Bliss

Good-bye to work gloves, to the sawsall, cordless batteries, dust, the shop-vac, ponytails, caulk, sanding, and paintbrushes. Good-bye to the early mornings and extremely late nights. Good-bye to heaving loads of debris out the front door. Good-bye to exhausted muscles digging, pulling, banging and ripping. Good-bye to bugged eyes from concentration. Good-bye to headaches over the how, when, where, what, and why.
I went downstairs and found myself wanting to stay down there for the first time. It's no longer the dark dungeon it has been all these years. I can pull clean laundry out of the dryer straight onto the floor and not worry. It's serene; warm and clean with lots of head room. The paint looks great, and the carpet goes well. We've worried all month about the color and if we picked the right one. The stairs are soft on your feet, and the pattern in the carpet looks rich. The bathroom glows and the slate tile looks sharp. The laundry area is spacious and the small room which started out as the 'rental' room, turned into storage is now an inviting space. There's not much left to this small house. A few fixes here and there, along with two last big fixes. Just need a railing for the top of the stairs and trim for the garage. It's been a long road, with many pot holes, diversions, and pull offs. It's been the scenic route; areas that you want to savor forever, then the bits that zoom by. And the moments that drag on to find the beautiful hideouts. It's been well worth the heartache, blood, sweat and tears. I had always hoped to enjoy all the hard work we've put in, yet I know we'd never be happy with laziness. There'd always be something we'd find to do, which would lead into a giant project that would involve a major remodel. It's time to call it quits. To find a new place for our vision.
But I think I'll savor this small moment for a while.

Too Much Repeat?

Whine. To utter a plaintive, high-pitched, protracted sound, as in pain, fear, supplication, or complaint. 2. To complain or protest in a childish fashion.... This is an action I may participate in too much, and lately it seems to be my most favorite activity to do. Our final home renovations and impending move consume all my thoughts. We're so close to being finished, and new things keep popping up. It took over a week to get all of the sheet rock hung between our spring thunderstorms and freak snowstorms. Saturday was spent getting the first layer of mud put on. As the day progressed, Bryan became crankier and crankier. Sometimes I find this funny, and other times I find it extremely frustrating. By the time we were finished, I had my hoodie over my nose to keep Bryan from hearing my giggles. Unfortunately, by night time he was complaining of a dry throat, runny nose and the fever shakes. We went to the store to get flu supplies, and the truck decided to start acting up. We couldn't get it to stay cool, as the bubble in the coolant line was the size of a Zeppelin. And the new injectors that had been installed were acting up. Bryan went for more power with the new ones, and the computer is not capable of fixing the mixture of fuel and air. Compound this with the overheating, and we had a sick truck too. We limped it home amongst new snowflakes. I forced Bryan inside the house and told him it could wait until the next day. Sunday Bryan woke up to a cold that was 10x worse. I got him comfy on the couch with a pillow and blankie and played nurse all morning. Around mid-day the snow had finally melted and Bryan went out to diagnose his truck. Just low on coolant, WHEW! We went on a long test drive up Providence Canyon (mostly for me). Once home, Bryan was worn out, so back to the couch for him. When we finally went to bed, we stopped to check on the mud's drying progress. Due to Bryan's sickness (and crankiness) the first mud did not go on as smoothly as planned. We'll have to do an extra sand to fix the faux pas. Bummer. And unfortunately, Bryan came home from work sick today. My original deadline to be finished was April 30, and that day has come and gone now. My new day is now May 15th. I really do think we can finish the mud, trim, paint, carpet, and entire yard in twelve days.

Rub the sand from your eyes

When I go to work in the morning I typically have to be there at 5am and sometimes 4am. This means by the time most of you get up I am ready for lunch. But being up early does have it's benefits. Nearly every morning I can walk to the front of the building and watch some of the most amazing sunrises. I often find myself wondering why I don't take my camera to work with me. This morning I decided to show you all a little bit of what I see every morning. Today wasn't as amazing as some but it wasn't a disappointment.

Our 'Still' Life

With spring finally in the air, we find ourselves in a mad dash to the finish line. We're more than ready for new adventures in the great USA with Lowe's and can hardly wait to literally, move on. Our home is so close to finally being complete. Just a few more walls to paint, several trips back and forth picking out carpet, and the many odds and ends to tie up loose ends. Then we can kick back on our deck, sipping tall lemonades and watching the sun set.

"We're Going Wabbit Hunting"

In the habitual close up shop, bedtime routine, I went to feed the dogs and let them in for the night. As we work on the basement, I've been feeding them on the back deck, instead of downstairs. Tonight was no different. After I doled their food out, and Nivia hurriedly scarfed down her bit, she wandered out to the grass. Jax finished his food, and I went to let them in. Jax rushed inside, the wimp he is, but Nivia wouldn't budge from the grass. I yelled for her to hurry up, and that's when I noticed a lump. Huh? I went out to investigate and found what I thought was a duck. I came back in and told Bryan what I'd found. He got dressed again, put shoes on and found gloves to only come back to the door needing a shovel and flashlight. This was no duck. It was a pheasant. Somehow, our baby girl caught a vicious pheasant, killed it, and with Jax's help ate the guts, breast and head (SICK!!). Nivia was extremely proud of herself; she was preening downstairs. You could see in her eyes how badly she wanted acceptance from us of her achievement. Unfortunately for them, the basement was cleared up and a small space was fenced up for them to sleep in. No shacking up in the master bedroom tonight with bird germs microscopically lurking on their fur. Hopefully they'll only suffer from some upset tummies from their big feast.

