Tales from the Love Shaque: 9/6/10

Happy September! Oh man – one more day of vacation then back to the grind!

I got a letter & CD full of pics from my Adopted Platoon last week!! Pretty cool seeing the faces that I’m sending stuff too. He also had some cool scenery shots,too. Lt. LaFontaine also said he’s going to send shirts to us! Woohoo Kentucky Nat’l Guard shirts! That’s OK. I’d wear it.

This was a midget store keeper on the CD. I really like this pic for some reason.

We’ve done a lot on vacation this week. Went up to the Farm on Saturday & came home Monday. It was nice to just go veg for a while, do some swimming in the pond, have a few beverages & visit with everyone. It was only immediate family with the exception of Jamie’s friend / Catie’s boyfriend, Kurtis. The best episode was Mom & Randy sitting at the picnic table and it tipped over because they were on the same side. Talk about funny! They both just laid on their backs, covered in food & laughed. Glad they weren’t hurt! And Jack didn’t quite take the plunge & start swimming on his own yet, but he did wade into the water to get his belly wet. It’s a start! Morgan started out slow, too. Now she’ll just run right out & paddle around to cool off.

We went up Saturday & came home Monday, so Monday I decided I since hadn’t been to the river yet that I was going for a walk. It was me, Randy, Bo & Mom since Angel had gone home with Laurie on Sunday (as a trade for us taking Mom home). We ended up going all the way to the fork in the road, maybe a mile or so. That’s a long walk for Mom & Bo with his swollen ankles! Anyway, on the way back we saw this ferocious snake in the road! Had to take 2 pics so Mom wouldn’t tell everyone it was 10 feet long – LOL!

Mom said he had his head up, ready to strike - LMAO !!!

Watch out toenails!

Wednesday night was the county meeting. I officially signed up to work at the Brooksie Way half Marathon next month. There were some other pretty neat events going on the last weekend in September, but that’s going to be Angel’s birthday party. Something about Emergency Preparedness put on by Radio Disney at the Mall & something else by a Girl Scout Troop in Waterford. Darn. We still have to figure out details about Pnut’s party! She keeps changing her mind. First she wanted a hobo themed sleepover party at Laurie’s. Last I heard she wants to have a zombie themed one here, since I have cooler Halloween stuff. (I felt good about that!!) So we need to really figure this out soon!

We also had a dumpster delivered Wednesday. Our big project was to remove the walls around the tub in the hall bathroom & replace the drywall with green board & put up one of those acrylic surrounds. It probably would have gone quicker, but we didn’t hurry at all. In fact, once we got the walls down, we didn’t touch it for a full day so the studs had a nice chance to dry. Lucky the only mold we saw was on the drywall. So as of now the surround is in & I get to try to replicate the texture from the rest of the room onto the green board that is showing above. Then painting probably the entire bathroom.

Grossness before

Shiny pretty work in progress!

We thought about tearing up the tile / removing shower in our bathroom, but we decided that having one tore up at a time was enough. It would have been nice since the dumpster was already here, but we think that is going to be a really really LARGE project. The subfloor is probably going to need replacing, too. We have enough going on right now with the hall bath tore up, the back yard looking like a de-militarized zone & a gaping hole in the middle of the patio.

My home-improvement for tomorrow is to find replacement trim for the back door, cut it & have it painted before Randy gets home from work so we can hang the new back door. The old one is already in the dumpster, so I can’t dink around! It’s weird going outside without a screen door!

Speaking of painting, I had Angel out there yesterday putting a coat of haze gray paint on my toe-pincher coffin. I had it made for her birthday party last year, but didn’t get around to painting it. So we took advantage of this cool weather while Randy & I were fighting with green board, she got to paint! And today I went & put a second coat over all the headstones to help seal them. I want to re-do the epitaphs anyway, using different fonts instead of just block lettering. So the shed has become my drying room – I used 4 of the boards from a pallet and laid them across the shelves to hold the smaller stones & the tall ones are all leaning where ever I could find room for them. They’re out of the way & out of the weather, too! Until we need to get to the lawn mower, but that’s not looking likely anytime soon.

Complete with supervision!

So Pnut starts 8th grade tomorrow. Sigh. I really hate that she has to wait until the first day to find out what her schedule is. So much for planning ahead with the supplies! But we got her 6 folders, binders & notebooks a couple weeks ago. That should get her started. Hopefully she'll find out tomrrow if there is anything special she needs. Then Wednesday night is Open House! I still need to find out when dance starts, too!

So I made my Secret Reaper gifts. I’m really pleased with how they turned out. I sent them out & found out that my Reapee didn’t get it yet, because she is driving from Florida to Michigan! But her son was home & got it, so it’s not like the box is sitting out on her porch while she’s gone. I found out she won’t let him open it, either – LOL!! She wants to do it herself when she gets home!

The wreath started out green & the roses black. That's a raven in the center. It's about 16 inches across.

These are from a cemetery out by Laurie's house. I had them printed in sepia tone, painted the frames gloss black with a speckling of chrome.

I also got involved in a Halloween Card Exchange on the Forum, too. You basically post on the thread that you’re interested in participating & people will send you a private message with their address if they want to exchange cards with you. I’m at 26 people right now. I sent out one batch & have to get more cards for the rest. Some people send homemade ones, but mine are store-bought. I try to make the more personal by writing a little note inside & adding stickers. It’s still fun!

I have just 2 more pallets to dismantle & nails to pull from a few boards, and then I should have my stash ready to build. We’ve actually used a few of the more sound boards with this bathroom renovation – sniff! But that’s OK. I have plenty & they’re easy enough to obtain!

Angel & I went tubing on the Rifle River with Laurie, Lulu & some of Laurie's friends on 8/15. Talk about a riot! The kids went off in a group while the rest of us were all tied together with 2 coolers of goodies. The water was really shallow in parts, deep in others, rocky in places, sandy in others. It was crazy! We got fried! My poor cleavage was so burnt it peeled twice. It was a 5 hour trip !!

Us at lunch break

Dennis pulling us in to shore.

The kids - Angel Lulu, Mackenzie (who got mad when I got his hair wet), Ashley

OOO! I was so thrilled!! On 8/21 I took Angel to the mall (with Amanda in tow) to do some school shopping. Once we finishing spending mucho $$$ in JC Penney, we parted ways. I wandered down to the Yankee Candle store to see their H'ween stuff. There were a couple things I'd seen on their website, but had sold out within 2-3 days of being released! I walked in the store and the first thing I saw was...

and I snagged the next to last one and then this jar candle holder....

that I grabbed the last one of! And the woman who'd gotten the last Headless Horseman followed me around hoping I'd put the hands down. Sorry honey! And the entertaining efeminate salesguy told me this had been their last shipment. WOOHOO!!! Then the drama continues....I had stopped at Walden books & gotten a book to read while waiting for the girls. So I sat there in a lounge area until they showed up. We went out to the car & I realized I was missing a bag - the one from Yankee Candle!! I tossed the rest of the bags in my car & ran back into the mall in a panic!! I got to the lounge area & my bag was still sitting there, right where I'd left it!! OMG, I thought I was going to cry!!!!

OMG, this is the coolest birthday present! I told Randy I wanted a candelabra I saw at Michael’s for my birthday. This is what he & Angel got me – I love it! It’s very cool!