Birthday observations

My birthday this year was very, very good. You will remember that I went hog wild at the party on Wednesday after our bible study by eating a scoop of vanilla ice cream and and an entire chocolate cupcake with frosting. The thing I do not understand is that even after that, I am at a new weight low only two days after the fact. I am almost thirty-five pounds down from where I started. If I can stay on the wagon through the weekend, I should be on target to meet my goal of forty pounds lost before I fly down to Monterrey to visit my in-laws. Woo-hoo. One of the things I have noticed after having lost all that weight is that I can actually get my ring on and off–something I have not been able to do without massive amounts of grunting, soap, scraped skin and accompanying pain.

So, with the winter on the way we have a fairly busy schedule.  We have our trip to Mexico, a visit from cousin Julia who currently works for a famous rock star, and a visit from Grandpa Milo, Grandma Sarah, and Miss Turbone for Thanksgiving.  The kid’s name for my buddy Warren is Miss Turbone instead of Mr. Bone.  I do not think he could tell the difference until we told him.  Maybe he was just being gracious.  It came from a book we read once, but there was a Miss Turbone the kids in the book called Mr. Bone.  Actually, it is pretty funny.  At any rate, with winter coming and not much planned other than travel and visits, I have decided the time is ripe to start trying to complete our half-finished projects before Lorena starts getting some ideas about buying new furniture.  That always happens when we are not busy enough.

The first project on the list is the cat tower.  I am going to try to spin that back up this very weekend.  We have to make some adjustments to what we have already completed, buy some new feet, carpet, rope, and PVC pipe before we can get started so a visit to Lowes is definitely on the schedule for tomorrow–right after the library.  Then, we really need to get Christian’s room painted. He finds it quite challenging to sleep there with one wall of a fairly hideous deep blue color.  We just have to find something a little more soothing.  The wall painting thing is Lorena’s special domain as is the vast bulk of the furniture refinishing effort, so I am going to encourage her to finish the dresser she has already started, then help her find some new project at a garage sale, a flea market, or Craig’s list. Kelly, of course has Betty Blonde and all of us want to work on our video blogging. On the technical side, we are still moving forward on the volcano computer. We are hoping to have it ready for the volcano by spring.

July 19, 2004 – Working the weekend at ATS
July 20, 2004 – Scott Ramsdell professes