Ending the madness.

I think we found a place to get married! After several months of visiting various potential venues and dealing with such issues as extremely expensive chair rentals, reception halls filled with cheesy knick-knacks, and venue-operators who seemed more interested in expressing their personal opinions versus actually listening to what we wanted for our own wedding....this is a big deal. The place is called "Deer Park Country Inn" and it's awesome. Absolutely perfect. You can check it out here: http://www.deerparkcountryinn.com/. It's beautiful, it's remote without being a million miles out of the way, it's quiet, the planner/chef is very nice and accomodating, they have their own cat, Marmalade, who follows you around the place like a dog, they can do things within our budget. If this place was a person, I would kiss him/her.

An open statement to my creepy future cousins-in-law: I love that you look at my blog! I don't think you are really creepy at all! You have cool lives and wonderful families and I enjoy looking at your blogs as well. I hear about you all the time and I hear nothing but wonderful things! My only regret is that I've yet had a chance to actually meet you. But, this gives me the advantage of seeming very mysterious and sketchy, when in fact I am really very average and boring. If there were anything creepy about you at all it's that many of you look uncannily exactly like my future mother-in-law. However, being that my future mother-in-law is extremely young, attractive, intelligent, engaging, radiant, and a wonderful cook, this makes the whole "doppelganger" thing decidely less creepy. I already feel like one of the family. I feel like an honorary Arkansian...kind of like Hillary.

Several excellent, positive things occurred this past week: we got to spend the weekend in Deep Creek at the Lakehouse and while it was a skeleton crew this year (Zach and Cass are in Europe, Becky, Peter, Hannah, and Rachel have moved to New England..you all are missed!!) I got to spend some really good time with my future brother-in-law, James. I had never had that much of an opportunity to hang out with James, especially one-on-one, as he's spent most of my and Megan's relationship dodging bullets and eating spam in Afghanistan. And although I did not wake up at 5:30 every morning to run 5 miles with him, I was delighted to get to know him better. He's a very calm, intelligent, insightful person with a great understanding of world politics and affairs (I have a bachelor's in International Studies, so these are topics of great interest to me) and I am excited that he's home safe with Tiffany and is starting what is essentially a "new" life as he will be departing the Army at some point and starting school. Maybe I can even talk him into being an International Studies major? Or sleeping in until 9:30 on weekends?

Kole has pretty much been in a good mood this week and has been in precious little trouble at school. This is a big deal and makes for an excellent week. Save for one episode where he was throwing rocks and accidentally nailed his teacher in the head, he's been pretty good. Kole also had fun at the Lake House with boat rides, bike-riding, and lots of time with Dandaddy, Nana, and the crew. That boy can't get enough of his Dandaddy and Nana and being around them always puts him in a good mood.

Tomorrow I get to toss myself into a throng of dancing pseudo-hippies at the Dave Matthews Band show in Pittsburgh. It's supposed to storm a lot tomorrow. I suppose the one good thing that might come out of it all is that the hippies will get their once-a-week bath. And Megan will be happy, unless she gets soaked. P.S.-I am not a hippie. I like guns and trucks.

My Mom has been in a great deal of pain lately. She is slated for back surgery in late July to get some discs fixed that have been giving her a great deal of physical hardship over the past several months. She's been on a lot of pain meds, pain patches, and has even received several epidural shots to keep her pain at bay until the surgery can take place. At any rate, I can hear the pain in her voice when I talk to her, see it in her face when I'm home, and I would appreciate it if you would throw a prayer or two her way. I am anxious for her to get this surgery under her belt and hopefully start feeling better and more mobile by the end of summer.

Kole has developed quite the rap with the ladies. I wish I could say that his approach ranges from the sort of subtle to the extremely smooth, but the range is more from the not-so-subtle (to the scantily-clad high school girls walking down the street in front of my house: "Hey, girls, wait for me...I want to kiss you!!!") to the downright awkward (to the babysitter: "Does your pee-pee stick out?"). Anyway, he's begun to show interest in girls who are not his mom. I don't remember being at all interested in girls when I was 4, but then again, I don't remember much at all from when I was 4. As long as he doesn't accost or attack anyone, I'm going to chalk it up to normal development. He does tickle this girl Emily in his class quite a bit, however. I am dreading the day, however, when I actually have to explain to him "how things work".

