Updates and whatnot

Well, it's been a few months since I posted, and I'll blame that mostly on work. I'm on a big project that requires a great deal of my time, and so writing mundane entries about my life goes by the wayside. I had to log in today to remove some spam from one of my posts, so I thought I'd give an update:

Halloween #3 was just as fun if not better than last year. Nora had more of an idea what was going on, so she, dressed as Brobee from Yo Gabba Gabba, we went straight to the awesome block we found last year, and it did not dissapoint. The first house Nora stared at the lady. I looked down and said "What do you say?", so she turned and said "Thank you" we all laughed and she got candy. I told her that today we say Trick or Treat when we go to a house. She picked that up at house #2 and didn't need reminding thereafter. She did need a nudge to say "thank you" though. We were out for maybe 2 hours, and she went home happy and tired. No meltdown this year.

Did Ren Fest this year three times. Once with the in-laws. wonderfully warm weather. Once with the usual gang in full costume, which was rather chilly. And once more with 1/2 of the crew and my older brother, which we semi-dressed up. (I wore my shirt, my heavy boots, and my cloak) All in all a decent go around. Nora was presented a magic wand at a booth some friends of ours work at. Nora loved it, and Sara & I both were appriciative on the kindness of them to give her that. I'd most definitely plug it here if I remembered the name of the booth. It is the one next to the Sky Chair house, and they sell real neat pewter items and chess sets.

Thanksgiving is next week, and once again I'm going to take a stab at cooking a bird. This year we'll have a few more people than last year, so here's hoping I don't burn the bird.

Follow-up

Well since it's been a while since I posted, I actually have things to say:

1) the school fixed the culvert and berm, and even the path the water should take from the school to the rain sewers. Yesterday, with it's horrid downpour was a good test. Turns out my backyard will still get swampy with bad weather, and water will pool under my deck, but it took a LOT of water to do that, and even then it didn't really flow down the side of my house like before. Kudos to the school.

House is painted now. Instead of that pale green it once was (only coat on it too) I now have a "coffee" house (base was called Latte, trim is French Roast. Sara's one request was that we have a purple door, so mature Grape was placed there.

After the painting, we had an infestation of flying ants on our bedroom window. Found some ant corpses in the hamper, then found them on the floor, which led me to open the blinds to see a small platoon of them on the window... ick. 2 Applications of Raid appear to have done the trick. a 3rd application of Ortho Max Home defense is underway.

My deck stairs are tilting, due to all that rain and erosion around the deck, the stair landing is now lower on the north side, causing it to bend and crack. It's on my to-do list.

And finally: I had a dream this morning that my brother and I crashed the High school reunion of all the kids I went to school with in Missouri. (Meadowmere Elementary) It was cool (and a bit scary) that I could remember so many faces that at best I haven't seen since 1987.

Grumble Grumble Home Ownership Grumble

So, my brilliant makeshift plan of digging around the corner of my house didn't work so well. Due to the Storm that dumped freezing rain/hail/sleet/snow on the ground, and it's eventual quick melting the next day, the water flowed back into my house.

WHat's worse is that the path I dug for the dog was unusable due to ... high water. There was a river in my backyard, coming from one side where a divot is in my land, and where the culvert/burm just isn't high enough and the water was flowing over it like a waterfall.

To make this more fun, it's supposed to rain the rest of the week. Yay.
Got a call into the School district to see what can be done about the Culvert, and I'm going to try to call a Civil Engineering company about what to do with my backyard.

My main grumble point on this is that we were saving money this year. Doing a good job at it to.. now all that appears it will go to fixing the lawn. It's necessary I know, and I'll do it, I'm just going to grumble about it.

Remembering Dreams and Garage leakage

Well I semi-remember another dream. Walking into my house I notice my neighbor's house's lights are blinking. I look at mine and they appear to be doing the same thing, but I right my house as an illusion, whereas the neighbor's have some electrical problems.

I walk in, and my house is now some 19th century pioneer house (huge though) and for dinner we're only having boiled Oxen. Yes boiled Oxen. There was this large vat of water with I guess a flank of Ox in there, and some woman who new how to carve meat was cutting up another flank. That's pretty much what I remember.


