Last week of June

Thursday, June 29, 2006
I decided I'd post a day early because I KNOW I won't have time tomorrow. Anyway, I finished up all the living room painting as I said last time. In this picture, you can tell that it's been painted but you can't tell that it has any color to it. But the walls are very light tan. Got the sheers for the windows, curtains and ceiling fans to come in the next months. but I'm VERY pleased and the room has LOTS of space now. It's awesome.


I spent most of this week feeling useless because all the painting was done and I couldn't make up my mind what I wanted to do next. So I just mostly cleaned and did regular house stuff. I finished a book I was reading then got 3 more and finished one of them too. Rusty and Tanner have become engrossed in a Star Wars video game, and of course Tyler is in constant participation in the internet social circle of his school. So I've had a lot of time for reading lol.
Caley and Jennifer were over here on Sunday so they all took pics for their myspace sites - I snagged a couple of them for this site too. Also, Tanner's baseball pictures came in.

This past Sunday, we got together with Keith, Clay, SteveT, and Ken and made plans to start getting together and playing. Rusty is itching for another musical project, but does not want to be quite so serious about it. So I guess we're gonna get together once a week just for the fun of it, at least at first. We're supposed to go back out there tonight to play again. Rusty had dentist appointment #3 this week and is STILL not finished. The way I figure it, he has at least 3 more visits over the next couple of weeks.

Tanner spent the night with Drew one night, then Connor the next. He has gradually made his way to staying up til 4 or 5 in the morning. Tyler, well he's just a plain vampire I guess - sleeps in the day, is awake all night. He did go back to 2 of the football workouts this week at 8 am. I don't much like them staying up late and sleeping all day, BUT - it's just so quiet all day, and I get so much done! But I'm gonna have to put an end to it I know.

I'm very excited about the coming weekend.......we're going to the lake and Rusty is actually going too. First time in 8 years! It's going to be a lot of fun hanging out with family and playing in the water.

Blast from the Past:

This is Tyler, Tanner, and Rusty's mom in the swimming pool at the trailor we used to live in. It was some time in the summer of 1998, right before we bought our house. This is one of my favorite pictures of Rusty's mom. And yes, she got in with all of her clothes on, spur of the moment lol.

Fathers Day week

This week has hardly felt like vacation. I tackled a much bigger project than I anticipated - painting my living room. I did the whole bathroom in just one day last week, so I had the impression that painting was just this easy quick thing. It has taken me 6 days, including today, to repair sheetrock, sand sheetrock, apply primer, pick out a dang color, paint the walls, and then paint the trim. Anyway. The living room looks much better already, and I will discuss further plans for it later on down.....
I picked up my son from the church late last friday night and this is what he looked like!

He said he fell asleep on the bus and the girls gave him a purple beard. So the church brought him back to me with a purple beard, an injured back, bronchitis, and extreme exhaustion - that tells me he had a terrific time. He also got saved while he was there which is terrific.
Sunday morning I took Tyler to church and Tanner and I also went. Things sure have changed since I was a young and going to church. This "creative" worship service thing, it's new to me. The church we're going to has 2 services every Sunday. They have the traditional service, which I figure uses the Baptist hymnal, a choir, and a piano player and/or organist. I still need to go check that service out. And they average about 125 in the congregation. Then the 2nd service is the "creative" service with a live band, numerous speakers (including the preacher), large screen displays for the words to the songs, and video presentations made by church members. This service averages about 525 in the congregation. I guess it's the new way to do stuff.

On Father's Day we just kinda hung out here. I don't even remember what we cooked to eat. But Mickey and Dale were here, and Donnie and Terri came by for about 30 minutes. Rusty and I each called our Dad's/stepdad's, and we just had a nice Sunday.

Rusty had another dentist visit for more work on the root canal, and STILL has to go back again next week. Seems like it's gonna take forever.

We still have not watched Star Wars episodes 5 and 6.

Tuesday night Heather and I hung out with Tyler and Caley and watched them do the "myspace" thing. Then Wednesday night Rusty and I made our own myspace sites so we can check up on what the kids do on there lol.

Anyway.


The Living Room Project

(If you find this kinda thing interesting at all. I tend to ramble about the home improvement thing lol)
The living room makes up nearly1/4 of our entire house and we NEVER use it. We never even go in there. We always sit in the den. The living room has been so cram packed full of furniture and "stuff" that you can hardly move in there. And we never allow the kids in there because we don't want them to mess up our "new" furniture. We bought the furniture 8 years ago and it's been sat on maybe 3 times. So I decided this week that we needed to reclaim that 1/4 of our house and make it usuable. I moved some things into other rooms, and got rid of some things that take up space. And now we have a usable room with space to walk in. I wish I had taken a before I moved all that furniture out, but all I have is the picture after I had moved it all out. Just imagine the room above, but with a china cabinet, a ficus tree, a brown high back chair, an extra end table, a 4.5 foot long cedar chest, 2 table lamps, and a tall floor lamp added into it. There honestly was not room to move around. Totally wasted large room. And here I am wanting new living room furniture, and the furniture we bought 8 years ago is still in such perfect shape that I can not convince my hubby that we need new! And he's right. We don't NEED new furniture. I just have the itch to buy some. So. I've opened up this large space for anyone and everyone to use. We're gonna get some use out of the furniture until we wear it out, then I'll get new. All I have to do is buy a small TV to put in there and I'm sure the job will get done. The things I intend to do in this room are:

1. paint the ceiling and walls
2. buy matching ceiling fan/light fixtures
3. find a new home for Rusty's guitar cases
4. find something nice to store my piano sheet music in
5. get some new curtains that are real nice
6. put in a small tv

I did the painting this week, as I said earlier. Painted the walls "suede", and bought the sheers for the windows (hope to get nice drapes to go over them later on). The ceiling fans will be installed as soon as we get home after the 4th, and the TV will hopefully come before the end of July.

