So, for those of you that were wondering all weekend what the big announcement is: I shall not keep you waiting any longer. I have a job! Yes, I will finally be getting house of the house; much to Emily’s delight. As much as Emily loved going to work every day as her husband stayed home and planned out his nap time, she is very happy to see me get out of the house.
I hit a whole new level of boredom this past month. Granted, I started to build things, but all the improvements for the house that I wanted were either: 1. to expensive to do now, i.e.: granite counter tops, or 2. I have no clue how to built it i.e.: new kitchen cabinets. So, I watched a lot of movies and became Emily’s errand boy. So, needless to say I am very excited about the new job and getting to leave the house more often!
It is just a part time job that I will be doing, still can’t find the full time job that I want, so for now this works. I will be working at Water Way selling car washes. A good friend, Gino, is the sales manager there and has talked to me about working there for a few months and finally boredom got the best of me. I do really think that I will enjoy the job, I will be out talking to people and extra money is always nice.
My first day will be December 3rd. I will be working 2 days at one location and 2 at another. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday’s. I am not too happy about the Saturday deal, but Friday tends to be Emily and I’s date night any way, so we stay home and Emily works Saturday’s as well. Work starts at 7:15, and am off by 2:00 and then I will head home to make collection calls for Planet Cash. The other good thing is that Emily goes to the gym at 5:00 am, and I want to go with her, but now I have no reason to get up that early. When I start working, I will be able to go with her, which she will enjoy.
On a totally different note, lights are up, BUT, will not be turned on until Thanksgiving night. Pictures and the story of the crazy ladder situation will be posted Thursday night.
Until then: Have a great day and keep on keeping on!
Monday, November 24, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Tis the Season!
Tis the Season!
Even though it is still “technically” fall, it sure the hell feels like winter to me. Currently, my weather bug says it is 34.2 degrees in St. Charles, with an over night low of 17. Based on weather, winter is my least favorite season. I do not hate the cold, I would just rather it be warmer. For those who are wondering, spring is my favorite season, followed by summer and then fall, and then the red headed step child of seasons: Winter.
What I do love about winter is the holidays; Thanksgiving, followed by Christmas and then New Years. It is such a happy time and seems to be an extra pep in everyone’s step. Everyone seems to be much nicer and children are much better behaved to ensure good gifts from Santa. Despite the cold weather, there is a smile on everyone’s face. I enjoy Christmas music and the decorations. I love seeing houses that are all lit up and am thankful they don’t live next to me. Nothing beats a hot coco next to the fireplace. And even though they are annoying, I enjoy the bell ringers. It makes me happy to see people fighting the cold to raise money for those less fortunate that us.
Christmas is by far my favorite holiday. I love giving gifts that were not on their list and seeing their excitement when they open them. I would much rather give than recieve. Latley our family has had to tone down Christmas because we were giving too much. We were spending close to $1,000 each person. And as our family grows, $1,000 each person is not a fesible of an option. So, we still give gifts, just not as crazy as we used to. As a child, Christmas was always a large production in our family. My Dad started the tradition of disguising what the gift is so we couldn’t guess. If you put a shirt in a box and wrap it up, everyone knows that it is some kind of clothing. Dad started with a noise maker in a box. Justin and I each had one and we messed with that damn box for hours and ever could figure out what it was. To be honest: I don’t remember the gift, just the noise maker. So, Justin and I still will try to disguise what our gifts are. Example: if I get Justin a shirt, I will put it in a bigger box with a phone book in there to throw off the weight. The problem is that our wives seem to do most of the wrapping and they don’t like to play our game…Scrooge!
I have enjoyed sitting in front of the fire with Emily watching a movie or TV. There is something very nice about hearing the fire crack and spending quality time with my wife. We have talked about converting our fireplace to gas, but, as much as of a pain it is to get the fire rolling: you just can’t beat that real fire sound.
The big question for me is when to put up lights. I don’t want to be the first neighbor to do, so I have been waiting for someone else to put theirs up. We have decorated the inside of our house, and the tree is up with lights, but no ordainments yet (hopefully going to work on that tonight). The issue this year in the new house is I need at least an 18 foot ladder to get up on the roof and I sure the hell don’t want to do it without Emily being home, just in case I fall off, I need her to call 9-11. So, issue number one, I only have an 8 foot ladder and Emily doesn’t get home until after dark. Herman is supposed to give me a 25 foot ladder, but we will see if that happens. Let’s hope for good weather this weekend and I will have to borrow a ladder. I might put the lights up and not turn them on until another neighbor turns his on.
