Dinner on the High Seas

Last night we had a lot of work to do (more painting and cutting trim). Karlo insisted that we need to work in lieu of playing, but that was unacceptable on such a beautiful night. I convinced him that we should combine dinner with kayaking to save time and still be able to come home and get our work done. He went for it.

So we stopped at Big Y and bought a little picnic dinner, loaded the kayak on the Jeep and headed to Bigelow Hollow.

I had hoped for a nice relaxing float on the lake so we can unwind and relax in the sun for a brief hour. But things didn’t go as planned. We launched the boat with the wind at our backs and paddled down wind for the entire length of the lake. We even did a little sailing by letting our paddles catch the wind.

Karlo sailing with his paddle in the air.

Karlo warned that we better eat dinner while we could so I tried to hold my sandwich in one hand, while holding my paddle from blowing off the boat with the other and juggled these between sips of my ice tea. It was not easy, nor was it relaxing. Knowing we had a couple of miles of paddling directly against the wind in front of us, I decided not to eat much. Kayaking into the wind is a big ab work-out and I didn’t want a stomach ache. I thought a smarter idea would be to reward myself with the chocolate chip cake we had sitting on the counter at home. I couldn’t wait to get home and have a piece.

While the water was still calm.

We turned the boat into the wind and were faced with 1 foot swells. Every once in a while one of these would land in my lap. Gallons of freezing cold water—in my lap. That was fun! I was so worried about my camera getting soaked and I paddled like a lunatic. The thought of getting home to paint sounded more appealing with every splash of water across my face.

We made it home where I spent the next hour in the shed (the big metal one) painting trim and getting attacked by bugs. Finally, it was time to go inside, eat my cake, get cleaned up, and watch American Idol. You can imagine my disappointment when I discovered the cake container on the floor surrounded by crumbs and chocolate chips ground into my freshly washed wood floor. OMG, I could have killed her. There was no question who the BAD dog was. She is in so much trouble . . .

Happy Birthday to Paula

OK, I know my birthday isn't until July, but I just bought my present!!!!! Check it out.


YIPPPEEEEE!! I just hope Sting doesn't still look like a cave man by concert time.

I’m Not Ready

I am so not ready to start another week. From the minute we got home from work on Friday afternoon till collapsing in bed last night it has been non-stop. I’m completely exhausted and could really use to hibernate for at least one day. But on a brighter note, we did get a lot done.

Friday afternoon we celebrated not only Bentley’s 12th birthday, but the official end of the wood burning season. For those of you that have wood stoves, you can understand why this is a joyous occasion. Karlo vacuumed out the dirty stove and I did my happy dance around the house. I was actually looking forward to Spring cleaning, knowing that the second biggest source of dust was ending. After my happy dance it was upstairs to embark on my twice-a-year closet switcheroo. That took hours and I realized that I own way too many clothes. I’ve made a mental note to reduce the amount of clothes I buy. Feel free to remind me of this if I happen to forget.

Saturday morning started Phase One of operation Spring cleaning. Unfortunately, there will be 4 Phases so we’re not even halfway there, but every phase thrills me as we are getting closer and closer to a clean house. After filling my brand new vacuum bag in one hour I’m thinking maybe the dogs are going to live in our new shed from now on.

And speaking of the new shed . . . uuuuuuugh, what a waste of terrific weekend. That darn shed is sucking up all our time. I can’t even believe I’m reporting this, but guess what I spent most of my Saturday doing? The cleaning was nothing compared to the painting of the trim. Silly me. I didn’t even realize that trim was involved in a shed. And the worst part was that it needed to be primed with oil-based primer = does NOT wash off of anything, and it needed to be primed on both sides. Let’s just say that I was NOT a happy camper – again this weekend. And I’m still not done. Tonight we get even more trim. sigh

There were some bright spots of the mostly-work weekend. On Saturday we took an awesome kayak ride to work out the sore back muscles. And on Sunday we went for a first road bike ride to make the back and neck muscles twice as sore. Oh, and there’s a whole ‘nother story too as we rode without the GPS and got lost. I told Karlo that it just wouldn’t be our first ride of the season if we didn’t get lost. It’s becoming a tradition.

