Enginerd and Wife

May 1st – and it’s SNOWING!, originally uploaded by lalagirl.

I used to HATE it as a kid when it would rain or snow in the springtime and ruin my outdoor plans, and my dad would ALWAYS say, “We need the moisture!” And I always though to myself, “Why? We have a hose!”

I understand now, but I still don’t like it! My husband went out last night and fertilized and put down grass seed and weed killer, in anticipation of the snow. Hopefully when it melts, our grass will be greener.

STILL, though! It’s the first of MAY! It was in the 80s yesterday! Snow? For real?

My husband is going to fucking kill me., originally uploaded by lalagirl.

Mallory was running around the room and crash landed into the screen of our big screen TV. It didn’t appreciate the hit! The screen is caved in and cracked.

I’m not-so-patiently waiting for the Enginerd to CALL ME BACK so I can confess to him what happened. The fact that my calls are going to voice mail is just stressing me out that much more!! I want to tell him and get it over with!!

Wahhhhh!

I know it’s been forever and a day since I’ve posted here. And it’s not like we’re not doing home improvement stuff left and right! I just can’t seem to catch my ass most days, and blog posting doesn’t seem to take much precedence.

Currently, my home is in need of some improvement, in the way of getting all the crap out of my living room! My twins club is having their semi-annual garage sale in about a week, and I’m frantically tagging HUNDREDS of items of clothing so we can get it all out of here, and hopefully rake in enough cash to pay for the gas for our trip to California in a couple of months.

Hopefully I’ll check in here again soon. I want to get this blog going again!

The fence in the hallway., originally uploaded by lalagirl.

One of the reasons we waited so long to move Pablo and Mallory into big kid beds (hello, they’re four-and-a-half!) was that we didn’t want Pablo getting out of bed and wandering around the house. He knows how to unlock/unlatch/open every door in this place, and the safety measures we have in place already are really only buying us a few minutes, since he knows he can drag a chair over to the front door to reach the flippy latch, y’know?

Paul and I spent weeks trying to come up with an idea for blocking off the hallway. We wanted them to be able to get up and use the bathroom, so locking them in their room wouldn’t work. I’ve always loved the adorable fenced-in play area at Lollilocks, and so I suggested right away that we use vinyl fencing.

Paul and I came up with lots more ideas. He wanted something sturdy and semi-permanent. I wanted something that didn’t look like total crap, like a framed in wall with unfinished drywall would have looked. Eventually, I got Paul to embrace the idea, and as you can see, it turned out pretty okay! It’s not all that ugly. It keeps the kids from leaving the house in the middle of the night. And we’ll be able to remove it in a few months/years/whatever and just patch a few holes.

Lickety split.

Crazy house, I tell ya., originally uploaded by lalagirl.

Now, from the same Enginerd Daddy who brought you the playroom swings for occupational therapy, we have: a trapeze and a climbing rope!

We were hanging out on Sunday and Paul decided to head out to the garage and whip up a couple of “hanging devices” for the kids. Pablo love hanging from stuff – something a lot of autistic kids have in common – so we’re always trying to find options for him safer than hanging from the top of the fridge, y’know?

I have such a cool husband.

I seriously love sites all about product reviews – and I love DOING product reviews, too! Hey, if you want to send me something and have me review it on this blog, just hit me up! I’m open for just about anything! I love the way actual consumers will do a product review and tell you exactly what you need to hear. It’s so hard to separate the hype from the pretty pictures – for me, anyway! Check out this one sentence mini-review about a stroller:

“Overall, the Baby Trend Double Snap N Go is really the best stroller for twins….”

And that’s really all you need to know. If I had read a review like that when my twins were on the way, I could have saved a whole lot of money and even more headache by not buying the Lamest Stroller Ever.

So, that’s my mama advice for those who are easily swayed by slick advertising: read up on all the product reviews first before you make your decision! Wize.com is a great place to start.

I need to show you guys this awesome prop Paul built for the Halloween party we’re sort of co-hosting. It’s a guy in an electric chair – full size! My oldest daughter and I built the dummy together. She even made a heart out of play-doh and stuck it in his chest, just like Build A Bear. Hehe!

It turned out so cool!! We have an orange jumpsuit to dress it in – and Paul’s going to stencil numbers on it – and I think the dummy’s going to wear my old ratty Doc boots. And we have a white drawstring bag thing we’re going to put over the dummy’s head like a hood. The plan is to have the thing just sitting there at the party. Nobody will realize that it actually DOES anything – they’ll just think it’s a prop. Paul mixed a whole little track of spooky Halloween sounds with an electrocution and screaming and everything, and he’s got the timing down just right so he knows when to hit the switch on the dummy. I think it’s going to scare the CRAP out of people the first time he does it!!

Here’s the dude:

You can sort of see the springs here that bounce his head around:

And I took this picture underneath the chair – it’s an old drill! Pretty clever, huh?

Check it out in action:

Is that crazy cool or what? I need to come up with something that will hold fake blood under the hood – like a little cup or something – so that when it starts moving, the blood will ooze down the head a little. Any ideas?

And speaking of bath faucets and shower faucets…I hate the faucet in our shower!! I don’t know what the deal is with it, but it’s too high up on the wall, and the spray pattern is too wide or something. I feel like I have to do a lap around the shower to get my whole body wet, and I never feel like I’m rinsing all the shampoo out.

I’ve been sitting here drooling over all the faucets at Faucet.com and I found one I like a lot. It has a much larger showerhead and looks like it puts out a whole lot of water. Too bad it’s *cough* almost NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS! As always, I’ve got champagne taste on a beer budget. They do have lots of other really nice styles that are a fraction of what that particular faucet would cost me, so I’ll keep looking.

Paul’s been working his tail off up at his rental unit, remodeling the bathroom. Tomorrow, he’s got a helper: my dad! He’s tiled many a bathroom, during all the years we owned the motel and all the years prior to that when he had his fire restoration business and nowadays, at his job as a maintenance man. I know he’ll be able to slap that tile up, lickety split, and save Paul a whole lot of time and effort. Yay, dad.