Everyone try to stay warm and make sure to check back Monday, I should have a nice announcement to make, and no Emily is not pregnant. Mrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Even though it is still “technically” fall, it sure the hell feels like winter to me. Currently, my weather bug says it is 34.2 degrees in St. Charles, with an over night low of 17. Based on weather, winter is my least favorite season. I do not hate the cold, I would just rather it be warmer. For those who are wondering, spring is my favorite season, followed by summer and then fall, and then the red headed step child of seasons: Winter.
What I do love about winter is the holidays; Thanksgiving, followed by Christmas and then New Years. It is such a happy time and seems to be an extra pep in everyone’s step. Everyone seems to be much nicer and children are much better behaved to ensure good gifts from Santa. Despite the cold weather, there is a smile on everyone’s face. I enjoy Christmas music and the decorations. I love seeing houses that are all lit up and am thankful they don’t live next to me. Nothing beats a hot coco next to the fireplace. And even though they are annoying, I enjoy the bell ringers. It makes me happy to see people fighting the cold to raise money for those less fortunate that us.
Christmas is by far my favorite holiday. I love giving gifts that were not on their list and seeing their excitement when they open them. I would much rather give than recieve. Latley our family has had to tone down Christmas because we were giving too much. We were spending close to $1,000 each person. And as our family grows, $1,000 each person is not a fesible of an option. So, we still give gifts, just not as crazy as we used to. As a child, Christmas was always a large production in our family. My Dad started the tradition of disguising what the gift is so we couldn’t guess. If you put a shirt in a box and wrap it up, everyone knows that it is some kind of clothing. Dad started with a noise maker in a box. Justin and I each had one and we messed with that damn box for hours and ever could figure out what it was. To be honest: I don’t remember the gift, just the noise maker. So, Justin and I still will try to disguise what our gifts are. Example: if I get Justin a shirt, I will put it in a bigger box with a phone book in there to throw off the weight. The problem is that our wives seem to do most of the wrapping and they don’t like to play our game…Scrooge!
I have enjoyed sitting in front of the fire with Emily watching a movie or TV. There is something very nice about hearing the fire crack and spending quality time with my wife. We have talked about converting our fireplace to gas, but, as much as of a pain it is to get the fire rolling: you just can’t beat that real fire sound.
The big question for me is when to put up lights. I don’t want to be the first neighbor to do, so I have been waiting for someone else to put theirs up. We have decorated the inside of our house, and the tree is up with lights, but no ordainments yet (hopefully going to work on that tonight). The issue this year in the new house is I need at least an 18 foot ladder to get up on the roof and I sure the hell don’t want to do it without Emily being home, just in case I fall off, I need her to call 9-11. So, issue number one, I only have an 8 foot ladder and Emily doesn’t get home until after dark. Herman is supposed to give me a 25 foot ladder, but we will see if that happens. Let’s hope for good weather this weekend and I will have to borrow a ladder. I might put the lights up and not turn them on until another neighbor turns his on.
Everyone try to stay warm and make sure to check back Monday, I should have a nice announcement to make, and no Emily is not pregnant. Mrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Monday, November 10, 2008
Hold Strong Arnie...hold strong
Arnie has served me well for almost two years, but it seems that he is on his last leg. The plan has been to keep him until he hits around 100,000 miles and with 87,000 we are almost there. I know the Aztec looks like an over sized station wagon, but it is one the best road tripping vehicles I have ever owned. With 24-25 MPG on the HWY and 20-21 MPG in the city: I don’t know many SUV’s that can match those numbers. But, the past month Arnie has been giving the Tyler household some issues.
It started with the check engine light...again. Don't remember what exactly was wrong, but I know it cost us a lot. Oh yeah and he got new tires. He should have been happy.
Then 2 weeks ago the lock cylinder locked up while in the Target parking lot. You know when your steering wheel locks up and you have to wiggle your key and turn the wheel at the same time and then all is fine. Well, I wiggled for 20 minutes and no luck on getting him started. I was 200 yards away from Dobbs (who is amazing) so the manager drove over to see if he can get Arnie rolling. He tried for a while and realized that I have to tow it in. So, I know wait an hour for a tow truck to tow me 200 yards. 200 flipping yards. So, $300 later Arine is back home.
Last Thursday while pulling into the dry cleaner, he dies. Luckily I was turning off the HWY and rolled into an oil change store. They ran some test and had absolutely no clue why Arnie was being such a bastard. So, for the 2nd time in 10 days, Arnie rode into Dobbs on the back of the tow truck.
It turns out that the wiring was loose on the fuel pump and the very nice people at Dobbs did not charge me for fixing him up. So, Arnie is grounded, not allowed to leave town and his drive time has been drastically cut down until the end of the year when he will be traded off for a new vehicle. Oh yeah, his front left brights are out as well. Emily and I are just hoping that he will make it just a few more months. So close Arnie, yet so far away.
