, but at this point they had all had a few beers so the idea of drinking a punch after drinking beer was not an option.