Better Late Than Never

Here's the promised pictures of the Halloween decorations.  I plan to have a writing related post soon.  Seems fitting, since that's supposed to be what this blog is for.

Thanks for reading.

We need more RIP signs

We've put out the bulk of the Halloween decorations already (I'll put the pictures up on or after Halloween of the full look of the place with all the stuff out including what we haven't put out yet).  This year, we're adding a grave mourner, a remote controlled zombie crawler, a lined coffin, and the beginnings of a homemade zombie to the "production".  We've also added some red Christmas lights inside some of the coffins that have "risen" from the ground to give them an "inner glow."

I've made some more shelves.  Here's the ones I mentioned that I made for Donna's room, we hung them asymmetrically:

I also made some for Gabe's room.  We stained them since it went better with his room colors (and we hung them differently):

I just finished some for Megi's room.  We made one a rectangle instead of two squares, and we painted them diagonally (The two colors are dragon fruit and a sort of teal variation).  I haven't hung them yet, because we still need to finish painting her room:

Speaking of painting Megi's room, she gave us an "ultimatum" recently to get it done.  She, on the first attempt we know of, managed to climb out of her crib and fell to the floor, so we need to finish her room soon.  Here's the colors from the beginning of it, they're a plum color for most of the walls and a light blue for the accent color:

We like the dragon fruit color from the shelves I built so much, we plan to buy more and paint the closet doors that color.

I still haven't followed my own advice on writing, and as such, I haven't done any writing.  I'm taking the week off for Halloween, maybe I can at least get some progress made on something.

If you're wondering about the blog title, "RIP signs" is what Gabe called headstones the other day, and yes, we do need to make some more for our cemetery this next off season (just like I need to work on the hearse, etc)

Also on the list of projects we need to do is to go through the kids' toys and eliminate some that they never play with by either throwing them away or giving them to charity.  Gotta make room for the next cycle of toys and get rid of some of the clutter.

The furniture savings is coming along nicely, though we keep vacillating between which project to approach first:  a new desk for the office, a new bed/mattress for our bedroom, or hardwood floors for the whole house.  The first two cost about the same (about $2400 each), and the flooring will probably cost about ten times as much for as much space as we need done.

 That's all I have right now.  Thanks for reading.











And send happy thoughts to my wife.  Just because.  She's wonderful and all that, and I love her.

Weathering the Storms

Sorry I haven't posted a blog in a while, it's just not been in my "line of sight" to do so.  But gentle prodding by my #1 reader has gotten me to put out a new post.

We seem to have survived the Colorado flood storms relatively unscathed other than getting stir crazy.  But it will extend the timeline for moving the "travel missile" (our luggage holder) into the basement.  I had it in the back yard ready to move into the basement when the almost-tornado hit a month ago that destroyed part of the velodrome under development in Erie and had us sheltering in the basement for an hour or so.  It got blown into our "circle of doom" (where previous residents dug out a spot to put a trampoline and where we eventually hope to build a gazebo) that was filled with water at the time.  So, I waited to get it out rather than trek into the clay-mud to pull it out.  Then, out of sight, out of mind, I forgot about it until the other day and had planned to bring it in this past weekend.  Then the flood rains came mid-week and that didn't happen.  Now the circle of doom is a small pond, and I'll again be waiting for it to dry out enough to retrieve it (and likely rinse it out inside and out) and bring it inside.

Halloween season is upon us soon.  We didn't get the hearse built (again), but I hope to start making small bits of progress on it slowly over the next year.  It would be easier if there were a little more space for it and my car in the garage at the same time, but I have a few ideas about how to do work on it in the mean-time.  I'll probably put the cemetary fencing up about 2-3 weeks out, and the rest of it up the week of Halloween (which I'm taking off work).

We're starting the process of having our awful windows replaced.  We couldn't afford to do them all at once, so we chose the biggest needed ones first.  We're doing 8 windows.  3 are difficult to see through because of shoddy construction/installation, and the others are in our bedroom to hopefully keep the temperatures bearable in the summer months (it currently gets above 80 most days in our bedroom despite the A/C running non-stop).  The new windows are triple paned, and have technology built-in that is at an angle to reflect heat away when the sun is at a high angle (summer months) and allow it in when it is at a low angle (winter months and evenings), which should save tremendously on energy costs.  When the car is paid off, we'll get the rest of them done.  We are also waiting to finish painting Megi's room until they replace the big window in her room.

