Monday: the things I dislike about laundry

1. If you don't take it out of the dryer fast enough, it wrinkles.

2. Folded laundry tends to stay in the living room for a while.

3. I regularly go to bed only to find my bed sheetless. It's the worst feeling. All I want to do is go to bed.

Sunday: church

Clay did announcements at church this morning...and they were some of the best ones ever. He got a little lost and so invited the children's message people up twice. Ah...I think it helped wake everyone up.

Then we had a church picnic after Church which was fun. I talked to old friends and met some new people and had good food. Yum.

Then I came home and took a three hour nap. I was exhausted. I finally woke up and did some chores and watched a movie, and I'm almost ready to go back to sleep. I hope I don't do anything to lose the feeling now, because I'm a bit scared I'll have a hard time getting to sleep.

Saturday:date

Ben and I went on a nice date tonight, first to Olive Garden and then to see Julie and Julia. The movie was pretty good and had some really funny lines.

Friday: dinner

Tonight we had some people over for dinner. We had italian chicken...yum. Then we played poker with just the four of us. I'm not sure I've ever played with such a small group, but it was fun because you got to play more. (You also had the chance to lose money a lot faster.) However, whenever Luke and I went head-to-head I always won. It got rather funny after a while.

Wednesday: midweek

Today is Wednesday. I don't really have much to say about today. Yesterday and today were both slightly better at work because I'm getting some stuff were I get to "lead" it. I think that's one of the things I've missed the most since switching projects. And I understand I have a lot to learn and such, but still...

Yesterday we played volleyball with Bible Study. It was fun. We've never been to that side of the park that we played at, and it is a really nice park. Then we went out for ice cream. Yay ice cream! It was just what I was in the mood for.

Monday: gutter 0, Amanda 1

The day started off by sending an e-mail to five people. Two seconds later I received five out-of-office replies. This is the first time I think I've ever gotten five, and definetly the only time everyone on the list has responded as such.

Tonight Ben mowed the lawn and I weeded, then planted my sunflower. Since Ben was still mowing I decided to tackle the gutter. You see, every time it rains the water overflows the gutter. A lot. The mulch has long since disappeared from under the gutter where the water falls out. So I took it all apart and found that there was a lot of stuff stuck at the downspout hole. So I poke at it with the screwdriver. WWoooosssshhhh...the water starts coming out. And keeps coming out. And keeps coming out. It turns out the gutters can hold a lot of water.

Here I am with the gutter. It's hard to tell but I'm soaked and a bit dirty. But smiling!! And Ben did a cool shot with the sunset.

Sunday: I win!

Today I soloed Onyxia. (To put it in perspective, this used to be a boss you needed 40 people to kill. It took me 30 minutes to kill.) I almost died twice, but managed not to. :)

Saturday: stuff

Hmm, well I woke up today not feeling great. I had gone to bed not feeling great and hoped when I woke up I would feel better. After a few hours I did feel better.

Good story, I know.

I cured the dishwasher rack of some rust stains today. Most were from our cookie sheets on the plastic, so it hadn't actually got to the metal yet. But I removed the rust anyway and put on some "special" paint which I think was just white-out.

I read a lot and worked on my new puzzle quite a bit today. It was a rather relaxing day for both Ben and I but definetly needed...it's been a while since we've had a day were we got to stay home all day.

Friday: dinner

Well, I decided that I wanted to go to a local restaruant for dinner last night. We used to go there quite a bit, so the owner recognizes us and we know that the service isn't always very speedy.

Except I forgot that the service isn't very speedy.

We all got normal dinners and it took us about 1.5 hours to get out of there. But at least the food was good and it was with good friends.

Tuesday and Wednesday: Birthday!

I had a wonderful birthday this year. Tuesday our Bible study got together and someone brought donuts! Yay donuts! We also played games and that was fun.

Wednesday was pretty much a normal day, but Ben was extra nice to me and I got lots of phone calls. And a few presents! Even Flurry sent me a card.

Sunday and Monday: hot!

Well, it is hot out now! I'm glad for our deck, but that is about the only reason. It is supposed to start raining again tomorrow, which will be nice.

Yesterday was really too hot to do anything, although we did get some groceries. Then we went swimming with some friends...it was very nice to cool off in the water. We continued keeping cool by playing a game in the basement (and the boys won for the first time). By evening it had cooled down enough outside that we stopped by a bonfire for a bit.

This was a very fun day, but of course meant that none of the "normal" chores got done. We aren't quite out of socks yet though, so I have a few days to get it done. :)

Today I had a hard time getting motivated. The morning was rather frustrating, although went by quickly.

