Wild Weekend Wambling & some tools

What a weekend!  And now it's ending with a 3rd day for the kids as a 2 hour delay turned into a snow day!  If I didn't work at home, I might have had it off too...  But as it stands, I can make it out to my office without even shoes.  So here we are!

  

 Meri just pointed out that I got some guys backside in the photo...  So I did!

On Thursday night we attended the Science Fair.  Meri had her project on display and Leon ran wild, seriously.  

 

One of his daycare ladies was there and he ran around yelling MIKI!!!  I thought he was yelling "monkey" until I realized who was there.  

Meri got an A+ on her project!  Don't know about the extra credit yet.

I had a wonderful Valentine's day!  Robb and I left the house as soon as I got off work and we spent the night elsewhere.  And I got a box of chocolates that are no more.  It's been 3 days!!!  

Saturday morning, we had to be back early enough to get Ryan to work and me to a sewing meeting.  Meri would have gone with me but she had a solo performance on her clarinet at school in the early afternoon and wanted to spend the morning practicing and primping.  

I made it back just in time to watch her play!  Out of the 6-7 kids playing the exact same song, she's the only one that got a 1+ (which is excellent!).  We only knew that because the band director goes to our church and we asked him on Sunday how she'd done!

 Leon while he watched Meri do her actual performance.  She's amazing and he knows it!

Saturday afternoon and evening...  I don't remember exactly what I did.  I may have napped a little with Leon, but it seems like I got him to sleep and felt that I shouldn't...  I know I did SOMETHING!..  

Why is it I can remember every single word from any 80s song, but can't remember what I did on Saturday?  

All I remember is that we had super secret steak night.  Oh wait!!!  I worked on the ASG newsletter for an hour or so before the steak!  The deadline for that is coming up this week to get it out the door.  

Oh yeah!!!  When Robb and I got back on Saturday, we came into a COLD house!  Apparently the thermostat was on the fritz.  I purchased a new one while I was out that morning, and when I installed it that afternoon, only the fan worked.  Not the heat or even cool, even though we certainly didn't need THAT!  With an elderly person and a toddler in the house, we figured we better get this looked at by a pro.  Dang.  $180 later, we've got a new thermostat, filter and complete check over of our furnace.  THAT was when I finally figured out how to restart the pilot light on the fireplace...  figures.  It's supposed to get up to 50 degrees this week, but it's not there yet sister!

Sunday after church, we rented a Rug Doctor and I went over the whole living room and upstairs hallway.  I hate pets.  For some strange reason, pets of the past come back to haunt you after you've used a steam cleaner on the carpets!  I'm glad I did it this weekend rather than next weekend just before Leon's birthday party!  Today, it's better - or I'm just used to it all over again...  *stupid cats that we don't have anymore*

While I did that, Meri got Ellie's puppy birthing area all ready to roll in the laundry room.  We'll move them out to the garage when the puppy barking gets loud and/or they start pooping everywhere.  And of course when the temp warms up!  

THEN because I hadn't done enough this weekend, *I am the slacker*, I dug out a couple different screwdrivers and started working on taking apart the largest tv you've ever seen.  

Why you ask?  Let me tell you...  

Several years ago, my nephew was trying to get rid of a tv that is 5.5 feet tall and about that wide.  It's heavier than a Pontiac and was the latest technology for large screen tvs back in the 80s & 90s.  It sat in our living room for a week until we had enough man power to heave it up the stairs to my bedroom where it sat for several years.  For a while, the colors worked well, REALLY well.  Robb even thought it was curing his color blindness...  

For Christmas 2012, Robb got me a newer large screen tv that only weighs as much as a 50 lb bag of dog food, but more awkward.  We moved the big clunker out into the upstairs hallway and rued the day we had enough energy to either carry it down or whack it apart with an axe to bring it down.
 

Tiffany asked if she could have the big one in her room.  sigh.  I thought we'd never get rid of it!  She didn't mind that the color was flaky and that you should probably wear corrective lens' when watching it.  But then it died 6 months later and had been sitting in her room taking up space.  

I found this photo online.  This is NOT ours, but it's very similar.

So yesterday I took about 500 screws out of that sucker and the guys moved the MUCH lighter pieces out to the garage to be taken to the dump.  Inside this thing I found an AWESOME Isosceles Trapezoidal

shaped mirror!  It was too beautiful to pitch, so Meri snagged it for her room.  We'll eventually mount it to the wall above her dresser with clips.  I also found the three lens pieces with slightly different colors to them that the picture projected to the mirror to the screen with.  If you hold one of them up to some letters, it flips them upside down in an enormous size! 

I think I figured out what to take to church with me that will work oh so much better than my reading glasses!  However I'll have to read the Bible upside down.  I hope people don't look at me weird...  I've taken one of the lens' off and will take the other two off before we scrap the rest.  If nothing else, the lens will look awesome as a coffee table piece.  They're pretty cool...  I'll take a picture of them sometime.

Anyway...  my house is cleaner, aside from the faint receding cat smells...   And we're getting things lined up for Leon's 2nd birthday party this next weekend!  Maddy and her room mate are coming home on Friday!!  Looking forward to some fun times.

Have a great Monday!