Summer is flying by…

So I’m freaking out a little! I really can’t believe that next week will be August. Where has this summer gone? I started out the summer with so many projects and guess what? I still have so many projects.

At the start of the summer I knew that had 4, possibly 5 big projects that I wanted to get done this summer.

#1: FIX THE ROOF:

I needed to fix the roof over the laundry room so it would quit leaking. For those of you who actually read the drivel that I post, you all know well my horror stories of the roof leaking every time it rains, when the snow melts, when I break wind next to it, just whenever it feels like it… you get the picture.

Well, this project is DONE!!! With the help of great friends and family, we ripped off all of the shingles on the entire back roof, replaced old/rotten plywood, insulated, laid water/ice shield and re-shingled the roof in the correct way. You can see that post here.

#2 LAUNDRY ROOM DISASTER RELIEF PROJECT

Since the roof over the laundry room leaked, all of the drywall needs to be replaced on the ceiling. Also this year we discovered that we had a hot water leak in the line from the hot water heater to the rest of the house. To find the leak we had to pull up some laminate flooring, cut a hole through the plywood before we could even attempt to fix the leak. In that process we found that the water shut offs were conveniently hidden behind the drywall, so more drywall came out and we saw the shoddy wiring to the panel box and marveled at why house wouldn’t do me a big favor and burn down. On top of that, there is no insulation in that wall. If you want to relive that nightmare, you can check out that post here.

Now that the roof is repaired correctly and we have no more leaking issues on that side of the house, my project is to pull out drywall, insulate that one wall, have my Pop come over and install a new panel box that will be correctly wired, fix the hole in the floor and put down new laminate. I think that this project is the one that is bothering me the most. I think because it seems like a big undertaking it is bothering me that I haven’t made any headway or even started it yet.

#3 FIX THE FRONT CORNER ROOF

In my house of 1000 leaks, I also have a leak in the front corner of house. This past winter and our really, really wet spring didn’t help matters. The leak ran down the corner of two walls and pretty much destroyed them. While working on the laundry room roof Cpt. Insano took a wander over to the front to scout out the leak. Well it didn’t take long, he pulled at the shingles on the corner of the house to find that there were no nails holding them down. Why, you ask, why would there be no nails? Well that would be because the jackass “contractor” that flipped my house decided that he didn’t want to put down plywood. Yeah, that’s right you heard it right he didn’t put down plywood. He just laid the shingles down and glued them together. So the water would pool on the corner and leak straight into the house. Awesome.

This project is tentatively scheduled for the weekend of Aug. 13^th. The Cpt., and more than likely his father Diamond Dave and possibly Butters and Dinker will be over to help me fix the roof.

#4 FIX SPARE BEDROOM

Once the front roof is fixed, then I can begin turning the spare room back into a bedroom. I will have to pull two walls out, one plaster and lath and the other drywall. Then depending on how bad it looks I may reinsulated and hang new drywall and install a new baseboard heater.

So I have a lot to do and I feel like the summer is quickly getting away from me. I really need to buckle down and get these projects done and buttoned up before winter. Well, no time like the present to get started. Wish me luck!!

My Daughter, A Bird The Fish

Well, my baby isn’t a baby anymore, nope she is actually a little fish, a Pike to be exact. We signed up A Bird for swim lessons at the YMCA a little before her birthday in May. The first class was basically just getting kids used to the water and there were little tiny babies like 4 months old up to 3 years olds and parents got in the water with the kids. There were three instructors and they would instruct parents as a group as to what to do to get the kids used to the water, then they would break the class into free time and then meet with each parent and child individually. It took A Bird about 3 classes before she was a completely different child in the water.


She had swam in my Dad’s pool last year, so it wasn’t like she had never been in the water, but in previous years she had clung to me or L Bird like bulldog on a pork chop. In just three classes, the transformation was huge. She was swimming by herself, with a floatie of course, but swimming out in the pool a few feet from L Bird, she was sticking her face underwater, and with some assistance from the instructor swimming under water. It became pretty obvious that her confidence in the water was progressing, she holds her breath and routinely jumps off the dive blocks into the deep end. She goes underwater, then pops up and wipes the water and hair from her eyes while she is swimming towards the side to get out and do it again. That course came to the end and the instructor gave a swim test to all of the older kids to see if they were ready to graduate up to the next class. A Bird was one of three kids to move up into the next class. She is officially a pike.

As a Pike, it is her, four other kids and a lifeguard instructor in the pool. She listens to directions and swims on her own with the other kids in one lane of the pool. It is amazing to see how big she has grown and just all that she can and keeps accomplishing.

We have been in the middle of a heat wave, like most of the country. Yesterday the official temperature was 99°F, but I saw temperatures on the bank clocks of 100-101°F. The heat was just oppressive, so we went out to my Dad’s house for dinner and a dip in the pool. So this is A Bird jumping in the pool and swimming. She is also putting her face in the water and stretching her body out to swim stroke her way through the pool. It is just awesome.

P.S. - She thought it was hysterical that everyone was grossed out by her eating that boogie.

Exercise? What am I thinking?

