House hunting is something that can be fun.  You get to see a lot of great places.  Or at least the places look great online.  I’m not sure if we’ll look at that many of them in person.  But it’s still kind of fun. You can think of all the possibilities.

It reminds me of when we bought this place.  The possibilities were endless.  It was kind of a dream to get this place, and we both really like it.  Sadly now we’re leaving it.  We’ll not quite yet, it still has to sell.  But we get to start over with all the dreams and adventures.

But at the same time it can be tiring.  The projects that you’ll need/want to do on the new place, and the fact that it costs so much money.  Life is fun and cruel all at the same time.

And that is all I have for now.

With the Legislature back in Session things are busy again at the Capitol.  For the most part that’s good.  The hours are a little long again, but that’s alright. I really like working with the Freshmen and helping get them acclimated to life at the Capitol.  It’s also really fun to work with my Representative, Tim Sanders.  Having worked with him on the campaign trail, it’s made things pretty easy to work with him there.

Life on the home front is good.  Owning a home is interesting… Our dishwasher broke and we’re waiting on fixing that.  We bought it new, and of course it stopped working about a month after the warranty went out.  With in the next month or two I’ll do my best to fix that.  The garage door sensor isn’t working quite right either.  We ordered parts to get that fixed, but they’re on back order.  So once those get here I’ll get that working properly again.

For the past month we’ve been going to the gym on a regular basis.  One of Beth’s coworkers gave us a couple of free trial passes and we used them, and liked working out.  So we joined up. Back in December we went to check out Gold’s Gym, but that was not the place for us.  The people were a little too pushy and trying to sell us stuff we didn’t need.  We joined the AnyTime Fitness and it’s a good place.  It’s a smaller gym, but it’s just a bunch of people getting fit.  No real body builders or anything.  Plus it’s not too busy most times.  So it’s easy to get in a quick workout and get back on with your day.

So life is good.  It feels like spring a little bit this weekend, and that puts a smile on my face.  Too bad I have to do homework today.

It seems like I’ve shoveled a lot of snow this year already, and today I get to shovel more.  It’s not so bad.  I don’t have to drive in it, and it meas I’ll get out of the house!  Plus the exercise will be nice after all of the Christmas Cookies.

I hope Christmas treated everyone well.  I have to say it was good for me.  It’s fun to hang out with the family.  The kids were alright, even if they did get a little loud from time to time.  The presents were fun.

I remember growing up wanting all this cool stuff.  As I grow older I look back and find that funny.  I got slippers and a sports coat this year, and I’m pretty excited about that!  I also got some giftcards, to 2 different places.  So I’ll have to figure out what I want to get.  If they were to the same place I know what it’d be.  Maybe I can talk Beth into getting something for “both of us”.  We’ll see how that works.

This week should be pretty low key.  I’m off this week, so I’ve been cleaning up from all the people here for Christmas.  Homework is also topping the to-do list.  I’m feeling good about that.  I’m doing some house projects, and making things look better around here too!  The New Years Eve is coming quickly!  No real plans yet, but I’m sure something will come up which will be fun.

That’s a wrap.

So I’ve been spending a lot of time in my car lately.  Between a quick trip to the LP on Saturday and minimum hour and fifteen minute commutes (one way) to work this week I’ve been thinking some good podcasts would be nice to listen to.

Ideally it would ideally be podcasts that are updated daily so I could sync my iPhone in the morning and listen on my way to work.  But weekly podcasts would be alright too.  I was looking through the podcast listings in iTunes and there are a lot of them.  I figured I’d turn to you, my trustworthy friends, to suggest some good listening for my daily commutes.

This morning I got up early to leave for work. I figured the roads would not be so good. It took about an hour for me to get to work.

About 20 minutes after I got there I get a call from Beth. She got in an accident. She got cut off on her way to work and slammed into the median at about 50 mph. Airbags deployed. It wasn’t so good.

Beth was fine. But the car is not so fine. We should hear back from the insurance guy tomorrow to see what we get out of it. I am pretty sure it willnget totaled. So that means car shopping could be in our near future.

