Entry for November 26, 2006

Thanksgiving Day was a quiet day for Gin and I. I ended up replacing the bathroom vanity and rewiring the electrical outlets in their as well. After lunch I removed a book case from the mud room and installed four shelves for storage. We had a quiet dinner of ground turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy. I watched a little bit of football during some of my work breaks. Both of us managed to get a 3 mile run complete in the afternoon.

Friday I went to work and took advantage of the majority of my co-workers extending their holiday. I learned a new data base program that will help me organize my estimating files. I was also able to enjoy a 4 mile run at lunch time. Gin worked on de-cluttering the dining room so we could have our family Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. Caris and Thomas arrived Friday night after 8 and we caught up on their happenings.

Saturday morning I made a run to the recycle facility, then worked in the outbuilding the rest of the morning. I was finally determined to organize the 1600 square feet of mess, or at least some of it. I concentrated on one side of the building and made some impressive progress. By 11 I reached a stopping point and made time for a 3 mile run before the big meal. Patrick and Jessica were here by 1 and dinner was ready by 2. Gin started the turkey earlier in the morning along with several other side dishes. I peeled, cooked and mashed taters and carved up the bird. Caris and Thomas prepared the stuffing. Speeking of stuffing, everyone was stuffed when dinner was finished.

We worked our way into desert by way of Agravation Rummy. Caris' friend, Summer, joined us in the afternoon game. We passed the camera around for some candid shots as well as self portrait close ups. Patrick, Jessica and Summer left sometime around 6 and the rest of us relaxed for the rest of the evening. We actually ended up watching Hidalgo on AMC.

Today Caris and Thomas went back to Albemarle in the morning to beat some of the holiday traffic. I went back out to the out building for some more sprucing up. Gin took advantage of the free time to catch up on some reading. Stetson took advantage of the silence by squeaking and sqawking all day.

I miss seeing the rest of our families on Thanksgiving. It's hard to say if we'll travel out of town on this holiday in the future. The traffic is just too crazy during this particular holiday, that we have a hard time enjoying the end of the trips. For now we will be staying here each year and travel out at other times like we did earlier this fall. We always have Christmas in which we get to see most everyone at one time.

P@

Entry for November 20, 2006

As most of you know, last Tuesday Patrick and Jessica gave us the great news about her carrying twins. It only seams like yesterday when we were expecting Patrick. I know that those babies will be some of the luckiest in the world. They have two of the most loving parents any child could ask for. The picture above is the 3-D ultra-sound from Jessica's doctor visit on Wednesday.

Happy Birthday Dad, Saturday November 18. I hope you enjoyed the day with Mom. I love you.

I have managed to keep up with my running routine despite weather and work functions. Since our new office has a shower, I am able to squeeze in a 3 to 4 mile run either first thing in the morning or during lunch. Last year when I lost most of my weight, it seamed like it was just falling off. Over last winter and spring I gained back about 20 pounds and getting rid of it has been a lot tougher. I know most of my dilemma has been allowing myself to drift on my diet. I let a day or two creep up on special occasions and it takes me a few steps back. I have been doing more strength training which adds more weight as well. My main concern has been loosing the rest of the gut. I know it will take time and I will not rush to meet my goal.

Saturday Gin and Jessica went up to Hendersonville to look at fabrics for several different projects, including decorating a nursery. I set out on my own with several tasks to accomplish. First stop was an oil change for the Explorer. After that I went by Lowes for some project ideas. The sporting goods store was next to pick up some cold weather athletic gear. I stopped by the Ford dealership on the way home, for a replacement power window switch. Gin was heading out early last Wednesday and she rolled down her window, but had a hard time getting it to go back up. The door switch was acting up more than normal, so it had to be replaced. Luckily the dealership had the part and it took a matter of 10 minutes to replace it.

Once I was home and finished with lunch (lasagna), I worked upstairs for a few hours. I managed to install 5 sheets of drywall in the bedroom near the driveway. I then cleared most of that room’s floor so I could set up a home gym.

I was given a home gym by an engineer I work with. Jon rents houses and one of his evictees left the home gym behind. Jon decided that he had no place to put it so he offered it to me. I spent the better part of Sunday morning hauling the parts upstairs and figuring out how to assemble it. Assembly without instructions is my kind of challenge. I usually do not look at instruction anyway, least not at first. No, I’m the type that thinks he can figure it out, but am usually wrong. Well, this time it went together pretty well. I had my moments of asking myself if something looked right. There were a few fasteners missing which were easily found at the hardware store.

Gin and I went over to P&J’s so I could measure all rooms in their house. I will make a set of house plans so they can start deciding where things may work best when twins arrive. I used a laser tape measure which is accurate within 1/32 of an inch. Their dogs, Lilly and Ladybug, were intrigued by the red dot I would make them chase through the house. After the measuring was done, we visited for a short while, then went home for dinner.

6 weeks ‘til Christmas. Are you ready?

