Models

Craig’s Uncle Keith has been working for 20+ years on a model train setup.  They live in a cool Victorian style home and have converted what used to be the basement into one elaborate display.  There are train yards, homes, pastures, lime quarries and even a house of ill repute.  Each town is named after somebody in Craig’s family.  His is Fort Craig and the only one with a beer train car at the station.  Every Friday night his uncle has a bunch of train junkies like him come over and they build models, trees, roads, glue people and cars down and play with the trains. It’s a dying hobby and it’s sad to know that because it’s so neat and they are so passionate about it.

Surprise

Craig has been having a tough time with the new job and on top of that hasn’t been feeling all too well.  He knew I didn’t work on Monday, but was really worried I was going to toilet paper his house.  It didn’t help that I kept telling him I my evil plan and he bought it.  I told him I brought his garbage can up to the house so it was closer to the mess he was going to have to clean.  He had a really long day yesterday and wasn’t looking forward to the mess, but to his surprise there was no mess.  Just this on his kitchen table and some fake red ones on his bathroom counter with some hearts around it.

I know, it's so cute it's sickening.

Spring Cleaning

I took Friday off because I could and decided to spring clean my house.  It was in need of a really good cleaning anyways, last one it got was when I moved in.  Only this time I was not scrubbing food off the walls and ceiling or washing walls and every bit of crown molding and the base boards…yet.  I went from room to room, moving things around and vacuuming, sweeping, dusting and just groovin to the music on the radio.  Buy the time I was done with my bedroom I could of made 2 extra cats with all the cat hair that I sucked up and I found 3 secret stashes throughout the house of where Fabio and Bluka had hidden their toys.  The house smells so much better, the toy box is full again and I’m sure I will doing it again soon, only incorporating washing the windows inside and out as well as knocking all the cobwebs down outside.

Don't fence me in

Or in my case out.  Now in my defense I was trying to help out the neighbor and it was driving me nuts that the fence boards were missing even though the boards were not on my side of the property line, I was being a good neighbor and fixing them.  So I went up on Saturday with my drill and screws, crawled through the fence and made sure those boards were not going to fall down again.  Well without thinking about it, I fenced myself out of my yard and was kind of stuck on my neighbors’ property.  Yes, I was trespassing.  So there I am, thinking how the in hell am I going to get back over this wooden fence that is partially rotted because it’s old.  I examined my predicament and thought I will just scale it no problem.  One part of the fence is field fencing, and then starts the wood which lines my backyard.  There I was scaling partial field fencing and trying to not lose my balance on the wood fence.  I’m sure it looked really funny as I’m not the spry little tree climber that I used to be.  But with a little luck and some witnesses I managed to get myself on the right side of the property and the boards up secured as tightly as I was able to secure them.  They will have to be replaced, but that’s a different adventure.

Little Snippets

CD Journey

Awhile ago I had embarked on a journey to log every song on all of my burned cds.  Well the project is still ongoing and almost complete.  When I say almost, I mean I’m on my last case that holds about 200 then I have to type them all out.  While on my journey I have found quite a few duplicates which is great because that’s one less that I have to go through.  I did find a quick way to cheat though and because of this it has moved along much quicker. Thank you Shazaam (only the most awesome app EVER).  Once I get all of my cds figured out they are going into a word document, then printed, placed in sheet protectors and into a binder they will go.  The next time I get a song stuck in my head it will no longer be “I can’t remember which cd it’s on” it will be consulting the Binder of Music Greatness.  It’s been quite a project, but a fun one as I have discovered many songs that I completely forgot I had.

Awesome weekend

So Craig and I decided to do Valentine’s Day early, even though he knows how I feel about Valentines, he still wanted to do something.  We went to Old Sugar Mill (more on that in a minute) for a wine and chocolate thing, then off to Miners Leap winery for more wine and chocolate.  Needless to say I was very “happy” by the time we were done.  We went to dinner at Guisti’s in Walnut Grove afterwards.  It’s little bar/restaurant that has interesting décor but very good food and a lot of it.  Craig’s Grandparents grew up in the delta region, so they are framed on the wall when you walk in which I thought was pretty cool.  He has a lot of family history in the delta; it’s interesting to listen to. As we were driving along the river road, I saw a few houses that were boarded up.  So I decided that when I win the lottery, I will buy one and restore it to its glory and then get my claw foot bathtub that I want so badly.

Old Sugar Mill

The Sugar Mill is perhaps one of the coolest places around and is located in Clarksburg.  It was built back in the 1930’s and closed in 1993 and Clarksburg is this quaint little delta town.  The buildings are just beautiful and pretty much all brick.  They retrofitted one of the buildings to house 8 different wineries.  Outside of the main building there is a hidden winery in the back by the name of Draconis.  So you could say they house 9 wineries if you want to get technical about it.  You are able to go walking around in the other buildings, just need to be careful as they are old, a lot of rust and holes on the upper floors.  Craig and I explored one of the buildings up to the third level.  We didn’t go up to the fourth level, but will next time we go out there.  Even if you don’t drink wine, you should go just to walk around and check it out.  It’s beautiful and highly recommended for some awesome pictures.

212 days left

 

That’s right, I am thinking about it already because it was so fun last year.  Only this time instead of doing the Rug Rat race, I want to do the whole thing.  Not sure how my nieces will feel about that, but I’m sure they will push themselves to do the 5k race as well.  The obstacles will keep them motivated.  So I have started getting myself back into shape and I do have to confess that I am mad at myself for letting me go like this.  I used to be in shape and had energy, you know all that good stuff.  But I slacked and now am left out of shape and blah.  So my goal is to get my butt back in shape to where I can run the whole thing if not close to.  I believe that is a great goal to have.  So here’s lookin at Foam kids!!