The contractor we hired to re-deck our balcony finished in two days flat, which is pretty impressive. This was a new contractor we hired, because the guy who’s been working on our gutters for eight months couldn’t manage to get to the balcony job, and we’ve had water coming into our kitchen all winter.
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But now we have to paint the new balcony floor, post and rails, which we started on today. We need to get the wood covered so it doesn’t get warped and wet, but the off and on rain/snow keeps getting in the way. And I’m leaving Friday for sxsw.com, so we have to fit the rest of the painting in with not much time.
And regarding my old house, most of the repairs are done. We seem to still have an offer on the table as of today, as well. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I’m cautiously optimistic.
We had a pretty quiet weekend around here. I went to water aerobics with my new suit, which is awesome. Stephanie went skating. Her dad decided against coming down to visit because Valpo got hit with a storm, which knocked out the power for Stephanie’s mom. We went over to my old house to check on the water removal from the basement and empty the dehumidifier bucket. The heat’s on there, and things are drying out fine. The plumber will come today, so I’ll be dropping by to check on things again. I’m hoping the plumber we hired does a thorough job, like the experienced Sydney plumbing services known for their efficiency and reliability.
We made lasagna for dinner last night, and fell asleep early and missed most of the Oscars, which is fine, since we saw barely any of the movies, and they’re all in our Netflix queue anyway. We have 470 movies in our queue. We’re very ambitious.
This is partially because for Valentine’s Day, I gave Stephanie a copy of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die and she went through and cataloged what she’s read. We found lists of all the titles from the book on the internets, and put them in google spreadsheets so we could track what we’ve read. Then we did the same with 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. And then we started adding movies to Netflix, and now our Queue ensures that we will never die, ever.
I spent most of the weekend cleaning up data; going over my lists of books I’ve read, checking that the links are valid and that all the links go to current, in print editions of books on Amazon.com. I also played around with getting all the lists into an Amazon Store for my site. I’m trying to figure out if I want to spend the time customizing the hell out of it, and integrating it into my site seamlessly. I’m not satisfied with it; I’m thinking I need to work with Amazon web services and just build my own version of a store on my site, with my own database. But maybe that’s more work than it’s worth, considering.
I am happy that I have pretty up-to-date lists, though; now I need to plug those book titles into my book cataloging software to make some progress on my library database, which we need to have for inventory/insurance purposes.
I have made some great strides getting old site pages organized after the move. The major outstanding piece is getting my old photo pages updated. Most of the photos aren’t in place on this host because I ran into some annoying customer service issues with them that it’s not worth going into. I’m thinking I just need to bite the bullet and post most of them on flickr.
Stephanie stop at Old Navy yesterday while waiting for her hair appointment, and she bought a bunch of Valentine’s Day merchandise on high discount, including several pairs of my favorite kind of underwear. Then she hid them around the house while I was at water aerobics last night, because she’s leaving to go to a skating competition in Michigan for the weekend.
So as I’ve been getting ready for work this morning, I keep finding little valentine presents hidden, like a scavenger hunt. It’s very sweet. I love my girlfriend.
I had a second snow day today (I worked at home yesterday, due to inclement weather) and Stephanie had the day off as well because we couldn’t get her car out in the morning. So we spent the morning digging out the street with the help of our neighbor Craig…
and in the afternoon, I worked on a website design for one of our publishing partners at work, while Stephanie edited pages for her work. Meanwhile, the animals had their own fun…
Then Stephanie made a romantic candlelight dinner for us (we’re being economical, since my house is still for sale — although we have an offer and some counters, which is looking really good) and now we’re going to watch the oh-so-romantic tale Corpse Bride.
I have this trouble where I try very hard not to do something — drop a screw, tip over a paint can, upend a box of packing peanuts — and whatever I’m working so hard to avoid is exactly what I end up doing, because I’m trying way too hard.
