Wednesday, July 25, 2007

How to Make Me Happy . . .

Just ask SgtDub, because yesterday he made me very happy! When I left for work on Tuesday, our house was a wreck. As usual, we bit off more than we could chew and have projects out the wazoo. SgtDub was working on the bathroom and converting the closet into DVD storage when he was pulled off to work at Grandma's house. She moved to an assisted living center, and now our family is cleaning out her house and getting ready for an estate sale. Our Grandpa was a carpenter and had a garage full of tools and equipment. SgtDub brought home several of his saws and I brought home the dining room table with 6 chairs, dresser and desk. Needless to say, our garage was full to the brim. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived home yesterday and found the garage was clear enough for me to park inside. I quickly noticed that the laundry was being done, the DVDs were in the new closet, the bathroom was painted, one wall had been covered in grass cloth, the new light fixture was installed AND he built a new stand for the fan in our bedroom. All that in one day!! Can you believe it? He is SUPERMAN! See honey, I don't just blog when I'm mad. MissDub did good too -- she helped him with all the projects and she did the DVD inventory. She put together an excel spreadsheet listing the movie title and rating. You know you have too many DVDs when you have to have a spreadsheet to keep track of them. And get this, we just signed up for unlimited Blockbuster rentals by mail. We have over 200 DVDs and we are paying to rent movies! I need to back up a minute and tell you our paint story. We stopped at Lowes on Sunday to get supplies. We always like to check the paint section where they keep the "mistints". We lucked out and found a gallon that I thought would work in the bathroom. It was marked $5.00, so we said "what the heck, for $5.00 it can't hurt to try it". Well, when we got to the register to pay, the clerk hands us a rebate by mail and says we'll get $5.00 off the paint! I'm not very good at math, but I believe that would mean FREE PAINT!!! We went back the next day and found 4 gallons of exterior house paint (enough to trim) AND it was FREE (after rebate). He he, we just love a good deal, and we got really lucky. We tried again last night, but didn't find anything. Better to stop while we're ahead. So now, SgtDub can add painting the house to his list of things to do.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

The Babies Are Here!

Edward and Bella (pigmy goats) are proud to announce the birth of their two new babies! MissDub went out to feed at 6am today and discovered Bella had just delivered two baby goats. Mother and babies appear to be doing just fine. Imagine that, she delivered them without our help. MissDub had been reading up on how to be a goat midwife, and didn't even get the chance to assist in the delivery. One baby is white with a little bit of black, and the other one is black with white markings. We can't tell if the sex yet, but they sure are cute. They were trying to figure out the nursing thing. The white one must have been the first born, because it was moving around better. We'll keep you posted and put some pictures up soon. MissDub went to Six Flags with her church group, so she's not home to play with them.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Little Black Box

The word around our house is not the "Little Black Box", but rather the "Big Black Boxes". Do you recall the story and photos posted at Dub's site referring to the footlockers he was "lovingly" shipping home to me? Well, they arrived one by one (5 total), plus a backpack and duffel bag. I had threatened to leave all the boxes on the front porch until he returned, and then he could unpack them himself. Only problem is that he still has bags from the first deployment that aren't unpacked. Yes, that's right, there are still boxes in the garage that contain this and that, and probably some food items that are growing mold. This weekend while Dub was at work, my "OCD" kicked into overdrive, and something had to be done to remove the boxes from my home. Although they're stacked in the guest bedroom and not in my way, the mere thought of these boxes lingering gnawed at my mind until I couldn't stand it any longer. I had to take action! I began unpacking each box, sorting out the contents and mumbling under my breath that "there are times I'd like to pinch his head off!" Dub doesn't pack (or unpack) like normal people. Remember his room? Well, he apparently waited until the last possible moment and then scrapped everything off into a box. When that box was full, he moved on to another and another and another. Whenever I pack, I like to put similar things together. I fold everything and stack it very neatly to make optimum use of the space. Heck, I even go so far as to put my socks and underwear in ziplock bags, so they'll stay together. Back to my unpacking story . . . I spent several hours unpacking each box and then repacked them with similar items -- all cammo outfits together, all socks, underwear, t-shirts and equipment in another and on and on. I guess he didn't want to leave anything behind, so he managed to bring home every scrap of paper and toothpick he used during the last 15 months, plus a big ugly bug! I'll bet he was really tired after that ride! I quickly removed him to the backyard, and he's probably thinking "where am I?" I asked Dub why he hadn't unpacked yet, and his comment to me was "so he'll be ready to leave again" -- BEEP! . . . WRONG ANSWER! I feel really bad picking on my wonderful husband like this, but hey, isn't that what blogs are for? When he does something good I tell him about it, but when he does something bad, I blog about it and share it with the whole world! Next topic will be the DVD collection! Okay Dub, now it's your turn to tell your side of the story.

P.S. thanks for helping me get up last night after I strained my back -- otherwise I'd still be laying there waiting for someone to help me up!

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Time To Make The Donuts . . .

