Counter Tops!

Counter tops! I've been a bit worried about the green, but they look really good against the wood. I can't wait to see how the rest of it comes together.

And, bathroom counters.


They're getting ready to pour my driveway tomorrow. I can't be there, but Dad promised to carve my name and Lily's name in it.

Tío Anthony

My Tío Anthony came down from Las Vegas for the weekend. Just as a "just because" trip I guess. Since he was staying in Prescott, he decided to stop by for a visit. This is Tío (That means "uncle" in Spanish) on the couch in the living room with Lily.

Lily is a huge fan of Tio.

Even Alvin came out to meet him. It went really well. Usually, I only see Tío once a year at Thanksgiving.

Tomatoes

Beans!

We harvested the dried bean pods from the garden. Then, the whole family spent about 20 minutes shelling beans.


All that work -- we got a jelly-jar's worth!

House Update

Woot! Cabinets. For real, that I can get in and see. I'm really liking how all the colors are coming together.



My itty bitty kitchen!

And, when I got there, this guy was up on the scaffolding putting on the last layer of stucco. Then comes paint!

Paint, Cabinets, Vinyl

So, the stucco doesn't look any different, but YES, that IS a garage door you see there! And, the driveway has been leveled by the backhoe for a concrete pour. That's scheduled for Wednesday they tell me.

The house is now locked up at night so I couldn't get IN to take photos. This is through the dirty front window to show that the kitchen has been painted. ALL one color: walls, ceilings, inside the closets, the doors, even the floor! I think I still like the paint color but it's hard to tell since I couldn't get in and SEE it.

My standard-issue cabinets that I really like anyway. Hopefully everything will match as well as I had planned.

This is through my bedroom window into the spare bathroom. That dark stuff on the floor? Yeah, that's vinyl!


The deadbolt is on the front door, but not the knob. I took this THROUGH that hole and looking at my kitchen and pantry. Yeah!




In Other News:
I did THREE Pre-Paid Legal sit downs today. I sold two standard plans, a business plan, an Expanded Plan with Identity Theft, a business plan, and a new Associate. Yeah, can you say 7 Players Club points in one day? I have two left to hunt down for the month and that's the order of the morning tomorrow, Friday.

TCP Foreign Language Club

Well, we're working on our first fund raiser for the club. This was at the TCP open house on Tuesday, Sept 23. Yeah, that was my birthday. This is one of the club officers trying to interest another student in a raffle ticket.

I decided against posting this photo where you can see her face. I figure I didn't really ASK if I could post it...

That night, we made $43. I thought that was a-okay considering that we don't have anything "pretty" to raffle.

We've got so far:
7 oil changes
2 gas cards
a pair of binoculars

And, we've got plans to keep adding "stuff" to the raffle. It's our first fund raiser as a club; we're a brand new club! We've got some big goals so it should be really good.

Happy Birthday!

To ME!

It was a great birthday but I'm too tired to talk about it now.

I just got back from the TCP open house and it was a big success. Now, I am running some programming stuff for Jaggy and then going home. I can't wait until this membersite stuff is all cleared up and open!









In other news:

They were supposed to have painted my house today, but I haven't been by to see it.

Stucco & Finishing Work

Oh! I went by my house on my way to work today. Sometime between Friday night and this morning, I got STUCCO! Isn't it pretty!?

My great and fantastic little back porch!.

Back of the house still under scaffolding, but STUCCOED!


And, the finishing carpenter was there. This is the pantry in my kitchen. Notice the DOORS are out of the garage and onto the house! and I've got shelves.

This is the left-hand side of my master bedroom's closet.

Otherwise known as KIM'S closet! We're getting close!

Garden Harvest

Mom decided that we should harvest the garden today. That's 195 Mucho Nacho Jalapenos she's holding. Yeah, THOSE are the hot ones! The ones that melt your teeth off.


Nearly 300 peperoncini, 36 yellow hots, mild jalapenos... We sent MOST of it to Nana & Papa so they can roast the chilis and do, whatever it is they DO with them. And, my wayward catelope in the background.



Anaheim, Big Jim, Sahauro chilis. MILLIONS OF CHILIS.




In other news across the garden, we bring you this breaking story...


My big pretty watermelon? The one that would have easily won a 1st place BLUE ribbon at the county fair. We picked it! 45 POUNDS. I couldn't even carry it and Alvin had to bring it in for me.


Dad taking a tester bite. It's not as red as it looks in the photo, more a dark crumbly pink.