Vehicle Names??
For those wondering about the naming of vehicles: here is the story. Our family has named our vehicles in alphabetical order for as long as I can remember. Trucks/SUVs are boys and cars are girls. I am not sure how it started with my folks, but the tradition continues. Arnie marked the alphabet starting over and the splitting of families. Justin and Meg will start with Justin’s new car at ‘A’, and Emily and I will continue with my new car at ‘C.’ Emily’s Camry is Ba Bay.
Our vehicles have mostly all been named on road trips after a few adult beverages have been drank. Names are thrown out there until something sticks. We went through 20-25 different names before Arnie became Arnie.
Here is the history of my cars:
It started with the check engine light...again. Don't remember what exactly was wrong, but I know it cost us a lot. Oh yeah and he got new tires. He should have been happy.
Then 2 weeks ago the lock cylinder locked up while in the Target parking lot. You know when your steering wheel locks up and you have to wiggle your key and turn the wheel at the same time and then all is fine. Well, I wiggled for 20 minutes and no luck on getting him started. I was 200 yards away from Dobbs (who is amazing) so the manager drove over to see if he can get Arnie rolling. He tried for a while and realized that I have to tow it in. So, I know wait an hour for a tow truck to tow me 200 yards. 200 flipping yards. So, $300 later Arine is back home.
Last Thursday while pulling into the dry cleaner, he dies. Luckily I was turning off the HWY and rolled into an oil change store. They ran some test and had absolutely no clue why Arnie was being such a bastard. So, for the 2nd time in 10 days, Arnie rode into Dobbs on the back of the tow truck.
It turns out that the wiring was loose on the fuel pump and the very nice people at Dobbs did not charge me for fixing him up. So, Arnie is grounded, not allowed to leave town and his drive time has been drastically cut down until the end of the year when he will be traded off for a new vehicle. Oh yeah, his front left brights are out as well. Emily and I are just hoping that he will make it just a few more months. So close Arnie, yet so far away.
Vehicle Names??
For those wondering about the naming of vehicles: here is the story. Our family has named our vehicles in alphabetical order for as long as I can remember. Trucks/SUVs are boys and cars are girls. I am not sure how it started with my folks, but the tradition continues. Arnie marked the alphabet starting over and the splitting of families. Justin and Meg will start with Justin’s new car at ‘A’, and Emily and I will continue with my new car at ‘C.’ Emily’s Camry is Ba Bay.
Our vehicles have mostly all been named on road trips after a few adult beverages have been drank. Names are thrown out there until something sticks. We went through 20-25 different names before Arnie became Arnie.
Here is the history of my cars:
1988 Dodge Spirit: Don't actually remember the name. Anyone?
1994 Saturn: Qbert
2000 S-10 Xtreme Serendipity (only brand new vehicle I have ever, and probually will ever own: only had 18 miles on it)
2004 Avalanche: Vahuna (This is my favorite Vehicle to date)
2000 Elentra Hatchback: Woody (Was purchased for traveling, Woody got 30 MPG. Ugly, yet practical)
2004 Aztec: Arnie
2008 Camry: BaBay
(Emily's Car)
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
And I'm back
It is amazing what boredom can inspire a person to do. I have started to build stuff. I have never built anything in my life; outside of shop class in 7th grade (which Justin still uses the chair that I built)! Once Lange and I built the bar, I realized that I enjoyed building things and actually can do a pretty good job at it. The problem is that I don’t have a lot of the tools to build really cool stuff, so I have to stick to stuff that I can carpet and cover the crappy job that I do.
We bought a new bedroom set when we moved into the new house. The bed frame has 2 rows of built in drawers on all sides, which is really nice to have: but add that to our double pillow top mattress, it makes for our bed to be over 3 feet off the ground: which means short stubby Winston is no longer able to make the jump. Hell, short skinny Emily can hardly make the jump. Russ, my father-in-law, brought up the point that when Emily is pregnant there will be no way in hell that she will be able to make it up on the bed. Now, my first solution was for Emily to sleep on the couch, but when that didn’t yield the laughter I expected; I immediately started the plans for the stairs.
As cheap as I have become, I was able to use extra wood from the 2x4 and Justin had a lot of wood that was perfect for the actual stair and the back of the stairs,(called the riser) so all in all the investment in the stairs was very low. I knew that I had to build stairs that were not just okay for Winston, but a pregnant Emily. I drew up a couple of different layouts for the stairs. It took about 5 different measurements to get the right size and spacing. I did not want them to be too steep, but if they were too much at a sloap, they would extend over 3 feet. They ended up only being about 2 feet long and a little less than 3 feet tall.