We ended the weekend with a very nice dinner with Dan, Jill and their adorable kids. Finally, we all got to sit and relax and have some fun. Too bad that was so short and we are back to work so quickly.

Workplace Violence

This is the scene in my office this morning. And what is wrong with this picture???? The fact that I'm not the one with the weapon!!! Work has been a bit stressful this week. More to come, if I survive it.

Lunch Conversation

Karlo and I just had lunch together and this is how our conversation went . . .

Paula: “My wrist is turning green. Look.”
Karlo: “Why is it turning green?”
Paula: “It’s bruised.”
Karlo: “From what?”
Paula: “The wall falling on me.”
Karlo (laughing): “That is funny.”
Paula (confused): “It’s funny that my wrist is turning green and bruised?”
Karlo: “No, I’m imagining a fly on the wall listening to our conversation and you all nonchalantly telling me that your wrist is bruised from the wall falling on you. As if this is something that happens every day.”

We both got a good chuckle out of that. I guess it would have sounded pretty strange if two normal people were having this conversation over lunch. But for Karlo and I, it’s just par for the course.

Photographic Blunders

I took a half day on Friday and spent an hour or so all by my lonesome self. I strolled around the yard with my camera and managed to take a bunch of really bad pictures. I guess this was my first DSLR major screw-up and my first lesson on why you should shoot RAW. I forgot to reset my white balance after shooting indoors and took photos outside in the beautiful sunshine with my white balance set to florescent lighting. Ooops. Now you would think this lesson would seal the deal for setting my camera to RAW, but it still didn't. I was able to fix all my pictures in Photoshop so I'm still not convinced I need RAW. But those are very boring and meaningless details for the non-photographers out there. The more amusing side of things is that some of my screw-ups actually turned out sort of cool. Here are three examples of pictures that I almost want to say, "I meant to do that." Check out the cool blue cast effects.

Screw-up #1: Unnaturally cool blue sky

Screw-up #2: Tropical blue water in my backyard pond

Screw-up #3: Not all that exciting, I just like the school of fish.

Who’s Idea Was It Anyway?

The theme for the weekend seemed to be asking the question, “Who’s idea was it to build a shed?” Funny, it seemed like a good idea several months ago—especially when we went shopping for a pre-built shed. Wouldn’t it be fun to pick one out, have it delivered, and watch others set it in place? Ahh yes, now that would have been fun. But instead we decided to build it ourselves. What the heck were we thinking?

My weekend started off great with checking in on the kiln results. But it quickly took a turn for the worse . . . I entered painting Hell on Saturday morning and didn’t emerge from that Hell until Sunday afternoon. Just about every part of my body hurts from the worst painting project of my life. It was horrendous and I swear I never want to touch another roller as long as I live.

I got all 18 boards of rough cut siding painting. Now all we had to do was build the walls and set them in place. A piece of cake. Afterall, the painting was the hardest part. Or so I thought . . .

We took a break from work and had lunch on Sunday and Karlo suggested that we should reward ourselves and go kayaking in the afternoon. All we needed to do was erect the wall he already built. How hard could that be?

Forget hard, it was impossible. What a nightmare disaster. I am extremely strong, but apparently Karlo expects much more out of me than I could possibly deliver. Trying to raise that wall and hold it into place (16 feet in the air, against the wind) and not have it topple off the deck was simply impossible. We were able to raise it up, but keeping it from slipping off the edge was not going to happen. I aborted the mission, with the wall falling down on me in the process. Karlo was annoyed and I was terrified. I literally sat on the decking and cried because I knew there was no way in the world I could help make this happen. And I also knew there was no way in the world the most stubborn man on earth would ever ask for help. So I sat there with tears rolling down my face, praying that our friends Dan and Jill would miraculously stop by just when I needed them. And don’t you know, they did! Within 10 minutes of the incident that nearly broke me, and the wall, they pulled into the driveway and saved the day. Thanks to my guardian angel Dan, we now have three ways in place.

Here's the wall that nearly killed me. Can you imagine holding this in place without it falling over?

Here's Dan helping Karlo raise the second wall.

And here's what we have so far - three walls up. Yippee!