To name...

So, how do you go about choosing a person's name? This is the name that will make or break that person for the eternities. Not like there is any pressure or anything. The other question is...how many names can you possibly look through before you go insane?

Is it okay to pick old girlfriends names? (you happen to like the name...not to name after the girl you've forgotten about...)
Is it okay to pick names of people you didn't like....but always liked their name?

Maybe it's time to pick one out of a hat....

Last Year's Halloween Costume

I'm still trying to think of what to do this Halloween. Any ideas?

To carve or not to carve?

I have a sneaking suspicion that I am about to alienate 90% of my readers out there, but...

I have mixed emotions about carving pumpkins for Halloween. On the one hand, it was something that I did while growing up, and thoroughly enjoyed. I like "finding" a face in the pumpkin I had picked, and trying to represent that face through the tools that were available to me (usually dull knives). I liked the creative process. I liked saving the pumpkin seeds and baking them and making a treat.

When I got older, it seemed like everyone was going for a pattern. The pumpkin carving tools got more precise and surgical. I confess that we do own specialized pumpkin carving tools, but somehow I'm reluctant to copy someone else's artistic genius. I guess I still prefer to make my own pumpkin patterns.

Here's where I think I lose the rest of you: If I'm completely honest, I would probably rather eat the pumpkin than carve it. Yes, my love of squash is that great. I got a big pumpkin one year and chopped it up and cooked it and made a bunch of pies and pumpkin soup and I loved it! And ever since then, I haven't carved a pumpkin.

Remodeling Update

Well, I've decided to finally join the land of the living after feeling pretty lousy for the first couple of months of my pregnancy. Truth be told, I've felt much better for about a month now, but I guess I was pretty gleeful about my new found health, so I didn't bother posting anything on the blog. Poor Brent has been trudging along alone. So I thought I'd just share our remodeling update.

After a week and a half of showering among studs (that is, 2x4s), Brent finally got the backer board installed--YAY! It cost him dearly in time, because cutting through the concrete backer board took him forever, and of course he had to cut holes for faucets and the like. He has also tiled the ceiling, and I think it looks fantastic. We're planning on tiling tonight, and I'm pretty excited about it.

We are also the proud new owners of a new water heater. We didn't know that we would be getting a new water heater, but we came back Tuesday night and found a note from our downstairs neighbor that "something" was leaking from our kitchen into his kitchen. We're a little bit sensitive about flooding our downstairs neighbor, as we've already done it once. So we looked and found that our old water heater had a slow but steady leak. Unfortunately, our utility closet is pretty tight, most of the room being taken up by a gigantic flue for the furnace. I kid you not. I was wondering how we were going to take the water heater out. The answer is...

Cut a hole in the wall! That's right, folks, the only way to get a water heater in and out of our ill-advised utility closet is to cut a hole in the wall. :) Hopefully we'll find it useful, somehow...

I'll try and get pictures up and show our progress.

Just wanted to congratulate Becca and the West Valley Symphony for a great performance on Saturday. It was their Halloween Special, Star Wars Themed. The entire production was based on the music in the Star Wars Series, and the players dressed up in their greatest Geek costumes. Isaac, Becca's Brother, invited a group of guys and gals who apparently have made extraordinary efforts to reproduce their own Star Wars costumes.


We had Jawas, Storm Troopers, Darth Vadar, Ewoks, Jedis, Han Solo...well, lets just say every memorable character, including C-3P0. The crowd loved it.

At one point, Darth Vadar destroyed the conductor and took over the symphony to play his Theme Music.



Sorry for the cell-phone photos. I have to admit, that is one of my pet-peeves....JUST USE A REAL CAMERA FOR CRY'N OUT LOUD!!!! I just didn't think that there was going to be photo worthy costumes....

Here we go again...

Well, I decided it was time to remodel the bathroom. So, I peeled off the plastic ghetto shower surround, and took a sledge hammer to the walls. Now, our shower is basically...well....studs with a tub lurking in the middle.

I tore out the old faucet, and welded in (yup, i can do copper pipe!) a new faucet. It always makes me nervous, because you never know FOR SURE if your welds are going to hold. You hope they do. You don't have any reason to believe they won't, except for the fact it was yourself who did the welding. No, it's not as pretty as a professional...but i did use a lot more solder :).

So, we went one night with no toilet (because we didn't have the parts to fix the pipes because the store closed before we figured out we were missing things). With open pipes, you can't turn on the water. The pregnant wife LOVED that, let me tell you.

It has taken a couple days to get everything in order. So today, i hope to put up the cement board, so i can finely begin tiling..later in the week. Why is it that EVERYTHING takes WAY WAY WAY longer than you ever expected it would?

For now, we'll continue showering among the studs....