Saturday: my busy day with pictures!

First I went to Jess' baby shower.

Jess opening the gifts from Heidi and I.

Then Ben and I stained the deck. Please note that about 30 minutes into the project (when we were working on the vertical slats but hadn't done any horizontal surfaces) it started sprinkling. We put drop cloths on the deck hoping it would blow over quickly. Then it started sprinkling hard and it almost got called off. Luckily, the rain then stopped. The next two days still look rain free.

In the evening, Ben and I made some Dungeons and Dragons characters. (We're both blue Dragonborn, but we can't fly. I'm a sorcerer and Ben is a Warlord.) That took about three hours, so than we played just a quick round against some skeletons. We won! Phew.


The people helping us with D&D had some cat mint in their backyard, so we brought some home for Flurry.

And then we crashed into bed, exhausted. It was a great day, but I didn't get my nap in. :)

Thursday!

Nothing special happened today. We hoping for another 5 days without rain, so Ben cleaned the deck again. I finished watching "So you think you can dance" (thanks to Dusty for the recording). I'm happy that Jeanine won. She ended up being one of my favorites.

Oh, my toes are doing much better. I've started taking the band-aids off whenever I don't have to wear shoes. Even when they're in shoes they don't leak too much, but if they did the sock would just soak it up and that's rather gross.

Weekend: Niagra!

This past weekend we went to Niagra with some friends. Here are the highlights...

We went on the Maid of the Mist and all got blue ponchos. It is a short boat tour that brings you around to both of the falls and gets you in the spray. It was kind of a rainy weekend, so the ponchos came in handy after the boat ride too.

The view from Canada...

A quick stop at the Hershey store

The next day we went to the American side to go to the cave of the winds. It was by far the best part of the trip. It (again) started raining while we were by the falls, which made them even wilder. Here is the bottom of the falls.

And here the falls are coming over the deck, so Ben and I stood in them a bit. After this we went to the "Hurricane Deck" where we got to stand under the falls and where water was pouring over the deck. The yellow ponchos did not hold up as well as the blue ones and almost everyone's got at least a little tear by the end. (I.e., we all got wet.)

Some people were smart enough to have kept the blue ponchos, so some of those were put on and some of us double bagged.

Friday: friends

Some out-of-town friends are here for a long weekend, so there's been lots of laughter since last night! Last night Laura made a delicious dinner and we all got caught up and played a bit of rock band. Ben and I took today off which was wonderful. Everyone was coming to our house, so the house got almost completely cleaned. It's nice to have people come over so that it does get cleaned well. After lunch we played ultimate/hit a ball around/played a quick round of frisbee golf. We wanted to go for a swim, but the pool was closed for constuction. Then a good dinner, poker, and some delicious pie.

I'm not in charge of taking pictures (so I don't have any), but I'll probably have some up in a few days.

Tuesday: Bible study / ultimate

Tonight we celebrated Aaron and Heather, as they will only be with us for about another week. Julie made a wonderful cake with lots of fun and meaningful things on it.

We also played more ultimate Frisbee. I think we're getting quite a bit better because the time between TDs is getting longer and longer. Although we've also been adding interesting challenges such as the dark.

Monday: slightly discouraged and 501st post

Ah ha! This is my 501st post! I'm a bit sad to have missed number 500, but here's hoping to another 501!

House stuff has gotten me a little discouraged today though. It is supposed to rain tomorrow night, which means no deck staining (although the deck does look really nice and clean). We got quotes on the driveway top-coat, only to learn that we need to deal with the little sidewalks first (which we have no quotes for.) And one of the gutters is being problematic, although I think that it is at least the gutter and not the piping that runs under ground.

But then I took a nap and as always, that improved my mood a lot.

Sunday: deck

Well, we may have just found 4-5 days without any rain, if you can believe it. Ben washed the deck tonight...the difference between the unwashed part and the washed part was amazing!! There was a ton of dirt on the deck, and you couldn't even tell. Anyway, hopefully it will be dry tomorrow so we can stain it. And hopefully the weather forecast doesn't change, because the deck really needs to be stained.

Saturday: colors and cloths

Ben: Woah, look at this! The gatorade turns ... ... ... clear when cold?

Ben: Really? What else could it be?

Amanda: keep thinking

Ben: oh! you put water in the bottles! Because of the orange nalgene behind two of them it looked like it turned clearer as it got colder

Amanda: That would be really cool.

I also finally figured out a good way to dust the bedroom furniture...a microfibre terry clothe. Still not perfect, but it picked up the dust better than anything else I've used so far.