The rug hoarder

Okay, first off I typed the story in Word and copied & pasted to the blog and I do it all the time but this is the first time the copied text was underlined and in blue.  I got it back to black but can't get rid of the underlining...go figure!

 
Before Jim & I could get new carpeting we had to tear out the old carpeting & pad and remove all of the furniture in the family room. I helped with moving all of the furniture except the aquarium and TV stand which are very heavy. He had to drain about ¾ of the water from the aquarium before it was even remotely possible to be moved. He had asked Patrick to come help him because I told him I refused to do it. Well, everything worked out good because he took my suggestion of sliding cardboard under the legs of the aquarium stand in order to slide it off of the carpeting and onto the floor in the hallway. I felt sorry for the fish. They were not happy.


Anyway, Jim & Patrick tore the old carpeting out IN ONE PIECE and drug it out to the garage where they plopped it onto the trailer that normally holds the 4-wheelers that we are selling to Jennifer. The next day I called Jennifer and left her a message saying that the old carpet was now part of the deal. When she called me back we joked around and I told her she could find a place to dump the carpet in Salem. I also told her JOKINGLY that Jim would probably use it to carpet my garage.

A couple of nights later, Jim was outside cutting the carpeting up on the driveway when I got home from work. I went inside to cook dinner and when I came back out, Jim had put a big piece of the carpeting in the garage. I just looked at it and rolled my eyes at him. He proceeded to say how he spoils me and nobody else has carpeting to park on and isn’t he so nice. I just shook my head and when I walked out of the garage, I tripped on the stupid carpeting. It had only been about 5 seconds and I already tripped! I didn’t fall or anything but I was aggravated so I went straight back in the house.


When the family came over last Saturday night for a poker party, I took Jennifer out to the garage to show her that although I was joking, I was right about what Jim would do. I’ve already blogged about Jim’s obsession with rugs in the garage so now I have one more huge rug to add making a grand total of NINE rugs in the garage. Jim has a new nickname – Lord of the Rugs.

The Honeymoon's Over

A few weeks ago I bought a new painting to hang above the fireplace in the family room. I got it at Kirkland’s and it was called the Amalfi Coast and it reminded me of Italy. When I brought it home Jim liked it, too. It was too big for me to hang myself, especially since it wouldn’t work on the same nail as the one I was replacing since it had two hooks on either side of the frame. I asked Jim to hold it up there for me & I was going to pencil a little mark on the wall on one side which I could use to hammer the first nail and just eye up the other one. Nay, nay, reindeer….not a good idea to Jim.


He proceeded to get out all kinds of tools & measuring paraphernalia while I was growing very impatient. I thought that something I could do in a few minutes was going to take 10 times as long because of him and I couldn’t believe it when he marked the wall with the pencil just like I was going to do. After he completed his measurements and everything, I told him that I was going to be very upset if it wasn’t perfect. Well, he did good and it was perfect.

I commented to Jim that we used to work really good together and asked him what happened. He said, “We got married”!

What's Up at the Miller's

 

What a way to start a post, huh? Needless to say, the pictures are all messed up as usual & the story is below.

Jim decided to clear out some of the woods behind our house so that our backyard will seem bigger. Not that we plan on hanging out back there or anything because it is on a significant slope. He’s been working on it for the past month or so and has gotten all the rocks to edge his path off the land. It’s been back-breaking work but Jim loves hard work. He also boxed in an area with chicken wire for me so I can start a mulch pile. If you look closely you’ll see a creepy, gargoyle creature peaking out from inside the tree. I will be splitting some of my perennials--decorative grasses, hostas, ajuga, etc. from our other gardens so he (or probably, me!) can plant them along the path.

I’m also posting a couple of pictures from the garden in front. I bought the 2 bleeding hearts last year towards the end of the season, planted them and they immediately proceeded to die. I was disappointed because I never had a bleeding heart before & I was looking forward to them growing and covering the pipes from the sprinkler system. When I saw them come back this spring I was thrilled! There’s a picture of my front porch decorated with potted grape & pink hyacinths. And there’s a picture of a frog giving his/her friend a piggy back ride. Jim said they are different colors because one is a youngster. I guess that'd make the older one a cougar...whatever…they didn’t look very happy to me – not that I know what a happy frog looks like.

And finally, a picture of Jessica with the beautiful lemon-raspberry cake she made for Easter and the coconut cake I made.

I’m happy to report that I’ll finally get new carpeting in the family room. We’ll been in the house 4 years come June and I’ve always hated the Berber carpet in there. We’re getting a pretty good tax return that will come in handy....

Rural King

Jim saw an ad for a new store opening in Wentzville called Rural King “America’s farm & home store”. He brought the paper home to me the other night and was excited because it was their grand opening and they had some good sales. He was particularly interested in the sunflower seed for the bird feeder. They had 40 pound bags for $8.99 and Jim said he would normally pay over $20 for a bag that size. He also wanted to buy some motor oil that was $1.79 a quart


So we went to the grand opening last night in order to get the good deals. Jim informed me that the “Rural King” is in the old WalMart store so it was pretty big. As we got to the front door from the parking lot, I tried brushing up on my hoosier by telling him that I thought “we might could use one a dem dar carts”. As we were walking through the store looking for the bird seed, we came across pig feed, cow feed, goat feed, chicken feed, rooster feed, rabbit feed, horse feed and of course, cat feed & dog feed. When we finally found the sunflower seed, Jim decided to stock up and put 4 bags in the cart. That’s 160 pounds of sunflower seed! I commented to him that he was probably getting so many bags because he has soooooo much room to store it in the garage! Next he loads 2 cases of motor oil on top. And again I mentioned about all the extra room he has in the garage. It wasn’t a worthless trip for me because I bought a new finch feeder and some suet cakes. As we were heading to the checkout, there was a table of men’s 5-pocket denim jeans for $3.99. I swear I have never seen jeans that cheap and of course they’re made in China but I told Jim he might as well get a pair for working in the yard. I’m going to warn him NOT to wash them in hot water because they’ll probably fall apart!

We checked out and as we were walking out the door, I took up my hoosier again and exclaimed, “Glad we stocked up cause we won’t be gittin back to town for a piece”.

A Long Time Coming

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve updated my blog but I’ve been busy with the holidays, a scrapbook retreat, my birthday & mardi gras. Here’s the low-down on my birthday:

e-mails = 7
phone calls = 6
text messages = 5
cards = 10
presents = 6
flowers = 1

Yes, flowers delivered to my work from Jim. I had told him that the scrapbook retreat would be my present and he didn’t have to get me anything. I really meant it, too. The only thing is that I did expect a birthday card from him. I guess I should’ve told him. When I got home from work one evening last week, I was counting my birthday cards that were displayed on the kitchen table while Jim was standing there. When I got done I turned to him and said, “You know the only thing that’s missing?” When he answered, “No”, I said, “a card from my husband!” He started stammering and saying something to the effect that we hadn’t celebrated my birthday yet because I’d been out of town and he was going to give me a card when we went out to dinner. Whatever. A couple of days later a vase of tulips was delivered to me at work with a note card that said, “A belated happy birthday and pre-valentine’s day”. So he killed two birds with one stone. But that’s not the type of card I was talking about…