Busy Month

Well this is going to be a busy month. With my sibling moved back in I expect we will be spending quite a bit of time there. The 2nd week of the month we are putting a new roof on the house and Chris's brother Andy will be coming down from Wisc with his family to help - so I will have a house full for a week.

Right now it looks like Chris will start his new job at the end of August and he will be gone for 4 weeks. So the last 2 weeks of the month will be spent getting him ready to go - the list of things we need to get done seems never ending.

I have a new Boyfriend

Yep - that's right. I have a new man I'm talking to on the phone almost on a daily basis.

His name is Aiden and he loves to hear my voice and tell me about Gordon's coal car and what ducks say and what color a bus is.

Its funny when I call up and in the back ground you can hear Aiden in the background going - Aunt Beth? and when my sister gives him the phone and I say Hi Aiden he just screeches with joy and then tells me about what he is watching or the new words he knows. These words now include purple nemo fruit snacks and bless you (when you sneeze) - but most of the time he doesn't say bless you, he just laughs at you.

If Aiden calls me and Chris answers the phone there is always a voice in the background saying "put Beth on the phone". And then I get shrieks of joy.

I've gotten a couple really good voice mail messages from the little man.

I Found it!!

Well I finally found my Jiffy Cake mix.

I actually went to Meijers today because I'm out of Guacamole mix and I only like the McCormick brand and Krogers doesn't carry that brand of Guac mix - they have all the other packages McCormicks makes but not the Guac. So while I was buying like 20 packets I checked to see if they had cake mix and what do you know - they had it!!

So now I know where to get it when I run out next. I only bought about 10 boxes (and they were on sale) so I should be good for a couple batches of peach dump cake this summer.

Is it just me and the location of this Meijers - but are they turning into the new Walmart? I saw some really really interesting people while there after work today. I would expect that at Walmart but not Meijer.

April 2nd - lawn was cut for the first time of the season

Yup - I said that right. Chris just had to mow the lawn this evening because "its getting crazy out of control". Really only the portion down by the willow was getting long because of all the water that collects down there. So you can tell he cut that. As for the rest of the lawn - I see no difference. Plus according to the weather is supposed to rain for a couple days and we have a chance of snow again this weekend - crazy weather.

Men - I really don't know what is going thru his mind sometimes.

Funny Farm Game

Don't start this game unless you have some time on your hands - it is a bit addictive.

There really are no instructions but from what I can figure out you need to identify what you can "Find on a Farm". As you find things they will start showing up and then you need to figure out things about those items. Things are interlinked so trying to figure out those links will help. I think the number of dots in the box represent the number of letters in that word but I'm not sure exactly about that.

http://shygypsy.com/farm/p.cgi

If anyone starts this game let me know. I'm stuck and could use some help.

Art History lesson for the day

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/24109#more-24109

The Mental Floss (one of my favorite magazines) is featuring M.C Escher today. They have some good information and links to other sites with even more information.

Check it out.

Contractors - ugh

We bought new gutters for the house in January from Sho Pro of Indiana. In addition to the gutters we got fascia, soffit and gutter guards as well. Our gutters were actually falling off the front of the house from years of neglect and they no longer looked white.

Boy what a nightmare this is turning out to be.

They installed everything in mid February.

And it looks like crap. Even the guy from the company that came out to see the installation agrees it pretty much all needs to be re-done. Right now the front gutter looks like its going to fall off and it has a huge dent in it. The fascia in a couple places is not tacked on right and with the wind we are having its getting worse and worse.

I finally think I have a confirmed repair date of this Thursday - better than a month since they put it up but this is the 2nd time they have given me a date so I'll believe it when I see it.

Oh and they have already started billing me for the installation. The guy who is my contact states all the work they are doing now is under my warranty and as they have already completed the installation they can start billing me for it. If they do not fix the issues on Thursday I'm sending in my dispute letter to the credit company and to the BBB and will not be paying until its all fixed. I may even send a note to Angie's list and have them look into it as well.

I am so pissed about this I'm seeing red. Thanks for reading my rant.

This is why we do most everything ourselves.

My ever changing husband

So here is what Chris looked like just a couple days ago

On Wednesday he went Amish

On Friday he temporarly looked like Wolverine

And then got rid of the rest of the beard.

Today the hair went away.

So in a matter of less than a week my husband has change 4 times.

Signs of Spring

Well I was going to post this a couple weeks ago but don't know where the time has gone.

I'm going to say that it is officially spring here. It looks like spring, my flowers are coming up like crazy. It smells like spring, that earthy smell of mud and grass. The birds are singing like crazy, I heard the sand hill cranes a couple weeks ago and saw a flock of them circling over head like they were lost, I'm also seeing birds at my feeder that I've not seen since the fall.

But the best sign of spring.... The local Dairy Queen opened.

My husband - the roadie

Well its was concert week again (have i mentioned how much I hate concert week?). This one was particularly bad as on top of the normal 2 concerts on friday and sunday, as a condition of the grant we got from the town of Avon we also performed 2 concerts for the middle school kids today (just the 5th and 6th graders). So that's 4 concerts in 6 days. I'm so sick of that song now.

Any way, at Friday's concert I wasn't sure if I had anyone to work the sound and light board for the concert - I couldn't find Rick - the head of the music program at the school we perform at. So since Rick taught me a couple concerts back (for a coral concert he couldn't stay for) I taught Chris. Which came in very handy as Rick had to leave right at the beginning due to being sick (ended up with bronchitis).

So now Chris is an official roadie for the orchestra. On top of helping set up and tear down, he also knows how to work the lights and sound. I asked him how he liked it up in the booth and he said the sound and view is much better. Plus he can play. He kept changing the color of the lights we had shining on the back wall - it went from purple at the beginning of the concert to a weird green.

So I don't feel like I'm using him, I only ask him help at 1 of the many concerts (and he can pick which one) so he either helps set up or tear down. Well I take that back - because he dropped me off on Thursday for rehearsal he also helped set up and tear down that one as well. But I try not to ask any more of that from him, and I make sure he gets all the cookies he wants (from the refreshment table).