I quickly realized that you have to get EVERY stupid measurement right, or the whole stair case is off, even if I was only building 4 steps. Being new into the whole world of carpentry, I made a few mistakes, but they were easily fixed, and if not, they will be covered with carpet. I am actually real happy with how they turned out. They are very study: Emily and I both can stand on them. Winston can now make it up on the bed and Emily won’t have to sleep on the couch when she is pregnant.
Here are some pictures; I still need to carpet them, so bear with me.
I took these pictures at night while Emily was sleeping, sorry for the dark pictures.
For those interested, the job search continues. It does begin to wear on a person when you send out what seems like hundreds of applications to only get a few call backs. Apparently a Loan Shark is not the experience they are looking for. My goal is to apply to at least one new job a day. I have had many calls for jobs where I am out on the streets every day knocking on business doors asking what paper products they use. Those are the people that we ask to leave our store on a weekly basis, not really the job that I am looking for. Insurance agents also seem to be in high demand. I get lots of emails and calls for that. I have a few promising leads out there and hopefully one of them pans out.
So, in the mean time I will find little projects to do. Emily always seems to have a list of things that keeps me busy through out the day. I also have the difficult task of making sure the couch doesn’t move, which is very tiring and requires a nap on occasion.
I am actually back at working at Planet Cash part time. Justin is still there every day, but we have hit a point when we need some help making collection calls and someone to help with customers on certain days. So, I will be making collection calls, mainly from home, and heading up to the store one or two days a week to help out. So, i appoligize in advance for being in a crank ass mood, collection calls are no fun, and put anyone who does them for a period of time in a bad mood. But, that is part of the business and we have to get our money back.
Hope everyone has a wonderful day and hopefully more projects to come!
We bought a new bedroom set when we moved into the new house. The bed frame has 2 rows of built in drawers on all sides, which is really nice to have: but add that to our double pillow top mattress, it makes for our bed to be over 3 feet off the ground: which means short stubby Winston is no longer able to make the jump. Hell, short skinny Emily can hardly make the jump. Russ, my father-in-law, brought up the point that when Emily is pregnant there will be no way in hell that she will be able to make it up on the bed. Now, my first solution was for Emily to sleep on the couch, but when that didn’t yield the laughter I expected; I immediately started the plans for the stairs.
As cheap as I have become, I was able to use extra wood from the 2x4 and Justin had a lot of wood that was perfect for the actual stair and the back of the stairs,(called the riser) so all in all the investment in the stairs was very low. I knew that I had to build stairs that were not just okay for Winston, but a pregnant Emily. I drew up a couple of different layouts for the stairs. It took about 5 different measurements to get the right size and spacing. I did not want them to be too steep, but if they were too much at a sloap, they would extend over 3 feet. They ended up only being about 2 feet long and a little less than 3 feet tall.
I quickly realized that you have to get EVERY stupid measurement right, or the whole stair case is off, even if I was only building 4 steps. Being new into the whole world of carpentry, I made a few mistakes, but they were easily fixed, and if not, they will be covered with carpet. I am actually real happy with how they turned out. They are very study: Emily and I both can stand on them. Winston can now make it up on the bed and Emily won’t have to sleep on the couch when she is pregnant.
Here are some pictures; I still need to carpet them, so bear with me.
I took these pictures at night while Emily was sleeping, sorry for the dark pictures. JOB SEARCH
For those interested, the job search continues. It does begin to wear on a person when you send out what seems like hundreds of applications to only get a few call backs. Apparently a Loan Shark is not the experience they are looking for. My goal is to apply to at least one new job a day. I have had many calls for jobs where I am out on the streets every day knocking on business doors asking what paper products they use. Those are the people that we ask to leave our store on a weekly basis, not really the job that I am looking for. Insurance agents also seem to be in high demand. I get lots of emails and calls for that. I have a few promising leads out there and hopefully one of them pans out.
So, in the mean time I will find little projects to do. Emily always seems to have a list of things that keeps me busy through out the day. I also have the difficult task of making sure the couch doesn’t move, which is very tiring and requires a nap on occasion.
I am actually back at working at Planet Cash part time. Justin is still there every day, but we have hit a point when we need some help making collection calls and someone to help with customers on certain days. So, I will be making collection calls, mainly from home, and heading up to the store one or two days a week to help out. So, i appoligize in advance for being in a crank ass mood, collection calls are no fun, and put anyone who does them for a period of time in a bad mood. But, that is part of the business and we have to get our money back.
Hope everyone has a wonderful day and hopefully more projects to come!
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