Painting Progress

I made good progress on the painting today. That sounds like I am painting a picture. The walls are done. Now all that is left is the trim which will be white. Tomorrow for that. Debbie is very relaxed about the whole thing.

Ted and Peggy are in Tennessee somewhere along the Tennessee river. They will be in in a week.

No Michaelangelo

So, Michaelangelo, what did you do today? Oh, I painted a ceiling.

I got started on the baby's room this evening. The ceiling is done. Tomorrow I do the walls.

How to cut a tree

I had a dead dogwood tree. Or at least one that was so far gone that it wasn't coming back. So, last evening at about 5:15 I decided to cut it down because the city brush pickup is on Friday morning and I thought if it were done we would not have a pile of sticks in front of the house for a whole week.

Dad got his chainsaw and we all piled in the car and headed to our house. We were supposed to have dinner at Mom and Dad's.

I moved Debbie's car and dad fired up the saw. A chainsaw makes quick work of a dogwood. In about 10 minutes we had a 5 foot tall stump. That is when my neighbor arrived. He's a helpful guy and asked if we wanted him to pull out the stump with his truck. In another 5 minutes he had a chain around it and pulled it out. Then he hauled out a bag of grass seed so that I could seed the spot where the tree was. We pile up the sticks and racked the ground and spread a little grass seed.

By 6:00 we were done and back at the parents house having dinner.

Screen Door Repairs

Last week we had some very high winds, above 60 MPH, as a noreaster passed up the coast. The door on our screened porch had a broken latch, so the wind got hold of it and whipped it around. Originally I thought the hinge was bent, but Debbie looked at it a little more closely in the daylight and discovered that the problem was with the hydraulic door closer. It was badly bent.

In short, only $25 later we have a new latch and a new closer. I fixed it last evening. On to the next thing...

Staring the Home Stretch

I haven't written too much about expecting a new baby. It is interesting how much more relaxed Debbie and I are the second time around. Also, much of the uncertainty that goes with new babies was settled early for us. We know that she will be a girl, and we know her birthday. The doctor recommended a scheduled c-section because Seth was born that way and she would rather not risk tearing the old scar tissue during a normal labor. And so we have everything lined up.

I have not yet begun to paint the baby's room. That will have to be done in short order because I am running out of time before Ted and Peggy arrive. It will not take too long. It is not a large room or a complicated paint job.

Here is the color Debbie picked:



By the way, for anyone who is reading this using a aggregator (like bloglines) I have added a countdown counter to mark the days remaining until the baby is born. But you have to come to the actual blog to see that. (I think that might apply to one of my 5 regular readers...)
:-)

Rainy Day

It is a rainy Sunday. The kind of day where you stay inside and think about doing things. Whether you actually do any of them is questionable.

Ted and Peggy left on their cross country trip yesterday. They expect to arrive here on the 4th of May. Their day one goal was to reach Helena MT. That's about 500 miles and makes for a long day in the RV. They are going to try visiting some wildlife refuges, but may find them still closed for the season. Hopefully they won't have too much really cold weather.

I bought the paint for the baby's room yesterday. I will have to get to work on that.

Dying Easter Eggs - Last Week

Dying easter eggs hasn't changed much.

2007


1968

Happy Easter

We had a very good Easter Sunday. We were up early this morning and Seth had a good time with his Easter basket and hunting for eggs in the house. It was too cold to have an outdoor egg hunt. We met the parents and Joe for church and then spent the rest of the day at Mom and Dad's.

Seth really likes Jelly beans and M&M's. Actually anything sweet is ok with him.

Holy Saturday Snow

We have a cold Easter in store. Last night we got a dusting of snow which was enough to cover the grass, but not enough to stick to the roads. Highs today were in the low 40's and the overnight lows are forecast to be in the mid 20's.

It is kind of unusual for this time of year. We had beautiful weather earlier in the week with temps in the 80's.

Easter will be at Mom and Dad's. Joe is coming from Baltimore, Maureen is in Peru and the Youngs are having Greek Easter in Hopewell.

A Weekend Away

Over the pst weekend we took a little trip to North Carolina. My regular meeting was on Friday, so Debbie and Seth tagged along and we visited our friends in Durham for the weekend. We had a good trip. Seth is really a very good traveler. He is pretty flexible and tolerates the change well. He is also tolerant of long hours in the car without fussing.

Beth and will came to visit yesterday and are staying until tomorrow. Seth was really excited to see them last evening.