Hole in our wall...

Any of you that have visited our house know that we had an unusual feature/drawback. Our master bedroom had a 95" x 30" hole in the wall allowing you to look down into the living room. Now this has been alright for us, as we live in our house for the most part just the two of us. But for anyone with kids this would be just a tad weird, thus being an anti-selling feature when we sell this house. Well, this holiday weekend I have solved the problem. I built two frames, one for living room side of the hole and one for the bedroom side, and then sandwiched two layers of wallpaper (chosen to complement each room) and two layers of plexi-glass in between them.

All in all this project cost about $150 ($80 of that coming from the plexi-glass), not too bad. Much better than if I were to frame the opening out and hire one of my drywallers to finish it.

Sorry, I always forget to take a picture at the starting point of a project, so here is when only one frame had been installed.

Here is the finished product as seen from the living room...


...and as seen from our master bedroom.


And seeing as how our house was clean (a relatively rare occurance) I am going to go ahead and post more pictures.

I didn't burn the turkey!!!!

So, this was the first year that I've gotten the opportunity (ahem) to do Thanksgiving dinner. With a little bit of luck (and some in house help from Dad and Curt and some over the phone coaching from Mom) it was pretty dang successful if I say so myself. It was a small group this year: Mom was at work, Jann was with her family (in town for her father's funeral), and Tony was with his girlfriends family. Add those things with two missionaries gone and we get me, Curt, Dad, Mina, and Shane. It was a fun afternoon/evening.

The turkey all wrapped up



All done and the house is still standing.


Curt and I

Man, the kids these days don't know what they're missing out on. We introduced Shane to popeye after dinner and think he will never be the same.

Me and La La (sorry for the blurriness, either the camera or I was being dysfunctional, equal chance for each possibility)

Daddy marking up some generator schematics to reflect some changes.

new 6 panel doors

So, when we moved into our house we had mis-matched doors. They had finished the basement and had installed nice, white 6 panel doors, but the upstairs continued with the original wood veneer ugly doors, many of which had holes through them. So this past weekend we bought all new doors, hung them Monday night, and I will finish painting them tonight (just in the nick of time to have them look nice for Thanksgiving at our house).


New door.


Old ugly doors.

I also was able to finish replacing the last bit of old baseboard in our master bedroom and bathroom so the to do checklist is dwindling.

My sister is so funny...

Just look at what she's done to my dad's house weeks before Thanksgiving. At least it's all very cozy.


*note: she did hang a picture of a turkey on the tree in a small nod to the nearest holiday.

* also note the cabinets flanking the fireplace. These were made by Lane custom for this spot, isn't he talented?

then off to the MTC for David

Man, they really churn through the people at the MTC. David said that there were 700 missionaries entering today. I didn't think that it was going to be hard to say goodbye to David, we've been waiting for this for a while. But I have to admit that a tear or two escaped and I hope all is well for him now.


Shane and David.
When Lane went into the MTC, Shane was 5 and so didn't really get the concept that Lane was going away. This time was much harder for him. He had tears running down his face when we had to say good bye and later he asked Mom in a panicked voice, "who is going to babysit me now!?!".

Melynda, David, Me

Jann, David, Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Dad, David, Mom

Me, Melynda, David, Shane

IHOP this morning

David

Me

Melynda

Dad and Jann

Shaners, and then Mom in the background.

David's farewell....well thingy

Well, it finally came. The day David spoke in church before leaving on his mission. Me and Melynda sang (phew, no more brothers leaving for a while), and we had the family/friend shin dig afterwards. Again, these pictures are mainly for Lane as he missed out on the festivities (and just for you Lane I didn't put in any of the pictures taken in the remodeled living room/dining room so you still can be surprised).

David and Melynda

Dale and Camille

Shannon and Grandma (Shannon is Brian's wife)

Barbie, Roger, Justin, John, and Cindy

Brian, Audra, Keith, Curt

Shantal and Natasha

Melynda and Mr. Radack (aka Chris)

Nicole and Tony.

Melynda and Amanda...Melynda's new hair cut and color is so cute!

sweet husband...

...who gets me flowers....

...for no reason at all except he loves me.

wahoo for more old pictures

Another post for Lane, my brother who is a missionary in Texas. Sorry parents if you feel any discomfort with pictures posted from when you were married, but I love them and I know Lane will too. And anyways, this is my blog so I figured I can do what I want. (I figure you'd really be OK with them anyways)

This is Melynda, Lane, and Me in the MTC the day he left. Isn't he cute? My brother, David, goes in a week from tomorrow. Crazy.

