Hey I'll tell ya, I'm doin' allright now, but last week I was in rough shape...

That's Rodney Dangerfield (R.I.P). That qoute just popped in to my head when I spent a little time reflecting on recent events. And I am doing much better now.

Travis and I e-mailed each other and he recommended Stay Positive by The Hold Steady. It was my first iTunes album download ever. And it is flipping fantastic. Harpsichord is NOT just for fifth grade substitute teacher singalongs.

Anyway - since the last post, Laurie came and stayed with us for another week or so. It's been great having her around. And, for the most part, all of the dogs got on well. And she painted her toes.

The boys have been hanging out here quite a bit. Jake's friend Travis practically gets mail here. And as I type this, he and Andrew are sleeping upstairs. They spend a lot of time just being boys - they play their instruments a lot. And they have been getting out of the house more on bike rides and trips to the lake and such.

4th weekend, we went to Lauren and Paul'sto celebrate Lauren's birthday and our independence from Paul's little island. I'm still a little full.

They have the cutest puppy in the world right now.

I won a dollar off of my father-in-law as he bet me I couldn't stab a fly with a toothpick. I think this feat is right up there with Mr. Miyagi in Karate Kid, although his method was more humane. If I recall correctly, his fly survived the chopsticks encounter. And I do feel a little bad about it, but I have to say, I really didn't think I could do it, but once I did, well, a dollar's a dollar.

Rachel transformed our bedroom in to a wonderful place to sleep.

She is also transforming the former library to be a wonderful place to craft. Pictures of that when she's finished.

The smoke was back last week - and that just sucked a lot of the joy out of me. And that was just from the far away fires. Then we had a much closer fire - a few miles away. And it knocked out our power for 15 hours or so. And we lit candles, but it was still like 80 degrees out, so we switched to LED lights. It is actually really dark in this picture, but the flash filled us in and all.

And I got the sillies pretty bad, too. And we made up a song about "Mini." It's hard to explain.

And I was nervous about the proximity of the fire, so I put on my hat light and plugged the scanner in to the AC converter which I plugged in to the cigarette lighter in the car.

Oh, also, Laurie's car wouldn't start when she was ready to leave. We had reason to believe that her tank had been syphoned and I was really upset and surprised. We've had like one bad incident since we've lived here and it shocked me. We called security and filed a report and everything. And it turns out that it was so hot, she had some sort of vapor lock. That evening, it started right up.

I have to remember to call security and un-report the crime.

Jake and I started working on the "Convert the Sunroom to an underused closet in to an exercise room" project.

And Moe really enjoys the sunshine and freshly cut grass. Maybe I should try that the next time I'm bummed out. But the neighbors might call the cops.

Jake's girlfriend, Keli, is moving to Alaska tomorrow. It's sad. She's a great kid. Jake's sad but doin' alright. He's got his friends here and all.

That's about all I can think of for now. This week's gonna be busy. But building busy, at least. I should have something fun to play with by Wednesday or so. Who care's that the design isn't finalized, right?