I just realized that I haven’t blogged this year.  My dearest apologies, but life has been busy.  If you haven’t heard I’ve decided to run for State Representative here in Blaine.  That has been keeping me really busy.  If you vote in Minnesota and haven’t used your political contribution refund yet, you can donate to me!  Don’t know what it is?  Check this out (pdf link).

This weekend I’m without a wife.  Beth flew out to PA with some of her family to see their Grandpa.  He’s not doing the greatest these days, and they wanted to see him before he took a turn for the worse.  So if you want to say a prayer for him that’d be appreciated.

Work is picking up again at the Capitol.  You can tell that Session is just around the corner.  It will soon pick up and evenings will be taken up.  But it’s fun.  Between that and school things are really busy.

So that’s been my life in a nut shell.  I’m looking forward to everything that’s coming up.

The post Christmas sickness tradition that is.  Over Christmas one of the little tikes running around here got sick.  Yesterday Beth was sick.  Last night dad got sick.  This afternoon I don’t feel too good.  So the tradition continues.

On a brighter not Christmas was good.  I got a few of the things on my Christmas wish list, which was sweet.  I also got some things done around the house, with the help of my dad.  Thanks dad!  As a Christmas present to all of you I’ve finally got some pictures of the completed version of the house, for your viewing pleasure.

There were lots more things that happened, but I think I’ll get to those later.  The laundry is done.  We’re supposed to go to the LP to celebrate Christmas with Beth’s family this weekend.  Perhaps more stories after that!

First time ever that I went out early in the morning and shopped.  Beth and I went to Menards to buy a few things for the house.  It was insane.  I will likely not do that again.  The shopping wasn’t so bad, but the wait to checkout was nuts.  And there was no parking.

And Black Friday was expensive!  Granted, we didn’t spend a lot early in the morning, but we did go other places and do some shopping in the evening.  We bought some furniture, paint, etc.  So between that and buying the house it has been the most expensive week in our lives by far.  And the sad part, the week isn’t even over yet.  I think we’ll add on to the expenses today.  We’re going to be buying flooring for the house I’m pretty sure.  That’ll make it look really nice.

The house is coming along nicely.  Within an hour or so we’ll be back over there painting and then ripping out carpet.  I think we should get that all done today. Then it’ll be off to Lowes to buy some flooring and appliances.  We’ll probably get the Lowes Card, because of the good financing deals.  It’ll be an expensive day.  The grand total remains to be seen.  Oh well.

Thanks to my sister and Barry (and my parents) for helping out so much this weekend.  The house is looking better!  Barry and dad spent several hours outside raking leaves, mowing the grass, trimming trees, etc. and now the yard looks great.

And we met some of the neighbors.  They all seem really nice.  The one right across the street is nice, and he’s been there since the house was built (1977).   The neighbor right next door, whom we haven’t met yet, has been there the same amount of time.

So we’re loving the house, and getting it all cleaned up and everything.  It’s going to be great and I think we’ll have it all in shape before we move in.  Of course we don’t know when that will be, but it will probably be 2 weeks from this weekend.

And with that, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.  We did, and we have a lot to be Thankful for.

It’s pretty darn sweet.  We spent some hours over there tonight cleaning the place up.  It’ll take some work, but we’ll have it up and running before long.  We’re really excited about it.

Hope your Tuesday was as exciting as ours!  And in case I don’t get back to blogging before Thursday, Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

We close at 3pm today!!  Woo-hoo!  Ready or not, here we come!

First the Vikings lose big. That’s not so fun. Adrian Peterson gets injured. I hope it’s nothing big, otherwise the season could be down hill quickly… We’ll see.

And in the Sunday night game Peyton Manning just threw his 5th interception, and he’s my quarterback for Fantasy Football. That’s not so great for me.

So it’s really only a bad day for me in the world of football. Otherwise it’s been good. Some of the guys came over today and watched the game. The Chili that I made got good reviews. So overall it’s a good day.

I even finished my paper that’s due for school. That’s pretty nice. We’ll I sent it to my peer reviewer anyway. It’s not totally done, as I’ll probably do some revising after I get it back from her. So it should be an easy week for class.

Hope you enjoy your week. Happy Veteran’s Day!

To owning a house.  We’ve got the paperwork in order (as far as I know), and the inspections have occurred.  We’re pretty pleased with that.  We’ve got a better picture of what all needs to get done.  There are a few more things we need to take care of, but I’m hopeful it will all happen on time so we can still close next Thursday.

Work has been going well, and school is keeping me busy.  I guess that’s the same old stuff.  So I’ll leave it at that.  Happy Weekend!

But very busy indeed.  We tried to have the house inspection done on Wednesday, but the Bank we’re buying it from had the water and gas turned off in it between when we last looked at the house and Wednesday (so about two weeks).  With our offer in there, and supposedly one more, the bank still shut that off.  So… we’re waiting on that.  We did get a pool inspection done, and that passed everything.  We were a little worried that the pipes or something would have been broken, so that’s a relief.

As previously mentioned closing date is supposed to be November 15th, but there are a few hold ups (namely the bank) to getting that done.  We are still waiting on a few things from them and to get the gas and water turned back on.  So hopefully we can still close on time, but that’s still a question mark.

Other things this week: Eye doctors appointment, inspections, going out to eat a few times, and some other fun stuff.  I can’t really complain, the week off was nice.  Busy, but nice.

The bank accepted our offer!  We’re both pretty excited.  So yesterday and today has been filled with phone calls and paperwork, etc.  It’s a long process, but it’s fun.  Tomorrow we are having a home inspection and on Thursday we’re getting the plumbing inspected for the pool.  Hopefully it’s all in good shape.