Stressed

Over the past six months, life has become stressful in every corner for me. It first started with Bryan being gone (as if you couldn't tell from all my bloviating). Then came the expected, but unwanted load of my coworker moving on to bigger and better things. This one unfortunately came with all the works. I now had all of my job, his job, and what my boss needed done too. And it all came at the busiest time of year for us, with no extra help from others. It's been three months now, and the pace hasn't slowed at all. Plus the problem of being asked to do three times the job with no perks. The new year came, and Bryan came home, but that particular stress was replaced with now finishing the home we've made out of our 1949 house. There's the unexpected horrors found under sheet rock (like plumbing pipes to nowhere, the occasional electrical box stuffed to the brim with live wires, and a few mouse turds), then the horrors turning into emergency fixes like the regulation valve for the water last night, which brings the costs to new all-time highs. Here is where I stress most: money. I always worry about what's in the bank, and if we really have the cash there, or did I imagine it? Then I don't want any debt, and that creates problems, as there's not enough truly saved to finish the house, and as I want to move soon, push will come to shove on that one. This brings up the next load, moving. I can't wait to start this adventure, but besides selling our home, there's the many cars we've collected that have to find a way with us. Then there's our dogs. How do you safely move them without hurting their health, or putting too much stress on Jax who's now an old man? And to top this all off? Health. Over the past year, each time I've had my blood pressure taken, the nurse has asked me if I'm usually that high. I say no, as I've always been told I've got perfect blood pressure. But this past month, I said maybe. And the doctor totally ignored the numbers, as they thought I was excited I may be pregnant. And this depressed me, as if they had even looked at my chart, they'd see I was prescibed for continuous birth control to keep my endometriosis pain in check and was there to get a new prescription for the next year, not a pregnancy test.
My research found that I might have prehypertension, which means you'll most likely end up with high blood pressure. As I don't drink enough fluids, I've been hell-bent on changing that. Then last Friday, I came down with strep and had to go to Instacare. Once again, I was stressed, as I worried about how I was going to get better in 2 days to be back at work on Monday to continue working on books. The nurse who took my BP asked if I was usually high. I said I was starting to think so, and that's when Bryan said I was 152 over 91! Now I'll have to see a different doctor (as the other one's an idiot in my mind) and find out what else I have wrong, like high cholesterol, or foot and mouth disease, or my nose is falling off (although there's one bit of my nose I wouldn't mind, the weird bump that I got from the Brits). All of this has mixed together to where I can feel my heart expanding, my eyes bulging, all the nerves going weirdly numb and my blood's pumping beats would put a bass drum to shame.
All day I've been trying to think of something (or way) that I can help relieve my stress besides all the water, but I keep drawing a blank. I need something small and quick, so when moments like this morning happen again I can breathe deep and calm myself to keep my heart from exploding. However, every time I do this, I start again the cycle of this to that to that to this, and I end up back where I was. I don't know how well I'll be able to cure this obsessive-compulsive problem, as I always feel the impassioned need to be in control of everything.
Turning 30 sucks.

NASCAR Nationwide Car of Tomorrow Needs Some Rules From Yesterday

National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, NASCAR.... The "Stock" part has gone the way of the DoDo. In the original days of NASCAR a guy went to the local dealer and bought a car, stripped it down and went racing. Obviously safety has played a big role in the changes in the cars but at a certain point the name has to change to National Association for Fabricated Car Auto Racing. There is absolutely no part or design that carries to the production versions of the cars. In the old day if you won a race on Sunday then the manufacturer sold cars on Monday! That was because you could buy the same car. NASCAR wonders why their ratings are down, well nobody wants to watch a bunch of cars that you CAN'T buy drive in circles. Oh boy Chevy got another win with their car YOU CAN'T HAVE!

Enter the modern muscle car wars, the big three all have a car in the new horsepower wars. Now Ford and Dodge have opted to use their muscle cars as the new Nationwide Series stickers. I say stickers because that's all they are. The cars have to be identical so they put stickers on them and call them their own. Chevy has opted not to partake in this offensive lowering of the bar for their muscle car. The Camaro has wide hips and very angular edges which would not work with the "template car".

So I say to NASCAR, and you should LISTEN! Remove the body rule from the Nationwide series and let the big three shoot it out and bring back the ratings. Require the safety standards but allow the skin to be just like production models and the engine to be available to the consumer and BANG! Win on Sunday Sales on Monday! People would watch the Nationwide series just as much as the Sprint Cup and it would generate excitement again.

So who's going to help me start my own racing series? Because you know the Bill France family is too dumb to do this.

Oh and I must add, the Camaro is selling so well that Mustang is cutting production and Challenger is barely hanging on. Camaro outsells the other two combined!