Sweet! Warm from the sun! Did I mention it was FORTY FIVE POUNDS????

We gave half to Uncle Dave. Along with some too-hot jalapeno poppers we had for dinner. Gotta love Chino Valley soil! I've got three other melons that are as big. We also harvested 8 cantelopes, black radishes the size of softballs, and more roma tomatoes than you can shake a stick at!

Rotary Rummage Sale

We just LEFT the tents up after Wednesday for the big Rotary Rummage sale Friday & Saturday. Of course, what we DIDN'T realize was that people would come on THURSDAY to buy a TON of stuff!

Here's Darryl being a human post -- putting up fencing as they were closing on Thursday. It seemed to keep people out after hours.

Bob the Babysitter (Robert used to look after Diogo when we were out of town) looking nothing more than a Who (as in the Grinch and the Whos) as he runs the cash register.


We always knew Rotarians were characters! Now we've got the poof in Dad's Michael Jackson jacket, Bob's Who pigtails, Darryl's three pronged Santa Hat, and Mike's styling sequenced California visor.

The sale was a success in that the sold almost all of the donated merchandise and made a ton of money. I get to scrapbook it all later!

Vynil

So, we swung by my house today after everything and BEFORE Alvin and I went to the fair. Here's a pile of doors just waiting to be hung.

And, obviously, somebody came by to tell where each type of flooring should go. Yeah, this was written in my guest bathroom: vynil. You can tell that he TRIED several times. Who knew that viny NO vyn- NO that VYNIL could be so hard to spell!

And here's TILE for the entry way. Oh I hope that whoever writes these is not who installs them!

Oh yes, Happy International Talk-Like-A-Pirate day! I had a "pirate lunch" put on by the TCP rowing team. $4 for all you can eat. yum!

MDI Financial Services, Inc. Client Event

Ah, the Big Tents. Jacque, Vanessa, and Dad spent all of Wednesday morning setting up for the big Chamber Mixer/Client Appreciation event.


Eating hot dogs! Yum!


Entering the raffle drawing for a $50 bill for Pre-Paid Legal lead collection. I got quite a few leads from it!

Mom spent the entire time cooking like 4 MILLION hot dogs. Oh boy! But, it was a really great turn out and event.

Texture on my house!

Oh yeah! This is the texture at my house. I know it doesn't look like much, but I really like how it turned out. Getting close to moving in!

Drywall!

There was a yard sale going on so I had to walk from down the street. Coming up on my house, you can't really see what it is...

But from looking into the garage, you can see the DRYWALL!

Here's the silhouette of Mom standing in the door between my living room and garage.


My dining area.

The kitchen.

The new OFFICIAL side wall. Last week it was just a footer.


Oh yeah, the house SHRUNK! But I love it anyway. It's brighter inside now that the sheet rock is up. When it was just the icky black paper I didn't like it much.

And, I missed getting to take pictures of the insulation so they'll be no posts of that. That's only the second step in this whole huge process that I've missed.

El Computador o La Computadora

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class, that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

"House," for instance is feminine: 'la casa'
"Pencil," however is masculine: 'el lapiz'", she explained.

So, a student asked, "What gender is 'computer'?"

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male & female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether 'computer' should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men's group decided that 'computer should definitely be of the feminine gender ('la computadora') because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
2. The native language they use to communicate to other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;
3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine, ('el computador') because:

1. In order to do anything with them you have to turn them on;
2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves;
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waiting a little while longer, you could have gotten a better model.

The women won.

Thanks, Wendy for the EXCELLENT joke!

10 Days

ahead of schedule.

MY HOUSE IS 10 DAYS AHEAD OF SCHEDULE!!!

Wrote a Latin Exam

Okay, yeah. My Latin correspondence course didn't offer any chapter exams; just a mid-term and final. So, that means I have to write them myself. My students are so lucky!

Actually, I think they're pretty fair and I'm getting better at hitting 100 points. Tomorrow, they take Chapter 2 exam. Wish them luck!

Of course, the kids at TCP are absolutely brilliant. They don't always think so but I see it in them.

Where the Wiring Is (and a wall!)

This is Mom & Dad standing in my new kitchen. All the wiring is done and we stopped by on our way from from Las Vegas so I could document where everything is IN the walls before the drywall goes up.

The back of Alvin's head.


Ah! Soon-to-be-stucco and a water faucet.

This is my side wall. I'm getting a really neat side "yard" off my patio. It's just the poured footers (and Alvin and mine's shadows) but you can SEE the blocks. Yeah, that's my wall.