That same self-defeating thing happens with my new year’s resolutions. Every year I make some resolutions, and I succeed wildly — at everything else. And then at the end of the year, I go over my resolutions and despair at habits I haven’t managed to break or to form, while ignoring all the stuff I got right. So I start off the year on a downer, which is totally unnecessary, and keeps the spiral going. This year, screw that fuckin’ noise.
This year, I’m going to make a list of hopes for the year instead of resolutions — positive wishes to start the new year out right.
1. I hope we have a quiet, relaxing, fun year.
The last couple of years have been full of stress for Stephanie and I. Between surgeries and home purchasing and moving, we’ve been caught in several storms and I think we’ve come through them stronger, both as individuals and as a couple. But I’m hoping this year will be a lot less of “you and me against the forces of the universe” and a lot more of “you and me in sync with the forces of the universe.” I know that unexpected things always come up, but I think we’ve got a pretty good foundation to deal with them.
I hope we have a lot of time to just hang out in our house together, and with our friends. We’ve created a nice space for ourselves and our pets. I enjoy hanging around the house with Stephanie and playing games, reading and relaxing. And I enjoy having friends over. I hope we can do a lot of that this year. I was intrigued by the idea of creating a Porch Sitter’s Local here in Indy – we certainly have the porch for it.
I hope we can get a some stuff sold on eBay this year. I still have a stash of stuff to sell on behalf of my mom, and we’ve been collection a pile of sale-able items post-move sorting, and I’d love to get through them.
There are lots of festivals and events around Indianapolis that happen every year, and that I’ve never attended. I’d love to do some of them. We’ve missed the pride event a couple of years running, and I’d like to do that this year, if we can. And we have a great new neighborhood to explore.
2. I hope my frikin’ house sells.
I think I’ve done all I can really do to make that happen, and all I can do is routine maintenance and keeping on top of things. This is just one I have to leave up to the world to take care of.
3. I hope I can take time to express some of my creative energy.
I hope I can finish some webdesign projects that have been lingering around. My dad has a site he needs created, I have Stephanie’s blog design to work on, IndyScribe needs an overhaul, and I have another art site I need to work on.
I hope I can get some more work done on my novel. I still think I have a great idea, and I want to build out some time to get it working. I think that what I was missing with NaNoWriMo was some element of illustration/art/design that I want to go with it.
I have some furniture I want to refinish – I’ve done some of that in the past and found it to be a really relaxing, rewarding type of project. I’d want to work on some of the stuff I have stashed in the garage.
I hope to design a nice garden/lawn space around our house. I want to plant some vegetables and a raspberry bush this year – things I have no experience with at all, so that should be a fun challenge. I’m hoping to find out if some of the more experienced gardeners in our neighborhood will give me advice and let me look over their shoulders.
I hope to get some time to work on the interior design of our house — we have lots of fun art that still needs to make it onto the walls, and we have some areas where we can make some creative use of space. There’s lots of interior painting we want to do, also.
I hope I can become a better photographer and get some great, fun pictures. I’m learning more about my camera and how to adjust for lighting and other factors. Maybe our trip on Route 66 will be a good opportunity to get better at taking pictures.
I have some art projects dinking around in the back of my head, too, and I want to find time to work on them.
3. I hope we get to do some more traveling this year.
Stephanie has a work conference to go to in January, in Wisconsin, and I have one in March, I think. We have plans to drive Route 66 with a New Beetle Caravan in June, and I think those are solid, unless something unexpected happens. We talked about visiting my family in Iowa in the spring, but we’ll have to see if that fits in for them and us.
I haven’t got Stephanie’s skating competitions this year sorted out in my head yet, but those will need to go on the calendar, too.
One thing I’ve never done is go to the Michigan Women’s Music Festival. It’s usually in August. I don’t know if we can swing it after a big trip in June, but it’s one cultural activity I’d love to go to someday.
