It has been a long time!!!

Wow, it has been over a year since Tim or I have blogged! We were having all sorts of computer issues and finally broke down and bought a new computer.

A lot has happened in the past year. Okay, maybe not a lot but a few things. Tim has been living in St. Thomas since September of '07. He only gets to come home about every month or so if we are lucky. I have been lucky enough to visit him twice so far. Once in October with our friends Allen and Michelle then again by myself in May. It is really pretty over there but very hot. I miss him a lot. Sometimes talking on the phone every day just doesn't quite cut it. His absence has really made it very lonely here in TN. Luckly he seems to have made some friends in St. Thomas. I'm really looking forward to December of '09 when the project will be over. Maybe he'll be able to stay closer to home.

I undertook a weekend project to keep myself busy. Tim had bought paint while he was home this winter but I hadn't done anything with it yet. Finally it is on the walls. A couple of 3am nights and I'm almost done. I need to put a second coat on a couple of walls and work on touchups. I will be so happy to get the living area back together. The poor dogs are having trouble with the maze of furnature. The color is "peanut butter" and I held a jar of Jiffy up to the wall and they totally match. Whoever named the color was on top of it.

One of my best friends, Cassandra, had a beautiful baby girl in Feb. My other best friend, Jennifer, got a big promotion. My brother switched jobs and no longer works for Notre Dame.

My mom and sister and neice will be visiting in a couple of weeks. I'm really looking forward to it! I almost never get any company down here.

Tim was home for a whole week this month. We got to spend the 4th of July together and it was great! We went boating with our neighbors and some of their friends. Tim jumped off a really high rope swing twice. We got pics. I'll try to remember to add one of them to this post. It was really great to have him home. Usually he only gets to come home for a long 4 day weekend and he ends up being more tired than anything from traveling. The final night he was here he had been working in the yard and had an allergic reaction to something. He landed in the ER for several hours. Luckly he is okay now. He had hives everywhere and looked so tired and itchy. Poor thing!

Well, it is getting late and I have to work tomorrow so I must end this. I'll try to be better at blogging more often :)

A mid-summer retreat

Just so everyone is aware, we are hosting a week-long vacation at our house for a bunch of my close fraternity brothers during the week of the 4th of July. Current plans include a few days in Nashville to start the party with a bang; a baseball game, a few trips into the mountains, the casino in Cherokee, a couple days on the lake in a rented boat, beer pong, and much much more!!

So if you want to come to see us, the week of the 4th is a great one, so clear those schedules and make that short trip to TN!

A Birdhouse

I got ready to cook supper this evening, bacon wrapped pork chops with potatoes au gratin, and green beans, when I became very angry. I lifted the lid to my grill, and found a massive eagle sized nest made in my grill. In hindsight, I wish I had taken a picture of it before ferociously ripping it out and throwing the straw, old christmas tree limbs, cotton shreds, and who knows what else out into the yard. Home Depot list for next weekend - new grill cover to keep the grill from becoming an eagle nest. I am serious, the ENTIRE grill was full of straw whatnot (at least 3 feet wide and 1 foot deep).

Note: after cleaning the grill for 15 minutes, the pork chops turned out fabulous.

Cold and Rainy

As I am sure most of you are experiencing the same weather conditions as the brown household the last few weeks. What the hell? IT was beautiful for weeks, I got my first couple sunburns and everything in March no less, and now it is cold and rainy. Puts me in a bad mood, especially since I planted my garden early with that burst of warm weather and everyone around had the spring fever. The garden is still currently alive, but we do not have high hopes for it. Our hosta, honeysuckle, gladiolus, and tulip bulbs got zapped by a light frost last week; I believe they will all snap out of it, even if I have to miracle grow liquid-feed them for a few months.

Apologies

We have been slacking on our blogging. We will try and make a massive bloggin effort to correct this shameful deed.

It's Done!

So...Tim and I have been working on our big project. We tiled both bathrooms and the kitchen. The bathrooms weren't too bad. The kitchen was another story. We had to move all the appliances out. That left me with no washer and dryer or stove. The refrigerator was in the living room all week!!! We planned to get everything back in order the weekend we did it but the weather got cold and the glue didn't dry very well. This was such a hassle because I have a golden retriever that thought he needed to inspect every tile at least 3 times a day. I also had to figure out how to cook my dinner on a griddle that was sitting on the dryer. Nonetheless, it is complete. It looks pretty darn good. Timmy did a fantastic job! If you need some tileing done you should hire him. We finished this major project just in time for beautiful weather.

I'm sure Tim will make me help him with the yard work. I'm not very outdoorsy. We will have to keep Jake away from the daffodils. For some reason he is drawn to them. I guess he likes pretty things. Picasso will be training for the second time on her invisible fence. The first time was a disaster. Tim let her off the leash and she ran through it. Instead of turning back or continueing to run she sat down right at the line and wined. I ran outside just in time to save her from Tim. I got her to come to the back door and into the house where she just laid next to me on the couch for several hours. She was afraid of Tim for the rest of the day! She got over it though and back to her loving self. She and Jake now have new collars and they look awesome!

