big moon

On the way home last night Zibby and I stopped to look at the full moon and some cows. She climbed in my coat and asked all about the cows in the field. When we turned around to get back in the car, we saw an orange sunset. Good times.

DONE.

All we have to do now is move back in and put all of our stuff away. I promise not to complain.

from new upstairs window

this old house?

(way) before…

we move back in a week?

(hint: don't sprint picture mail to blogger)

since I haven't put up any in a while...

These pictures are actually more than a week old by now, but newer than what has already been posted. They’ve finished most of the interior painting and have even started finishing the hardwood floors. We’re on schedule to move back in on the 16^th. We are more than ready.

stone on new front porch

watermelon in the bathtub!

paint colors

The light was bad, but this is the trim color.

fun and the house

We really can't wait to get back into the house. Apartment living makes us want to go anywhere but the apartment to have fun. Yesterday we went to the opening of the new RDU terminal. I'm not sure we'd have done that otherwise, but it was really fun, esp. since Cate and PIC met us there.. Then we went to chick-fil-a for lunch.

The house picture is the new front porch with it's columns in place. Once again, it's a new feature that looks like it should have been there all along.

new color!

this kid has style

Thanks to the Dianaverse for the shoes.

stone for the front steps

more pictures on a thursday

Pink stuff everywhere and bricks going in to raise up our front porch. The bricks will get covered with stone. I can't wait! I want my house back!

house looks good

Siding and roof done...

saturday photos

New front porch...

Siding looks good...

View from inside the new living room...

before and after

Ok, not really before or after. A before shot would really show the nice deck that used to be there, and we aren’t at after yet, but at least with the windows in you can see where it’s going. (This post was sent by email).

what I doing?

Well, I guess that's enough not blogging for a while. I guess I can use the excuse that I'm not currently in the woods. We're having an addition put on our house along with a few more improvements we've wanted to do since we bought the place. We aren't living in the house through all of it, we've moved into an apartment until it all gets done. Not being there has really helped Alan the Builder to work fast, so he'll be done sooner than expected. That's a very good thing- I want my house back.

If you've been looking at the only part of this site that has changed in a few months, Jim's very nice cell phone pic gizmo, you've probably already noticed our little construction project at the house. I need to add bigger photos to this site as the house changes, there must be some way to do that for lazy people like me that can't be bothered to log into blogger. Time to learn to email a blog... or get Jim to write me a bigger gizmo?

i came back

I guess I've been away awhile. But, as eBaby would say, "I came back."

This time with another project, or a project for a project. Many years ago, we built ourselves some wooden kayaks. When we moved to Mayberry, the best place we had to store them was under our deck. I built a platform with 4 wheels to roll the boats under the deck to keep them protected and out of the sun. When we moved to the current house, we finally had a garage, but the boats stayed under the deck because of the way the garage door was installed (or, actually, the way the garage itself was installed).

Somewhat connected to the next big thing, we are planning an addition to the house. But to build this addition, we have to demolish the deck. This left the boat furniture with no place to live. However, that's not bad news because I've had my eye on a new fancy garage door opener (geeks only) for a while now just hoping the old one would break. Installation of the Rolls-Royce of garage door openers freed up the entire garage ceiling to hang the boats. We should've done this a long time ago.

I won't give any details on the home addition yet, I'll need something else to blog about in a few months. Perhaps I'll attract more fiscal analysts by then.

I’m not even supposed to be here!

[I wrote this while sitting on the plane yesterday. I was supposed to be in San Antonio to celebrate my 13th anniversary on the Riverwalk with Alpha. Bummer.]

10:49am Central time
We can't land because of tornados in the DFW area. Good to know. I don't mind the delay; take your time- thanks. At least it explains why we're climbing. I guess my connecting flight will be late too. I hope nobody on the other end is concerned and I hope there's no reason to be.

Well. We don't have enough fuel to continue to circle DFW. So, on to Longview, TX for fuel. Yuck.

Yay! It looks like a bumpy landing. Couldn't we have gone *away* from the weather?

Very bumpy landing. There aren't thunderstorms here, just 30mph winds. There were t-torms, 60mph winds and tornados @DFW.

The people who work at the Longview airport will have stories to tell about the day that all the jets from the big city done shown' up.

We're only here b/c there was no place to park in Shreveport. What the hell? We're not even good enough for Shreveport?

The runway here isn't even totally flat. There's a bit of a dip in the middle. I don't think they're really equipped for big jets here.

I know they're not going to let us off the plane. Even if they did I don't think there's enough room in the "airport" to hold one S-80 full of people, much less us and the 6 other diverted jets (6 confirmed).
There’s a "ground stop" @ DFW. I guess that means the weather is really rotten. Maybe it’ll also mean that my connecting flight gets delayed enough that I can be on it.

I looked online to see the status of my other flight. It had taken off from Colorado Springs and also has not made it to DFW. It's listed as "arrival city changed" or some other low-information status. It's probably somewhere west of DFW, or maybe even Shreveport. At least that means there could be a chance I can still be on it when/if it leaves for San Antonio.

I can see a handful of people walking across the tarmac rolling suitcases. I hope that doesn't mean AA is giving up on getting some of these flights to DFW. Maybe those are scheduled Longview flights? Do they have those?

Scratch that. They're taking us back to RDU. I wonder if a tornado actually hit the airport? [No, but they did have 70-100mph winds and evacuated the control tower when they saw a funnel cloud.]

Now sadness sets in. I haven't seen my wife and daughter in a week. It's our anniversary, and I’m on my way back to RDU at so... This really sucks.

So, why aren't they taking us to another city in Texas? Austin? San Antonio? Houston? Hell, New Orleans. Really, isn't it a waste to take us back to Raleigh?

Too late now. We're back in the air. Very rough air. I'm pretty sick of this. I hope if I can get on another flight later that the weather will be less bumpy. I know this is safe, in relative and statistical terms, but my lizard brain tells me that being thrown around in an airplane thousands of feet off the ground is a bad thing.

[Well, we made it back to RDU without any additional problems. Then, I stood in a long line and got a new ticket. I leave for Austin tonight. Of course, they’re predicting thunderstorms on this end tonight, so keep your fingers crossed.]