In other news Christmas came early here! (see below)

Posted from my iPhone

Until the election.  I’ve been super busy helping out, and homework, and everything else. I’m looking forward to November 5th.  It will be interesting to see what happens.  I think it will be close.  The polls show it’s tightening, but I don’t always believe the polls.  I missed the Obama informerical tonight.  I thought it was on at 8, but it was really 7.  Whoops.

I’ve had many thoughts about the election coming up.  If anyone believes Pelosi when she says “if the Democrats win, and have substantial majorities, Congress of the United States will be more bipartisan” I’d like to sell you some ocean front property here in Blaine.  The Obama tax plan scares me, and I know I’ll pay more and I make way less than $250,000.  With all of his talk of redistributing the wealth it’s clear he’s not holding the same American values that I hold.

But enough with the political rant.

School is picking up.  Pretty much starting on the 5th I’ve got to start my two final papers.  Both of those will take a while, since it’s 30 page papers.  But hopefully things will be alright.  I’m not overly worried.

The house stuff is kind of at a standstill.  We were hoping to redo some of the floors in the bedrooms and perhaps some of the downstairs.  But the new furnace took care of those plans.

We had a nice weekend get away earlier this month.  It was a lot of fun, and it was nice to just get away.  I wish we could do that more often.  We have some pictures, and I’ll try to get some up soon.

With that I’ll bid you ado, likely until November 5th.

are in order to The Gerdin’s!  They got married yesterday.  It was a great ceremony about the Lord of the Rings (sersiouly, it worked well).  I was honored to be a part of it.  I’m very happy for the two of them and wish them the best!

So that took most of my weekend. But it was a lot of fun.  Today was homework, which I got a lot done for.  We’re about the midway point of the quarter, and I’m starting my two 30 page papers that are due in 6 weeks.  I figure if I start now I can get them done without having to cram it into the last 2 weeks of class.

We got the new furnace put in last week.  So it’s nice to have heat again!  We had to have a fire in the fireplace one night last week to get some heat in here.  That was kind of fun actually.  I need to bring some of the firewood into the garage so we can have more fires this winter.  There’s nothing like having a fire in the fireplace.  I really enjoy it.

In case your wondering, here’s the countdowns:
Election Day: 30
Austin get’s an iPhone: 32

And now it’s time to enjoy some warm, fresh from the oven Apple Crisp.  Yum!

It was nice to come home today and be able to jump in a pool to cool off.  Splash around and have some fun.  I really enjoyed that.

And tonight we had a small campfire, with smores and everything.  It’s like a nice getaway that’s fun and relaxing.  And we can sleep in a comfy bed at the end of it all!

So, I like our house.

So tonight I was driving home, north on 35W right after I passed 694.  I was in the far left lane watching the car in front of me.  (It was snowing, the roads were slushy, and traffic was about 45 mph).  So while I’m driving and watching the car in front of me I see a car ahead of me and off to my left a little bit.

It’s coming right for me.  It spins and I see it’s side, and the back of it.  It’s coming right at me (on the other side of the road).  The next thing I know the car is hitting the wire barrier and the stakes that hold the wire are flying, not far from my car.  The car took out about four of them.  The car hit the barrier right when I was driving past.  If the barrier wasn’t there it would have been an interesting time.

So that was my fun ride home.  Otherwise it was pretty uneventful.  I stopped for gas.  My car was low on it and tomorrow the gas tax goes into effect.  So I figured now’s the time to buy!

Now I’m sitting my our white chair watching the Twins game on TV and the snow falling and blowing outside.  Just think in 2010 we could watch Opening Day in the snow in our outdoor stadium!  Rock on.

How’s it going?  I must say things are rocking here!

We went up to the LP this weekend.  Weren’t we just there last weekend?  Why yes, yes we were.  But we left my car there on blocks, because the parts weren’t all there to fix it.  So we went back up, the parts were there, and dad and I fixed it.  Thanks dad!  It actually wasn’t hard to fix.  It only took about an hour or so.  It went smoother than I thought.

