"Now, let me explain something before you get mad ... "

Lori is adorable.

She decided the shade of yellow we'd painted in the nursery wasn't *quite* what she was looking for. It was a little too "highlighter-y". So, she cautiously approached me and said that after lots of careful consideration and secret consultation with a Mother-In-Law-Who-Shall-Remain-Nameless, she wanted to switch the color.

Now, this wasn't too big of a deal because:

• The wall still needed another coat of paint
• The wall still needed another coat AFTER that other coat
• Shade of Yellow #1 is a great base/primer for Shade of Yellow #2

After it was determined I was not going to put her in a burlap sack and throw her in the river, we went down to Sherwin-Williams and got a new color. The results?

And an added bonus ... a Lori/Cody/"baby belly" exclusive, relaxing in the newly painted nursery!

On another topic, does anyone need an unused gallon of "Highlighter Yellow"?

It's not easy being green

Or getting rid of it, for that matter.

The room we're converting into the nursery was a lime-greenish color when we bought the house. Over the past weekend, I put two coats of primer on the walls and trim ... which sorta turned the walls into a light blue. Ok, that's a start.

Last night with the help of Kim and Mike (of Nickelodeon's "Hey, It's Kim & Mike!" fame), we painted the first coat of yellow on the walls. And while it is very yellow, it's still sorta ... greenish? We're hoping the second coat takes care of that, but I'm thinking the walls (not trim) may need three coats. Inconceivable!

Round two is slated for this Saturday, but I'm thinking I may try and do a roller coat prior to that just to get a more solid base down.

Bored yet? : )

Weekend Update

Tanks for the Memories
We came home on Friday to find that our 6 year-old water heater had "passed on".


Of course, whoever invented hot water heaters decided that the best way for them to die is to spill their guts all over your basement. Thankfully, it didn't let out too much before we found it and emptied it ourselves. Hopefully it will be replaced on Monday morning. Big thanks to the Regan family for letting us use their shower this weekend!

Saturday Night

Saturday night was spent at our Jon and Amy's place for their annual BBQ. They always put on a great party ... and it doesn't hurt that Jon works for Harpoon. The food was great, the late-night flip cup tourney was equally great, and hopefully Jon has both his flip-flops back by now.

The Nursery, Round One

Sunday was spent priming the walls of nursery. Painting with primer is a pain (alliteration?) and always looks like you haven't painted it thoroughly enough. I hate that. Anyway, I put two coats on. Exciting stuff. Some pics below:

By the way, Cody is a vicious dog. He just wanted you to know.

The Finished Front Deck

This projct was the bane of my existance for a couple months. I thought it would take a couple weekends, I was off by a little bit. Here are the fruits of the labor:

I fail at camera

So maybe I was a little lazy and neglected to take any pictures of Scout and Cody romping around the house. SUE ME!

Some highlights of Scout's visit include:
1. Chasing Cody around the yard
2. Being infatuated with Cody's ears
3. Enjoying the taste of Dirt ®!
4. Sleepin'
5. Going for walks around Framingham (and pooping as foretold)
6. Sleepin'

When Lori and I weren't playing with the puppies, we were putting the finishing touches on the front deck ... which is finally complete! Pictures to come (I swear), but it is nice to have that project out of the way. On to the nursery! For serious this time!!

We also took our first ever trip to the Framingham recycling center (aka "The Dump"). I don't know what they put in the coffee there, but the employees are ridiculously friendly. Maybe I'm just used to surly New Hampshire dump folk, but these guys seemed genuinely happy to be there. Anyway, we were getting rid of about 7 sections of vinyl fence from the recent backyard expansion. The guy at the gate tells me "Ummmmmmm ... I think we take that? Check with the guy at the dumpster."

So I drive to the dumpster, and ask the guy running the compactor. "I have no idea if we take that, you'll need to ask the manager over there." Now, at this point I'm getting nervous that I'll need to unload all this stuff into the garage again and possibly have to cut it all down into little bite-size pieces for the regular trash. That would be a pain. The manager tells me that sure they'll take it, and he walks towards the office. So I start unloading that stuff as fast as I can into the dumpster, and when he comes back out I have one piece left to unload.

Him: "Ummm ... I just found out we actually don't take vinyl fence."
(guy running the compactor, who is not listening to us, crushes my fence into an unrecoverable mound of twisted vinyl)
Me: "Oh ... ok. I guess I'm glad I work fast then."
Him: "LOL."

Wow. That story was much more exciting in my mind.

Aside from all of that: Lori trimmed up all the shrubbery in the front, I aerated the whole yard because the heat is killing all the grass, and Lori cleaned up the workbenches in the garage and basement. And we cleaned the garage. And we put some of the usable fence sections up in the attic.

We are very much looking forward to this coming weekend, where there is not too much housework planned AND we get to visit Jon and Amy for their annual summer BBQ. Harpoon-tastic!

The Final Countdown

Well ... sort of. The plan is to finish the elusive front deck project this weekend with a couple coats of stain to the decking. Considering my original estimate for this project was a whopping two weekends ... yeah. More like two months. Stupid weather/life/etc. getting in the way.

In other news, we have Scout coming to visit us this weekend! Scout and Cody enjoy such activities as running around, stealing each other's stuff, hiking, and biting each other constantly for hours on end. Should be an incredibly busy weekend for those two. Stay tuned for some adorable dog playtime pictures sometime next week. One of these days I'll post the pictures from our Mt. Washington weekend too. Stupid weather/life/etc. getting in the way.

