Big Thanks

A big thanks to Joe's brother Josh, for getting our new computer set up. It is so nice to have a computer without any junk on it. I have been very careful about the things I download, and so far the only programs I have added beside the basic windows are

• photoshop
• Google Chrome (internet browser)
• camera software

With my last computer I spent a lot time being frustrated, because it was always bogged down. I'm sure there was a ton of spyware on there. This computer has more memory, less crap, and also a good anti-spam program. Programs like photoshop used to be a drag, now they run like a snap.

THANKS JOSH!

Green Pet

Joe found a really big and cool tree frog in our yard. He even said he had never seen such a big one (except for in the zoo). Ginger took a liking to it, and carried it around with her, slept with it, man-handled it, and bathed with it for 2 days. After the bath the frog started looking a little yellow, so I decided to set it free, after which Ginger has been asking for it every since. She really did take good care of it, all things considering. 

Democratic Republican

I consider myself a Democratic Republican. Even though I am fairly conservative about most issues, I also grew up in a very Democratic country (the Netherlands) and agree with a lot of Democratic political views.

This election, I chose to vote for the Democratic nominee Barack Obama. It is great to be part of the election that changes history, and something my children will learn about in school. I agree with all those out there that it's time for "change". It's also important that our new president is favored by the rest of the world. Whether or not Obama can actually accomplish all the things he has promised, remains to be seen.

Yodlee

With my computer crash, I lost all of my family budget information. I had been using Microsoft Money to keep track of all my spending, budgets, and income. I was really distraught about loosing all of that, because it took me literally hours each month to input everything.

Well, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. See, I found this new program called Yodlee. It's a personal finance website, where you can do pretty much everything the Money does. Except, it's WAY better. It automatically links to all my accounts, so I don't have to input everything manually anymore. Instead, I just need to check once in a while that each transaction is categorized the right way, change a few quick things, and BOOM, I'm done.

The other advantage is that it's accessible from any computer, and if when my computer crashes again, I won't loose all the data. Now if I can only get the last 4 months of pictures back!

Election day

Today was the first time I was allowed to vote, in my life. Since I moved to the States shortly after I turned 18, and didn't become a citizen here until last year, I had never had the opportunity to participate in any kind of voting. It was pretty cool. Even though my vote probably doesn't count much here in Texas, it was still nice to know I did everything in my power to elect who I think is the lesser of 2 evils.

Joe took a vacation day today, so we went into Leonard together, to vote at City Hall. I have never seen that many cars parked in the square. The line was relatively short, compared to bigger cities, but still pretty long for the middle of the day (about 30 minutes). As we were getting closer to the front of the line Ginger asked: "Are we getting on the boat now?" I guess "vote" and "boat" sound really similar to a 3 year old, especially when they have never heard of a word like vote. She was very confused and disppointed when we tried to explain there were no boats anywhere around.

During dinner tonight Winter told me they voted in school too. She told me she voted for McCain, and when I asked her why this was her reply: "Because McCain doesn't want to kill babies, and he puts his hand on his heart."  Chicki what, what??? What are they teaching my child in school? I didn't really think teachers were at liberty to impose their political views upon my impressionable child. 

On a seperate note; our computer took a dive the other day. I wasn't too worried because the last time this happened (only about 18 months ago), we were able to recover all the data. This time we haven't been so lucky so far. I had backed up our family photos until June '08, but all our Disney photos are vanished. Other than that, I am not sure how upset I should be about this whole situation. If I loose all my Microsoft Money, finance records, I will be VERY upset. I spend a LOT of time inputting all our expenses, incomes, and bills. I don't even want to think about what I will do if all of that is gone. I don't know if I could start all over again. Not after 2 years of data vanishing overnight.

Some more renovations

Don't we all do this:

We see something that needs to be picked up, cleaned, fixed, or changed. Instead of taking 30 minutes to solve the problem, we look at that problem over and over for months, getting annoyed by it more and more.

It seems like the renovations easily grind to a quick halt, whenever I don't keep pushing along with real intent. There are so many unfinished projects, but here are some I have made a little progress on:

• New front door: I bought an unfinished front door right after we moved in. It sat in the garage, untouched, for at least 4 months. Then I finally pulled it out, and sanded it. I think I gave it 3 coats total (1 on one side, and 2 on the other). Since that, it's been sitting in the middle of my garage, untouched. Today I gave it another coat. I think it probably needs another 3 (so 3 more days)
• Wood floor: When we moved in, I ripped out most of the flooring. We got carpet put in relatively fast, and settled into living in the house. The wood floor was laid in the front hall way, and dining room, but progress halted when I got to the family room. One of the windows in the family room leaks whenever there's a big storm, and we hadn't been able to figure out why. 2 days ago, Joe finally found out. He finished fixing the leak today. We also started prepping the back hallway by removing old baseboard, and icky glue from previous laminate flooring
• Baseboards: we got a little overzealous, and ripped out all the baseboard. It was kind of gross, and we probably could have gotten away with just repainting it, but I was in the "ripping out" mood. Half the rooms have baseboards, half don't. Saturday I bought about 100 feet of baseboard, and that won't even be enough to do all of it. (maybe half). At $1.49 a foot, that bill added up quickly.
• Painting: when we moved Joe into the girls' old room, I repainted it. Excuse the mess, Joe still needs to organize it
  
• Being in the painting mood again, I drove all the way down to Plano's Kelly Moore paint store, and bought 5 more gallons of paint (at a whopping $175!). After I told them I wanted that much, I realized I really only need 1 gallon, but they were already mixing, so I cursed myself and handed over my card. I haven't touched that bucket of paint yet.

• Rearranging/cleaning: after I took some furniture out of my office and bedroom, there was a lot of dust hiding in those spots. A little bit of vacuuming and dusting: problem solved.

On my list of things to get done in the near future:

• finish painting in nook and kitchen
• install baseboards
• finish front door, and hang
• install threshold under new front door (I am getting tired of having a towel laying in front of it to stop the wind from howling in)
  
• hang art in Joe's office and girls' room
• lay wood floor in back hallway, and kitchen
• texture wall in master bathroom (where I ripped the wallpaper off)

The list really is a lot longer, but I don't even want to think about it anymore. Tomorrow Joe has the day off, and we plan to be able to cross off 1 or 2 little things of the list.

*disclaimer: I just showed you some of the worst areas of the house, some parts do look nice

A Wedding

Now that it's finally official, I can talk about something I am really excited about. My sister in law Ruth, is engaged to Brant Gallion. They have known each other for a few years, dated seriously last year, broke up, and recently got back together. They were starting to make plans a few weeks ago, but he didn't pop the question until a few days ago.

Now what am I so excited/nervous about? They asked me to photograph their wedding. I love photography, and am always striving to take great pictures. A wedding is so huge! I have been doing a bunch of research, looking at other photographers photos, and reading tips. I also invested in an external flash, to help in shooting in a dark reception hall.

Big responsibilities like these, sometimes give me strange dreams. Last night I dreamed that my lens was broken, so I threw part of it away. Only, a few hours later I realized I still could have used that lens if I had just kept the piece that was now in the trash. For the next 2 months, until the wedding day on January 9th, I will be doing a lot more research, practicing, and anticipating.