Living room before paint: Living Room after paint. Can you tell it's kind of a light tan color?:

Tanner and his buddy gave up the Navy Seals outfits for the Star Wars digs this week:

BLAST FROM THE PAST: This is around 1978 or 1979. Me, Chris, and Booboo - riding the 2 seater all around Mamaw and Papaw's yard. Those were the days I tell ya......

June 3rd Week

Our week in a nutshell:
Tyler went on the Church Youth trip to Florida and doesn't get back until late this evening. He didn't even call me all week, not even once! So I can only assume that he had so much fun that he didn't have time to call me. I guess it's just part of that "growing up" thing. Danny was in town until Wednesday so we were lucky to get to visit with him a lot. He did a lot of relic hunting while he was here and found some cool stuff. Wish that Marilyn could have come! We got off track on the Star Wars movie-watching. So we still have not finished the last 2 movies. Tanner finished up Sports Camp and defeated a Star Wars video game - he was proud of course. We went to the little farmer's market down the highway and I made my first ever fried green tomatoes. I cleaned and cleaned on the house, and managed to hit the gym a good bit - although I did eat doughnuts one evening - lots of them. We watched the 2nd Underworld movie with Danny, then again with Clay. It's pretty good for a monster movie. Rusty had a tooth to break so he had to go to the dentist. Turns out he has to have a root canal and one tooth pulled in the back. He is famous for NEVER taking medicine EVER. But the night after that dental visit he was hurting bad enough that he decided he'd try the medicine the dentist gave him for the pain. And boy did I have a fun time watching him get loopy hehehe.
We finally returned to working on the bathroom and have made excellent progress. I got the walls and ceiling painted on Monday. Then Rusty installed the new light fixture and......(drumroll)...... our new bathroom mirror! Woohoo! Yippee! I think I'm more excited about that mirror than I am anything else. (When we bought the house, the mirrors in both bathrooms are so small and high up that I can only see myself from chin up - now I have a huge mirror that I can see in from waist up.) But now we just still have the little details left - trim work or chair rail on top of the beadboard, finishing sealing around the bath tub (we still aren't pleased with that yet), baseboards, light switch covers, and that's about it! It's been a long journey. For anyone interested in seeing the whole process from start to finish, I made an online slideshow of it (surprised?) However, it is probably about 100 pictures long so don't say I didn't warn ya. The link is http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/trgardner/slideshow?.dir=/b34b&.src=ph
Now to catch up on some photos:


Tanner and best buddy at
Sports Camp







Our good friend Danny :

My excellent paint job, my new bathroom light, and my incredibly awesome bathroom mirror!

I'm going to start trying to post an old picture now and then, just for the fun of it. Kind of a "blast from the past" photo opp. So, for the very first blast from the past, I thought I'd post an old picture of US. This is Spring of 1991 right before we got married, but after Rusty had cut his hair to get married.

Until next week........