TV Commercial Producer

I get tired of seeing all these different cold and flu medicine ads on tv. Mainly its because none of the hired actors ever appear to really be sick. For instance, the Nyquil commerical with the lady that takes dayquil for the day, and nyquil at night; she is riding a bike around as soon as she takes the stuff, then has a bday party and then passes out when she takes the nyquil. This is baloney - when have you ever taken dayquil and felt that great that fast? Sure it helps a little, but never completely. If I ran the tv ad production, I would inject the actors with the actual influenza virus, or whatever else my product supposedly cures, so that way the commercial would be more believable, and people would more likley buy your product.

Valentines Day

It is nice to know that we both love each other so much. Our Valentine's Day consisted of me being stuck in snow bound DC for the week and getting home late Saturday. We went out to eat at IHOP, and since Z has a hard time remembering what that stands for: International House of Pancakes.

Our gifts to each other: Me - 1/2-inch corded Craftsman hammer drill Z: New red 300 thread count sheets for our bed.

So to all of those single people out there, this is what you get to look forward to when you are married. No chocolates, no flowers, no cards.

My personal opinion: It's a Hallmark Holiday. Wouldnt it mean more for me to send her flowers some other random day of the year out of the blue (which I do), than a day when they cost $Texas?

Home Improvement Project

So as I mentioned earlier, we had some money left over from our tax return. This turned into completing a home improvement project.

Zara and I both hated the cheap lineoleum paper flooring that was down in the kitchen, both bathrooms, and the utility room. IT HAD TO GO!! We could never keep it clean, and it was time for a change. This will also help in selling our house this spring/summer. Seriously, who wants lineoleum floors when they are buying a new house? Granted some are nice, but the cheap form that the contractor put in our house was horrible.

Well we decided to put ceramic tile down in all those areas. We spent approximately $500 on the tile and supplies, tools, etc, at the home depot to do all the rooms. I spent about 2 hours in home depot reading all the information on how to do this project, and all the labels on the tools that I would need to put the tile down. Let me tell you, it is not that easy of a process; it is time consuming, and it really hurts your knees and back. Other than the physical pain, the mental pain is also rough, because you have to cut the tile just right, and the tile can only be scored, then it breaks (we didnt buy the expensive wet saw ;0 ); and if the tile doesnt break right, or you break it too long or too short, you have to use another piece (the smallest piece you can cut off a tile is about 2-inches.

Well after a few rounds, you figure out some tricks. If you need a tile that is 11 inches, or 3/4 of an inch cut off, the trick is to take a piece that is already been cut off, lay that down on a new tile, measue how much you need off from the broke piece, and then you put the broke piece and the new piece together. Granted they dont always match up, but another trick is to use some of that glue that you use to lay the tile on, it blends in with the tile, and you cant even tell that they are two different pieces.

My only complaint, and it is huge, is that the contractor that built our house is an idiot. We could never figure out why the bathroom was always so much colder than the rest of the house. Well it turns out that the contractor had laid the lineoleum over the hole in the floor, beneath the cabinet sink, so no air could come out of the register! OMG! I will strangle that guy if I ever see hin again. How can someone be that stupid? Seriously!

Project update: 2 bathrooms complete, one large kitchen and utility room to go next weekend!

Wow, it has been a while

Guess it has been a while since either one of us has posted. We have been busy busy!!

We completed our tax return for free online, and got a nice little return back from the IRS. Some people dislike getting a tax refund, because the government earns interest on their money; and they would rather make their own interest on it. Whatever, I like getting a nice little extra cash at the first of the year, because it helps pay off those credit cards that were used for Christmas. I also bought a pressure washer from Lowes, paid for my wisdom teeth to be removed, paid off my credit card, z's credit card, and I think there was a few dollars left that went into savings. We also bought a lot of stuff from Home Depot and Lowes, more to come about that in another blog.

I am Famous

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-01-30-collegians-debt_x.htm

"The loans I received were private loans with outrageous interest rates. I would have applied to different loan companies rather than just take the first loan offered to me," says Timothy Brown, 26, a highway engineer in Greenback, Tenn., whose loan debt exceeds $100,000 in student loans.

Glad I could be of assistance to those future college students!

Wisdom Teeth "Part Doe"

Well the surgery was a success; I am now wisdomless. I was very nervous before the procedure, but my escort was with me, so she made it better. I remember talking to the dentist about building tunnels and bridges, and then I was OUT. I woke up a few times during the yanking of the teeth, and was thinking, man, I hope he doesnt pull out all of my teeth. I distinctly remember hearing one tooth break, and my head going back and forth as the Dr was ripping one of my teeth out. I am also an abnormality, because I had 5 wisdom teeth, or just smarter than the average Joe? Of course, they pulled the 5th one too, and conveniently charged me as much as possible for removing this baby sized tooth. I did get to keep 2 of my 5 wisdom teeth, however; I believe they are still in Z's purse so I cant give additional details.

The worst part of the whole ordeal was when I came off of the numbing feeling and out of my disorientation. Thats when the pain hit me. Note: Do not take an additional vicodin pill 30 mins after taking one, no matter what the pain. I stumbled from the kitchen to the couch and damn near took out a few lamps and glassware. Z began shoveling more yogurt down my throat and cursing me for being an idiot and then hid the pills from me.

Well it is day 4 and I am just now beginning to notice the swelling going down in my cheeks. I still can not talk very well, and I continue taking the vicodin pills to reduce the pain. I am craving any kind of meat, but still can not chew, so it is more applesauce, jello, pudding, and oatmeal for me!

Cost of procedure: $2100. My part: $770. $16.99 a month for additional federaldental insurance is a helluva deal.