Kevin Minnis

Well, when it rains it pours. It all started Friday evening. We were getting something out of the freezer in the fridge and noticed that not everything was frozen like it should have been. So, Saturday I made the phone call to a service place to see if they could come out and look at it…nope, wouldn’t be able to look at it till Monday. Okay, so Monday came along and the repair guy replaced the fan in the back and said it should be good to go in a couple of hours. Two hours later the temperature still remained a cozy 65 degrees. Well, Kim and her parents and I thought it might be a good idea to take a look at what new refrigerators cost and find one we liked. So we went looking. I called the repair guy this morning to see if they would take the electric motor back that he put on cause I didn’t want to put anymore money into it…nope, anything electrical they don’t take returns. (Anyone want to buy and electric motor? Here I come E-Bay). I also had the repair guy come back out to see if he had any other ideas. He said that the compressor was out too and that it would be about $500 to replace. So, Kim and I finally found a few refrigerators today at Lowe’s (they have a large select) and after about an hour and a half (the kids were very good during our search) found one we liked that they had in stock. Yay, we get a new fridge tomorrow. Case in point…you are better off replacing a refrigerator over repairing it. Sad to see how much of a throw away society we’ve become. I’d rather fix what I have, but it is definitely not economic to do so.

Oh, but it’s not over
Saturday Kim’s Mom came to town so we could go pickup the windows we ordered two weeks ago at Lowe’s. We decided to also get a storm door while we were at it. “I need a 36×81 storm door like this one.” I told the helpful Lowe’s window guy. Took the thing home and was going to install it with the help of Tony…Opened the box and wouldn’t you know I got the only 32×81 door that they had. For some reason the Lowe’s guy gave me the wrong one. So, we took all the child seats out of the Vibe loaded the door up (Yeah, it can actually haul an 8′ article) and exchanged it. I’m kind of glad though as the windows that we got were designed for a “drop-in” replacement instead of a regular replacement. The replacement windows that I should have gotten have a flange around the entire window which is what I needed. So, this Saturday Tony and I will make another trip to Lowe’s to return these windows and order some other ones that will work.

It gets better
The highlight to all of this door not fitting, wrong windows, fridge done-n-gone broken, and Jayden doing a face plant is that Kim is on Jury duty for the week. That left me to stay home and take care of the kids yesterday and this morning. She’ll have an updated entry of her own to explain how wonderful our judicial system really is.

It’s okay now
I guess through all that has happened this week I’m just glad that everyone is mostly healthy (Josie had a cold Sunday and Yesterday, but is feeling better today) and no more things are breaking (hopefully). Thank goodness for Lowe’s interest free for a year get out of jail card. haha

This last weekend was a little different than most (finally, something different than usual) :). Kim and I took the kids and met up with their Grandpa and Grandma Wagner on Friday evening so that G’pa and G’ma could watch them for us. We then had the whole weekend to paint and clean. What a difference it makes in getting things done when you don’t have a 2 year old at your legs or a 2 month old to hold on to. We managed to get all that we could get painted without having to move the staging on Saturday. Thanks to Kim’s Mom and Dad for taking care of the kids and thanks to my Mom and Dad for coming down Labor Day weekend to help paint and watch the kids.

Sunday, we decided it was time to clean the carpets so we rented a Rug Doctor from Wal-mart. Man, what a difference it made. Looking at the dirty water wasn’t a pleasant feeling as it was much less than clean! I’m almost ashamed we let the kids lay/play on it. haha

It was nice to be able to be just a couple again for a short time. Kim and I went to Jordan Creek Mall to do some walking around and I ended up getting a ton of shirts for cheap at Dillard’s on Saturday. First time I’ve actually even gone in the store. Unfortunately, Kim didn’t find anything that she liked. Then we went to Merle Hay Mall on Sunday.

Ah, yes. Jayden’s doing more everyday. During our stay up North while at my Grandparents, Jayden flipped from his stomach to his back 4 times. Last week he had his 4 month shots and survived rather well. He only cried a little bit after he got his shots. We’ve started to “train” him how to sleep. I know it sounds weird, you’d think a baby would already know how to get to sleep on his own. He’s now for the most part doing rather well as he only cries for about 10 minutes and then falls asleep on his own.

We got him a Johnny Jumper for him to get started using his legs. He’s liking it more now and likes to jump up and down. Santa got him a Little Tykes Car for Christmas and we’ve already got him practicing for race day. More Christmas pictures will be added later, but for now you can see what Jayden got that Pioneer Hi-Bred will be proud of.

We now have a bird feeder and “Squirrel Sitter” in our back yard and the squirrels so far have managed to rule both. We haven’t seen a single bird eat out of the bird feeder and the squirrels manage to go through an ear of corn a day (at least). So far we’ve seen 4 of them at a time. I did have the bird feeder hanging from a bracket on a tree, but went out and bought a pole thinking that there’s no way a squirrel would climb a 1/2 inch thick pipe. Well, I was wrong, so now I’m going to have to go and get one of those contraptions that keeps them from doing their acrobatic movements up the pole.

I’ve decided to use a different photo gallery to display pictures. This one provides an easier upload interface and more customizations. Hopefully you won’t find too many bugs from previous image links.

Well, I’m finally done finishing the floor. I started out thinking I’d sand the whole floor which included removing all the old finish with a hand held orbital sander last Thursday. It looked as though it would take a week to finish at the rate I was going so I rented a finishing sander from Menards last Friday and had the floor sanded down by Saturday Morning. It’s a time consuming process, but well worth it in the end. Here’s what the floor looked like be fore (Old Floor 1) and (Old Floor 2) and here’s what it looks like now (New Floor 1) and (New Floor 2). I one coat of finish on Saturday and put two down on Sunday. It’s good to be done making a mess.

We got pounded with about 2 inches of rain yesterday in about a half an hour. Man, talk about crazy. We drove around to see what else we could find, but didn’t really come across any life threatening events. So that was uneventful.

Wood floors can be expensive to refinish. I’m in the process of getting everything around to refinish our Great Room” and dining area. Let’s just say that by the time it’s done we could have gone to some exotic island. Okay, so maybe not that expensive, but it’s still takes a few Benjamins to get the job done.

Kim had another baby-2-be checkup on Monday. Everything’s looking and sounding “A-OK”. She gained an additional 6 ponds in a month and a week so she’s right on schedule.