Never paint stripes...

Alright, I said it... For a week I have been painting Dominic's room.

We got the crazy idea from his comforter set. It has a matching border and lightswitch cover. So we took the border in and matched the colors at Home Depot with their cool paint computer!

We picked 3 shades of blue (although I argue with Amy that the lighter shade is more purple than blue, but she just ignores me.)

Amy and Cindy cleared out the room, and then took down these strips that covered over where the sheetrock panels were seperated. Amy then mudded them over and used this sheetrock paper stuff to cover it (which we ended up ripping down, cause it bubbled and looked bad) so we just sanded down the mud.

So then we marked the colors and taped out the darkest color. I then painted it, and we let it dry after a few hours and then went to tape up for the medium color. I biffed and went to reposition the paint and it ended up peeling the dark paint. I was pissed.

So I IM'd my good friend Kiki (named changed for security reasons--LOL), who used to paint as a job, and she told me what to do.

So I had to sand the walls, (they were pre-wallpapered panels that had this vinyl like wallpaper) so the KILZ would hold. Then we had to put on two coats of KILZ, then remark the rooms, then tape up for the dark.

So we painted the dark and waited a day for it to dry. IT COULD NOT BE TACKY. Kiki stressed that a lot.

So we then decided instead of doing all that work taping up for all the colors, we decided to have white stripes in between each color, so then I was able to paint the medium and light in one day as well.

So we let that dry, and then peeled off the tape. BUT, the paint bleed underneath (because the vinyl wallpaper stuff is textured), so the lines weren't clean enought for me. So Amy went with white and filled in the white lines.

So, after all that was dry and everything was peeled off and cleaned up, we put up the border.

And we are done! I hope you enjoy the photos.

Christmas Eve

What a day.

It started out good. We went over to my great-aunts and grandmothers in the morning to do gifts and brunch. My dad wasn't there yet, so we did our gifts and helped finish the get the food ready.

Finally my dad shows up and we said hi, he came in and set his stuff down. And the most horrid thing happened...

My ex-uncle, Skip, walked in (my dad's older brother). I immediately got a headache.

This man verbally abused me for 20 years. This man is so vile, that whenever he was around, my dad would even join in with him and verbally abuse me as well. I think it was a control issue. This man had such an influence in my father's life (as an authorative figure) that my dad became this kid that needed approval.

So he walks in. And I am immediately pissed. Pissed at the fact that they had mentioned that he would be in town and we specifically said we didn't want to see him, if he was going to be there, we would not. They said he wouldn't. For weeks they said he would not be there.

So we were pissed that he was there.

I guess I should explain, the main I reason I don't want to be around this man, was that the last time I saw him, we got into a HUGE argument, because he was trying to do the same thing to my son, that he did to me. Telling us to make sure he doesn't become a fag, etc. And saying this to Dominic, who was only 4 or 5 at the time. And he kept calling him sparky.

So I was extremely pissed, I immediately moved all our dinner plates to another table, away from them. But then they all ate in the living room, so that didn't help matters. Everything was pretty much okay, he didn't try to talk to me or my family. But the tension was in the air. Especially, with my dad, like he knew I was pissed and he was pleased at it. Which made me even more aggravated.

As we were getting ready to leave, they were talking about Mikayla in Dance and Dominic mentioned that he used to be in dance, but now he is wrestling (which he isn't) and then my ex-uncle says, "Good, we don't want you to become a sissy boy" (or something to that nature.)

I was so glad we were on our way out, that I let it slide and we immediately left.

So then we left and came home, and got ready for our next party. Which was such a HUGE hit. We had lots more fun. Everything turned out great and we loved seeing everyone!

Thankfully tomorrow is Christmas and it will be a better day!

The start of a new school year!

Well, the kids are off to school this week. Courtney and Dominic started their first days of school yesterday. Mikayla started hers today.

It’s so weird not having a child in the house. It’s so quiet. Yet kind of nice.

Amy figured out yesterday that by the time Riley starts Kindergarten, Courtney will be in 10th grade, Dominic in middle school and Mikayla in 6th Grade. How odd is that!

Let’s see if I can figure this out, but the time Riley is born, I will be turning 28 that year. So, when he turns 18, I will be 46? Hell no, how did that happen! When Courtney turns 18 we will be 37. Dominic turns 18, I will be 39. When Mikayla turns 18 I will be, 40. See, that was how it was supposed to happen. When Mikayla turned 18, I would be 40 and the kids would out of the house! Amy and I could travel… shit, now I will be old and decrepit by the time Riley is out of the house… too late to do anything but sit out on the porch and crochet and yell at them dang-blasted kids!

I honestly can’t wait until Riley is born. ANOTHER BOY!!!!! I am so excited! Riley Montgomery Jones. Amy already has a nickname for him… MOOSE. We will see…

It still feels weird not working so much. But, not much I can do about that for now. I like the time off, I just wish I got paid for it.

