The tag stops here

Aaron tagged me with a 7 random things meme. OK, I'll play along, but I'm not sending it to anyone - they've both already been tagged...

1. My sister has a daughter which means I have a niece. She's here.
2. Since getting HD tv service, I've really paid a lot more attention to baseball than I ever did before.
3. However I'm not able to rattle off stats, player names, positions, or team place in standings. And I likely never will.
4. I think it's quite possible that slowly, over a couple years I went from a person who truly loved his job to one who is simply very glad to have one.
5. When you tell someone you haven't spoken to for quite a few years what you've been up to all this time, you'll quickly find out that there just isn't all that much to tell.
6. I think that's because the real fun is in the details. I can think of 10-minute experiences that are a hell of a lot more interesting than a brief history of the last 10 years.
7. My 15-year high school reunion is this summer. I am not attending. I suppose #5 has something to do with that.

It's a baby girl!

Congrats to my sister and her husband on the birth of their baby girl, Sophia Ana-Marie!

Born August 17. 8 lbs, 7 oz., 20.5"






It's all pretty wonderful and amazing. And she already really likes me. I'm pretty much her favorite uncle. Well, definitely one of her 11 favorite uncles.

She's awfully sweet, in that way babies are. I only wish she lived closer, both for sis's sake and mine. I'd love to be able to see the little gal more often!

I never like that tree limb anyway

So Ma Nature swept in and helped everyone in west Bloomington with a little pruning, including this limb on my maple Friday night, and leaving about 250,000 people without power. Also note the downed power lines in the pic below.





Several trees were uprooted and toppled over, especially on Vincent and on 91st. As for a little bit of "lemons into lemonade", I was able to safely paint around the power lines attached to the house while the power was off. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

The end is (nowhere) near

...But progress is being made. Yeah, I know I've been whining about it for days, so here are some pics to: a) prove that I wasn't making it up just to get attention, and b) show off some pics so that I can get some attention...

I started scraping a little bit in June, and really started working on it this past week. I took a few days off work over the 4th and, with some help from Lee and Adam (thanks, guys!), got the entire front of the house finished: priming all the bare wood and trim, and applying two technicolor dreamcoats on everything. "Before" pics are from about 3 1/2 months ago, in March.







The new color is very similar to the old, but more beige-y and less taupe-y, I guess. And you can see more of the not-quite-finished boulder project, too. The job change in March has made such a difference in what I can get done around here. I'm honestly happy to have the time to be at home and work on this stuff, even when it's hard work...