Four Square with Family

Jenna has been obsessed lately with playing Four Square in our driveway. If it's not snowing, she wants us to play.

So, when Karen's brother and sister-in-law made a recent stop at our house on their way back home to Montana from Arizona, Jenna snagged Uncle Keith into a ripping round of driveway Four Square.

Well technically it was Three Square, as no one occupied the fourth square. (Anya was babysitting and usually refuses to play anyway, and the other adults were cooking...and talking...and really not all that enthused about playing at that moment.)
Jenna and Emily had big fun, and we all had a great time catching up with both Uncle Keith and Aunt Joan.
And the rest of you who've still not made it to Utah, follow their example! At the very least we're on the way to your destination. :)
And we include free pictures with the stunning backdrop on our deck with every visit!

You might even make our blog.

I know that's everyone's fondest dream.

New Carpet!

Ever since we bought this house, way back in 2003, we've fretted over the carpet in our living room. It was an off-white berber. Or, I should say it was an off-white berber at one time.

Lately it was a berber with multiple stains, tears, and various shades from off-white to dingy beige.

Over the years we've steam cleaned it, spot cleaned it, covered it up with furniture, until we really couldn't stand it any more.

In this picture from New Year's Eve, you can see some of it's loveliness. Look carefully at the lower right corner, just to the right of my foot. for one of the many irremovable stains.
Nice.

So, we took a long look at our savings, found some carpet we liked, got a quote and then went back and waved some cash in front of the salesman and asked him to give it to us for about 15% less. (Thanks Dave Ramsey!). He took the deal.

We wanted the carpet in the next day, so we spent that Friday night ripping up the old carpet and pad so they could come put it in first thing Saturday morning.It's strangely satisfying to rip out a floor covering that you've come to loathe. And it is scary what you find under the carpet and pad when that carpet has been in place for 20 years or more.

We were REALLY glad we were putting in new carpet.

The installers worked their magic.And now we have carpet that we're boldly unafraid to lay on.Now we're trying to figure out how soon we can afford to replace the aging blueness that covers our upstairs floors.

Mosaic Craftiness

For Christmas, "Santa" brought the girls a lovely mosaic tray project to do together. On a recent weekend, we all sat down to express our inner artist, much like we did at Color Me Mine back in Oct.

All of us except Karen. She's really not into this whole inner artist thing. Her artist is buried way deep inside -- so deep that it's gonna take an excavator to get her out. Instead of fruitlessly trying to express herself artistically, she encourages us, admires our work and brings us yummy treats while we work.

The kit had various sized tiles and multi paint colors. Our job was too paint the tiles, arrange them in the tray and grout them into place.I'm not sure why only my picture got taken. There were four of us working on this thing.

The painted tiles.And...voila!It was fun. But I'm not really sure what we're gonna do with it.

Barbie Style

This one is a response to the last post. Jamie commented that she would like to see a Barbie ensemble that used a particular pair of shoes. So here's the outfit assembled to complement those treads.
And in response to Laura's comment that if you divide the shoes by the number of Barbies, Barbie might not seem like such a shoe-aholic.

And there is some truth to that.

But she still has issues. I mean, look at this outfit.

Not to mention the large flower tattooed on her thigh.

Oh...i just mentioned it.

She's a very freaky gir-ull...the kind you don't take home to moth-ahh...

Barbie, you need help

I know women like shoes. My wife likes shoes. Not excessively so, but certainly more than me.

I'm content with two brown pairs, a black pair, a dress pair, a few tennies, and some flip-flops and sandals for summer. And I think most guys approach footwear much as I do. Keep it simple.

I'm good with Karen, and women in general, needing more than my basics. I get it. Shoes are an accessory, not just something to keep your feet from getting blisters. Although, I'll never understand why any woman would wear an accessory that causes her feet to get blisters.

But that's not really why I'm writing.

Women like shoes.

Barbie, the impossibly curvaceous Mattel doll, is a woman. Or some facsimile thereof.

So she likes shoes.

I guess I just never realized how much she likes shoes.
The girls pulled out all their Barbie clothes the other day and arranged the shoes so they could see them all.It took a lot of arranging.I think that perhaps Ken needs to stage an intervention.
Barbie has issues.

This is what I've come to

I'm really not an uptight guy. Really.

I mean, yeah, I get a little goofy about how my clothes are hung in the closet and how my shirts are folded so they all fit neatly in the dresser drawer. But I'm not a Nazi. Karen lives with me and doesn't cower in fear that she'll hang a towel the wrong way on the rack, or that I'll suddenly scream "WIRE HANGERS!" like Joan Crawford.

I'm pretty easy to get along with, I think. Although, in all fairness, I guess Karen should publish a blog and tell the real story.

However, I do live in a house with three girls, one teenage and two quite close to the teen years. I feel like I have a pretty good handle on what to expect: a little drama once in a while; a lot of silliness; every toilet seat left down, and the lid up; ponytail holders in every room of the house; regular discussions about wardrobe choices.

I get all that. And you'd think after all these years, I'd be used to the fact that when I want to use the stapler, it won't be in its place. When I need some Scotch tape, there will be an empty roll in the drawer. When I want a Post-it note, there won't be an unused one near the phone, but there will be 50 of them with various scribblings on them plastered all over the playroom walls.

You'd think I'd be used to that.

You'd be wrong.

See, I have simple needs. I want to know that if I need a ruler, it will be in the drawer where we keep the ruler. If I want to staple, or tape, or -- gasp -- punch a hole, I want the stapler, tape and hole punch to be in their cozy little home, waiting anxiously for me in their smoothly sliding drawer, saying, "Yes, Rich! Here we are. Please use us efficiently in a function for which we were created!"

I don't want to open the drawer and hear, faintly in the distance, "Help us, Rich! We've been confiscated once again and left to decay here in some dark place that we can't really describe...because we're office supplies and we don't have eyes!" Of course, they don't have voices either, and by now you're thinking perhaps I should talk to my family physician about a healthy dose of Haldol.

In any case, I don't think it's too much to ask to have my trusty office supplies at the ready when I want them. I've been willing to share, always on the condition that the borrower (and when I say borrower I mean wily Smith daughter) return said office necessity to it's appropriate location.

That rarely, if ever, happens.

So, I've taken drastic measures. There are now some pens, some Post-its, some rulers, some tape, some markers even, that are exclusively mine. They are not for sharing. These special items have now taken up residence in the Dad drawer.

They are not for general use. They are mine. When I want some tape. It's there. If I need to staple, my sturdy friend from Swingline is within my reach.
Have I gone too far? Perhaps.
But they drove me to it. This is what I've come to.

It's not pretty. But it is handy.