Wednesday: white

Today I finished tracing out all of the quilt squares on the white cloth. That means I only have brown left. I didn't really enjoy brown much before because it is really dark and hard to see where the lines are.

So at work we got an upgrade to a program...I was a bit excited, because I didn't really like the old program. There are just a few problems...1) new data can only be accessed on the upgrade and 95% of the people don't have the new upgrade. 2) The upgrade interferes with adobe acrobat which in turn crashes my browser every time I try to open a file. (I can still save the file and open it though). 3) I have no idea what the upgrade changed because on my end it broke some buttons that used to work and fixed other buttons that used to be broken.

It would be rather humorous if it wasn't so annoying.

Tuesday: moving and blog

The Bible Study helped someone move this evening. We went a bit longer than planned, but not too much. We moved a lot of stuff, so that's good.

I (obviously) played the look of the blog again. I still have some changes to make but was excited to get a picture of my own in the background. I then proceeded to lose all of my friend links, so if you could please double check that you're on there (if you have a blog). I used the history of the browser and I think I got most of them back, but I still might be missing one or two that I had.

Monday: wheee!

We get to fall through the floor in one of the fights

Sunday: church

Today Ben and I spent a lot of time at church. Ben played drums, so we were there for practice and then for both services. (I did make a quick detour to get more thread because my first spool ran out last night!) Then after that we went to the youth group kick off because I'm going to be helping with it about one Sunday a month. I figured that since I'm at church anyway because of Ben I may as well volunteer somewhere. So we did a mall scavenger hunt, ate pizza, and played nerf gun wars. It was fun. And I met a bunch of new people!

But I have a slight headache now and am feeling just slightly out-of-sorts. I'll probably read for a bit and then go to bed.

Saturday: stick

Today I was going to put up a door stop in the garage. We noticed a small hole formed from where the door bangs it, so it was going to be a simple matter of just making a real hole and screwing the door stop down. Well, when I opened the door stop package I found out that they had sticky backs! I was pumped. So I just stuck it on the wall and a simple project turned out to be even simpler than I imagined.

Then I tried caulking and had a hard time with the caulking gun. But the places did get caulked and due to a Pro-tip on the caulk itself it even looks rather nice. The tip was to mask off the area getting caulked. So I did that and then when I pulled the tape off I had nice straight lines!

Ben and I went out to eat with Clay and Jess and talked for a really long time, but it was a lot of fun.

Oh, and yesterday we watched "I love you, Man." It ended up being really funny.

Thursday: hello

Hi

Today was a good day. I had plenty of work to do, trained some people on a process that I helped to improve, and took a hot shower.

I also got ready faster than normal because I forgot to turn my alarm on . And then someone decided just to lay there and play with the kitty instead of asking why I didn't get up. Luckily I was ready on-time and even had enough extra time to put away half the clean silverware.

Wednesday

Hmm, I don't really have a ton to say today.

Oh, here we go: a tip.

If your shower is pink, yellow lemonade (we use CountryTime) will clean it right up. Pink might work too. I just kind of scrub it with my foot and it looks a whole bunch better. It would probably look like brand new if I actually used a brush to get in the anti-slip stuff.

And this way our shower gets 100% of the Vitamin C that it needs.

Monday: happy Labor Day

Today we had lunch with friends from church at a park. After lunch we played some volleyball. All three girls ended up on one team, which was rather funny because we all admit that the ball really needs to be in just the right spot before we'll try and get it. However, we ended up losing two, winning one, and then losing another 26-24. So we did ok in the end.

Sunday: quilting

Flurry tried too.

Sunday: no work tomorrow!

So after we got home we decided to take a nap right away instead of eating lunch. We then woke up at 4:30, three hours later, and realized it was time for dinner. :)

Therefore, we're still both very awake. Good thing there's no work tomorrow. I've been doing a lot of quilting and Ben and I played a game.

Sunday: one more unfair thing

Why is it that on Saturday, when I can sleep in as much as I want, I tend to wake up between 8:30-9:30. Then on Sunday, when I get up to an alarm at 9:45, I always sleep until the alarm and have a hard time waking up.

Why can't they be switched???

Thursday

Happy Thursday! Tomorrow's Friday! And then a long weekend! I worked quite a bit on my quilt tonight. Wow...two q words in a sentance. I quickly worked quite a bit on the Queen's quilt. Too bad I'm not quick or a queen.