Closing date is set for November 15th, which is about two weeks away.  We’ll take a week or two to get the house up and running.  We’ll do some painting, maybe some floor work, and get a bathroom or two going as well.

Also yesterday we found out that Beth got hired on as a fulltime Target employee (or Team member) as they call them.  So that’s a great plus!  Yesterday was a great day for us.  Lots of new things.

Hope your Monday was just as fun!

So it’s been a good week!

It stopped raining!  Woo-hoo!  After the super dry July, it’s rained a lot today.  I believe yesterday was our second day of the month without any rain.  I guess it’s supposed to rain this afternoon again.  Oh well, the dry, sunny weather was nice while it lasted.

I’m just sitting around waiting for something good to come on TV again.  I watched the Sunday Morning political shows.  Some of them are alright, others are dumb.  Now it’s the waiting for football.  Beth works this weekend, so we went to church last night.  We went to Bethlehem’s downtown campus.  I like that a lot better than their north campus.  It feels more like a church, which is really nice.

I sliced my finger yesterday.  Or more like filleted it.  I made a tater-tot hot dish and was cleaning up.  I was washing out the cans.  I thought to myself, be careful it’s sharp.  Next thing I know I’ve got a piece of skin hanging off my finger and blood going everywhere.  It’s the first time I’ve had to use a band-aid on a cut in a long time.  And it soaked through the first one.  It looks alright now.  It’ll just take a few days.  I think I might grab some neosporin when we go to the store tonight.

That’s my exciting weekend.  Hope you’re enjoying yours.  It should be a good day in sports with the Vikings playing the Cowboys and game 7 of the ALCS.

I’m making the most of my day off, and I’m watching The Price Is Right while I’m waiting for my laundry.  It’s the first time that I’ve seen it with Drew Carey.  I’m not impressed.  Drew is not nearly as animated as Bob was.  And I think he just hit on a lady in contestant row.  Granted it is one of the first episodes he’s done.  Maybe he’ll get better.  We’ll see.

There’s been a lot of hype around the new Mac OS coming out, Leopard.   There are a lot of new features in the new os, over 300 is what I read.  Many of them seem really sweet.  I think Time Machine would be vary nice.  Finally a back up system built in.  Of course that would require a much larger external harddrive for me, which I want to get anyway.

The only down side is that the computer requirements are G4 with 867 mhz or faster.  Mine is a G4 with 1.33 Ghz.  So I technically fit, but I’m wondering if it would lag pretty bad.  It also requires 512 mb ram, which I have 768 mb so I’m good there, but the more the better.  So I’m not sure how worth the upgrade it would be.  My battery is also dying, so I’ve thought a little bit about a new computer, but that’s even more expensive.  What do you think?  Should I upgrade to the new OS or just wait a year and get a new compy and everything?

As for the house search: no news yet.  We’ve got an offer in on one.  Not sure what will happen.  We’ll keep looking on Monday I think, just so we don’t loose more time.  Perhaps next time I’ll have a better update on that.

Just not ourselves.  We moved Kari.  Well sort of.  We moved stuff into a trailer for her.  She owes us now.  That was a lot of stuff, and it was heavy.  It gave us a good work out anyway.

Today I got to watch the Vikings game, and it was a good one.  The last second field goal was sweet!  The Vikings almost blew it, but it was a good game none the less.

The weekend was good.  We looked at a house yesterday for the second time.  It’s a nice place, but needs some work.  We think we’re up to the task though, and we’ll probably write an offer.  I’ll have some time off in Nov so we can get some of the work done.  We’ll see what happens.  It’s another foreclosure so it’s bank owned.   Hopefully the bank is better this time about getting back to us.

And with that, I’m going to enjoy a warm from the oven brownie!

I posted once.  Some stuff has happened since then.  We didn’t get the house.  They rejected our offer, again.  So we started looking again.  We’ve found another one that we like.  We’ll see what happens.

I’ve had some time off, which is kind of nice.  It’s given me a chance to focus on homework stuff, and do some of the house hunting.  Today I even got outside for a fairly long walk.  I enjoy the cooler weather.  It’s certainly nice.

Class is going well, but it’s interesting.  Working with people who are going back to school is interesting.  It’s definitely different than being in a classroom with your peers.  The online discussion stuff is also interesting.  I find that people don’t really take to debates quite as much as they would in a classroom setting.  Or at least the in-depth debates that would make the class more interesting.

I’m watching the ALCS right now, and the Red Sox are rocking the Indians.  I think the Red Sox will make it to the World Series.  For the NL I like both the Diamond Backs and the Rockies.  I’m not really sure who I’m rooting for there.  I think I’ll root for the NL to win the Series though.

In Long Prairie.  It’s a good weekend, really low key which is nice.  We haven’t had a low key weekend around here for a while.  Tomorrow Beth has a wedding shower up here, hence the trip.  But for me I just get to hang out.  It’s kind of nice.

We still haven’t heard back from our realtor yet on the house.   We were thinking we’d hear something on Thursday, and then we heard we’d hear on Friday.  Now, Saturday, we’re still waiting to hear.  It would be nice to know.  But it’s not quite as nerve racking as it was last time.  I’m not really sure why.  Perhaps it’s the lack of competition.  As far as we know anyway there are no other offers on it.  Or maybe it’s the fact we already lost it once, and therefor our hopes are a little more tempered.

Anyway, hope everyone is enjoying the weekend.  It’s sort of nice outside, kind of windy, but it’s fairly warm.   It looks like it might rain soon, so we’re going to take a walk before the rain starts to fall.