P@

Entry for November 13, 2006

Friday night after work I picked up some deli sandwiches for dinner on the way home. Gin and I ate, then went over to Jean’s house to pick up some of her yard sale items. That’s right, we had another yard sale this past weekend. Jean had several milk crate boxes and an iron table with glass top. It didn’t take long to get that stuff over to our house and unloaded on the porch. Once we were home, Gin started checking all of our items for proper pricing while I vacuumed up the leaves in the front yard with the lawnmower. The headlights on the mower really helped get things done. After the lawn work, I went to the large out building to prepare some of the items stored inside, for the sale. Jessica and her mom, Debbie, arrived a little later on to drop off some of their stuff. Once we had their trucks unloaded, I went to the grocery store to get the lunch items for Saturday.

Since it was my birthday Saturday, I decided to sleep in. So, I was up at 5:30 and by 6:15 I was loading up the trailer with everything I could get on it. Gin started moving stuff from inside the house, to the porch. Around here we start our yard sales around 8:00 and go until whenever. We don’t put any signs up until we are set up and ready to sell.

At 8:00 I put 2 signs up, one at each end of the property by the street. Most of you who have been here know that we get a lot of traffic. This means that advertising in the paper is unnecessary. People ride by and see a car or 12 parked out front and all of a sudden there is a flurry of shoppers. This is good for the economy. Just think perfect strangers stop by to pay us for stuff, which we would have had to use our own gas to dispose of the junk at Goodwill or the landfill. You have to love the free enterprise concept.

Jessica and Debbie were here right around 8 and were unloaded and set up during the first wave of customers. Gin picked up Jean around 9 and she was set up within 30 minutes. Overall the morning went by pretty fast. I don’t recall a time when there wasn’t at least one customer.

I fired up the grill around 11:30 and started grilling chops. Jessica kept telling Gin and Debbie that if she kept smelling the smoke from the grill, that she was going to grab a raw chop and eat it. Well, she never ate a raw one, but she did pretty well on the cooked ones. We all enjoyed the chops with some tater salad and baked beans.

The afternoon brought some pretty stiff winds out of the south. There were times when we were being showered with pin oak leaves. We packed it all in around 2:30 and were finished storing everything away by a little after 3. The till was divvied up and all finished the day with a little more than they started with.

Saturday night Patrick and Jessica took us out for pizza in Columbus. It was nice having two of my favorite meals on the same day. We were back at our house by 7:30 and started a game of Aggravation Rummy. We did not get through the entire game before we decided to end it so Patrick could get some sleep. He had to work Sunday morning, so we didn’t want to keep him too late.

Sunday I made the picture frame for Gin’s tree picture. Earlier last week, Gin sketched the picture of the tree in Patrick’s back yard onto a piece of thin birch plywood. Then she painted the tree using Elmer’s glue and let it dry. Next she stained the entire piece. The places where the glue is painted turns out very light, while the background takes on the stain color.

P@

Entry for November 06, 2006

Times have changed and so has my work out routine. Since last Sunday was time to roll the clock back an hour, it made my evening run become obsolete until spring. I started running during my lunch hour at work with a few co-workers. Monday and Tuesday I ran a 3.7 mile route on the sidewalk of a busy street. It has several long hills and overall not too bad. Tuesday I almost got run over twice in the same intersection. After that little scare I decided to look elsewhere to run. There is a ritzy neighborhood about ¼ of a mile from our office that works just fine. The streets have nearly no traffic but the hills are steeper and more challenging. The overall distance is 3 miles which works out good for a lunch time run. The new office has a shower in one of the restrooms which was specifically added for such workouts.

Saturday I worked in the yard cutting grass and gathering leaves. I also cut a few branches off of the big oak tree near Caris’ room. One of the limbs was touching the roof line and peeling up some shingles. The biggest challenge was climbing 25 to 30 feet up the tree to cut it down. There is no way I would have done this a few years ago when I was 40 pounds heavier. I was a little scared, but I knew I had better strength control while making the climb. I used a hand saw to cut the 5 inch branch. I first made a slight undercut. Then I slowly cut through the top and it just snapped off at the last inch or two.

Sunday I worked at Gin’s friend Jean’s house. Jean is in her 80s and is very active, but really needed some help with her overgrown yard. I started out with weed eating the sidewalks, driveway and around the trees and fences. Then I trimmed the bushes along the house which were about 5 feet above her porch rails. I did managed to upset her when I trimmed too much of a camellia bush. She did tell me to cut everything to the rail height, so I did. She took all the clippings with a plan to replant them for more bushes elsewhere. I gathered up the clippings and loaded the trailer. I then trimmed her crepe myrtles and some of the oak tree out front. The next task was to cut the grass and pick up the leaves. I used the lawn tractor to mulch the leaves in the front of the house before picking them up. Once they were mulched the bagging system cleaned up the yard pretty well. I dumped all the leave and grass clippings in the trailer and we drove to the vacant field to dump the first load. Gin and Jean made the second trip with tree limbs and then I followed up with the remaining limbs and clippings. I cut the backyard without bagging. Overall Jean was satisfied with the yard and her house looked like it was occupied again.

P@