Happy Birthday Rodd!

Get cozy, this is a long story.

This year I got Rodd good for his birthday. I had a lot of surprises in store for him - which was very difficult for me to do because I tell Rodd everything and lots of stories evolved in the planning of all this.

It all started at the beginning of December when UNI's bookstore had their annual 20% off everything in the store sale. Since they only have this sale once a year, I wanted to see what I could find and maybe get some Christmas shopping done. While I was there I remembered how much Rodd had been wanting a UNI basketball to get autographed. For two years now I have told him no, and as it turns out, it's a very good thing he was patient and waited. I looked all over the store and finally found the last one on display, YEAH! Since I have a lot of time to think when I'm at work because I'm so bored all the time, I thought through the different ways I could get the autographed ball to him - just giving it to him would have been boring. I thought, maybe I could see if a player could deliver it to him in his office on Friday before his birthday. But then I thought, how is that going to work, Rodd is in and out of his office all day and if I told him "Be in your office between 10 and 11 today and give this envelope to someone ... you'll know who." I think he would have been a little suspicious about what was going on. When I realized there was a game on Friday night I thought, how cool would it be if TC, the mascot, delivered the ball to him! Then while Rodd and I were shopping at Scheels and he found Ben Jacobson's jersey on the clearance rack in his size. He says, "I know I shouldn't ask, but ... " Well, I let him get the jersey, I told him I'd see if anyone needed a gift idea for him for Christmas or his birthday and they could give the jersey to him knowing that I was going to give it to him with the ball. When I was telling my mom about the ball idea and the jersey, I told her that Rodd was going to have a UNI basketball themed birthday and that she had to wait until Rodd's birthday to give him the UNI flag she got him. She decided it would be fun to come to the game. So Mom, Dad, and Jan came up and surprised Rodd at the game. Before the game I gave Rodd the jersey so he could wear it at the game, during the first half of the game all the cheerleaders came up and gave Rodd his signed basketball - he was very excited and in shock that I was able to pull that off :) After the game, Mom, Dad, Jan, Nathan, and Brandon and Katie came over for cake, a cake I designed to be very cool, and Hy-Vee butchered, it was probably the ugliest cake I've ever seen. Instead of looking awesome with purple and gold frosting and the panther logo, it had brown, black, and orange frosting with something in the middle that didn't even kind of resemble the panther logo. I was very disappointed to say the least, but lesson learned, next time I'll do it myself or find someone that is artistic and able to do what I request (or at the very least, be honest with me and tell me up front that they can do that instead of lying that they can), ANYWAY ... It was a very fun night filled with lots of surprises and fun. Happy Birthday Rodd!!

P.S. It's a good thing we celebrated Rodd's birthday a day early because I got the flu or something the next day and had no plans of moving off the couch.

The squirrels ate our hammock!

The squirrels ate our hammock!

Labor Day

Rodd and I had a lot of fun this labor day weekend. Good thing it's a three day weekend because we sure packed a lot in. On Saturday Rodd and I invited the Roddy family up to see our house. We've been very excited to show off our hard work to our family. Of course we'd shown them pictures, but seeing it for real is always much better. We were lucky to have such a beautiful day although the forecast called for rain, the weather could not have been more perfect. Warm and breezy, very nice. Rodd grilled some hamburgers and brats and we played croquet in the yard, laid in the hammock, and enjoyed each others company.

Then we packed up our car and headed to Dubuque to drive up to Madison on Sunday to visit Ryan who hosted a pool party for the Link side. We lucked out on weather in Madison too. Apparently it rained all day in Dubuque and it was beautiful and sunny in Madison, well beautiful and sunny until the last family to leave was getting into their car, then it started to rain. Perfect timing!

Good thing Labor Day weekend is a three day weekend, we sure needed the rest on Monday. Until next time ...

The funny lady and the ugly sink

Rodd and I had our first garage sale last week. We joined in the fun with some of our neighbors and had a neighborhood garage sale. It was fun and really boring at the same time. The amount of money we made definately was not worth the sitting all day, but the funny lady and the ugly sink made the day all worth while. I'm sure this will be a story we tell for many years. Anyway, as you may have read earlier, Rodd and I got a new sink for Christmas this year from my mom and dad because I kept complaining about how ugly our sink was and what a stupid design it was and on and on. Anyway, that ugly thing was still in our garage 6 months after we took it out so we decided to lay it out in our driveway with a FREE sign on it, heck, it'd cost us $10 to get rid of it, if we could find someone to get rid of it for us, we'd be ahead $10, which, in my opinion, is more than the ugly thing was worth. Anyway, some really old lady thought it was the most beautiful sink and just could not believe her luck. She even asked if the faucet came with it (which I thought was incredibly disgusting). Rodd could hardly control his laughter when he was talking to the woman about it. She just kept saying how much she loved it and how she was going to put it in her new kitchen. Just goes to say "one man's trash is another man's treasure."

I got a new sink! YEAH!!

Last weekend Rodd and John installed my new sink for me. No more ugly, no I will not look clean no matter what you use and how much you scrub, sink. Apparently the old sink was cast iron and when Rodd tried to get it out he thought it was really stuck in there and was trying to pry it up. Turns out the sink weighs a good 100 pounds! The new sink weighs a lot less, so much less I could carry it around myself :) Mom and Dad got it for us for Christmas this year. I sure am grateful that they let us have it early. I actually look forward to doing the dishes now, how weird is that!

Oh yeah, I got a job, but keep praying

I didn't get the job I really wanted, but I did find something. I'm working on web sites for a school bus company. It's good experience but not at all where I had imagined I would be working someday (actually it's a place I worked so hard in school to keep me out of), so I continue to look. Hopefully sometime soon I'll find something I feel suites me better. But anyway, yes I have a job, and yes I'm still looking.

In 30 years it'll be all ours!

So I didn't get to it in August as promised, but as you can imagine - we are busy! We have been working on this house non-stop since we took possession at the end of July and I'm proud to say it's starting to feel like home. What have we done so far you ask. Well, we've torn out a partial wall, replaced just about every light bulb in the place as they were all either burnt out when we moved in or recently burnt out, tore down a lot (when I say a lot, I'm not kidding) of wall paper, lysoled just about everything (I think I scrubbed the kitchen floor four times before I decided it was finally clean), and have begun what I am beginning to think is a never ending process of painting (ceilings included). Rodd has been working a lot in our yard which is in as much need of some TLC as the inside of our house is. He's planting grass as there isn't much in the side yard or most of the backyard. He is trimming scrubbery that has not been trimmed in lets say ... ummm ... a lot of years. He tore out a tree/bush from the front yard (we don't know what it was, we think a combination of several things), it looks a lot better now that it is gone, took down the cool fort in our backyard that was covered inside with black mold (oooo, fun!), and a kajillion other things to fix this place up. I sure am glad he is handy and knows what he's doing (or is at least really good at pretending!). We have some pictures of the house up in the gallery if you'd like to check them out. Until next time ...