Blast from the past. Same three: Melynda, Me, and Lane. Look at that RED hair.


Ha Ha. Since we're talking about missionaries...look at these two studs visiting with dad. He He.


Here's me and Melynda at grandma L's at Christmas time. At this point she was still shorter than me like a little sister should be (she passed me up shortly after).


Look at how stylin' mom is...I think we've come full circle and these sleeves are back in. Daddy always was one for a pimpin' three piece suit.


Mom and Dad outside the Mesa temple. Notice the dress that they were so thoughtful to vacuum seal....

So I could wear it 23 years later (sans hoop skirt and poofy sleeves, Thank you grandma, you are the absolute best!)

New Job

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I would be starting a new job. It's actually a new position within the same company. Previously I had been trading stocks and options for very active traders. I love trading and hope to do more in the future, unfortunately I realized that I wasn't doing my career any favors by staying there. As far as trading goes, I was part of the group that is considered the best of the best in the company, so that is definitely a good bullet on a resume. My new role is a lot slower paced, but probably helping people more. I am now more of a consultant, helping people diversify and re-balance their portfolios. I also will provide guidance and advice when clients don't know how to invest their assets.


While in school, I had a great professor who explained the analogy of 'S' curves. The picture above shows how technology is adopted, but the idea is the same. In your life/career, etc. you start out at the bottom, and if you are challenging yourself (which I feel you always should), there will initially be a steep learning curve. As you get better and gain more experience, things become easier. The danger is when you are at the top of the 'S' curve, because from there, you will either go sideways or down. I don't want to imply that I learned everything I could have ever learned in my previous role, but I did realize that there are other skills I need to acquire to prepare me for other roles I would like in the future. So essentially what I have done is move to another 'S' curve that is just to the right of my former 'S' curve, but with a higher starting point and, hopefully, a much higher end point.

I hope the analogy isn't too much for you, but that's how I think of it. If it didn't work, just think of it this way, I've made a lateral move in hopes of a higher ceiling as far as opportunities go. This also positions me well for future employment in a different location so I can work while attending school (more on that as it arises).

Disciplining Children

Yesterday while in sacrament meeting something happened that got me thinking so now I may do a little bit of ranting.

A lady came in late with her two children, a boy looking about 5 and a little girl maybe around 3. She sat on the row in front of us then quietly told the little boy to sit down next to her. He said no and then full-arm-swing hit her. She ignored him like nothing had happened and so he wound up and hit her again. She then just turned away from him and started settling her little girl in, leaving the boy to just wander the aisles. He stood right in front of Curt and just stared at him and then he turned his stare to me. I then reacted maybe a bit childish, but I glared at him and mouthed to him that he was not to hit his mother. He just kept staring at me with this stupid grin on his face. He eventually ended up sitting next to his mom. A little bit later though she must have said something to him because he retorted with a loud "No, Stupid" and when she ignored him he repeated it. Curt then leaned over to me and said that if one of our children ever disrespected me like that they wouldn't be able sit for a week. I agreed, because I would never take that. The mother ended up taking her children out for the second half of the meeting.

My feelings on this is that this mother needs to get a little self respect because she's ruining her children. I also probably think that she's the better of the parents (how scary is that) because this little boy has to be learning these things from somewhere and sadly I wouldn't be shocked if it were the father. Gosh, it seems like he hasn't a chance of being a decent human being. Things like this make me tired sad. Why is it so hard to just provide love and boundaries for children, it's what they need. Thankfully I could look around the chapel and see many, many examples of children being raised in awesome homes, but what about these lost children? At least this mother was trying in her own way to have good inputs, i.e. she at least brought them to church by herself and tries (feebly) to have interaction. There are so many other children that don't even have that.

Sigh, OK happy day from this point forward.

Halloween

As I find myself saying a lot, better late than never. Halloween here was pretty anti climatic. We were so excited to hand out candy now that we have a house and live in an actual neighborhood, but it ended up that we didn't have many trick-or-treaters come at all, plus we only saw a total of one kid we know. How lame. So, we have tons of extra candy, which is something we don't really need.


I didn't get to see Shane on Halloween night, but here he is in part of his Harry Potter costume a little while ago. Maybe later I can steal a picture from my mom of the real night.

Curt was a devil. He had fangy teeth to go with it but they looked gross.


I was goth. Crazy that some people leave the house like this on a regular day. I had to scrub my face by 8:30 I couldn't stand it any longer. There's another picture that was taken where I looked even more like Marilyn Manson...I just don't think that I could bear to have that up for all to see.