I’d also like to explore Indiana a little more, if we get a chance. I’d like to pick out some touristy things from the Enjoy Indiana website and got to them, like French Lick or New Harmony, or maybe the Park County covered bridge festival.
4. I hope I can be less angry all the time.
I have such a level of frustration and irritation, and it gets in the way of getting things done and of my relationships with other people.
I was blaming that on reading too much negative stuff online, and too many angry political discussions, and I’m sure those things don’t help. But I have to acknowledge that it’s something inside me and how I interact with the world that needs to change, not just external things. I’m trying to change the way I react to things that bother me; to not have knee-jerk reactions without thinking about what’s going on first, and that seems to be helping.
I’m trying to set limits and say no more — lots of my stress comes from being overwhelmed by obligations; occupationally, financially, socially, politically. I’m becoming better at not letting other people hijack my time and energy, and letting myself recharge in between. I’ve noticed that going to water aerobics is amazing for de-stressing; I always have an endorphin high and feel completely zen-like when I’m done, so I have at least one outlet for stress.
5. I hope we can help defeat Indiana’s anti-marriage equality amendment in the Statehouse this year.
I foresee this being an exhausting, stressful experience, and I’m not looking forward to it at all. But we do have a much stronger position after the 2006 election, and I hope that will make the coming fight much less painful.
And I haven’t had a free moment to blog. Or perhaps I have, but I spent it trying to unwind instead. We’ve been to parties galore, but I haven’t got the pictures off my camera yet.
On Saturday morning we went to my company’s warehouse book sale and walked away with 91 books for about 40 bucks. Yeah, like I needed that. But I have a plan for streamlining my books in the coming months, and reading and then disposing off lots of books to free up space on my shelves.
Saturday night we went to Jennifer’s annual Christmas party, complete with pink flocked tree. And Sunday we went to Christmas at my Dad’s. I got new truck tires for Christmas! Yay!
Stephanie went to a Christmas party for our neighborhood association’s board last night, because she’s the treasurer now. Dunno if I blogged that or not. I stayed home because I was too tired to go, and read a bit instead.
Oh, and we canceled our HBO from cable (I haven’t watched anything on it in months anyway) and we signed up for Netflix instead. I watched the first disc of season 3 of Seinfeld and sent it back already. I’m really enjoying picking out movies – I added pretty much everything on my Movies I Need to Watch list.
span class=”hilightyellow”>2019 update: Yeah, we have never managed to streamline books for any length of time, or to free up space on shelves. We regularly purge, but books seem to magically appear.
I’m very excited – we have our tree up, and a few other decorations out. We still have to put ornaments on the tree, but that’s the really fun part. Other times, when we want to trim the branches, we consider Herford’s Tree Care, Inc. and get their services. We can put Christmas music on and bebop around the house, although we’ll do that Thursday night, because Stephanie’s teaching skating tonight. I think tonight I might try to concentrate on taking our donations to IYG for their wishlist, or hanging the coat bar in the dining room closet.
And we have a big chunk of organizing done, too – enough that we can have people over without our remaining moving chaos being a featured display in the house. It’s wonderful; my undiagnosed OCD thing is no longer screaming at me. And for the remaining stuff we have to organize, there’s a decent process in place for sorting through it all, so for our post-Christmas free time we can do some fun stuff, like selling things on ebay. Happy happy, joy joy.
Our router was acting up at home, so we’ve been offline all weekend since we returned home from Thanksgiving. I finally isolated the problem as the router’s power source, and fixed the problem and reset everything this morning. So our home network is back online, thank goodness. Sort of ironic, given that I was so excited about the Super 8 Motel finally having wireless. Homeowners who are concerned with the security of their internet access and their online data may need to use the best residential proxies.
So here’s what you missed:
1. We had a great Thanksgiving weekend and saw the family, and on Friday visited a private museum of antique farm equipment owned by Steve Weeber on his farm outside of Iowa City. Weeber has been collecting and restoring the equipment for years. I took a ton of pictures; those are forthcoming. Much of what he’s collected was produced by Louden Machinery Company, which is where my grandfather worked in addition to farming. We later went shopping in Pella, Iowa, home of the Jaarsma Bakery, one of our childhood favorite places to visit.
