A long weekend
My four day weekend was a busy and unfortunately, a tragic one. Friday I spent most of the day doing the final sanding and used tackrags for the clean up in the knotty pine room. Friday night my dad called me with some bad news. My uncle Bill was cutting down a tree and was thrown out of his bucket truck from 30 feet up in the air. He broke his spine below his neck and is paralyzed from his chest down. He has use of his arms but the doctors say it’s possible he might lose that. On Saturday my sister and I went to the hospital to visit him. We met up with some of our family that was there. My uncle went in for surgery around 9am and didn’t get out until after 4pm. We went and saw him in recovery after the surgery but he was pretty much out of it. I can’t even imagine what he and his family are going thru right now. My uncle and his family are in my prayers.
After getting home from the hospital on Saturday, Missy cut my hair, which was long overdue. After she left, I started staining the knotty pine room, which was around 7pm. I finally finished staining the whole room shortly after 5am - 10 hours straight! My arm was killing me. Here’s a pic I took the next day:
Sunday morning I headed up to the cottage for Father’s Day. I managed to do a little fishing while I was up there. I headed home with plans to start the first coat of polyurethane. After the 10 hour ordeal I spent with the stain, instead of using a brush to put on the polyurethane like I was instructed to, I thought I would use a paint roller. I had to get a short nap roller and Sevens was closed so I decided to call it a day and wake up early to go to Sevens and pickup a roller.
Monday morning I picked up a short nap roller from Seven’s and started to polyurethane. The polyurethane was white and really soupy. When I tried to apply it to the walls with the roller, it just dripped all over the place and made a mess! I ended up having to use the brush after all. Argh. After 8 long and painful hours, I had the first coat on. It has to dry for 3-4 hours before you can apply the next coat. Unfortuantely, you have to sand it and then tack rag the walls again before you put the next coat on. Add another 1-2 hours for that plus another 8 for the second coat. So I said forget that and headed up to the cottage.
Since Marie’s baby shower is this Saturday and it’s at our house, we decided it would be a good idea to stop working in that room until after Saturday. The smell was pretty strong throughout the whole house because of the stain and polyurethane. As of today, it’s finally starting to smell normal again. On Sunday morning when I woke up, I had a horrible headache from the stain. I probably should have spent the night at the cottage with Marie and saved some brain cells.
Happy Birthday to me
I turned 31 today. Not a big mile marker in my journey of life, tho Marie & I will be the same age for another two months. Then she goes back to being the older woman. Got a call from my mom and a few emails from friends (thanks Jamie, Hoo, Snook and Jeanette!) wishing me happy birthday. After work Marie & I went to Rio Grande and got some good grub. She got the Filet Mignon and I got the New York Strip. Damn were they tasty! Since it was my birthday my meal was free. We had $30 in gift certificates from Marie’s parents so we got out of there without paying a dime. The change gave us exactly 15% for the tip. Getting a $50 meal for free rocks. We’ll definately hit them up again for Marie’s birthday in August, that is if she isn’t giving birth. If so, we’ll get our meals to go.
I got three birthday cards in the mail today. My sister Kris, tho we don’t really talk much, sends me a card every single year and it always seems to arrive right on my birthday. I also got cards from my sister Missy and my mom. Marie bought me 5 new shirts, which is awesome since I always need new clothes but I refuse to go and buy them. I hate shopping for clothes. I would rather go to the dentist. I’m completely serious.
Another nice surprise I got today was that Launch debuted today an exclusive performance of the Cure doing The Figurehead (click here to check it out) along with a new interview and Robert Smith doing a retrospective on all the albums up to Bloodflowers. If your a Cure fan I highly recommend checking it out. Apparently the Cure is a trio once again - with the lineup including Robert, Simon and Jason. Speaking of trio’s, if you haven’t picked up the rereleases of Three Imaginary Boys, Pornography, Seventeen Seconds and Faith, I highly recommend you do. The second CD that comes with each of them has alot of great stuff - most of it being released for the first time. No self respecting Cure fan should go without it.
My four day weekend starts tomorrow at 6pm. I’ve got a shitload of work ahead of me. Don’t ya just love vacations where you end up working your ass off the whole time? That’s what home ownership is all about. No matter. I’ll still manage to work in a show of Batman Begins and do some fishing. Gotta keep it real.
Keeping it natural
Here’s a shot of three of the doors I stained with Old Master’s Natural tonight. On Monday I returned the Golden Oak stain I bought from Seven’s and exchanged it for the Natural. It’s much lighter than the Golden Oak on this pine and is going to look great in the den. I’m gonna stain all 12 of the doors first out in the garage and then polyurethane them after that. I’m taking a four day weekend next week to stain and polyurethane the den. Marie has to be out of the house for the 3 days it’s going to take me so she’ll be staying up at the cottage. If anybody feels like helping me next weekend, please RSVP by next week Thursday. I could use somebody there to make sure I don’t pass out from all the fumes.
Pikes a plenty
Added a bunch of new pics to the camera phone section of the gallery, some of which are from my fishing excursion today. I think you’ll find them amusing. Today was the best fishing day I’ve had all year up at the cottage. I finally managed to catch a pike, three in fact! I also managed to catch two nice size bass and a couple of blue gills. The first pike got away when I had him right up to the boat. The second pike I managed to get in the boat. Those suckers sure are slimy and the teeth on them are very intimidating. The third pike I got right up to the paddleboat and was lifting him out of the water but the sucker did a flip and broke my line, taking my lure with him. It was a shame to lose that lure as I caught three nice pike and a couple of nice bass with it. At one point when I was out on the lake, it started to thunderstorm and the wind was blowing like crazy. I was getting nervous and started to think I might be hit by lighting with a fishing pole in my hand so I headed in for awhile until it blew over. Marie, her mom and I played a game of Skip-Bo and I got owned.
I left Marie and the dogs up at the cottage with her mom tonight. She was just too tired to go home. I can’t even remember the last time I’ve slept in my bed alone. Perhaps it’s a good night to fall asleep to Slowdive’s Just For A Day…
Prepared Childbirth 101
Today was Marie & I’s Prepared Childbirth class. We were lucky to get into the class at all as we misunderstood and didn’t realize that we were supposed to call months ago to sign up for the class. They had one cancellation so we were able to get in. It went from 9am till 4:30pm and was a looooong class but I’m glad we went as I learned alot. There were 8 other couples in the class with us. One of the couples due dates is on my birthday (June 15th for those of you who have forgotten) and another couple is due the same day Marie is (August 26th) and are having a boy also. How crazy is that!?!?
We got to watch a couple of different videos, two of which actually showed women giving birth. Unfortunately, neither of the women were attractive in the least bit so it made the whole thing even worse to watch. We also got to go on a tour of the hospital to see the various rooms where each step of the process will take place. The woman doing the class also handed out several different ‘tools’ for us to play with, including forceps (holy shit are those things huge and heavy!), a hand held plastic vaccum that is used to ’suck out’ the baby by the head if it’s not cooperating, a plastic hook that is used to break the water and the needle & tube for the epidural. Marie had absolutely no interest in seeing or playing with any of these things. I think the class freaked her out more than anything, heh.
The whole process of delivering a baby completely amazes me. I seriously can’t wait until Marie & I get to experience it. I just know it’s going to be one of the greatest moments of my life.