We went and visited my Grandmother and Great Aunt yesterday. We had a wonderful lunch (Beef Stroganoff – my fav, twice baked potatoes, cauli-broc, fruit salad, fried chicken, salad, black olives, cookies, fudge. What a spread!)

Then the kids went outside and played with hula-hoops and soccer balls. Muriel sat outside with Amy and my mother and watched them.

We had fun, until my grandmother brought up my Uncle Skip and was pressuring me to forgive him for the way he treated me growing up. I told her I didn’t want to talk about it and that I forgave him, but I still want nothing to do with him and nothing anyone says is going to change that.

I know it hurts her that we don’t have a relationship, but, it’s his fault. And he started to pull the same shit with Dominic that he pulled with me, and I won’t have that! But gram just doesn’t understand that. Oh, and she only brought it up because he has a house in Duluth (utter crap) that he is going to leave to some friends of his, but it’s worth a lot of money (no it isn’t) and he could leave it to me. I told her, “I don’t want it!” She started saying it could be a great way to start school funds for the children, and I told her that I already am looking into that.

Anyways, it was a good day, until we had to leave. We then came home and just vegged and got the kids ready for their first day of school.

I just downloaded a little plug-in for Microsoft Word that lets me type my blog in Word, and then Blogger will upload it from there… kind of handy!

Well, I should stop for now and get to working on some photos I need to fix.

A disclaimer

Someone is going around telling family members that I have this blog to specifically say bad things about people.

So, to the person who is reading my blog and twisting my words. STOP. I don't know you, I have never met you, YOU DON'T KNOW ME, so stop spreading lies about me.

Now, I want to tell you that what they are saying is not true. I started this blog so that people (friends and family) could learn more about me.

I am a very quiet guy by nature, and this blog lets me get out feelings and moods and lets me just get out my thoughts.

And a warning... my wife is not so quiet and shy, if you attack me, she'll kick your ass. (She wanted me to post that.)

This post also lets me get out things that are on my mind. Some are good and some are bad, but I don't use this to attack people.

There are two distinct posts in here where I am bitchin about family members. One names a specific person, one does not.

The only time I will ever complain about someone is if they specifically attack me or royally piss me off. Then I may post about the experience and how I felt.

I was raised to not "create waves" and if someone attacked you, you took it and don't say anything. I am not a fighter.

But if you really piss me off, I won't say anything "in that moment" becuase I usually just don't know what to say, but after I have had time to think the situation over, I usually have a lot to say about it, and by posting, part of me hopes that person will read it and realize how much they hurt me, without me having to actually tell them to their face, because that is something I just can't do.

So, I WILL NEVER POST ANYTHING HURTFUL about someone, UNLESS, you did something to me personally that really hurt me. Then I MAY post about it, but it is very rare.

An Upper and a Downer...

We had a pampered chef party last night, which was fun it was a Tappas party.

We had some amazing food. We only had two other people show up, other than Amy, Charmin, Cindy and myself.

The end of the night, somehow Amy got some shrimp on her and started having an allergic reaction. Our pampered chef lady is a nurse, so she had Amy take some benedryl and sit down and relax.

This next part I didn't want to post, but I am tired of just keeping my feelings all in and I need to vent somewhere, so here goes:

When everyone was leaving her mother wanted us to call the doctor and maybe take her to the emergency room. The only problem is I have no insurance and no one to watch the kids for me. She assumed I meant for her to take Amy, and she started complaining that she had work/school and coulnd't stay out all night, etc. etc. (Which, I never asked her too)

She wanted to have Tony stay the night in case I had to take her, but he didn't want to, because he had no clothes to wear. So he got upset and she started getting upset and I told him to just go, cause I didn't need to deal with attitude and a bitchy boy, while trying to take care of Amy. So I told her, "It would be fine and I will handle it, we'll just take the kids with us."

So then she decided to have Matt stay, but he didn't want to and got upset and I told him, "just go, it's fine." So he was upset and then Mona started in on him, saying, "Do you even know what's going on?", he said, "Yeah I do"

I told her it was fine, I don't want him there or Tony, and I started getting upset and then she told me, to "Just Quit".

I got furious. You don't tell me what to do in my house. I had already told her it was fine, I have other people we can call, just go. And then she goes and tells me to just quit. Sorry, but your not my mother. And frankly, my mother wouldn't tell me to do that in my house either. And she lives here!

So I got pissed, and Matt started for the door and she started in on him and I just turned towards everyone and said, "Everyone, just get out of my house." I don't remember if she said anything back, because I was so pissed off, and mainly at her, because she wouldn't let it go.

Matt got to the door and said something, and she said something back and he said something about, "Your the Problem" and I wanted to agree with him, but I held my tongue. Or I was just to pissed off to say anything.

So she kept telling me to call the doctor and basically made me feel like

1. she didn't trust me to take care of her daughter.
   
2. Made me feel incompetent. (Okay, so maybe they are the same thing or very similiar, bite me)

I just wanted everyone out of my house. I would handle it. I didn't need all these people telling me what to do.

