I should be doing something else

Mini-posts: Ikea & the Desk | Yard Clean-Up & Parents Visit | Harry Potter & the Visit to the Past | Meg's Family Visits

Ikea & the Desk

My desk and the rest of the family room are a mess. I sometimes have a bad habit of
starting a project, and then getting distracted and not finishing it.

Today, we went to Ikea, which is basically like a playground for adults. Our main goal (besides just having fun) was to buy a small desk for the family room.

Way back in December, I decided to abandon the whole "office room" idea, because I didn't like that I had to be isolated from Meg and the baby if I wanted to work. So, we moved my desk into the family room and did so rearranging. Meg said she didn't need a desk, and that she preferred to work on the couch.

However, Meg has decided that she loves me SO much that she likes to sit next to me at the desk with her laptop. Only problem was the desk was not big enough for both of us, so off to Ikea we went to buy a small simple desk to put next to our current one.

So, I spent the rest of the evening after putting Maddie to bed assembling the desk and baby-proofing the desk area by moving dangerous stuff out of the room, and bundling all of the wires through split tubing (other great Ikea buy- $3.99 for 16 feet of it).

Well, I had gotten to the point where the old and new desk were usable again, and here Meg and I sit, on our laptops, while the rest of the room looks like a bomb hit it. You know Newton's 1st Law of Motion, "Objects at rest tend to stay at rest." I am finding it very hard to get motivated to finish the project tonight.

I always love how ambitious my plans are, (both in teaching and life). I am an over-planner, I always plan to do a lot more than I actually do accomplish. When thinking about a project, I might think it would take an hour, but then it actually takes 3 or more. It happens all of the time. I think Meg now automatically triples the amount of time I say that I am going to be working on something.

Well anyway, my original plan was to finish this desk project AND continue working on my Elements of Music posters for school (which, as you might expect, is taking much longer than I planned!), but I right now am shooting for just getting the family room back in order after posting this.

Top

* * *

Yard Clean-Up & Parents Visit

Now on to an update on life. Lately we've been entertaining a lot, which I quite enjoy. First off, it was my motivation for finally getting the outside of the house cleaned up. I will have to post some pictures if I think of it, because I am very happy with how everything turned up.

Last Saturday, I spent all day out in 90 degree heat (yeah, I'm crazy) and got the back yard mowed, trimmed, swept, and de-weeded. I also cleaned out the shed, strung white Christmas lights around the pool deck for extra light for night swimming, and added a few Tiki torches and citronella candles to keep the bugs away.

Sunday we had my parents over for dinner. They thought the house looked nice, and it was an enjoyable time, but dinner did not go well. Part of my weekend cleanup project was cleaning the grill, since it hadn't been done since before we moved to Pine Hill (in the summer of '05!). The result of this dirty grill was that I always had these flair-ups that would burn the food. Well, I forgot that after cleaning the grill, that I should probably cook things a little longer. The burgers we had were a little too pink. No biggie, we just nuked the pink ones in the microwave, but still, it was a little embarrassing.

Top

* * *

Harry Potter & the Visit to the Past

Monday Meg and I had planned to go down the shore for the evening, but our plans were foiled by rainy weather. We decided to drop Maddie off at my parent's, and see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Despite the fact that it deviated from the book a little too often, I enjoyed it. OOTP (as us geeky Potter fans call it) is the book that I had remembered the littlest from, so the movie was a nice reminder. Before I read Deathy Hallows last month, I went back and read Half Blood Prince just for a little refresher on what was going on. We also watched the first four movies, since we had them on DVD, so those story lines were fresh in my mind as well. I definitely feel like I need to re-read OOTP, but I plan on starting from the beginning of the series again and reading all seven books. I expect to see the story in a different way now that I know how it ends.

Not only did I get to see a great movie, I also got to visit my former workplace. Since I started teaching, I have only seen a few movies. Cinemark is a bit of a drive from where we live now, so we usually went to someplace closer. However, since we had to drop Maddie off at my parent's anyway, we decided to go there. On the few occasions that I have been back to the theatre since I stopped working there, I've always had that nervous but excited feeling that you get when you meet and old friend who you have not kept up with. I LOVED my job at Cinemark, and still miss it occasionally. But, truth-be-told, I am not much of a movie person, so after I stopped working there, I never had much of a reason to go back.

When we first arrived at the theatre on Monday, I was surprised at how it had not changed much at all in the way it looked. I had expected that anyone who I worked with 3 years ago was long-gone, and that my days of free movie passes (employees got discounts, and managers were usually allowed to give out a free pass to a friend here or there) were over. Well, as soon as I walked into the lobby, I was greeted by Doug, a manager who I had worked with. He was still working there, along with Allison, another manager I had worked with. I was very excited to see both of them, as it had been years. And though I did not ask or even expect it, Meg and I got to see the movie for free.

Top

* * *

Meg's Family Visits

Later in the week, Meg's family (her mom, Grandmom & Pappy) came to visit. While these visits sometimes prove to be a bit stressful (more so to Meg than myself), this particular visit went very well. It felt a little bit like we were running an Inn. Mom had her room downstairs (in the old office room). Grandmom and Pappy stayed upstairs in the guest room. We always made sure to have coffee brewing in the morning, and to have a a variety of foods available for breakfast. They made use of the pool, and even took a day trip to the shore. On Thursday night, I did the cooking (much more successful this time)-- we had grilled chicken, pineapples & peppers, rice pilaf, and salad. Meg's family RAVED over the food, which made me very happy, especially after Sunday night's fiasco. It was such an enjoyable time that I was actually a little sad to see them go on Friday morning.

Okay, we'll your updated now, and I am tired now. Maybe the family room can wait until tomorrow, we'll see...

Top