New Pumpkins

Well, the skull & crossbones and Frankie melted. that's the last time we get pumpkins from Basse's! So here are the replacement ones we carved yesterday:

This Year's Jack-O-Lanterns

I still have the pumpkins inside so that the punks in the neighborhood don't smash them before Halloween, but here are this year's Jack-O-Lanterns.

Jack Skellington (Mine)

Tiki Face (Ali's)

Funny Frankie (Sarah's)

Sarah found this template and thought it was cool.

Kris thought this one looked pretty scary.

Skull & crossbones. This one is starting to rot in the picture (note the sag in the bottom right) We have replaced it with a better one. Pictures to come Halloween night when it is on the porch.

Incredimail Blows

I am officially done with Incredimail. I have been having all kinds of problems with it on my laptop as well as on Kris computer. I actually ended up having to reinstall in on Kris's computer after I wiped out the hard drive and reinstalled everything. Well there was still nothing but problems, and good luck trying to get any support. Well Friday, Kris lost all of her mail and folders. I have no clue what happened to them, they just disappeared. There was nothing in the folder that kept all her mail and settings either. Luckily I had all her old mail folders stored yet from when I reinstalled Windows, but she lost anything from about the last week and a half to two weeks.

So I thought about it. Why am I using Incredimail anyway? Just for the notifiers. No one could see my stationery, and I didn't use any of the other clip art features or emoticons. So I finally just said screw it. Kris is now just using Outlook, and I have resigned myself to use Thunderbird (I try not to give Bill gates my money). Screw Incredimail, it's not worth it!

Sunday Was a Long Day

Sunday was a LONG day. I started out playing with the girls while Kris was working. We hadn't played the Wii in a while so we played a few rounds of Mario Kart. Then once we got going, I had a few tasks to get done. First, I wanted to get our light up pumpkins going.

We have (2) wire frame pumpkins that are strung with orange lights. One of them wasn't working, or rather was only half working. I took the frame apart and started checking lights. This is the bad thing about having these kinds of decorations. If these were Christmas lights, I's simply toiss them and then go spend $3.50 and get a new string. With the pumpkin, you need to have orange lights first of all, and second, they are attached to the wire frame, so you can't just get new lights. Well I started replacing lights with my spare Christmas ones. First I went along pulling lights and replacing them, one at a time. If it didn't work, the original light went back in and I moved to the next one. After going through the whole sting, I decided to pull all the lights and replace them all with white, just to see if the lights would work, and then i would go back and put the orange ones back in.

After spending an hour and a half, NONE of the lights worked. I replaced about 70 lights with ones from a white, Christmas string, but they still wouldn't light. So at 1:30 I gave up. I guess I'll be looking for something else to put in front of the house with the jack-o-lanterns.

Speaking of jack-o-lanterns, that was what we did from 1:30 until about 6:30. Scooping out pumpkin guts and figuring out what kind of faces we would be carving. I had to get two extra pumpkins, because the two we bought the week before were starting to rot. I carved them all (6 total) but if the (2) rotten ones don't make it to Halloween, we still have (4) good ones. The last of the bunch are soaking right now and when I take them out I'll put alight in them and take some pictures to post. I did Jack Skellington for mine this year, and I'm sort of jazzed to see what he'll actually look like with a light inside. I have to say this is one of my favorite things to do with the girls. So check back in a day or two for pictures of this year's pumpkins.

Chasing My Tail

Well that is certainly what it feels like. I spent the weekend raking leaves. nad just when I get the front yard clean and go to start the backyard, the wind picks up and blows all the leaves from the neighbor's yard all over my freshly cleaned lawn. I went back and redid it, and it looked good for a day or so, but now with a little rain that we had today, it is back to a mess. this is the part of the autumn that I hate!

Babysitting

Today Kris is working and Alison is going on a field trip with her Brownie troop to the Waukesha Museum. The head leader for Ali's troop has a 4 year old and instead of taking her along, she is giving Sarah her first babysitting job. She got here at about 8:45 this morning and She is going to be taking care of Marina all day until 3:00 when they get back. I'm only going to be standing by to help if absolutely needed. Sarah is going to keep her entertained and feed her lunch all by herself. This will let me get some work done outside since the tree nearest the house has dropped about 95% of its leave this week and I need to get them raked and clean out the gutters. Let's hope we don't run into any major hurdles today.