Weekend Report

Friday
I painted and primed the front door frame, which from what we could tell had never been painted after it was originally installed. Looks berry berry nice now. Of course I peeled a bunch of paint off the frame when trying to scrape the excess paint off the windows, but I blame that on humidity and not on my lack of scraping talent/dull razor.

After that, I got about 20 minutes into "Run Ronnie Run", which is essentially the Mr. Show movie. From what I could tell, it was really just a collection of reused jokes from the show itself, so I didn't find it terribly funny.

Saturday
Continued some work on the front door frame, and did some other general house maintenance stuff (more painting, and assembling some deck rocking chairs for when the front porch is completed). Around noon, Jason and I took our dogs to Callahan State Park for some swimming and hiking, and then met up with Kevin and Leah for dinner.

After that, Kevin and I went to the first of two Police concerts at Fenway Park this weekend. It was a very good show, although I did feel the band members were showing their age a bit ... a few songs were definitely sung in a lower key than what you'd remember from their albums. We sat along the left field wall, and our view pretty much looked like this:


They played all of their big hits, and thankfully did not launch into any political rhetoric. They did make great use of the "all three band members in one frame" video montage, which had Kevin and I laughing on a couple occasions.

After the show, we met Kevin's fiance' Tracy and her friend Susan at Vox for a couple drinks, and then headed back to Cleveland Circle for some delicious late night pizza.

Sunday
We painted our front door a much nicer looking shade of plum than what was there previously. Actually, it was the same color but a better finish for a door (just a bit glossier). Are you tired of reading about painting yet? I'm tired of typing about it ... : (

Lori and I did yet another round of little maintenance items around the house, and then I went to my softball playoff game where we were destroyed by our opponents, 17-5. Not a great way to end a 7-1 regular season, but it was a good year for use nonetheless. Fall ball starts in a little over a month, so this will be a nice break having 100% of our weekends back again ... to paint.

Outdoor Projects

Who loves outdoor projects? Us!

Project 1: Restaining a Deck.
The deck in our backyard had been peeling and flaking ever since we moved in, to the point that when you walked barefoot on it you would come back in with big brown flakes all over the bottom of your feet.

I stripped the entire deck down to the original wood. First, I used an orbtial sander from DeWalt (little $50 number from Lowes) which knocked off 90% of the original stain. The sander had a handy attachment that sucked up all the dust and made for a much less messy project.



After the first round of sanding, a quick powerwash to knock out the hard-to-reach stain. After the wood dried and the grain had risen, I gave it another quick round with the sander to smooth it all out.

Next up, applying the stain. Since there were some imperfections that would not come out of the wood, I decided to go with a good acrylic stain from Cabot that would help hide some of the blemishes. The stuff went on incredibly easy, and dried fast enough that I could walk on planks I had done 10 minutes previous without any problem.

Two coats later, we had this:


A bit more "reddish" than I had orginally expected, but quite an improvement nonetheless! There is a lot of white trim around the deck that the pictures don't show that need to be repainted, but that should be much easier. I'll be applying what I learned on the back deck when we refinish the front deck over the next few weekends.

Project 2: Planting Thirteen G*****M Abrovitaes.
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. Over the course of two weeks, we planted thirteen abrovitaes along the back of our fence.



It doesn't look like much now, but these bad boys grow quickly and will provide some nice cover/privacy back there (especially when the planned development eventually goes in behind us).

Arborvitae'd!!

On Sunday, with the help of Rick Nehls' pickup truck we were able to bring seven arbovitaes to our house to plant in the back yard (behind the back of the white fence).

Later that evening, after doing some additional calculations on spacing, Lori determined that we needed an additional six trees. But we don't have a truck, and also don't feel like spending $60 to have them delivered 1.5 miles from Lowes.

What to do, what to do ...

As I told my father-in-law later that evening: If we just had a 10-speed bike in our garage, Lori would have found a way to bring six of these things home on it last night.

Bound and determined, that woman is.

Lori's 30th Birthday

We had a "sorta-surprise" party for Lori at our place this past weekend. Lots of friends, food, and fun ... and pinatas!

Lori, Rob, and Cody (not pictured: Baby)

Being on injured reserve for softball this season, we decided to give Lori a chance to relive the glory days and take some swings at the pinata instead. It's hard to see in this picture below, but she launched the pinata off the pole and right at our friend Dave at around 40 mph. Yep. She's still got it.

Another lesson from the weekend: KIDS LOVE BADMINTON!

Click here to view all the pictures from the day!

More house pics ...

A few more of the rooms in the house ...

One of the guest rooms


The office


The dining room


The master bedroom

The basement is finished!

Here's some images from the basement living room, with the pinball machine and the new tv:

I'm spending a decent amount of time restoring the pinball machine. It was in great shape to begin with, having spent 20+ years in the basement of my old house in NH. A few bulbs and wires have died and corroded over time, and I'm replacing them as I find them.

... And in with the new!

Some pictures of our new place in Framingham, Massachusetts (since October of 2005) ...

The house from the front ...


... and from the back.


The family room ...


Same family room at xmas, sans curtains ...


Living room/dining room ...


Kitchen ...


Basement (aka 'Man Town') ...

Out with the old ...

Here are some pictures of our old house in Brighton, Massachusetts. I lived here from 2000-2005, along with a host of close friends (Jason & Leah Moens, Mark Dillon, Kim Humby). In September 2004, Lori moved in and we kept the place just over a year before finding our new home in Framingham and placing this one on the market. Just 4.5 short months later, it sold!

From the front ... the interesting thing about this place is that the basement is situated about 5 above ground level. No matter where you were in the place, you felt like you were on at least a 2nd or 3rd floor.















Here's the living room at Xmas ...