Life in our household is officially back to normal. SgtDub was up and at em by 5:45 a.m. this morning. It reminds me of the Duncan Donuts commercial where the baker gets up at the crack of dawn and says "it's time to make the donuts". He was really cranky yesterday, and apparently not very excited about returning to work, and I can't say that I blame him. In a perfect world, money would not be an issue, and we could both stay home and play. Maybe if we were willing to sell everything we own and live in a tent, we could do it now, but I'm not quite ready to make that sacrifice. We had a very relaxing evening. SgtDub had dinner ready when I got home, and it was quite tasty (hamburgers). After dinner, we spent time on the Internet searching for hotels for our vacation, and then sat on the back porch watching the storms roll in. There was thunder, lightening, rain, hail, more rain, more thunder and on and on all night long. I'd like to say that I slept well listening to the rain, but it wasn't like that at all. Between SgtDub snoring and the thunder, I don't feel like I got any sleep at all. Maybe tonight will be better. MissDub went to see the orthodontist today and came out with black and blue bands. Back when I wore braces, we didn't get to choose colors. I had a "tin grin" and it was extremely painful when they tightened and re-wired my mouth. She never appears to be in any pain afterwords, which is a good thing. Hopefully she will get the braces removed in March, and she will have a beautiful smile to match her beautiful face. Not much else to report around here. Bella (the goat) hasn't had any babies yet. She looks like she's about to explode, but so do I! Hopefully we will have some baby goats very soon, and we'll have even more mouths to feed. I will encourage Dub to post about his first day back on the job, and who knows, maybe he'll have some good stories to share. Be safe and have a good day!

Friday, July 6, 2007

It's been a busy week!

Day 7 and we are making progress on the bathroom. SgtDub tried his hand at plumbing and after 2 very frustrating days, decided to hire a plumber who came today and saved the day. Our 4th of July was good and bad -- good in that we were all together, but bad in that my parents' dog (Jazzy) decided to run away when the fireworks scared her. We realized she was missing around 7pm and all began frantically searching for her. Our neighbors even pitched in to help. By dark, we had decided there was nothing more we could do, so SgtDub and MissDub put on their fireworks spectacular (NOT!) Man, what a disappointment! They spent $60 on fireworks and none of them were anything fancy. We had planned to have a big cookout at our house, but we had to cancel that due to all the rain. We could have played mud volleyball. I'm happy to report that Jazzy was apprehended about 3 miles from our house and returned safely. A very kind gentleman found her running along the highway and stopped to get her. We are so thankful that she was found safe. Dub's scheduled to return to work on Tuesday, and I'm a little nervous about that. Not that I doubt his ability as a police officer, but I worry about all the crazy people he has to deal with. Hopefully, they will go easy on him for a while and let him get reaquainted with the job. I can't imagine walking away from my job for 15 months and then coming back and remembering how to do everything. I've taken off work the last few days and have been home supervising the "project". I feel bad now that I got him started on a project that is obviously going to take a lot of time and money. I should have waited until he was better settled. I'm sorry SgtDub if you're reading this! Oh, one more thing I forgot to tell you about the fireworks spectacular . . . the first roman candle that they set off was upside down and it fired directly into the yard! It was hilarious and I got the whole thing on tape (he he). I will try to post again soon. Dub decided to download something to speed up our internet service and it apparently had the opposite effect . . . now we have none! Having to post from Nana's house. So if you're wondering why the family isn't posting on a regular basis, that's why. Also, if you're keeping up with MissDub's site - we still don't have any baby goats.

Monday, July 2, 2007

Bathroom Remodel - Day 3

As you may have seen over at SgtDub's site, we began work on MissDub's bedroom/bathroom remodeling project. MissDub had been a "Cowgirl" and her room was decorated with all things "Cowgirl" and horses. This decor worked for quite sometime . . . that is until MissDub decided she liked "Asian" decor and was ready for a change. Well, that's quite a jump from cowgirl to feng shui. MissDub has a CD that allows her to render 3-D drawings and floorplans. She has already designed her dream home and will probably build it some day. She has drawn up the design for her Asian-inspired bedroom and boy is it fancy. I doubt seriously that SgtDub and I will even come close to her expectations, but we'll give it the old college try. We decided to go shopping without her and come up with some choices. We're big HGTV people and one of my favorite shows is "Designers Challenge" where 3 designers come in and give their ideas on a project, and the homeowner must pick one. That's kinda what I wanted to do, but I decided against it, because knowing MissDub, she'd pick the most expensive and most difficult project. Like Mother, Like Daughter! I'm not in to the "Asian" decor, but I'm trying to be flexible and go with it (more Zen like). The reality is, we don't want to alter our home in a way that will detract from future buyers. We're planning to stay put, but you just never know. I can't see anyone else coming in and saying "oh my, this bedroom is exactly what I was looking for". So with that in mind, we will update the bathroom, paint the walls, add new lighting, window treatments and furniture (within reason). After our shopping excursion, we estimated that the remodel (excluding furniture) would cost approximately $3000! Here is where I fainted and when Dub revived me, I said "heck no!" She won't keep it clean now, what makes you think she'll keep it clean after! We began the demolition on Saturday -- it was raining and we couldn't do anything else, so why not knock a wall out. We removed the vinyl flooring, fixtures and are attempting to remove the shower enclosure, which is proving a bit tricky. No work was performed on Sunday (i.e. Dub was on the couch and MissDub was on the computer), and I'm not sure if anythings been done today or not (I'm leaning towards nothing). I will be home shortly and will access the progress and if necessary, create a "to do list" and make sure I call home frequently tomorrow to ensure work is being done. I feel certain that they're both playing X-Box and as soon as I drive into the garage, they will rush to look busy. More tomorrow. By the way, I will be taking wagers on how many days it will take to complete the project. SgtDub has the reputation of being the "95% man", which means he WILL leave one part of the project undone . . . what will it be?