It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

So, things are both going along good and bad.  We’ll start with the bad so we can end on an upbeat note.  It seems my father-in-law only has a few weeks left to live and wont be getting chemo because he’s too weak.  We’ll probably know more later today, but for now, that’s all I know.

I’m taking the next two weeks off work for vacation.  They originally were going to be for a trip to South Carolina to visit with family and relax at the lake house.  Now it’ll just be staying here so Candice and the kids can spend time with her dad, so we can get things done around the house, and spend some time together where I’m not also gone for 8-10 hours a day.  And maybe I’ll get some writing done also during this time.  And maybe Candice will do some art-work also…

When our kids are behaving, they are absolutely adorable, every last one of them, but when they’re bad, they’re absolutely horrible.  The other night Donna screamed almost the entire night because she didn’t want to go to bed.  I’m not talking about until midnight or so, I’m talking from about eight at night until about four in the morning.

Gabe has been totally driving Candice nuts since school let out, but it isn’t all bad.  He’s been going to mathnasium for summer tutoring in math and is usually very excited to go, so hopefully it will start clicking with him soon like reading did a year and a half ago.  He’s learned to tie his shoes!  And we’ve finally come to a point where his inability to focus has overcome our desire to keep him off medications, so we’re having him evaluated for ADD/ADHD and can hopefully get him on something mild that will help him focus more.  Hopefully this will also help him in school.

We’ve mostly finished painting the guest bedroom, just need a few touch-ups here and there.  I also finished sanding the furniture to paint.  With Candice’s dad being in such poor health right now, I’m not sure if we plan to paint it right away or wait now.  When we paint it, it’ll be a key lime color similar to the curtains.

I’ve almost finished making my “anniversary plaque” for Candice that has a quotation loosely based on a Ray Bradbury quote.  It reads, “Don’t think Just Create” – I’ll post a picture up when it’s done in a future blog entry.

Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.

So, the room is re-floored and most of the painting is done.  I’m not sure if we’re going to finish re-painting it prior to my father-in-law moving in, which could be as early as tomorrow.  I might just be moving the furniture back up to the room and reassembling it tonight (after I fix the wide dresser).

Here’s some pictures:

 

Just starting the floor:

Another angle before flooring:

Almost done:

Done: 

Color Scheme:

Color Scheme with Curtains:

We’ve postponed shuffling the kids around for the time-being.  We will re-address soon, possibly moving Megi in with Donna, and later doing the shuffling around.

That’s all for now.  Thanks for reading.

Rush Job

So, Candice’s Dad is coming to live with us in a couple of days.  This presents a  neat little challenge:  we haven’t finished remodeling the guest bedroom yet.  So we’re under a time crunch.  I’m leaving work early today and taking tomorrow off so I can get the flooring laid and the curtain rod hung.  Here’s a picture of the color scheme (my camera doesn't really do them justice, but you can at least get the idea):

I’m hoping we don’t have to remove the baseboards to finish, but when I laid down the first row to test, it looks like it might be a challenge to do.  We might have to replace it at least on one wall (the orange one).  Worst case I suppose is we finish the baseboards (and painting of them) after he moves in.

I’m glad he’s moving in, because at the very least now Candice will be informed what’s happening with him, and I know he’ll be getting better care than he was before.  His wife has not been very forthcoming with information, or for that matter, with letting anyone speak to him.  So at least she’ll be able to talk with him and know what is going on.

Many drops make a bucket, many buckets make a pond, many ponds make a lake, and many lakes make an ocean.

So, we’ve been putting together our bucket lists.  One item that we’re doing soon is skydiving, because my wife and father-in-law (and his wife) have it on their list and we’re trying to do some things with him while he still can do some things.  I just finished mine today:  Anblick's Bucket List.  I tried to only put things on there that I had control over myself, not stuff that is dependent on other people accomplishing them (like “See the Cubs win a World Series” etc.)  Though a couple of them have a dependency on others (but are people I know and can hopefully influence), I still have a good deal of control over the items on the list.  Many of them won’t be accomplished for a while, if for no other reason than I need to save up money to do most of them.  A couple were just “fun” things to try, and a few involve me doing some things that are NOT in my introverted nature.  Should be fun.  You should try it…

Not much else to report in this blog.  Thanks for reading.