Dance Team

Sarah had her first performance for her dance team last Tuesday. I had to get home from work early so we could make it over to North by 5:00. They did their routine at halftime of the 7th grade girls basketball game. Boy, now I know what my parents felt like having to sit through my games... BORING!!!! The halftime score was 9 to 4. But the bigger point is when did they start playing the games at 4:30 in the afternoon on a school day? I seem to remember volleyball games being played on school days, but never basketball.

They girls all did a really good job for only having a few practices in. Their routine lasted for about a minute or a minute and a half. But all things condsidered it was pretty good.

A Little Behind

I have been a little bit behind with what is happening. Last week Sarah finished her Junior Indians cheer season. It's hard to believe that it has been two months since she started. After the game, we had to run a few errands, which included going to get our pumpkins for Halloween this year. We're still looking for some good face templates, but we should have it narrowed down by tomorrow.

Haunted House Time

Anyone who knows me knows this is my favorite time of the year. I love Halloween. Carving pumpkins, trick or treating, haunted houses, etc. It's great!

This year I have offered to take Sarah (and presumably a friend or two) to a haunted house. I haven't been to a haunted house for about twelve years. I remember the last one Kris and I went to about 1999. We went with one of Kris's friends and her husband to the Rainbow Springs Haunted Hotel. It was really fun. I also remember it was my birthday and I was 30. They were selling beer and I went to get one while we waited and I got carded.

Anyway, this year I asked Sarah if she wanted to go and she said yes. Ali said she wanted to go too, but I think she is probably still too young. Besides, I'm looking for the scariest one I can find around here. The Hubertus House of Horrors is open, but very popular. That means tickets might be scarce. But we'll find one and post some pictures of the spooky fun.

Wasted Weekend

I spent the weekend trying to fix Kris's computer. Man what a time suck that was. For a while now Kris had been complaining about how slow her computer was running. I kept running virus scans and malware scans and nothing ever came up. Finally, her computer locked up on her completely on Thursday, and I had had enough. I decided it was time to wipe out the hard drive and start from scratch. So Friday night I was up 'til 11:30 transferring files off of her hard drive and reinstalled Windows. I was getting tired and couldn't locate the CD to install my wireless card so I just went to bed.

Well Saturday I reinstalling things when I forgot the cardinal rule, check what you are installing and disconnect from the internet when you are doing it. I picked up a virus/malware from one of the CDs I had (damn torrents!). Well after trying for 45 minutes to remove it and having no luck, I just wiped everything out again. I wasn' that far into reinstalling so I didn't lose much, only about 3 hours of my time.

This time I did it right, located the CD with the virus and tossed it. So now I am transferring files back. She still has a few files on Sarah's computer in the basement, but the majority of everything is back on her computer and running good (so far). I may have a few settings to correct yet, but I think I'm in good shape, and it only took the better part of a day! It's a good thing the Packers had a bye, although I should have been out cutting down plants and rakign leaves instead of sitting in front of the computer!

Gonna Be A Long Night

Kris called me today at work and said her computer started acting up. She was working on it reading some emails when it just started slugging along. She rebooted and ever since it just locks up. Obviously she picked up a virus or something someplace. The problem is that now I have to get it figured out. I ran the malware and anti-virus programs, and nothing. So I'm not sure what to do next, but I know I want to get it figured out before I go to bed. It's going to be a long night!

Finally

I know it has been almost three weeks since I posted anything but things have been hectic. Work laid off (3) office people. However, we still need to do the same amount of work, so my duties and responsibilities have been expanded. As a result I am hopping from the moment I get to work until the moment I leave. That's good I suppose, since I stay busy. But it also keeps me at work later. Once I get home and eat, help Sarah with her homework and read with Ali, it's in the neighborhood of 8:30 or 9:00 and I just want to go to bed.

Sarah is learning the harsh reality of middle school. Homework. I don't think she has had a day yet where she didn't have at least some homework. Most days she is bringing home more than one subject. So juggling that with Cheerleading, Student Council, Builder's Club, and now Dance Team (aka Pon-Pom Squad) she is exhausted.

Well that's about all I can take for tonight. I'm off to bed. Maybe I'll get around to more tomorrow.