Not much else is new. I have a ton of leftovers. Yesterday someone brought in bagels, so I had a bagel instead of my sandwich. Then Ben and I went to Chinese for dinner, and had tons of extras. Then tonight I didn't eat all my dinner and I still have an italian chicken in the fridge. That's like four lunches. Pretty exciting. We also have too much salsa in the fridge. We keep trying a new type and deciding we don't like it but then not getting rid of it.

Well, tonight's post is getting a little loopy, so maybe I'll go read. I finished my puzzle last night which was exciting. I thought I had lost a piece but it just got under the mat.

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.

Thursday: my get well kit

Well, my intestines had a good day. and I saw Jess's comment from yesterday, and figured we had gotten some sort of food poisoning. My guess is the beans, although Clay had those too and I don't know if he had any problems. But then I got home. And I suddenly had to go to the bathroom every ten minutes. :(

We threw out all the expired medicine about a month ago, which meant there wasn't any pepto. So Ben lovingly went and got me some, along with a few other things to make up my "get well kit."

On a funnier note, I received this e-mail at work today. I think it's hilarious because it is one of those out-of-office e-mails that you get only AFTER you send an e-mail. I guess I kind-of understand what he's trying to do, but I kind of doubt that it will work...

"I will be Out of the facility, returning Monday (August 3rd). Please send me only essential E-mails."

Wednesday: misc

This week has been going pretty well. However, I've also been rather tired. I don't think I've quite recovered from last weekend. It was a ton of fun, but I was a little short on sleep. I also had another toe appointment yesterday. I was there for way too long compared to when my appointment was and how long I was with the doctor, but he was apparently really excited about how well my toes are doing. We also went to play mini-golf last night with our Bible Study which was fun.

Today I had some intestine problems all day, which was weird because having such problems usually happens once and then goes away.

Weekend: camping

We went camping this weekend with people from our Bible Study. It was tons of fun! The weather was nice. The first night was a nice campfire and talk. Then we ended up getting up rather early (thanks Aaron) so after a delicious breakfast (thanks Luke) we headed to the beach area.


We played some ultimate frisbee in the sand, built some sand castles, played some volleyball, played some more ultimate, and then people went swimming. On our way home we realized that all of us were very burnt, even though we were only on the beach in the morning.

After lunch we played a frisbee golf course in the woods, which was probably one of my favorite things of the trip. It helped that Luke and I won. After that some people left, so I grabbed a nap. During dinner it started to sprinkle, so when we were done eating we packed everything up and played phase 10. The rain didn't really last long, so we didn't have to worry much about stuff getting too wet.

We played another round of frisbee golf before heading back (Ben and Heidi beat Luke and I by 1 point this time).

Overall, a great weekend.

Tuesday: where's the bathroom?

(It was tighter than it looks)
(It's a complicated story)

Monday:

Sometimes I annoy myself. It's the worst.

Sunday: socks

Well, I can tell you that toe socks are no longer a cool item. I am wearing them now because they work well with flip-flops and I don't want to go sockless to work. I scoured the mall today looking for some, and I think I found the only two in the whole place. They were, of course, in the last place I was going to look and I was about to go to plan B.

However, they're rather ugly. Why would I want pom-poms on my socks? Luckily, they'll be easy to take out. They were also about 70% off (probably due to the pom-poms) which was perfect too.

Thursday

Hello again! Not much else is new. It is still somewhat awkward around work, but it really depends on the people too I've found. The last friend that we were waiting to find out about did keep his job, so that is exciting.

It's finally warming up over here, but it still seems to be raining quite a bit.

Tuesday: bittersweet

Layoffs were today. Ben and I still have our jobs (yay). However, a lot of people that we know and one person that we would consider an outside of work friend were laid off. I expect both of us will end up doing a lot of interacting with these people over the next few weeks which could be awkward.

I'm sure in a few days we'll be back to our normal selves, but in the meantime we're a bit bummed. We're still anxiously awaiting news on one more friend too, but he was on vacation so we haven't heard anything.

Monday

Monday, Monday.

I'm not really looking forward to tomorrow.

My toes are cold. The low tonight is supposed to be 49ºF.