TeamME

Mike and I got up early and walked to our polling place, getting there just as the location opened. After about 20 minutes in line, we voted using a black marker and a paper ballot. Then we walked back home, and I went out for donuts as Mike started getting ready for work. While I doubt my vote for national candidates (president, senator, congress-person) counts for much of anything given that this is Massachusetts, I did enjoy voting for our state senator and the ballot questions. Plus, it is going to be a gorgeous day out, so it was nice to get a bit of a walk in. Yay voting!

Mike and I have lead problems. It turns out that pre-primed wood can be a real problem. The paint we thought was lead? Probably not. But every wood surface of the house minus the built-in hutch and the base boards are lead. Man, if only our wood was full of peanut butter instead! Then, when children bit it (as I guess they do?), they would get a healthy treat instead of poisoned.

Anyways, if you were thinking of gnawing on the wood in our house, you may want to rethink your plans.

We hit up the Davis Mega-Maze on Saturday with Sarah, Molly and Megan. It took us over 3.5 hours to get through the whole thing (although there were a couple of stops), and a great time was had by all. Well, everyone except for Molly had a great time. Sadly, for Molly, it was a day of life lessons. The first had to do with the fact that once you are a big girl, no one is going to carry you all the time. The second was that popcorn sometimes wedges itself between your gums and your teeth, and it feels weird. The third, and worst, is that splinters hurt. A lot. About 75% of the way through the maze, Molly got a splinter. We found a maze employee, who got us some tweezers and a sparkly band-aid, and then, when we couldn’t get it out without Molly screaming like “we were killing children”, she gave us directions out. You can see the band-aid on Molly’s right thumb, and the very sad expression on her face tells you how much fun she had at the end of the day.

On the positive side, things got better once we had some food and played a little bit of the wii. We made mii’s for everyone, and silly glasses and crazy eyebrows made everyone a little happier.

I’m not sure why, but I have been kind of down the last week or so. There is exciting stuff, but I think it is stressing me out quite a bit. This stress has manifested itself in many ways: my playing jigsawdoku for 30 seconds only to pause for a minute because I don’t immediately see the answer, my inability to get a decent amount of sleep (I either get too much or too little), and my descent into Tri Delta drama. Yes, after five years of mostly avoiding the drama that was all too present during my collegiate days, I have finally swerved head-first into drama city. Sure, I’m trying to see her point of view, but it isn’t helping. It feels way more personal than the annoying calls I had to make to parents about their daughter’s finances. And I am about to burst.

Of course, the bursting sensation just tells me that I should repress the feeling until I feel more like myself (I’m a good New Englander). That way I won’t say something that I regret later. And I probably don’t want to hurt her feelings. But I feel that I am thinking the same thoughts I had about L Wang so many years ago, “I hope he has a great life, I just hope that it never crosses mine ever again.”

Well, now that I have vented a bit, the bursting sensation has subsided a bit. Thank you, kind (or non-existent) reader, you have truly helped!

Also, who thinks 2,551 word posts (as an outline) are a good idea? Seriously?

So, I finally learned how to take pictures off Mike’s camera. I then remembered how to load them into our online galleries. So, I give you All the Pictures I Meant To Publish Before.

First, we had a ton of rain this summer, and our flowers looked pretty good thanks to that.

I had a blast at the Tri Delta Convention in July. I would highly recommend it for any Tri Delta. It also helped that a bunch of Rose girls were there, being wacky and cool and totally rocking it.

And, most recently, our Labor Day weekend rocked as we went to Paul and Anne’s wedding. It was a wonderful time, and I am so excited and happy for the two of them, I can’t help but smile. Mike was in charge of the camera for the wedding, which means that there aren’t a ton of pictures, but we still had a great time!

So, I have very little control over my balance. I blame my inner ear or something. Anyways, that makes it difficult to play a fourth of the wii fit games, since they are all about balance. Except for one balance game. I totally rock the “sit still and don’t move” game. I made it 3 minutes without twitching, thus becoming a champion sitting-stiller!

On Thursday, in a somewhat haphazard method, Mike and I got a Wii Balance Board and Wii Fit. I can’t overstate this, it is the most fun working out that I have ever had! I am not a team sports person, nor do I enjoy running outside, but I don’t particularly like gyms when there are people there. My favorite thing is aerobics, and the wii fit has that!

The game also allows Mike and I to compete with each other, which is another thing that we both enjoy doing. I am good at the aerobics and hula hoop, while Mike is better at the strength exercises and the running. I enjoy quickly passing my guide so that I can follow a puppy! Then I slow down.

All in all, it is a ton of fun. It is entertaining and gets us moving, while at the same time, it has graph after graph of information to peruse. It is like it was made for Team ME!

Mike and I spent part of the weekend down in RI to say “Happy Birthday” to our niece, Molly. It was an important birthday, at least from a binary perspective. Here are both Molly and Megan showing their ages.

In some sense, it is neat that Molly is one left shift from Megan now. Oh powers of two, you are so neat! As are Megan and Molly. Happy Birthday!

There are so many things I want to post about, the Tri Delta convention and our lawn being two of those things. Unfortunately, I really, really want to add pictures, and to do that, I need to first, find the camera; second, take the pictures; third, find a way to get the pictures off the camera; and fourth, find a way to put the pictures online. This list of things to do doesn’t even involve a “profit” step, so you can see why it is taking so long to get through it.

One thing I can post about that does not require pictures is my 18+ hour trek to get home from Chicago. And really, there isn’t too much to say about that other than I hate cut-offs of more than 20 minutes before departure to check a bag, I hate the liquids rule for carry-ons, I cry for humanity (or at least our portion of it) when I see rudeness and ugliness in what is a difficult situation for everyone involved, and I especially hate the fact that this could have probably have been avoided if I just figured out how to set my cellphone alarm. Also, I rely on technology way too much, seeing how by the end of the day, every electronic device I owned was way low on battery power. Luckily, Mike was at the airport to get me, and that put a smile on my face (at 1:30 in the morning).

Mike weaseled his way out of our grocery shopping trip by volunteering to go to the Walmart next door to the Hannaford to see if they had any wii fits. I refuse to go into the Walmart because it is sad, but I sent him on his way. He returned not with a wii fit, but with a wireless guitar for the xbox. Now, when I got Guitar Hero III, we were hoping to pick up another guitar so we could play together. Last night, that dream was realized.

We have started a band in Rock Band, and we are playing at the Charles Pub in Somerville. So far, we have over 2000 fans. We are still trying to decide whether our name should be “The Fighting Mongooses” or “Mongoose Scientists”, but I think we’ll have it figured out before we play again.

Of course, our new acquisition does not help us peel the paint off our walls any faster, although we have made quite a bit of progress in that regard. But playing a set at the Charles does make for a nice break from the lead paint.