I think I know why my garage leaks during heavy rain. Dirt around the corner is now piled up above the concrete line. when it gets wet/saturated, it soaks through the facade wood on the garage, which then pours into the garage itself. The first way I think I need to fix it is lower the dirt line, then hope the wood's not rotted.

Who watches the Watchmen?

So I had a date day with the missus on Saturday. We went to see Watchmen, and followed it up with lunch out.

First Watchmen: A very well written movie, one that was dark, had heavy subject matter and handled it quite humanly. I was rather impressed. Also, this movie helps me understand the basic differences between a comic book, and a graphic novel (the movie was based on a DC Graphic Novel). Graphic Novels obviously handle more serious subject matter, more adult, they appear darker, and may not end all happy go lucky. The cinematography of the movie felt like they took scenes straight from the book, which I liked, as the graphic novel depicts the events visually more than just textually. Anyway, it's a good watch and I'd recommend it. Just don't bring the kids... it's not a kiddie superhero movie. Also, be prepared to avert your eyes one some scenes. Rorschach is not a kind hero.

Second Lunch: We were going to grab a quick bite at the local Chik-Fil-A when we couldn't get to the drive through... Driving around it we noticed that the line was circling the building. at 1pm. Now, I've tried their sandwhiches once. It's a tasty thing, but still, it's just chicken with pickles on a bun. That's it... I don't understand the extreme draw of it as "OMG this is the best tasting meal I have ever eaten!" but I do think it's a tasty meal. Anyway since I didn't want to wait 45 min just to order, we went to Red Robin, and I had a burger (side note: I know I should avoid eating beef due to the Iron content but took labwork on Friday, and have a followup on the 20th, so either my Iron count is low enough for the burger not to have hurt, or I'll be draining then to remove the iron built in my system) with an egg on it. Interesting taste. The burger was the main flavor, but the egg added an interesting flavor/texture to the meal. I don't know if I want to have a fried egg on my burger from here on out, but it wasn't bad.

I guess I'll end this post with a whiny ponderance on why we need Daylight Saving Time anymore. I mean honestly, losing that hour is a real pain. and I enjoyed waking up in the daytime.... I hate to think it's so entrenched that we can't remove it. "For the farmers" is the arguement I hear to keep it, but 1) They can get up with the sun, they did before, they can again. 2) don't most Farm equipment nowadays have headlights on them?

Dream Journal

As I've stated before since I rarely remember dreams I like to keep track of the few I do, so here's one I woke up to:

For starters Julia Petersen was there. She was a girl from High School who was in the drama department with us.

Second we were going to play Win, Lose, or Draw/Pictionary. My turn came up and I got "Wizard of Oz" Okay I thought easy. So I drew a rainbow and then drew an arrow going over it.... no one got that....

So next I drew four stick figures next to them.. still no one getting it.

Then I drew these rather elaboarate drawings of Dorothy, Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man, and still no one got it... and my time ran out. I proceeded to yell at those there as to how easy it was to figure out.

Well I was going to sit down and it was Brandon's (another friend) turn and he INSULTED MY SCARECROW. Said it was too poofy or something like that.

Then my alarm went off with "Red Red Wine".

Welcome to the Midwest, I'm Brad I'll bee your host for today

So on Wednesday, we have 60-70 weather and I let my daughter swing until dark. Two days later, I have 4" of snow on the ground, and I shoveled the driveway and porch a total of 3 times. Gotta love the midwest where it never lets you know when one season is over and another starts.

My baby girl got her 2 year pictures on Sunday. Yes, I need to upload them, Yes I will do that soon. She was VERY photogenic. She didn't fuss and when asked about poses, she just plopped right down into them without any arguement.

She got fussy when we were pickign out the photos, and I think the photographer was getting annoyed with us because we picked like 15 poses, for 313.50... HA yeah right. We whittled that down to 3 (get a CD with all the poses on it) for 75. Still pricey, but WAY cheaper... although she kept telling us of what we were loosing (all those neat poser size pictures of our girl, etc etc.

Well I complain, but they do a bang up job on pictures.

I was going to be so good today and eat my cereal at work. Poured the cereal, topped it off with milk, got my spoon out when I smelled the milk had gone south... bummer, well Eggs/bacon here I come.