18 doors & 4 gallons of paint=crappy Spring Break

During Emily’s Christmas break we decided to paint all the trim and doors white on the main level. There were only 6 doors, so it was pretty easy. At the same time I swapped out the outlets to white and changed the door knobs to brushed nickel. The thought at that point was to tackle a room at a time for the upstairs since each room has 2 closet doors and an entry door: Our Master Bedroom alone has 7 doors. For each room we would have to move furniture around to be able to paint the trim, then that room would be out of commission for a day while it dries. So a room a week was the pace we had decided so we didn’t over whelm ourselves again.

Emily’s Spring break started and our pace of one room a week never even made it past taping one room. So, Emily decided to tackle this whole project in one week. Normally, I would have been around to help during the day, but the past few weeks have been real busy, which is good for me, bad for Emily. We have an appointment setter now, so I have 2-4 appointments every day and on top of that Herman has been out on personal leave for 2 weeks and we are still not sure when he will be coming back. We are switching software at Planet Cash and Justin is trying to close out 2008, so every spare minute he has is spent on that, and with no day off, Justin has been a little ball of stress lately. I have been trying to spell Justin off as much as I can to give him time with his family or to work on the books for 2008. Everything just seems to be hitting at the same moment. So, I have been driving around quite a bit. Arnie and I have been spending quite a lot of time together. He knows he is getting ready to be replaced, so he has been on his best behavior.

Any who: I digress. I decided that since we were going to replace the door knobs, we should replace the hinges, and if we were going to replace the hinges, I will just take ever door down and bring it to the garage: should have kept that thought to myself. Emily spent her spring break taping all the rooms and painting both sides of 14 out of the 18 doors with double coats. I spend Saturday and Sunday changing out the outlets, hinges and door knobs. We are finished, Emily did 80% of the work, which I feel bad that I was not able to be around, but hey, someone has to pay the bills. ;-) She worked her butt off on all those doors and I greatly appreciate all she did. I was real proud of her; she learned out to use a cordless drill, and now wants a pink one.

The previous owners loved country blue and pink and it has been a long fought battle to rid the house of those colors; but we are winning. We do still have some pink blinds, which are hideous, that we hope to trash soon. For now we are done working on the inside of the house, we are moving to the outside, working on the yard and landscaping: you know, all the manual labor stuff that I love so much!

Keep on keeping on....mrrrrrrr

Noodle goes to Puerto Vallarta

Hello all, this is Noodle. I recently took my first international trip to Puerto Vallarta for Brandon & Cassie's wedding. JET will post more wedding pictures later this week, but for now, here is my trip.

I was excited about seeing Bear, we had not hung out since New Year's. Bear, as most of you remember, saved my life in Arkansas. JET and EM forgot me in Arkansas and Bear and Amy brought me back home. I lived with them for a few months and Bear taught me to golf, and found me a wife...Chick. So, the Chick and Noodle team was formed.

This was the frist time away from Chick for a long long time, but I was ready. Chick was supposed to go to Springfield, MO for the girls weekend, but once again, she was left behind (I don't think that EM likes Chick, she is jealous of her hair).

All the pictures can be clicked on to see a larger me!

Here I am packing my bags.

All buckled in and ready for the trip.

I ran ahead to ring the door bell while JET grabbed the bags

This is Bear's seeing me through the peep hole

HI BEAR!!

He was so excited to see me!

Trying to get some sleep for our 5:00 am flight




Can't really read the clock, but it is 3:15 am

Eating some breakfast in Atlanta.

JET and I in the Puerto Vallarta airport



Here I am getting ready to shower up for the night

Asking for a towel

I had a little too much to drink, I threw up off the balcony

Back in the room, throwing up some more

Bear and I spooning, not sure how this happened

JET & I on the beach

Me & Ol Boy just chilling

JET & I again

Me with Brandon's Family. There are very nice people

Mackenzie, JET & I waiting for our cab to the airport

Have to stop and smell the flowers

I had a wonderful trip and can not wait to go to Riveria Maya with JET & EM this summer! Hopefully Chick can come with me.

New things for the Tyler Household

Maybe it was growing up poor that made me thrifty, or cheap; which ever you like to call me. I like thrifty. I have always enjoyed a good second hand product, be it furniture, clothes or a car.

I love searching craigslist for a good deal. Most of it is crap, but you never know when the rich folks want to up grade! And when they do, I am there for them!

Any who: I digress from the main point of the blog. Emily and I have been looking for a new kitchen table. Mom gave us her old one, and it is nice, but it only has 3 chairs and it is not really our style, but it has served us very well the past few years. We have been saving and were looking to spend around $700-$800 for a decent table. I could not find a table we liked on craigslist for months.

