autumn decor

i am not really known as someone who decorates for the holidays. in fact, i am kind of known as quite the opposite: someone who gets really mad at other people who decorate for the holidays. now, i think my annoyance is well placed, i dont get mad at everyone who decorates, just those who decorate way way way too early! i get really annoyed with people who start putting up halloween decorations in september, and those who put up christmas stuff in october. i think that is a pretty fair gripe! with all this decorating frustration, my wife diana, bless her heart, has tried to melt mine. she insisted that we do a little decorating for the seasonal change. she is enjoying the fall season, and wanted to have some sort of decoration in honor of that change. so, being the good husband, i allowed my pregnant wife to have her way and we got a pumpkin to put on our front porch. it also helped that we found a pretty big pumpkin for about four bucks at aldi...

boat storage

going over to help out at diana's mom and david's place was quite fun recently!  with the weather changing and winter coming, david made plans to have a friend come over with his boat trailer and get their pontoon out of the water.  the two of them went to drive the truck around to the boat launch and i got the fun job of taking the boat from the dock to the launch!  it was pretty cool- the weather was perfect and i got to enjoy a nice relaxing trip around the lake all by myself.  i took full advantage of my new role as boat captain!  i even walked around the boat as it was going- unmanned!  good thing there werent any icebergs or i would have been sunk! (terrible pun intended...)  we go the boat out with only a couple scrapes, and drove it over to the rental house's garage.  the whole boat needs a bit of work over the winter, so david figured that would be the perfect place to store it so that we can work on it even while theres snow falling.  we did a bit of work on the house as well, carrying the appliances from the garage back in to the house.  one fun thing we got to do was switch the doors of the fridge!  i've always seen the bits and holes in fridges that allow you to switch the side it opens on, but i've never done it to a fridge- until now!  oh, how i take such joy in the stupid little things...
(more pics)

diy mcbreakfast

every once in a while on saturday morning before diana heads off to work, she will ask me to go get some breakfast from the fast food place. its always really yummy, but i recently decided to try and make one of their breakfast sandwiches myself! we had the eggs, cheese, sausages, and english muffins, so i figured i would give it a go. diana doesnt care for this type of breakfast sandwich, so it was something just for me. turns out its harder to do that i thought it would be! the making of the different items is easy enough, the challenge comes from trying to time it all right. i was trying to coordinate the microwave for the sausage, the stove for the egg, and the toaster for the muffin to all finish at the same time. for the most part it worked and the cheese even melted just right! it was an especially delicious morning for me! diana didnt seem to be as pleased as i was by it, but maybe thats because she was heading out the door for a days work and i was starting a day of doing nothing at all!

treadmill

last summer our treadmill fizzled out on us. the motor died, leaving diana with no opportunity to work out. she was really annoyed! we gave that treadmill to my sister and brother-in-law because they said they might know someone who could look at the motor and fix it. they couldnt, so we were out of luck. well, a new pawn shop opened up in town and i went to check it out a few times (i know pawn shops can have a bit of a stigma attached to them, but this one isnt shady at all, it actually seems more like a used cd shop and its actually really nice!) everything in there is fairly new and in really good repair. i've actually found a bunch of good movies and cd's there for cheap. well, diana asked if i ever see a treadmill i should check it out to replace our old one. last time i went they had a couple on the floor so i quickly called diana and she quickly exclaimed 'buy it!' so i did. i wasnt sure which one of the two she would want so i put down a hold on one and diana and i came in the next day to take a look at them. she was really excited about one so we got it! its temporary home is now in the living room where diana uses it almost every night. once the baby comes we agreed that we will need to find a better place for it, but until then she is very pleased- and walking up a storm!

details work

while i was at mom and davids i might as well do a little bit of work, no? over the weekend we did some of the detail work around the rental house. now that all the kitchen cabinets are in and the counter top has been installed, we put in the overhead microwave. it wasnt too difficult, but we did end up with a few extra pieces- not usually a good sign... also there was some track lighting over the counter bar that i put some finishing touches on. i installed a toilet and we put some edging on the shower to make it look less like a blindfolded child installed it... all in all we did a few projects that helped make the whole place a little bit better and one step closer to finishing!

3 for the show

when we go to the teacher convention in south bend on thursday and friday, a lot of the coworkers get a hotel room for the night. not me! i just drive on over to diana's mom and david's place! they live only about 15 minutes from the convention center so it works out really well. by late afternoon all the convention stuff wrapped up for the day on thursday, so i headed up to one of my favorite places: the movie theater in niles, michigan! its called wonderland theater and it is amazing! what makes it amazing? well, movies are only 4 bucks, popcorn is $1.50, and soda is 1.50- thats what makes it so amazing! since everything was so cheap i decided to make a day of it and see more than one movie (ok, three). there is nothing in the world quite as fun as back to back to back movie going! what also helped is that the movies were really good! i know that diana would be bored to death doing that, so i'm glad i got to have this fun evening to just sit back and enjoy the darkened theater!

teachers assemble!

each year i head out to south bend for the annual teacher convention. its usually a bit of fun because i get to see some old friends i went to college with and catch up with them. its also kind of strange because i also see all the teachers that taught me in high school. now as a peer i call them by their first names. i dont think that will ever feel normal! this year's speaker was father joseph krupp. he was amazing- a very funny man (which makes sense, he was a stand-up comedian before becoming a priest) and shared some very inspiring and encouraging words. i also got to chat for a bit with my favorite teacher ever: mrs. jager! immediately after talking with her i texted my fellow junior high classmate adam and he was terribly jealous that i got to see her! there was a lot of cool stuff there this year and i look forward to next year!

more poco!

you asked for it, so you get it! (i fully realize that no one actually asked for it, but i am going to do this anyway...) here are some more cute pictures of our little bundle of gross: poco the wonder dog!

check out pictures here, here, and here.