2nd June week

We had a great week. A busy one too. Last Friday I drove home from the lake and left the kids there with mom for a couple of extra days. Got home, and Rusty and I had the whole weekend to ourselves. We did some shopping, eating out, movie watching, etc. On Sunday we went for our anniversary trip to the local fancy hotel and casino. We had reserved a hot tub suite for 2 nights! The room was fantastic - the largest and probably nicest hotel room I've ever stayed in I dare say. Had a perfect view of the river (but I left the camera at home darnit). Sunday evening Mom and Pat came back in town with the kids. Rusty was missing them so we went to visit with them for a short while before staying our first night in the hotel. Monday morning we got up really early so we could go pick up Tyler and take him to football practice at 9. We hung out with Tanner for a bit. Then that afternoon Tyler had a Dr. appt an hour away so we took him to that. After the Dr. visit we left them with Mom and Pat and returned to the hotel for our 2nd night's stay. We sat around, watched some free HBO. Then about 10:00 Rusty said..."You wanna go home?" I said......"Yeah". He said....."Me too!" hehehehe. So we didn't stay our 2nd night at the hotel - we checked out of the hotel early, went and got the kids and got home by midnight. I think it was that he missed the kids (he had not seen them in a week), and with all the recent traveling we really ALL just wanted to be at home. But we still had a great anniversary getaway. We were just homesick too I think.
Speaking of kids. We went to the GI specialist for Tyler's jaundice, who ended up being a guy we've known through Taekwondo for years. He said the most likely cause of the jaundice was the antibiotic he had been using for his skin. So, we took him off the medicine and scheduled an ultrasound of the liver so the Dr. can completely rule out gallstones or liver dysfunctions. And we go back in a month for a blood test again to make sure the jaundice has gone down. But he said he really believes it is from the medication. Woohoo!
Tanner started Bible School Monday night. They incorporate baseball and other sports into it, and he's had fun all week. We had somewhat of a drama this week with Tanner. We discovered a splinter in his foot Sunday and Rusty tried to get it out. Tanner has a LOW tolerance for pain and screamed the whole time. We never got it out. He was freaking out so badly that we finally just stopped. Monday the splinter looked bad. It was getting infected. But he still screamed if we even mentioned getting it out. He limped around the whole day. By Tuesday morning, it looked VERY bad. He had an infected white circle around the splinter the size of a dime. I was leaving to pick up Tyler from football when Rusty decided it was high time to get it out once and for all. I was glad that I would not be here to witness it. Tyler and I took the long way home from football, trying to give extra time for the ordeal to be over with. When I got home, Rusty was working on a guitar and Tanner was sword fighting in the yard. I asked if they got it out, Rusty said yes, it was no big deal. He said Tanner didn't even hardly cry or put up a fuss. And Tanner told me it was no big deal, it didn't even hurt. Hmmm. The way I figure it, Tanner behaved better because I was not there. Perhaps he just puts on the big dramatic show because of me? I wonder sometimes. But I bet that is the truth.
The guys were stuck on Star Wars this week, and they got it into their head that if they could just get me to watch ALL the Star Wars movies from 1-6 that I would certainly become the complete Star Wars fanatic that they are. So we began watching them Tuesday evening late, and watched one every night until Friday. So far we've seen 1-4, but I'm still not a Star Wars geek yet. Maybe after 2 more.
Friday I took Tanner and his buddy over to Keith and Angela's to swim for a bit. That evening we got a surprise call from Danny saying he was on his way into town from Florida. so we have been visiting with him all weekend. Unfortunately Marilyn had to work. Also, Brooke got into town Thursday, and Tanner has been at Mom's since yesterday hanging out with Brooke. They are 2 peas in a pod as always!
I'm a couple of days late posting this. But that about sums up our last 10 days or so! I was bad again and did not get any good pictures this week. But I will have some next week.

Summer is finally here!

I think I skipped a Friday with all the ruccous going on in the last week of school. I also took down the whole darn Gardner page thinking it wasn't worth my time. But I decided to go ahead and continue it because I enjoy doing it. So, to get caught up......

Had a big pool party end of the year/start of the summer blow out at Keith and Angela's new house. We had a good time. I always like watching the guys get together and reminisce and toast each other. It's a rare occasion to see them sentimental and it's always entertaining when it happens.


School ended (thank God) on May 25. We left the very next day going to Dad and Ina's for the luau celebration. We had a great time swimming and lazing around the pool and enjoyed dad's terrific grilling. It was nice spending time with everyone there. We talked about old times and new times and got lots of ideas for things we want to do to our back yard so that we can relax like that all the time hehehe. We came home that Sunday and I got a speeding ticket on the way back home :( I was doing 85 in a 70 in Tuscaloosa - gonna cost me about $131. We got home and grilled out on our own for Memorial Day. (Rusty made some killer grilled shrimp!) Mickey and John ended up coming by to talk about planning a deep sea fishing trip and we enjoyed visiting with them too. We're hoping to go deep sea fishing in late June or early July. The day after Memorial Day me and the kids took off to the lakehouse for some more sun and fun. I always like to "wash away the school year" in the lake as soon as I can get there hehehe. Had a great time there, got some shrimp from the Landings. Guess I'm having a shrimp thing these days. I got to read an entire book and started on another one. We missed Rusty and wished he could have come too. But I enjoyed getting to see my family I never see. Mom and Pat quit smoking the whole time that I was there and they darn well better keep it up after this week! Here's a great lake/jet ski pic:


Kid update: Tyler passed 8th grade thank goodness, but grades were nothing to brag about. But at least he did not have an F in anything. 2nd blood tests show he is still having the jaundice and we go to a specialist next week. We got him a cell phone which he immediately put to use and racked up over 1000 text messages in the first week. (We have them free first month, but he knows he's got to cut that out after that......we will see how that turns out.) Tanner made good grades and only missed the honor roll by one grade! He was one point away from a B in math. But he did get a perfect attendance award and an award for being in the top 10 Accelerated Readers in all of K-3rd grade. I was proud of him! He also lost a tooth last week. He also completed his very first video game all by himself - as in, he made it to the end and defeated the whole Polar Express game. He was surprised and proud of himself.

We are still at the lake as I make this post, but I am going home tomorrow. Kids are going to stay a few extra days. Rusty and I celebrate our 15th anniversary today, so this weekend we are going to take some time to ourselves and stay at one of the local casino hotels. We get to get away, but not blow a bunch of money on gas hehehe.
Next week will be my first week at home for the summer. I already can feel that summer is not going to last very long. But we're going to milk it for every second worth of freedom and fun that we can get!
Until next time.............