Last week, Renee, a friend of ours, called Emily and told her that she has a dinning room set that she thinks we would like. If you don't know, we have a dinning room that just sits empty. The pets have taken over the dinning room since that is where the sun shines the most and it is the only room on the main level with carpet. Emily and I decided a few months ago that we will forgo the dinning room set and just get a nice kitchen table that has a leaf so we can fit 6 people. But, we figured what the hell, let's go look at the dinning room set, for the right price we could be persuaded.

We show up and it is perfect, it is the color that we like, the right size everything. It came with a buffet table and hutch, plus 6 chairs and 2 leafs. We asked her the price and it was the same price we wanted to pay for a new kitchen table. Call me thrifty, but we loaded the whole set up and proudly whooooed and ahhhheed over it for 20 minutes.

So, now we can have more than 1 person over and all sit at a table. We had Mom, Justin, Meg & Norah over Tuesday for our first "official" dinner at the new table. We were quite happy. And we now have some where to put my Great Grandmother's china besides the basement.

The other thing that I have been really been wanting were bar stools, but have not been able to convince myself to spend $70-$100 a piece for decent stools. Current we have been using the bar stools that Justin gave us that go with the pub table. There are only 3. So, I have a huge bar and only 3 stools. I have been looking on craigslist for months and if I do find nice stools, there are only 2 of them and I need 5 or 6. I was starting to get discouraged and almost bought stools on sale for $60 and Emily talked me out of it. Then Friday I hit the jack pot. 6 stools for sale in St. Charles all very nice and only $25 a piece. So, as fast as I could I emailed and got her address and headed over.

So, now I have room for 6 at the 2x4 and 3 at the pub table. All I need is a touch screen game and a TV and we are in business!

And, we finally got a new pool cover. If you never saw the old one, it was horrible. It was just a large blue tarp. Picture a motel where the pool has not been opened since the 80's. I spent more time messing with the pool cover than I did cleaning the pool in the summer. Every time it rained, or the snow or ice melted, I had to go out and try to get the water off the cover, which was a huge pain. The cover was held on by water bags, well some of them froze and busted, so in the interim I put a statue of the Virgin Mary that the previous owners so graciously left us, to hold the cover. Well, the water froze and the wind blew ol Mary into the pool and it shattered. It was nice and tacky. I felt like cousin Eddie from Christmas Vacation.

The cover is a safety cover, which means you can not fall through, which is good for Winston and Norah and when we have kids. So, March has been quite the expensive month for the Tyler house hold. It makes me sick to spend a lot of money, but if I am going to do it, might as well just get it over with.

Keep on keeping on...mrrrrrrrrrr

Valentine's Day with an enemy.

Valentine’s Day: the one day of the year that we have to cram 364 of screwing up into one big flower bouquet or a box of candy. I have always tried to do something different each year, flowers and candy just doesn’t cut it for me, I try to be creative and mix things up, and this year was no different.

Em & I decided to not spend much at all for Valentine’s Day since we had plans to surprise Mom at the Lake (I will get into that in a little bit). So, I had to think of something that did not cost much money and she would love.

Friday afternoon I bought 65 balloons and one very large Valentine’s Day Balloon that I would fill her car with while she was at school. I planned a head and called the school to let them know that I would be in the parking lot for an hour blowing up balloons and please don’t call the cops on me. I was not sure how seeing a man sitting in the car in the parking of an elementary school would look, but I did not want to ruin Emily’s Valentine’s Day surprise by going to jail. It took me about an hour, and 3 almost pass outs, to blow up all the balloons.
It worked perfect for me. Emily went all day seeing other teachers getting flowers and she had, for the first time in 6 years, not gotten flowers from me on Valentine’s Day, needless to say, she was a little bummed. Here are the balloons back at home.

All the pictures in this blog can be clicked on to see a bigger size



Saturday morning, bright and early, we headed down to the Lake to surprise Momma T for her Valentine’s Day. We stopped and got a balloon and a rose and placed it on her first door step and knocked on the door. When she opened the door she saw the balloons and Winston came running in. Seeing Mom’s surprised look was worth getting up so early!

We spent the day shopping, seeing Grandpa (who is doing amazing. It was the first time in 4 months that I have seen him without tubes and out of the hospital), and an old enemy. Emily wanted to see our old Lake house where I lived when Dad passed away. Cindy, Dad’s 2nd wife, still lives there with her new husband, so I knew there was a chance that Cindy would be home, but we forged ahead. For those who do not know, Cindy and I have not spoken in 11 years. We never got along while Dad was alive and certain things happened after Dad’s passing that will forever leave a small scar for Justin and me.

