Thanksgiving

What did we do for Thanksgiving this year? Well, we went swimming. My parents just put a pool in at their house and we tried it out for the first time over Thanksgiving. Both of our parents live in San Antonio, so it’s not really a question about where we’re going, more of a question about who’s house we’re staying at. Last year for Thanksgiving, we went from Houston to San Antonio to Lake Travis to Austin (for the game) to San Antonio back to Houston. It was not a whole lot of fun, so we decided that we would spend the actual holiday with one family or the other. This year we spent actual turkey day with the Patenaudes. But the day before we were in an outdoor pool. That’s right. That’s why we live in Texas, thank you very much. It was rather strange because when we got in at 4 on Wednesday (I ducked out of work an hour early since there wasn’t anyone calling) it was like 75. By the time we got out it was in the 50s because of a cold front. The pool is heated so in the pool it was almost 90 the whole time. It was very nice. T-day was spent eating lots of food and spending time with the Patenaude family (immediate and extended) and giving thanks for every way that we’ve been blessed and they have been many.

Bathroom Redo

 

So I decided that we needed to have a big birthday bash for my wife. She's been wanting to redo our guest bathroom for a while so I decided having a set date (the party) would give me the motivation I needed to actually get the job done.

 

Here’s what we started with. Those “tiles” on the floor are actually vinyl tiles that have been glued down. We ripped those up and replaced them with ceramic tiles. It took quite a bit longer than I originally planned. Between the extra drying time that was needed (I had to do the tiling in two batches) and the extras that had to be done (taking out the baseboards, the toilet, repairing the cabinets, repairing drywall, etc) it didn’t go exactly as planned. We had planned to have the cabinet painted, walls painted, and baseboards painted, but we only got the tile in, the toilet back in and part of the cabinet painted (the part we repaired). We also had to repair some drywall holes (one caused by someone ripping out the towel bar, one caused by me because it was rotted). So this is what it looks like mid project (almost done).

And here it is, as it stands today:

Left to do? Sand and paint the cabinet. Paint the walls and baseboards. Caulk.

A big thank you to a certain friend (who shall remain nameless unless he wants the credit) for coming over to help with the toilet and the baseboards.

Now, who wants to come over and paint?

Cars

As many of you know, I work from home. This has presented interesting challenges, odd encounters, and numerous other things that I’d rather not go into here. This update is about Cars. I bought a car shortly after I graduated from College since BTW, who had served me so faithfully lo those many years, decided to crash the transmission. Again. Well, it wasn’t really again, see the first time the transmission was acting funny. Not HAHA funny, just odd funny. Kinda like that kid in your sixth grade class that took a shower with his bathing suit AND t-shirt on. Yeah, like that kid. Not really funny, just kind of odd.

Anyway- The first time it was acting weird so I took it to the mechanic and he said he could do a $100 repair, but I would be mad at him in 3 months when the whole thing needed to be rebuilt. So, I said rebuild it. And 18,001 miles later (18,000 mile warranty, of course) it completely craps out. Like, won’t shift at all, craps out. So I have him “fix it” as cheaply as possible, sell it and buy a new car (actually buy a new car, then sell it, but who’s counting).

I love my SUV. It’s loaded. And the first year I worked for my company I put 45,000 miles on it. Now not all of those were for work since my fiancé lived in Austin and both of our parents lived in SA. From the last weekend in October until we got married in January, I went to either SA or Austin every weekend. So that could’ve had something to do with it.

But now that I work from home, I take my car out MAYBE once a week. And that’s only if we go to Home Depot to get something (unless of course we’re buying a 9 foot Christmas Tree. Why would we take it then? Where’s the challenge in that?). So I don’t really pay attention to things like gas and such. The other day, I’m driving home from a work thing (don’t ask, wasn’t pleasant) and my car beeps telling me I’m getting low on gas. And it got me thinking… What did we do before our cars yelled at us? And is it making us stupider as a country? I mean, I don’t even know if my gas gauge actually works on my car. I never look at it. Well, that’s not true. What I should say is the only time I look at it is to see which side of the car my gas tank is so I know how to pull into the pump. I only look at how many miles to E (which we all know has a 20 mile pad on it, so when it reads 0, you can still get to the “cheap” gas station).

I just was thinking that my first truck didn’t have beeping devices or “miles to E”. In fact, it didn’t have a radio or air conditioning, there’s no way they were gonna throw in something cool like miles to E or an onboard computer. I’m pretty sure Dodge didn’t know what computers were when they built the first truck. But did I pay attention to it better than I do now? Probably. And sure, I have a lot more going on now, but isn’t a vehicle that costs tens of thousands of dollars something I should be paying attention to and not waiting on the computer to tell me when it has issues?

