A photo of Joel. Plus+
A photo of Joel minus a few years. Equals=....
Joel put together the picture below of me a few weeks ago. I can post the before and after of that if anyone is interested. Talk about sexy.
This is the image I walked into earlier today. We've gotten into the habit of giving Levi our empty peanut butter jars so he can "lick the bowl." I put it in the living room as it was rolling all over the kitchen floor. It looked like he was smiling at me a big toothy smile because the lip of the jar was pushing his upper lips up.
He was really going at it...
Ever see that look before...that look is Dog Euphoria...in peanut butter form...
New door getting installed today. I watched our contractor heave and ho trying to get the door jam disassembled. As with most of the projects in the house, this certainly wasn't without it's share of "fun." 
Those diagonal wood slabs are huge cedar pieces. They don't make them like that anymore...
I'm pretty fascinated by the past...and when I say that I refer to life that happened loooong before I was around. Seeing old craftsmanship like this is good for reminding me of that. It's hard sometimes to keep things in perspective. It isn't too often when I stop and think about everything that was here and happened long before I started sticking my nose into things. It's cool how just this small view into an otherwise unseen part of my house reveals so much. Just thinking these boards were nailed to this wall almost 100 years ago and haven't seen the light of day until now...it's pretty mind blowing. I also thought this shot was cool because it's almost like looking at the rings of a tree. The oldest part, (the big cedar boards on the right of the picture), followed by the old wood siding, then another set of flat stuff, (some sort of board or insulation), followed then by shingles, (yea...weird...but Robert says they probably insulated well...still they probably looked like crap), and finally the junky more modern vinyl siding, (soon to be replaced). We also found the original wiring for the doorbell...which I forgot to snap a photo of. I know I didn't, but did any of you ever think about how old "doorbell" technology is? I didn't before today. Pretty cool stuff.
The new door about to be fitted. I give ya the juicy pics of the new door in the frame tomorrow. It's "almost" done.
And today I got to hang with my nephew for a bit. His mom carted me to Sam's club so I could stock up on a few things, then we played some videogames for a couple hours after while she gave blood...you know, to save the world. Here's he's watching mom play some Wii Mario Galaxy.
The closet in the kitchen looks very intimidating...dare I venture inside...
What will happen if I open the door?....Will a ghost pop out?...Perhaps a Gremlin?....or maybe I'll just get slimed....
That was close. What's this? A secret passageway perhaps?? Well then, let me just unravel my trusty whip..er...drill and investigate...
Cold chills run down my spine... DO I feel a breeze coming from inside there? Am I hearing....chanting?....
I can...hardly...stand....the........Pressure...........sus.....pense!.....
It's.....IT'S.....TAB!!!!!!!
So this is what I uncovered in my house today. I noticed this piece of drywall screwed in place inside the closet...and never much thought of the "why" about it until a few days ago. Now that the contractor has finished the flooring in here I felt like investigating. It's kinda cool finding little odd and ends nooks and crannies in this old house, (although we all know I'm secretly hoping to find some hidden fortune...not sure if TAB cuts it...maybe I should check inside the bottle). This discovery comes after another less exciting discovery while cleaning out the area under the basement steps a couple weeks ago. I found a sizable gap in the walls that you can peer down into. It was mildly entertaining. Perhaps I'll take some pictures of that sometime.
So my contract has been up with sprint for a few weeks now. The offered me a deal to sign back up for 2 years and I would get an instant $100 credit on my account. Nice eh? Only problem is I'm not sure if I can get a better deal with another carrier. It doesn't look that way, but I'm not sure. Other issue is I'm thinking of getting a "smart" phone for internet, text, etc. However, most family plans start at about $130 a month, which is flippin' rediclious. Any thoughts?
A blurry picture of my cereal...blueberry style. Remember the days when cereal came in about 3 or 4 flavors...total? You know, Chocalate "whatevers", Vanilla "puff-evers", strawberry "marsh-evers", and bland cereal flavor "flake-evers". I suppose you had your blueberry stuff from time to time, but that may have been excluded to "Boo-berry" cereal...and then your "honey" flavored junk... Alright, so like 6 flavors. What's pretty funny now is whenever we see a cereal in a "new" flavor, we often have to get it just for that reason. The reality is it's usually not a "new" flavor at all. Someone just had the bright idea to inject some "Boo-berry" into my mini-wheats. Big whoop. Oh no...we gotta try it! We HAVE to find out what fake blueberries would taste like with sugar and milk! Whatever. I say give me some original flavors...stuff no one would think of, or at least be very uncertain of the taste. I'm not talking about those mystery bags of Doritos that pop up from time to time, (and on that, I think there last flavor was turpentine). Market a cereal as something no one could predict the flavor, even if it ends up being some kind of lame berry combo, keep me guessing! I want to see "Boo-Yaa!" flavored cheerios or Shmack! flavored Mini Wheats. What am I talking about exactly?... I don't know.