When we pulled up we see Cindy outside with her dogs, and I knew at that point that we have crossed the point of no return: we had to say hello to the woman that I had grown to despise. I walked down the hill towards her and she immediately says: “Josh? Is that you? “At this point there are so many different things running through my mind. All the bad things that I have said, and written about Cindy ,the many fights that we had and the long battle for Dad’s attention. Cindy at this point has two options: kindly ask us to leave, or be as nice as possible, and as I was slowly walking down that hill, I expecting her to be curt with us and ask us to leave.

I introduce her to Emily and the conversation begins. Mom, Cindy, Emily and I chatted for about an hour about Dad, family, what we are doing, and no mention of bad times were brought up. Now, part of me believes that that Cindy was very nice because Emily was there, but, no matter, she was very nice and I hate to admit it, but I enjoyed the conversation and am glad that we stopped. I feel a certain closure now. I know that Dad was watching on pins and needles as well. Sipping his Hamm’s beer and just waiting for the fireworks to happen. We went inside and I was able to show Emily around and tell her some stories about the house. We went through old pictures and Cindy gave us any pictures that we wanted, so questions asked. She even gave us one of Dad’s old Ion Electric hats, which was Dad’s electrical company.

I left the old house with mixed feelings. Here is a woman that I have worked so hard to despise, but was a large part of my life for 13 years, and that is hard to ignore. I am not saying that next time I am at the Lake I will swing by and say hello, but that day, Cindy could have been a huge bitch like I remembered her, but instead she was as nice as good be, and I am glad to have a little bit better memory of the woman that my Dad was married to. Here are 2 of my favorite pictures that I now have.

This is one of the last pictures we have of Dad. This is him working on the MASSIVE all marble shower at the Lake House. That is Cale, our Scottie at the time: Winston is the 4th Scottie in the Tyler family.

Yes, Dad thinks he looks good here. Style was not one of Dad's strength: At least he smiles big!

Justin, Dad and myself. I am around 10 there. It is a great shot of the 3 of us!

That night we surprised Mom again, with dinner at J’ Bruner’s. Which, if are from the Lake, you know precisely what I am talking about; if not, you probably just think it is just another fine dining restaurant. They have the best steak and lobster that I have ever had: hands down! Granted, you pay the price for it, but it was worth it. We always start the night off with the best onion rings in Missouri. Mom always gets the deep fried Lobster, and I used to get that until my stomach decided that it does not want to put up with me anymore, so I have opted for the boiled lobster, which is still good.

It was a great Valentine’s Day; probably one the best that I have ever had. Emily and I had a great day with Momma T and a great dinner: couldn't’t ask for much more than that! Later this week I will post pictures of Emily and I’s Valentine’s Gift to ourselves (we have to wait for the rest of the family to see it; it’s a surprise)!
Keep on Keeping on…..mrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Must....get....sleep....

So, I sit in my office for yet another restless night of sleep. I have this issue that I can not shut my brain down at night. I used to drink enough to be able to sleep like a baby, but at the pressure of my wife (and she is right)I have cut down to a mere 2 drinks.

I have just spent the past 2 hours digging through the direct mail, magazines and ads that we get at our household, and then emailing them about advertising, if I can track down an email address, or marking them to be called tomorrow. If I email them, I will follow up tomorrow. It is a nice little system I am getting down. Cold calling sucks, but it seems to be a little easier if I email first and then follow up with a phone call.

For most of my life, if I lie in bed for longer than 30 minutes I get bored and feel like I could be doing something productive, so I get up. If there is something on my mind, I typically can't stop thinking about it, and since I can't drown my thoughts out, I have to do something else to make me tired. Lately, staring at the computer screen for an hour or so seems to wind me down.

The crappy thing is that my alarm will go off at 4:58 am. Yes that is right, 4:58am. For the past 2 months Emily and I have been getting up at 5:00 and heading to the gym 3 or 4 days a week. It was a tough few weeks, but once I got into that routine, I love it. No phone calls, no text, no emails, no one to bother me; it is great. I get a great start to my day and am able to spend the evening with my beautiful wife!

I would say that I have been on a health kick for about a year now. I have lost around 20 pounds and am holding strong. I chunked up a little and one day decided that I am going to get back in shape. I talk to men in their 30's and 40's who are out of shape and 40-50 pounds over weight. they always tell me: "I used to look like you when I was your age." So, my thought process is that if I can keep my eating healthy and exercising a part of my life, when I have kids and life gets crazy, I can keep it up.