2. We arrived home, and Stephanie took me on a carriage ride around downtown. While we were riding around the circle admiring the Christmas lights, she asked me to marry her. I said yes, of course. Our planned wedding date is May 31, 2008. I know that seems far away, but we want to have time to plan without stress. And given that 2005 was the Year of Surgery and 2006 was the Year of Moving, we sort of want 2007 to be the Year that Not Much Happened.
3. Then we went out to eat at Hot Tuna in the Omni Severin Hotel – highly recommended.
3a. Oops – forgot: Stephanie had some renters sign a lease for her house on Sunday. Yay!!
4. I spent all day Monday raking leaves.
So, you’re pretty much up to date on our stuff. What’s up with you?
I’ve been trying to catch a few minutes to write about the blogger forum with progressive candidates that I attended last Friday, but it’s been such a hectic week I haven’t had a chance. Among other things, I joined the Y this week. I’ve been going regularly for water aerobics, and eventually you have to become a member or they stop letting you visit. Fortunately, I’ve really been enjoying the class, and have been planning on going to more during the week, so it makes sense to join.
I finally managed to get my damned truck bed cover on — with the help of the guys from Just Trucks, where I bought it in the first place. That’s some damned fine customer service, and they’re really nice guys to help me out. They certainly didn’t have to. The problem is that I bought the cheapest cover, and I should have spent a bit more and purchased one that goes on and off easily. So if you need car accessories or truck bling, go there, and tell them I sent you, because they deserve to know their kindness is appreciated.
Friday night we went to Hogeye Naavy’s concert for “International Talk Like a Pirate day” at the German Liederkranz Club on Washington Street. See the concert photo album Hogeye Naavy is a really fun band that plays sea shantys and traditional folk music of Ireland, Scotland, England, and North America. Their instruments include concertinas, bagpipes, Citterns, Pennywhistles, Irish Flutes, Irish Tenor Banjos — things you don’t hear much in a traditional concert setting any more. Their fans tend to be really interactive with the band; singing along, banging beer bottles and steins on the table in time to the music. It’s impossible not to have a great time.
The German Liederkranz Club is a German singing society with mixed choir founded in 1872. Originally a male singing society, it now has a men’s and a women’s choir with 20-25 members in each. The public is welcome to join the choirs, which maintain German culture through music, food and dancing at each program. It’s tucked back off the street next to the Fraternal Order of Police building on Washington Street.
On Saturday, Stephanie went to work on her house with her dad, and I worked on the flower beds in front of the house. Last weekend, Stephanie’s dad helped us rototill the beds because the dirt was too tightly packed to do by hand. I’m not sure they’ve been worked on anytime in the last ten years or so. This Saturday I bought another load of compost for the beds and started spreading it out, and working on putting in edgers to keep the dirt in. It was pouring rain while I was working, and at some point in the process, I gashed open my finger, but I didn’t realize it until I noticed the blood. So I stopped for the day and worked inside the house instead. See the gardening photo album.
I finished up spreading compost Sunday morning and washed the truck, then drove all over town looking for a swimsuit, because I’m starting water aerobics classes at the Y with my friend Chi. Of course I’m looking out of season, so there wasn’t much left, but I finally found something. So we’re ballroom dancing one night, and I’m taking aerobics the next. That should be good for me. Stephanie put the “For Rent” sign out in front of her old house. Yay!
And Sunday night we helped Stephanie’s friends move a couch, and they provided us with pizza and great conversation, so we had a pleasant evening. Busy weekend, but fun.
I’m very excited – we have our tree up, and a few other decorations out. We still have to put ornaments on the tree, but that’s the really fun part. Other times, when we want to trim the branches, we 