Jump And You Will Find Out How To Unfold Your Wings As You Fall...

So what’s been going on lately, you ask?

Well, we’ve got most of the guest bedroom painted, except for the edges and the trim.  Then we have the bathroom to paint.  We’re painting it blue and green a la Angry Birds, and we got Angry Birds Accessories for the bathroom too.  I’ve also started sanding down the furniture to paint it.

Candice’s dad has been diagnosed with Esophageal Cancer that has already spread so far that they’re recommending he skip treatment and just enjoy the rest of his life.  It sucks, but it looks like it’s going to get him a little more involved with his grandkids so they can develop some fond memories hopefully.  We’re going to get pictures made soon, too.

The kittens are doing well, but it seems like phantom might not be a she.  They won’t know for sure for a few more weeks.  Chimera might also be a he, but they think the facial structure is more female.  Who knew that you could sort of gauge a cat’s sex by their face?  Well, I still can’t, but apparently vets can…

I’m starting a companion story for the story about the painting where I tell the story from the viewpoint of the ship that is inside the painting.  Now if only I can get the time when I get in the writing groove.

I’ve also started back up with my scroll saws.  I’m making a plaque for Candice that reads “Don’t Think Just Create” which is a paraphrasing of a Ray Bradbury quotation (Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things.)  I’m going to stain the plaque backing light colors, the letters of the quote a darker color, and paint each individual letter of “Create” in rainbow colors.

We’ve also completed our Skylanders collection (except for getting the Wham-Shells).  We’ve got two of each (one for each path they can choose), and started actually playing it.

Gabe is excited about doing chores.  We got a magnetic/dry-erase chore board for the kids and he has his chores listed so he can get starts, which will earn him his choice of an allowance or playing mom and dad’s Wii for a while.  We got it because he is always forgetting stuff, and it looks like it is going to work much better than we hoped!  We just have to remember when the school year starts back up to add “homework” to the list of chores!  On that same note, we probably need to come up with some chores for Donna to start doing.  We did get her a chore board, too, after all.

And any of my readers who are also friends from Wordtrip, if you are a member of the Large Writing Group, you can read the story about the painting there…

As always, thanks for reading.

Put Pencil to Paper, Make Squiggly Lines, Repeat Until Finished

We’ll get to the exciting news soon enough, but first I must bore you with the more mundane parts of my life you’ve become accustomed to reading.

We haven’t made any more progress on “Operation Anti-Cardboard” despite having the intentions of doing some almost every day since we started.  Hopefully, we’ll get the second coat painted on the closet doors this week, so we can set them out of the way and get to work on the rest of the room in earnest.

Candice colored Gabe and Donna’s hair the other weekend at Donna’s request and Gabe’s “I have to do everything everyone else is doing.”  Donna’s hair is purple and pink, and is still colored.  Gabe chose cherry red, and it didn’t stick with his hair.

Gabe is done with school for the summer.  I feel bad for Candice, though I foresee Gabe getting a decent tan from being sent outside quite a bit. 

Ghost knocked the bird cage off its resting spot and it freed the birds.  The back door was open at the time and one of them made its way outside before Candice could get it closed.  We’ve since done a makeshift fix to the birdcage to keep it from being knocked off again.  Next year, we’ll probably get a much nicer birdcage for them that can’t be knocked over (and if it is won’t separate from the base).

This weekend was busy.  Friday after work, I took Candice’s car in to have the iSimple installed so we no longer have to find a “free” radio station to broadcast the iPod with in order to listen to it through the car radio.  The sound is much more amazing this way and we can control the iPod through the car stereo even.  The cross-country drives are going to be much better not having to find a new station every 10-50 miles!  And the bonus is, I got it on Amazon.com and paid for installation at Best Buy and saved $50 over just buying it at Best Buy and not having it installed!

While there, the people we were getting the kittens from called Candice to tell her that they were ready to be picked up, so I went and got them that evening.  Phantom (the blackish calico – apparently called a “brindle”) and Chimera (the golden one) came home and are now playing like they’ve always lived here.