I could not have kept up this healthy, exercise lifestyle without the support of Emily. She has been amazing in keeping me motivated. She is up every morning, and eating healthy every meal. We won't say it has been easy, but worth it. We both decided that in order to style healthy and in shape, we must change out live and make it happen. Without Emily, I would be a 12 pack a night drinker who eats pizza every night for dinner.

We have found that eating healthy does not taste bad. Skinny Cow, and Weight Watchers have some amazing ice and chocolate products that full fill our sweet tooth! Also, sugar free chocolate pudding is fantastic. Grab the South Beach bars, they are a Tyler household favorite. It seems that sugar-free, low calorie, healthy has improved drastically over the past few years. It has really made eating healthier easier for us

Part of my weight loss can be caulked up to good genes. Moma T has always been in shape, and to this day she works out 3 days a week, and so was my Pops. Justin and I both have very high metabolisms, Justin's is much better than mine, but I am still pretty lucky in that area.

Good luck to anyone who is trying to loose weight, I know it is not an easy road to travel, but I can say it is worth every donut you do not eat!
I am off to bed so I can wake up in 4 1/2 hours.

Keep on keeping on...mrrrrrrrrrrr.

Let the Networking Begin

I feel that my best skill is networking. I consider myself pretty good at sales and marketing, but it is my ability to network that makes me successful in the world of sales.

Today was my first Chamber of Commerce meeting in Fenton, and I really enjoyed it. There are people who tell me that in order to get sales I need to be making cold calls all day until I make an appointment. I am not saying cold calls are bad; but in order to set one appointment I have to make at least 50 phone calls. And after 49not interested, it makes it pretty damn hard to remain positive. And, I am too pretty not to be in front of people. ha ha.

I spend 1/4 of my day making calls, and most of those calls I do not even talk to the person who makes decisions, I just get his/her name and when they will be in. I am slowing getting better at cold calls and hopefully will be more effective with the calls that I make, but networking: that's where it is at!

I really do feel that my time is better suited in front of people, talking to them, hearing about their business and learning what I can do to make them more successful and in turn, make me more successful. The main thing I like about networking and networking meetings is that it feels like a big team. Here are 20 people that want to help me and want me to help them be more successful. I am a business owner and I know how hard it is to get something in front of Justin or myself. Business owners get so many calls a day about advertising that I really have to stand out, or be in front of them. And networking events is the perfect place. Starting next week I will be at 3-5 networking events a week and I can not wait!

The job so far is great. It is an amazing product and I really like my boss. As I get more into networking, and better at cold calls, the sales will just keep increasing.
I do have a new partnership that really compliments my current job. It really gives me the opportunity to help a business drastically increase their business. My marketing efforts will directly increase their business, which will be very awesome to see! I am real exciting about these opportunities that I have and feel very lucky to be in this position. I will keep you all posted!

Keep on Keeping on....mrrrrrrrr.

Updated Bathrooms!

Over the past couple weeks our neighbor has been painting 3 of our bathrooms: and they turned out really great. She does great work, for a stupidly low price. If you live in St. Louis and are in need of custom painting, let me know and I will get you in touch with her.

We also replaced all the toilet paper holders, towel racks, etc with brushed nickel instead of the 15 year old gold ones that were there. On a side note: the previous owner used a 3 inch screw with a butterfly anchor for the toilet paper holder: Why I have no frickin idea but it pissed me off and took me forever to get it out of the wall. For those who don't know: they're not made to come out of walls without a large hole. ARRGGGGG.

Here are some pictures of the bathrooms: You can click on any of the pictures to get a bigger view.

This is the 1/2 bath on the main level.

This is the guest bathroom upstairs. She drew all the rings by hand. We actually painted the base color and Sherry did the trim, which is nice. We also replaced the mirror to match the 1/2 bath.

And for the coolest bathroom in the house: The Man Cave Bathroom, which is only lacking a urinal to be complete!

That is the 7th hole on Pebble Beach

I finally got rid of the ugly gold light fixture and the gold around the mirror.

I also begun to replace all the light switches to white, which most people do not notice, but for some reason, the beige outlets and switches bother me. I decided to get the decorative switches instead of the normal style: as you will see from this picture.

In the kitchen to match our stainless steel appliances, I put stainless steal cover plates, and it turned out much better than I thought it would.






Emily has also started the long process of painting all the trim, doors and baseboards white. Currently they are all a cream color, which makes the house seem blah: well we thinks so at least.

So, as most of you know, it is a never ending project. We should have everything painted and outlets swapped out this week.

Hope all is well in your world! Keep on Keeping on....mrrrrrrrr