Yes. But my that beep is comforting when I’ve forgotten.

Christmas

Christmas begins earlier and earlier every year. They began setting up Home Depot and WalMart in the middle of October. The Halloween section was smaller than the Christmas section by October 20^th. I normally try to abstain. I’m the guy who won’t buy Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving. I’m the guy who doesn’t believe in hearing Christmas carols until after Thanksgiving. I’m the type of guy who bought a Christmas tree this past weekend.

That’s right. We bought a Christmas Tree first weekend in November. I’m embarrassed. I’m mad at myself. I have a 9 foot, pre-lit Christmas tree. And I’m AWESOME.

Got a little off track there.

Anyway-

To make matters worse, we were planning on LOOKING for Christmas Trees, but we weren’t totally planning on BUYING a Christmas tree. So we take the Mrs.’ car and head to Hobby Lobby. All of their trees are 30% off. Too bad they start 60% higher to begin with. We went to Home Depot, and walked out with a 9 foot, 1800 tip, 1000 light Christmas Tree.

The wife’s car has a huge trunk. And the back seats fold down so you can fit large items in there. Problem was, the tree was long enough and wide enough that it wouldn’t go over the back seats. So not only did I buy a Christmas tree the first weekend in November, I was THAT guy driving down the road with the trunk open with something hanging out the back. And to make matters worse, I own an SUV. So there’s no reason that I should be THAT guy. But I was. And I am.

But I have a 9 foot Christmas tree. Did I mention that already?

New rant on Christmas:

Everyone knows what Black Friday is, right? The day after Thanksgiving. The worst day for Evan to leave his house. I don’t really like big crowds. My wife would tell you I hate large crowds. And large crowds of inconsiderate, me first people are my least favorite by far. And guess who is out en masse on Black Friday? Yeah, I know.

But this doesn’t have anything to do with those people. It has to do with WalMart. First, some background information. Click Here. Read that first. It’s kind of important to the rest of my rant.

Now, let’s say you worked in marketing (which I don’t). And let’s say that you had an event that you wanted a lot of people to come to (I do, but it has nothing to do with Black Friday…details soon). And let’s say you had an advertisement that you wanted a lot of people to see (which I don’t). And let’s say that your plan was to make money off of this even and therefore had spent a lot of money to print up advertisements for this event. Now why wouldn’t you want the most amount of people to see that advertisement? And would it matter if some people saw that advertisement before others? Does Walmart really care that their Black Friday ads are being seen before they want them to be seen? Doesn’t that, by definition, mean that they are working? People want to see what kind of deals you are going to have on the biggest shopping day of the year. And you are going to sue people who help them find that out? Doesn’t that seem odd? Is it going to change the way you market? Is it going to hurt your sales in some way? Are some people going to be offended that they didn’t get to see the ad first?

Again, I’ll admit, I’m not in advertising. I have no desire to be in advertising. I took ONE marketing class in college (great class, great prof, not the point). I paid attention pretty well, and not once did I hear mentioned that you should sue people who are helping your customers see your ads. I might’ve skipped that day, but I think that would’ve been on a test or something.

Anyway-

Christmas is fun. We love it, and we’re prepared. And no, I’m not leaving the house on Black Friday.

PREGNANT!!!

Don't get your hopes up. Especially you, grandparents-to-be.

It seems as though all of our friends are getting pregnant. I suppose we’re at that age, but it seems like we’re being left in the dust. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not ready to have kids at this point, and a lot of our friends from church are older, it just seems a little strange. I guess this is how it’s supposed to feel. We’ve just never been through this before. We’re very excited for all of our friends that are pregnant, and we’re even more excited to baby sit for the little ones.

My sister and BIL (Brother-In-Law) have 2 munchkins now. One is 3, the other, 3 months. The younger one is known as the kielbasa sausage since he’s just a big cylinder. There are no curves to him, just tubbiness. I suppose all babies have “baby fat” he just seems to be extraordinarily round. Cute kid though.

So as I said, we’re happy for our friends, but I think we’re going to stay in our current Sunday School class for another year or two.

Welcome

So, it seems as though everyone has a blog these days. This isn’t going to be updated every day, or even every week, but hopefully it will be updated more often than the old website. Welcome to our little space on the internet.

A little bit about us: My wife is a teacher, I’m in computers. We live in Houston, TX. Other than that, we’re keeping it low key since high school students have access to the internet. If you have any questions, feel free to send us a quick email.