Productive I Am

Considering this was the first Saturday I have had off from the Buckle in the last several weeks, I was really looking forward to sleeping in a little late this morning. As usual, any plans of actually resting were kaputzed rather quickly. Normally I have to literally pull Hayden out of bed to get him ready, but for some unknown reason (aka God’s sense of humor), he was up and raring to go at 6:30 this morning. Brit had to go in for a little while (surprise, surprise) so the kids and I hung out, ate some breakfast, and watched a few cartoons.

We hung out for a little while and then about 8am the productivity bug bit me and I took on the task of cleaning out our den. For those of you who have been over lately, you know this area had become a catch-all for every useless thing in the house. If it didn’t have a permanent home, it was tossed in the den never to be seen again. It adds to the overall sadness that the den used to be a functioning living space until the dog totally ruined it. When we first moved in, we set it up as a office/extra tv viewing area where the kids could hang out and watch cartoons when we wanted to watch something different on the big tv. It worked well for a while.

The room is an addition that was built around the mid-80s and instead of normal carpet they installed that indoor/outdoor putting green carpet. No, it was not green, sadly. We already hated the floor and then Logan the dog, in the process of trying to house train, absolutely ruined it. We pulled it up and since then it has not been a usable space due to the concrete underneath. So, it became a junk room.

I resolved this morning to at least make it less of an eyesore. I cleaned up our computer desk and reorganized our filing systems. I prepared all of our miscellaneous photos to be sorted, redid our bookcase, and threw away a ton of random things that we haven’t used in months. I felt useful for the first time in a long time. I would post before and after pics, but quite frankly it would be too embarassing to post on “teh intrawebs.”

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Brit got off in time for lunch and came home to make her world famous club sammiches. They really are delicious. It is truly one of my favorite foods.

I am really starting to get concerned over the amount of hours she is currently working. Today pushed her to right at 55 for the week and she has to go in for a few hours tomorrow morning. It is frustrating because I actually like her and enjoy her company, but more importantly I don’t know how much longer she can keep this pace up. She is already exhausted because of the pregnancy and working this amount of hours can’t be healthy. We are going to have one stressed out fetus if this continues.

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On baby news, Brit has an appointment Monday so hopefully we will get a positive report. The name debate continues on. Parker has really started to grow on me, but Brit has been a little slower to come around. She was also very hesitant on Channing the first time I mentioned it, so maybe with a little charming I can break her down.

We are going to try desperately to get the den converted into a playroom by July and then the baby will most likely share rooms with Hayden. We go back and forth about where to put him/her and neither solution is truly a good one. The best solution would be to have the baby stay with us for the first few months, but there simply isn’t room to add a crib. Our master bedroom is tiny and is crowded as it is. We really shouldn’t have bought such big bedroom furniture, but we went a little crazy, what can I say. Hopefully my mom will hit the lottery or we will find an abandoned suitcase filled with millions of unmarked bills. Then we could just buy a bigger house. I am sure one of those will happen….

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I haven’t written about politics lately. It’s not that I haven’t had the desire to, or that I haven’t been following the transition, I just have been so busy with other “real life” things that I haven’t had the opportunity to formulate many coherent opinions. I have several friends who are actually attending the inauguration and I couldn’t hate them more for it. Should be a good time.

I know the whole selection of Rick Warren is way old news, but I haven’t had a chance to write about it, so if you don’t want to hear my take, scroll down to the next paragraph. Obama’s selection of Warren to do the invocation at the Inauguration supported my theory that Barack wasn’t going to govern as “left” as most people thought he would. Barack, in my opinion, will be a very centrist president. I felt from the beginning that he would lean more to the left on issues that are important to me (i.e. middle class tax relief, ending stupid wars, fixing American healthcare) and would be more centrist on issues that are either hot-button or issues where I disagree with the Democratic stance (abortion and such).

The fact that people are mad at him for doing what he said he was going to do is ridiculous. He ran his campaign on the promise of bringing people together. No red states, no blue states, just one country. He said over and over again it is okay if we don’t agree on everything, it doesn’t mean one of us is evil or doesn’t love the country. So for the far left to get mad when he selects a pastor who disagrees with him on some controversial issues is simply hypocritcal. Do you want a President who reaches across the aisle and across ideologies or do you want a President that simply pushes his own party’s agenda through and ignores the other half of the country? No thanks, that is what we had for the last 8 years. Enough is enough. It is okay to disagree and still work together and even, dare I say it, be friends. I hope both sides of this issues will see the merit in what Rick and Barack are trying to do.

Blagojevich is an idiot. I try to be life-giving and be positive whenever possible, but that buffoon makes me want to forget my oath of non-violence and rabbit punch him in the teeth. I am so utterly sick of corrupt politicians and the mess they try to put over on the people. His press conference the other day was the most nausea-inducing 15 minutes of my life. If anyone believed anything he said, I have a piece of gum that was chewed by the Chupacabra that I will sell you. Anybody?

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The next few weeks should be really fun. On the 21st, we have the shindig at the Lucas house, which is something we are actually counting down to on the family calendar. LOST ftw!!

Then on the 23rd and 24thwe have a two-day conference in Birmingham. This will be our first over-night trip with the Oasis peeps and I am really looking forward to it. We have a small group going, but the ones who are going are all awesome. It will be a great time to get away and focus on strengthening our friendships and our relationship with God.

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Well, we are about to head to Home Depot and run some other house type errands. Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend.

Peace.

Joe.