Well, it looks like I’m going to give this whole exercise thing another shot. When I was younger I used to workout like crazy. I was a skinny, scrawny bean pole. I would come home from class and grab a deck of cards. Then with the cards I would use them to guide my workout, flip one card and that’s how many push ups or sit ups I  would do, flip the next card and that’s how many seconds I had to rest before the next set. That crazy routine, didn’t do anything for me bulk wise, but I was ripped. I graduated college at a whopping 135 lbs, with 4% body fat and a kicking set of six  pack abs.

Fast forward a few years and I was living in G Town and still hitting the YMCA. I had settled down and with the good food from a great woman, I put on some weight and bulked up. I went from 135 to 185 lbs and was still pretty fit and muscular. My six pack was fading, but still barely visible. Then everyday life caught up with me. I got a new job that was on days, not evenings, we bought a house and moved to a town that had no YMCA, we had A Bird and I let working out fall to the background.

I have tried to start getting fit a few times before but never had the commitment to stick with it, so here I am again. I’m the heaviest I have ever been and pretty unhappy with the size of my gut. So I’m going to give it another shot. I am not an “exercise program” guy per se, I like to do my own thing and target certain muscle groups which is probably why I never stick to doing it, I lose track of what I am doing or just get bored with the same old routine. But this time I am going to give a certain program a try that is a good program and has a nutrition portion with it. I had seen the infomercials for it and was always like “Yeah right, those are all paid actors or personal trainers. There is no way they looked like me and  now look like this.” Then my buddy Billy bought the program and gave it his all and I was amazed. Billy used to look a little better than me, now he looks much much better than me. He is trimmed out and getting more and more cut, so that sold me. Someone I know has actually seen results.

I’m still a little hesitant about actually saying what I’m doing, because of my history of quitting. I don’t want people to give me a bunch of crap about it being too tough or I should’ve done this or that. So we’ll see how it goes, if I stick to it, I’ll tell you. If not, oh well.

Well, it’s off to workout #2. Wish me luck, I’m going to need it !

So it’s been a little while…

It’s the middle of summer and like everyone else we have been crazy busy. We were supposed to drive Wisconsin for my cousin Meg’s wedding, (Congrats Meg & Tim!!! Sorry we missed it!!!) but it just didn’t pan out between work schedules and the drive time to and from Wisconsin. But the winery did end up shutting down for the holiday and a few other days so we did manage to get a few days off to ourselves.

So we made the most of  the days we had. We went to a 4th of July picnic at my Uncle’s house and had a good time. Everyone ended up swimming in the pool, me, L Bird, A Bird, my brother, one of my Uncle’s and his troop all crammed into this tiny above ground pool. It was awesome.

We then decided to take an overnight trip to Old Forge and take A Bird to Enchanted Forest Water Safari (Where the fun never stops!!). This was a big deal, because she has never been to an amusement park before, let alone a water park. A Bird’s first trip down a water slide was quite the thing, she looked completely freaked out.

You can’t tell in the video but her eyes are as wide as dinner plates and she has a look of panic. Well, that was actually her second trip down the slide, the first trip I have my finger in the way ( I can’t help it, I have monster hands that eat everything in their grasp). But after that she was rip roaring ready to go, we spent 5 hours at the park and she spent at least 4 1/2 hours in the water or on the slides. She had a permanent smile on the whole time, well almost the whole time, she did have a couple of mini meltdowns, but for the most part was awesome. It also was nice because my Dad and Stepmom came too and helped with A Bird and gave L Bird and I a chance to go down a few slides.

Which brings me to a funny story. Our last slide of the day was the newest one at the park, well at least new to us. It was The Curse of the Silverback, which basically is a short drop down a tube slide into a giant toilet bowl where you circle until you drop out the bottom. The whole time we are in line L Bird is talking to everyone in line trying to figure out if it is going to be scary and in the process freaked herself out. So we get to the top and she is talking to the 15 year old kid running the slide and he tells her that there is a six foot straight drop to gain speed before the bowl, so now she is really freaked out but there is no turning back now. We jump into the double tube and the kid sends us on our way into a pitch black tube and we are flying. Then here comes the drop, L Bird tries to scream but her stomach is in her throat and I’m laughing at with her. Then we hit the bowl and start slowly circling until we finally shoot out the bottom. We get off the ride and L Bird’s hands are literally shaking. It was a great way to end the day at the park.

Everyone packed up and headed back to the cabins to get changed and head out to dinner. We ate at a cool little pizza shop that had 23 beers. Pizza and beers, yeah that’s right up my alley. The next day we made our way home just in time for my mother to pick A Bird up and take her overnight.

L Bird and I headed out to Cruisin’ Night in G’Town for Capt. Insano’s birthday. Cruisin’ Night is an awesome “festival” they have every year, where anyone with a classic car comes down and displays them on two streets. They block off the roads, have live bands, a food court and a beer tent. Everyone just walks around with a cold beer and a slice of pizza or sausage and just listens to the music while checking out hot cars. It turned out to be a great night and a great birthday for the Captain. By the end of the night, he needed a little help from his friends to get home. Let’s just say his legs didn’t work due to over medication with some liquid gratification.

There were a few other highlights, but I’ve rambled on long enough. It was a whirlwind few days, but now we’re all back to work and daycare now and starting to get back into routine.  Now if I could just get a vacation to recover from my vacation it would be great.