I haven't been doing very good about writing, and I think a big part of it is I'm not following the advice I give Candice all the time:  just make time everyday and do it.  So, I plan to try and write for a minimum of 30 minutes each day, even if it's crap.  Maybe she can take some of that same time to do some clay work, etc. and we can both be productive.  I've had plenty of ideas coming (many of which I've also not followed my own advice on and haven't written them down), but none of the "meat" of the ideas has been there yet.  Maybe if I start writing on the ideas, even if I know it's not what I intend, the "meat" will reveal itself to me and I can then write in earnest on each project.

I really need some ideas on how to make Gabe CARE about doing his schoolwork.  Even the promise of getting to go play, etc. doesn't entice him enough to want to do anything when he is at home towards doing a few minutes of homework (which as a result, turns into hours of homework).  So, if you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

I have done some work on a few of my woodwork projects.  I've cut out the kid's names for door plates.  I need to decide how thick a back to put them on and how I want to mount them to the doors.  I also made some box shelves, which we hung in an asymmetrical manner in Donna's room for books, etc.  I'll probably build some more for Megi's room, too, and maybe a couple for Gabe's room (though figring out where to put them in his room might prove the only obstacle there...

That's all I have for this post (I probably had more, but had to completely re-type it from scratch when my browser crapped out on me), thanks for reading.

The Ghastly Photos

Here's a few pictures of Halloween House in progress:

The neighbors are also letting us use one side of their yard...

Mephistopheles Has Started Decorating

So, we've started the decorating for Halloween House this year.  It's both a sad and exciting time.  It's sad, because our neighbors no longer decorate (they were the original Halloween House).  It's exciting because now WE are Halloween House.  Shawn, the neighbor who used to decorate but has moved, left us most of the cemetery fencing, window coverings (that make it look like the house is boarded up and condemned), and partial coffins (that look like they're erupting from the ground), so we're touching them up/repainting/etc to put them out.  We've already hung the bride and groom from the eaves along with some bats, spiders, and a huge spider egg pouch.

Changing from grey marble to beige marble for the cemetery columns

We drove to Illinois for the wedding and returned safely.  But I can safely say that Bishop girls between the ages of 12 and 18 months don't travel well for long distances.  Before that seems to be fine, and so far, the data suggests that after 2 years they're good, too.  Not great, mind you, but not screaming because they're too stimulated to take a nap.

As expected, Donna did not do too well as a flower girl.  I was actually surprised that she walked halfway down the aisle during the rehearsal before she started crying in terror.  I had to go help her during the actual wedding.

Over the four day period, Megi didn't really get any of her naps.  She normally gets at least two hour long naps each day.  Instead, she over the four day period, got about three hours of nap total.  :-(

That's all for now, hopefully, we'll have some decorating pictures to post in the next blog update.  Thanks for reading.

They screwed up changing batteries in smoke detectors when they changed Daylight Savings Time

The only good thing Daylight Savings Time was EVER good for was markings on the calendar for changing the batteries in your smoke detectors.  But when Congress expanded it by a month on each end to save on energy costs (they did so without any studies showing it would in fact save energy and in fact Studies have shown it does the exact opposite), that made the time in and out of DST became uneven and therefore not a good measure of when to change your batteries, unless you like to tempt fate over the warmer months.  So, I usually use the Spring and Autumnal Equinoxes for my timeframe.  But this year's spring changing is having to go off a little earlier than planned because one of the smoke detectors started beeping yesterday and had to be replaced a few weeks early (it falls on 20 March this year).  So this weekend, just to keep them all in relative sync, we're doing the rounds for the rest of the house's smoke detectors.

I also ordered the wagon wheels today to begin the 2011 Halloween construction project.  HOPEFULLY, by Halloween, I'll have built a funtional horse-drawn hearse.  I should probably plan it out more thoroughly but I'm going to go with a basic design to begin with and flush out details as it unfolds based on how it holds up.  Along those same lines, I think I'll be replacing the front house lights and using the old ones ON the cab of the hearse.  Both ought to make my wife happy.

I've also found out from a friend that also lives in Erie that there is a YMCA on Arapahoe and 95th that has ice skating and hockey for kids.  So we might be looking into that for Gabe and maybe Donna.  Apparently they are $90 per class and kids can start at 3 years old.  The hockey season is I guess about $350 to play, so we'll see how it goes.

That's it for this entry.  Thanks for reading!