Even though all through the night, I was doing other things and wasn't right by Amy's side, I had my ear and eyes on her. I was listening to her.

Apparantly, I was the only one, because if people would have listened to her, she said she was feeling much better and even though her throat was tight, it wasn't as tight as it was before. Just a few weeks ago, she accidentally touched wool and the same thing happend and it too passed.

People make me so mad and after the fact I always end up telling Amy what I would have said. Since she has finally been telling people off, I decided I should probably start too, otherwise people won't realize how I feel.

So there ya go. Don't tell me what to do in my house, and if I say I will take care of something, I will. I don't need someone to keep telling me what to do.

computers suck

I hate it when you labor at something for days only to find out it was in vain...

I got a bug up my ass last weekend to wipe out my old PC and turn it into a server. Upgrade it to Windows XP Professional and only install the programs I needed. Simple enough....

First, I backed up everything onto my 250G hardrive. Then I proceeded to wipe out everything and start installing. Had everything installed and my TV Tuner/Video Capture wouldn't work. So I reformated and tried again.

Got it to work, but then other funky shit started happening. So I said fuck it and reformated and tried putting Windows XP Home back on. Before I Could even install I was getting errors and shit. So I said fuck it, I will restore my back up.

But how do I do that....I couldn't just copy over the drive with windows running and Windows XP doesn't allow you to start up from a DOS prompt. So I labored for over 6 hours hand copying file by file and skipping over whatever files were in use.

Then by genius, I realized all I had to do was install Windows on my D: drive, wipe out my primary C: drive and copy stuff over to that and then go into my D: drive windows and tell the computer to start up my C: drive backup. It worked!!!!

But whenever I would try and capture video, it looked fine, but when I would play back it would skip (like a broken record) on the video, but the audio would keep going. I spent four more hours uninstalling and reinstalling my drivers and always got the same shit. If I tried to install the latest version, then my machine couldn't see the hardware and kept saying "Unknown Hardware Found" but never find what drivers went to them.

So I reverted back to a driver set that worked, but still got the same video problems. I thought I will try a different tape (I was trying to put an old VHS I bought on DVD so it will last longer) Turns out the VHS was doing that Light/Dark thing that would happen when you tried to copy a store-bought VHS) so when I would try different tapes, they worked fine.....

IT WAS THAT ONE STINKING TAPE! I SPENT A WEEK DOING CRAP FOR NOTHING!

Isn't technology great. Why can't we have computers that talk like on Star Trek and tell us whats wrong with them? Cars can tell mechanics, why can't PCs?

I am sick and tired of being treated this way....

I have had it...

This stress that has been making my eye twitch for 6 days has finally made me burst. I have some things I need to get out. And of course, what better place than here.

First of all, I wish people would cut me some slack about my past. I am really getting tired of people bringing up or making jokes about the fact that I "used to be gay". For the record, I never slept with anyone, other than my wife. I was teased since 1st grade until high school about being gay. It got so bad, that I started to actually believe it.

Yes, I dressed in drag like 3 times, two were for a costume party and one was a dare to go with my roomate and her sister to the Mall of America and they were in freakish outfits and wigs, while I was in plain jeans and a nice shirt. Whoop de do, that really doesn't qualify me as a drag queen. Sorry.

I am also fed up with a lot of shit that Amy and I seemed to just accept from people, cause heaven forbid we should "create waves". Well I am tired of it. I am tired of people judging us and taking us for granted and not even GIVING US A FUCKING THANK YOU!

I am tired of people thinking were fat, because we eat to much or we eat too many sweet. When in truth they don't know that we eat very healthy and struggle everyday with our weight and that it is a very hard thing to deal with and that we don't keep sweets in the house.

Those people don't live with me, so it pisses me off that they go and tell their family that we're fat cause we eat to much. It's heart breaking to have someone you love, come up to you and tell you to your face that your fat.

I am tired of people walking all over Amy demanding that she do things for them (even go as far as making her re-arrange her whole schedule to accommodate them) just because she is a stay at home mom.

They seem to think she doesn't do anything all day. She is the most busiest person I know. Without her, this family wouldn't be able to function.

She cleans, get the groceries, pays the bills, helps me balance the books--budgets to finances (not only us but my sister too), takes the kids to all their activities, does tap classes, goes to a church group, volunteers for girls scouts...

She doesn't have time to help you with every little problem you have and she will not be your go-between, just because you don't want to talk to someone. Grow up and deal with your own shit.

I am tired of people thinking were made of money, just because we know how to budget and get a few nice things here and there.

I am tired of teenagers and children alike; not getting the love, attention and supervision they deserve and fear for how that is going to effect their lives as they grow older. It just seems that no one is thinking about their future and what the present can do to alter that.

I can't believe I just typed all that. I should delete it and not even post it, but part of me is tired of keeping my mouth shut and not expressing myself to someone. How can change come about it someone doesn't stand up and say something.