quick review

time flies and alot has happened and i'll try to remember everything. Mel and I have started to donate plasma and have been in twice. It takes a little longer than we had hoped it would and we can't bring Strider into the place. I went to Toronto with Mike and Rob and we went on the whirlpool jet boat in to whitewater on the Niagara River, but doesn't really count as whitewater rafting. While I was up there I did by a Stephen Hawking book A Briefer History of Time and I bought two different types of wine from the Niagara region, but again, I have to read the book and drink and critique the wines in order for them to count. We did see a Blue Jays game so that counts towards the professional sports games.
Today I chaperoned with Jaren to the Cumberland Fair with school. It was a lot of fun and we had a beautiful sunny day.

I think I got everything, it is hard to remember what has been going on without writting daily. I will try to keep up.

Home improvement II

this is a continued post -read the one below first.

We had 3 employees taking apart these shelving units and stacking them on a cart for us. Once we paid and loaded them in the van we knew that our plans for the day had just changed. We went straight home to take care of our new plants, and once we had lunch and repotted the plants we started to unpack the shelves.

We weren't exactly sure where everything was going so we moved a few things around and started to set up the first couple of units. We then decided that we needed to clean up the craft area of the basement in order to figure out where everything was going to go. Next came the decision to rebuild the craft table. It makes sense. So much of the crafting supplies that is just stacked in the basement used to be in this table that is sitting in pieces in a corner of the basement. The problem is, I'm not sure I can remember how to put it together. It has been over a year since we took it apart. We cleared out the area and pulled up the rug and found a play may underneath the rug. I knew something was there I just wasn't sure what it was. Now tomorrow (if I ever get to bed) I will be able to do my exercise on a mat. The carpet doesn't give much padding.

Back on track--I was able to get the table together a lot easier than I had expected. Now Mel just has to load it up, we'll hook up some sort of extension cord to a strip of plugs to plug in the sewing machine and maybe some organization will start to come to the basement.

We have 4 of the 6 shelving units built, two of the fancier ones are in the picture. The craft table is done so this completes number 91. The storage shelves aren't completely built and arranged so I cannot say that 47 is done yet.

Home improvements

Things did not turn out as expected today. To say the least. We knew we had some errands to do today; going to the chiropractor for Mel, the post office, new shoes for Mel and Strider, Walmart, and maybe Home Depot.

I thought that I might be able to pick up a pink shirt for work at Goodwill, which is right next door to the post office. So I was excited because the pink shirt is number 9 on my list and I knew Mel might be getting some shoes so it would be cool if we could both check off something. However there were no pink shirts to be found. Oh well. Our next stop was Olympia, and with absolutely no help from the employees Mel did get her new sneaks.

Next we decided to go to Home Depot to get some Great Stuff foam to fill in all the drafty spots from our home audit. As we walked in Mel said that she wanted to get a plant, because she has to keep a plant alive for a year and she wanted to start now. On my list I need to get and keep alive an indoor tree. I don't know why but I have wanted an indoor tree for the longest time. I just thought it would be cool to have this large plant in the living room. This seemed like the perfect time to pick one up. I found a dracaena massangeana which would grow up to 9 feet tall. This seemed good and I picked it up.

Now here we are going in and around the isles of Home Depot with the race car cart and a rather large plant/tree in it. I have to look to the side in order to see where I am going. We decide to look at shelving for the storage area in the back room. As we were looking at the stuff in the isles a friendly employee comes up and says that if we are interested in shelving he has some display models from a promotion that they had marked down. It was too good of a deal to pass up. We ended up bringing 6 shelving units home.

to be continued

Poem 1 and explanation

Settling down with something warm to drink,

Getting comfy, makes me stop and think,

Of all the things I've done with you,

Filling me with smiles, through and through.

Although together we can not always be,

Make yourself a warm drink, and think of me.

Mel asked me to create a quick poem for her cocoa bags that she is making for craft fairs and this is just what I whipped up. Not my typical poem subject but it came rather easily and it is number 30 on my list.

I also set up an appointment to donate platelets for next Monday.

Take me out to the ball game

First Seadogs game that I made it to all year and what a beautiful day. Started off by going to the Portland Expo to an open house of the Maine Redclaws, the new local basketball team. We met up with Mike, Meesh, Julia and Sam at the Expo. We got to shoot around on the court and they had a contest where if you made a shot from half-court then you got season tickets. I missed, of course, but I was surprisingly close. I actually hit the backboard.

Next we went to the game and got our seats. Nice seats for general admission, but no seats are bad at our little ball field. We all went and found a player signing autographs and had the kids picture taken with him. There were a few home runs and a lot of excitement, but unfortunately they lost the game. There was lots of food, songs, and everyone had a good time. The kids even got their picture with Slugger. It was nice to go and do something with Uncle Mike and family and it was a nice day altogether.

Hikin and swimmin

Everyone had plans to go hiking on Monday and of course I was working so we decided to go today instead. We left early in the morning knowing that it was a hour and 15 min drive just to get there and if you show up to late and the parking lot is full then you have to wait until someone leaves. No worries about that though, very few cars in the lot and away we went. It was a beautiful day and the only thing we could complain about was the mosquitoes on the hike. It was not too hot nor too cold. All the boys were great and Strider only had one minor breakdown.
When we got to the beach the waves were huge and everyone had a great time. However the water was freezing and the undertow was pretty strong. Just made things all the more exciting.

This is the first hike on number 3 of my 101 in 1001.

Keep the home fires burning

Yesterday I decided to have a cookout on the fire, complete with ice cream for desert. I was going to make it easy and just have ham and pineapple in foil, but the ham was a thin slice and it seemed a little to much like cheating. Instead I decided to go with the corn bread in pie irons as appetizers, and sweat and sour pork chops as the main course. The corn bread in the pie irons actually came out better than I expected. I thought it would be burnt on the outside and raw on the inside. Next Dean and I had fun layering all the ingredients that Mel had so graciously prepped for us. We rolled everything up in the foil and tossed in on the hot coals. It cooked a little bit too long but was mostly edible. The ice cream was a hit. With everyone (except Stri) mixing up their own batch of ice cream, we all had cold hands from shaking up the bags of ice and then quickly got ice cream headaches from eating it to fast.

this was number 41 on my 101 in 1001.

X'ed up!

Had a great workout this morning. It was the Shoulder, Bicep and Tricep routine in p90x. I pushed myself right through the ab routine. Feels good starting the day pushing yourself to the max and finishing on a strong note. JUST PUSH PLAY AND BRING IT!
Have lots of fun plans this Labor day weekend. Hiking, baseball, and maybe even try to squeeze in some fishing and a campfire somewhere.

I missed it by that much

Earlier this month I had bought myself a Mission bow by Matthews. Its a real nice compound bow with all the gadgets, and fun to listen to the pop as the arrows hit the target. I try to get out to practice on my days off and have been successful to shoot for a half hour or so most days.

I missed the target for the first time today. It just zoomed off into the woods behind our shed. My left elbow buckled just as I was pulling the trigger on my release and the arrow disappeared. With my bow set up the arrow probably travels between 250-275 feet per second, so by the time I recovered from my elbow twicth, the arrow had silently vanished into the trees. Mel and I searched for the neon green and orange feathers for about 20-30 minutes with no luck.

Just writing about shooting makes me want to go out and practice some more. Its way more fun than even I expected.