Paul took this picture of the kids, hoping it would turn out good enough for him to hang up in his office at work. He's a traffic engineer, so they have signs up everywhere. Isn't it cute? This is right behind our house. (They haven't actually opened this road yet - no worries! We weren't about to get run over or anything!)

So, here's something you may or may not know about the Enginerd: he's a huge fan of The Police! He's been so stoked about the upcoming tour, ever since they performed on the VMAs a few months ago. He was so mad that they only did one song, especially since they put Justin Timberlake on half a dozen times! Anyway, I saw the new Police Cd at Target the other day pretty cheap! I am sort of kicking myself for not just buying it for him for Father's Day. Think I still could? I mean, would the sentiment be there? Here's your present, two weeks late!

Please click on this to go and view an awesome banner where you can watch The Police's videos, listen to tracks from The Police's new 2 cd hits collection, enter to win a trip to NYC to see The Police in concert and even view details about their current world tour.



I just used this nifty little banner right up there to enter him in a contest to see The Police live in New York at Madison Square Garden. Now THAT would be a super present, wouldn't it? If you want to enter, just mouseover that banner and click the contest link. You can also use it to watch videos, listen to songs, and even download ringtones. I really think I need to buy the CD just for the vintage poster that comes with it.

Because I have something to report!

Paul and I were driving home from somewhere this weekend and noticed that many of our neighbor's lawns are looking pretty pitiful. So, by contrast, ours no longer looks like utter crap! Yay! I guess it's the many days of temps in the upper 90s, along with the lack of rain. Whatever it is, I'm glad we aren't looking like the WT of the neighborhood anymore.

We had a few friends over the other night, and when we weren't getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, we had a whole lot of fun drinking beer and roasting marshmallows around the firepit!

We turned it on briefly in April when my family was out here, but this is the first time this year that we've actually, y'know, MADE SMORE'S and everything.

LOVE that thing. Well worth the $45 at Target! (And, however much that gas valve thing was that Paul used to hook it into our natural gas line!)

A week ago Sunday when we were at my parents' house for Father's Day, Paul was showing his dad around my parents' house. It was the first time Paul's parents had ever been there, so they had to get the guided tour.

One of the cooler things I like about their house is the fact that the finished basement doesn't feel like a cave. The kids have a large playroom down there, and in addition to the one real window, there are a couple of fake windows on the wall. All the windows are covered with blinds, and the two fake windows have a light box built into the wall, so it just looks like, well, a window with the blind closed. There's soft light coming through, and it just feels like a normal room instead of a basement room. They're actually cellular shades like these.

Paul's dad and stepmother were pretty impressed. They've finished several basements, but never thought to create fake windows, complete with trim and windowsills and blinds and all of that. I guess there are all kinds of crazy things you can do with window treatments, huh? I mean, I'm just guessing here, since we still have a danged SHOWER CURTAIN covering the sliding glass door in our bedroom.

The other night, Paul was at the fridge, filling his water cup before we headed up to bed, and he mentioned that he thought the water pressure was a little weak. He checked the basement to see if we had some mystery leak, but didn't find anything. I thought, eh - probably the sprinklers or something.

So. Like, an entire day later, I was doing dishes in the kitchen and glanced outside and noticed water coming out from under the barbecue. (Eeeep!) I ran outside and opened the cabinet door, and the cold water line had come COMPLETELY UNDONE from the faucet. Water was just SPEWING out everywhere. I had to run down to the basement and shut the water off and then assess the damage. Basically, two of my shrubs got watered REALLY well, and a roll of paper towels under the cabinet was a total loss. So, not too much damage.

But I'm dreading seeing that water bill! I have no idea how long it was like that, and how much water was just wasted. Paul got it all fixed up over the weekend - evidently the hot summer heat makes that plastic water line contract and expand, and it just wiggled free of the fitting. You can bet he tightened it right up, though!

I have a friend who used to live right by me - we were very close; hung out all the time, and when she moved out of the country, it was like someone cut off one of my limbs. Now she lives in England, we only seem to speak via blog comments, and, guess what? She ended up having a set of twin boys a few months ago. Isn't that weird? Five years ago, when she lived here and we spent all our time drinking and complaining about our (now-ex) husbands, we both thought we were all done having kids.

ANYWAY. I find myself scrutinizing snapshots of her kids, not to see THEM so much (well, they ARE precious and all) but to see all the weird stuff in the background that looks completely foreign to me. The wall outlets are all weird looking, the stove looks like an Easybake oven, and even the faucets are crazy looking!

I was just checking out a UK site called Taps4Less.com - and, that right there, is another thing that just trips me out - they're calling them TAPS instead of faucets - teehee! Anyway, all the different kitchen taps - I mean, faucets - look vastly different from the selection I might find here at Home Depot! Check out this one - the handles are on the sides! And a bunch of them are like that!

I don't know why I get obsessed about these types of things!

My son has been obsessed with our air conditioners. We have two units, and they sit out in our backyard, next to the house, right where our almost-4-year-old autistic son can stand there and yell at them all day. Hey, they're noisy, so I guess he thinks he needs to be noisy right back.

Well, his obsession has moved beyond simply yelling at them and pounding on the sides. The other day, I watched him slowly, deliberately, and carefully draaaaag his picnic table across the patio, down the sidewalk, and all the way down the side of the house, and position it next to the air conditioner. Then he stood on top of it and peered down into the unit, laughing at the fan spinning around at eighty bazillion MPH. Or is it RPM? I have no idea.

Anyway, I'm freaking the hell out. As far as I'm concerned, he's only seconds away from sticking his finger through the grill and getting all of his digits amputated down to the first knuckle. His dad assures me that,

A. The fan is far enough down from the grill that his fingers won't reach it

and

B. The fan is spinning "backwards" - as in, it's pushing hot air up and out, not sucking air in, and therefore, the blades are facing whatever direction "backwards" is, so if he DID get his finger all the way in, it wouldn't be going the right way to make sushi out of his little toddler fingers.

Is that true?? Does anybody know? I tend to believe my husband, as he IS Mister Safety and all, but still...

Labels: AC, central air

Well, I was going through my photo album, trying to find a decent picture of us actually USING our fancy barbecue, and I could think of nothing better to represent my family at a cookout, than...my father-in-law grabbing his balls on Easter Sunday, while flipping hot dogs out in the snow. And that's my brother, giggling off to the side.

Okay, now what you're really supposed to notice! My husband constructed that whole thing - the frame is aluminum, and his brother helped him stucco it. We found a cute little bar sink at Home Depot for it - and the countertops are actually made of concrete. Paul made the forms himself, even.

It's not perfect, but God, we LOVE IT!

Hey, did you notice the difference in my shrubs in those two pictures of the yard? They were just taken a couple of weeks apart, and my Russian sage is WAY bigger in the second picture! And, I absolutely must point out that my irises are blooming!! This is the first year they've bloomed. I know they usually don't bloom the first year, but I planted them in '04, so I was thinking I had a dud iris bulb! I was SO pleased to see it blooming like crazy!! I was so worried about my shrubbery after it was buried under three feet of snow for two straight months, but it looks like it mostly bounced back without any permanent damage.

Labels: landscaping, shrubs, yard

Paul has been working his little fingers to the bone, raking dead grass out of our front and back lawns. So far, we've filled THREE huge trashcans with dead grass, and we could stand to go through it all again. Just getting the dead grass out of there helped green up the lawn a little, and we're going to fertilize this week. I trimmed all the shrubs and flowers, and Paul weeded and mowed, and it looks ten times better than it did a week ago! Still not super green, but not the worst lawn on the block anymore.