Okay, so the fridge thing is s'pose to slide back in the hole thing an...that's it.
King Tomato rules the middle-earth of my counter.
Our psuedo-clean and set-up living room. I think we'll leave the board over the window...for color.
Papa-san! Pu-pu-papaSAN!
So the room is finally done-ish. I forced Levi to lay down while I snapped this picture...he's been striking exceptionally pathetic poses lately. Anyway, aside from a few touchups needed here and there, leaving out some of the poorly sanded, (or lack-thereof), areas, it looks pretty good.
The monster sink is now firmly planted in our awesome countertop. Not bad for free! Thanks Dad's Boss and sorry I forgot your name. Dad, I need to get his info from you again for the thankyou...it got lost in the mix...
The IKEA Trip!!! On a whim, we decided to go to IKEA yesterday. This sign is probably one of the largest freeway signs I have ever seen. Too bad we didn't get a picture of it coming in as it look exceptionally larger. When we first saw it, there was a large hill with trees behind it several miles in the distance. I first thought it was mounted on the hill several miles away which would have effectively made the thing about a half a mile long! Turns out, it was just this beast of a sign on poles.
Bask in the blue and yellow glory. I guess those Swedish are Michigan fans.
The loot. We came to this arrangement after several tries. The box contains our new coffee table, and it weighs about 2 tons. You think I'm kidding... Anyway, we were very weary about putting it on our snazzy new framed photo/picture thing. It worked out okay. Oh, and we got a rug.
Megan with more "Loot"...swedish fish. She kept getting yellow fish over and over. 
I gave Megan a crash course in picture taking with the camera while driving home. I liked this one. Just FYI, she took it like that on purpose. She took about 200 photos once she started having fun.
One I took. The Road.
The photo/picture we bought from IKEA. Do we like yellow alot or something?
Bored at work, here's some videos. Trust that I wouldn't post them if they sucked. On second thought, maybe they will to you as my sense of humor often leads others scratching their heads sometimes. Either way, watch them...or I will punch you right when you're about to eat something.
This is a picture from last night. Since we haven't been able to move the couch(es) in yet, we've been forced to sit in a couple chairs...of sorts. Well, since Mr. Dog isn't allowed on the couch, (usually), the chairs are apparently fair game to him. He's lap dog size..right?
MASSIVE "Red" pepper. At least thats what the package said...so perhaps this pepper will turn red, once it takes over the WORLD! Seriously though, this picture doesn't do this pepper justice. It's like six inches long at this point. 
The baby pumpkin gets bigger and bigger. Nate said I should do my best to ensure it doesn't get moldy on the bottom...which is a good point since the pumpkin plant is too good to grow only in the garden.
Here comes little brother pumpkin...or maybe sister. I won't force a gender upon them...wouldn't want them to grow up with a complex.
Well...I suppose when you're told, "The whole downstairs will be completed by friday" you have to do some internal contractor speak translating in your head. "Whole downstairs" he meant "Kitchen", and by "Completed" he must have meant "completed to the point where it "looks" almost done, but still isn't quite useful." Yep, that's our kitchen. Everyone doubted my choice of floor tiles...silly silly people. It looks awesome...just accept it. At least we got the fridge moved in and the stove back where it belongs. The door where the sink is leaning, my idea, (I hope), is to remove the door there and slide the fridge into that closet...since there are two.
The current state of the dining room. Can you spot Cousin It?
Our new door. Nuff' said.
Megan's purple bathroom. We unintentionally painted our house in Reynoldsburg High School colors, (purple and gold). At least that's what you think when you walk from the living room into the bathroom. Once you're in the bathroom you then think almost solely of Pickerington High School colors, (purple and white). Not intentional...I think.
As I'm sure most of you have concluded, here is my first baby pumpkin. Yea, fascinating, but I've been waiting for that beast of a pumpkin plant to pay off for awhile now.
Here's my picture for August 1st. Megan and Levi laying on the floor as I prepare to get my game on! Maybe we need another chair in here...
So this is what results from an amateur trying to go green. I've read several places about how you can use a soap and water mixture as a simple and effective pesticide. Well, I STRONGLY advise anyone who hasn't tried this to be very particular about how many parts soap-to-water you should mix, as "winging-it" can be...well...no good. 
Within a day many leaves and tomato buds were either turning brown and getting all yellow and "speckly." Within two days...looking much worse.
After the apparent problem presented itself the next day, I tried to rinse the tomato plants off with water. Apparently in their weakened state the extra weight of the water made many branches too heavy...and this resulted.
There are still signs of life! I guess this year instead of 5000 tomatoes I might only end up with 3000. For those who are asking themselves why I felt compelled to use a home-made pesticide...well...I notice over half of my tomato buds/flowers were dying very prematurely. I then noticed very tiny bugs only on the buds...possibly sucking the life out of them. I decided to take action. Good news, the bugs died...
I still have some tomatoes going strong. This one is so fat he's splitting. I've nicknamed him Jaba.