Ghost went to get fixed Sunday.  Despite having just gotten out of surgery for being spayed, she was alert when we picked her up.  And once we got her home, she was basically acting as if nothing at all had happened.  In fact, she seems even more rambunctious now just two days removed from surgery than she did prior to going!

We also went and got a couple of new birds to keep the other one company.  We’ve kind of decided that for most pets, we’re going to do them in threes (one for each kid basically) except if we get any large breed dog.

Candice started P90X the other week, and after nearly being killed by the first day’s routine, she promptly stopped.  Now she’s going to give it another try.  She did the first day’s routine again last night and plans to do the second day’s routine today or tomorrow.  She really wants to lose weight and get more fit, so I hope she sticks to it or at least finds a routine she can stick to that will help her accomplish her goals.  There’s also likely to be a hiatus from exercising coming up, but we won’t know more until after a doctor’s appointment Friday.

Oh, and the exciting news:  Both Candice AND myself are again plunging back into our creative endeavors of choice.  Candice has started working at her art desk again, creating stuff with her hands, and just last night, I started writing a story again for the first time in about 5 years.

It’s about a haunted painting that can change appearances and interact with the world outside the painting, and whoever is the true owner can not be rid of it until they die.  The story doesn’t come out and say that in as many words, but the implications and clues are all there for the reader to piece it together.  I had lots of ideas to include, but as I was writing, I encountered the perfect ending for the story before getting to some of the stuff I planned to include.  Now I’m in the dilemma of figuring out if I should leave it be, extend the story to include the extra and have a less spectacular ending unless I stumble upon something better, or more likely, add the extra stuff in prior to my perfect ending.  As you can see, I am leaning towards the latter choice because I really like the ending but also think the story needs the extra terror added to it.

As I was writing, I needed a description for a painting and chose my favorite painting of all time which I first saw in the Louvre:  Aelbert Cuyp - Boats on the Estuary of the Hollands Diep River Near Dordrecht.   Here’s a picture of it:

It starts out with only two of the three people in the rowboat and then starts making subtle changes in the early stages of the story.

Anyway, I’m totally excited about the story, because it happened without the aid of a deep depression or alcohol, so there might still be a future for T. Allan Bishop as an author in post-retirement…

The Official Passing of the Graveyard

So yesterday the neighbors from Halloween House formally handed over the cemetery to us.  We got the cemetery fencing (minus the fancy gate), the window boardings, and the partial coffins that look like their bursting up from the ground.  I kind of have mixed feelings on that.  It’s a shame that Shawn won’t be there for Halloween this year (or any year in the future), but kind of nice that some of the materials will still be used in the cul-de-sac.  I think the new stuff will cover the front of our house and the neighbors on the opposite side of the former Halloween House.

In the process of moving the stuff from their basement to mine, I got the equivalent of climbing 85 flights of stairs (plus probably about the same descending, but we don’t really count those).

We started “Operation Anti-Cardboard” Saturday.  Candice painted the first coat on the closet doors and I did the first coat on the ceilings in the guest bedroom.  Not sure how long it’ll take for us to finish, but hopefully it won’t take nearly six months like it did to finish painting the ceilings in the living room and kitchen.  Having half the furniture cluttering up the loft might be an incentive to keep pushing through!

We also laid claim to two more kittens, which assuming Shadow doesn’t return, will bring the number to 3 – one for each kiddo.  The new kittens will hopefully help ghost not be quite so needy and annoying by giving her some companionship.  The new kittens will be named Chimera and Phantom.  One is calico (mostly black with some golden yellow highlights spread throughout) and the other a golden yellow.  We will pick them up this coming Sunday, so we have a week to get the litter boxes scooped and cleaned so that they will accept them.  Ghost also has another surprise this weekend as it’s time to get her fixed.

Donna has become an absolute beast lately, thinking she can do whatever she wants and ignoring what we tell her to do – or worse – back-talking.  That young lady is hopefully starting to learn that that does not work in this household, but I doubt it, since she seems to think she has impunity to our rules.