We came back home last night.  We brought Chad back down to school, and hung out in the Elk River with Beth’s sister and brother-in-law for a bit.  Good times.

Today has been low-key, which is nice.  The next couple of weekends will be busy, depending on the weather I guess.  Today we went to church and stayed for Bible Study afterward.  We were able to meet more people, and I really enjoyed it.  It was a little more fun and engaging than other Sunday Morning Bible Studies I’ve been to.  Next week we start our membership class there.  It’s nice to finally be joining a church.

After church we came home, and hung out.  We’ve been in the habit lately of coming home from church and each doing some reading.  Granted for Beth it’s ususally reading for fun, and for me it’s for class.  But it’s still kind of nice to just sit and read.  It’ll be great to be able to do that on the porch before long!  This afternoon we both fell asleep for about three hours.  Whoops!  But the nap was nice.

We were able to get outside this afternoon.  We got some firewood unloaded from my trunk.  We went for a walk.  I also planned a few things to work on in the yard.  The fence needs to be fixed, and we need some grass seed.  So those projects will keep me pretty busy.  I like being a handyman.  It’s kind of fun to fix stuff.  You never know how handy you are until you have to be.

With that I’ll leave ya’ll.  Have a great week.  I shall try to do the same.

It’s all around nice, but I really like it for sports.  I don’t follow NCAA Basketball a lot, but I do like to watch the Tournaments.  Because I have today off, it’s a nice day to watch those.  It’s kind of nice just relaxing.  I’ve been looking forward to this day off for a while!

We’ll be heading up to the LP this weekend for Easter.  My dad is going to help me fix the struts on my car.  Long story short: I hit a big pothole and one of them went kaput.    So I’ve been driving with it the last day or so and it’s been a little annoying.  But doing it myself will save about $300.  So that’s always nice.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Spring Break, and Easter Weekend.  I’ll probably take some pictures, and we’ll get them up.  It’s been a while since I’ve posted pictures.  Sorry.  Maybe.

They’re nice.  Work has been busy, and so it’s nice to have a break.  If only it were a little warmer outside I could enjoy our deck!  Wouldn’t that be nice?

I have been enjoying the warmer weather though.  Beth and I have been going out for walks and having fun enjoying the nice neighborhood.  We’re getting to see more of it now.  We really like it.

Today after the secretary at church held a gathering for the young couples in church.  That was pretty fun.  I got to meet about 4 other couples that are all in their twenties or so.  It’s nice to start to get connected, and make more friends.  And most of them live close by, which is also helpful.  Beth couldn’t be there because she had to work, but this might turn into a monthly thing.  I like that idea.

For those of you on Spring Break: I’m a little jealous.  (I was hanging out with Roelf and Pat this weekend and we relived some of our fun spring break memories to Cali.  Good times.  Good times.)  But enjoy your time in the sun.

Today was the endorsing convention for State Representative.  The delegates endorsed Tim Sanders.  So that means that I will not be running for State Representative in the fall.  The best of luck to Tim!

Work is picking up.  The transportation bill was passed on Thursday.  If you want to see some fun times tun into the House floor debate on Monday to watch the veto override attempt.  That will be very interesting to see.

Class is done for the quarter (Well after I finish my paper).  Then I have a week off.  So it goes from being a very, very, very busy week to this week (hopefully) being a chance for me to relax a little bit.  I’m looking forward to that!

That’s right.  Today is the Super Bowl.  I am rooting for the underdog, so Go Giants!  It’ll be a fun party and good times to watch the Bowl.

Tuesday is Super Tuesday, and I’m looking forward to that.  It marks the official kick off to the political season in Minnesota.  I’d encourage all of my friends, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, or Constitution Party Members, to go out to your Precinct Caucus, support your local candidates, and cast your vote in the Presidential Straw Poll.  Don’t know where to go, you can find out here.  Make sure your voice is heard.

It’s going to be a fun week, and I’m really excited about everything that’s coming up.  Work is picking up, and the end of the quarter for my class is coming.   It’s going to be a fun and extremely busy month.  The type of atmosphere I strive for.

So I hope everyone enjoys their Super Week!