I started P90X, my new workout tapes, and I feel like someone beat me with a lead pipe and then ran over me with a truck. Tons of pull-ups, pushups, and an ab exercise routine that is like something straight from the inquisition. Everything hurts, but I feel good for having start it. Only 89 days to go to a slimmer, more ripped Zach Brown. I am hoping, however, that my 34-year old hips can hack it.

Alrighty. I hope all is well with everyone. More later...

You Are Here

It's been a long time since I've sat down and taken the time to update my blog. It's been a long 12 weeks. I'm not even sure where to begin.

Work: I've got no less than 9 or so projects going at one time. Maddening, but fulfilling. The one I am probably most proud of at the moment is our Transitional Housing for the Homeless and Permanent Housing for the Homeless Disabled Projects. We have named them "Next Step" which is my idea and sort of sounds like a brand of kitty litter. Nonetheless, feel free to check out some of the renderings of the project: http://www.lai-arc.com/ncwvcaa1.html. It'll be right smack in the middle of downtown Fairmont and the look is going to elicit the same sort of effect as one could expect from asparagus or bluegrass music. People are either going to love it or hate it. We'll start building this summer, and thus will begin some very long, stressful days for me. I can't wait until it's finished. I'll probably just stand there and weep like a 7 year old girl.

Movies: I've tried to get back up to speed on movies lately. I just saw "Iron Man" last night and I really liked it. Other notable movies I've seen lately are "Into the Wild" and the entire "Comanche Moon" (Lonesome Dove series) mini-series. I seriously just took a Friday and watched the whole thing. I love the Lonesome Dove series. As far as westerns are concerned, you can't beat them. In fact, I shall rank for you my favorite Westerns of all time in order of quality.

1. Lonesome Dove Series. (not really the middle ones, but the original Lonesome Dove movie with Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones, and Comanche Moon).

2. Silverado.

3. Unforgiven.

4. 3:10 to Yuma.

5. Tombstone.

If it weren't for pesky issues like laws and the continual progression of a technological society, I would have been a fairly quirky gunslinger.

Music: Both Megan's and my Mp3 players blew up quite a while ago and not having music on the go has been like some sort of sensory deprivation. I honestly would neve have guessed how it would have affected me, but it's seriously been sort of depressing. We used to sing (all three of us) a lot in the truck, and Kole has lost the ability to listen to some of his favorites that I squirrelled away for him in my music library (Kole, like his almost-stepdad, is a man of extremes. He is just as pleased with Dora songs as he is with Led Zeppelin or Tool). Kole's a bit of a rocker, though, and his tastes tend to lean toward harder, more aggressive music.

By the way, I love this video:


Also, Megan has talked me into going to Dave Matthews. The deal was, she has to go see my favorite band, Clutch, with me this week in Morgantown and I'll go to Dave Matthews. I underestimated how busy I was going to be this week, though, and I don't even know if we'll make it to Clutch now. I've seen them about 6 times, though, and it's been quite awhile. They are incredible live performers.

I just got a new Blackberry for work. My reasoning for this was two-fold: I am getting killed on minutes with my personal cell phone due to work calls, and I thought it would be cool to be able to check my e-mail on the move without busting out my laptop every 10 minutes. So far, I really like it. It's pretty easy to use and helps me keep on top of things. I always thought I might not want to be THAT connected, but so far (for the 15 hours I've had it) I like it.

We just celebrated Megan's birthday. I got her a big, new grill and a bistro set of table and chairs for her patio. She loves to grill and I got tired of seeing her struggle with her broken down, dollar store charcoal grill. So, I thought it was time for a big ol' gas grill. She's yet to use it because I need to go get a propane tank and it's been raining like crazy for three days. Check the grill out at top, because I couldn't figure out how to get it down here.

I've been running around screaming "I've got the apnea!", because I do. I have felt tired all the time for years. It's better when I am exercising regularly, but it's sort of all always been there. I have snored for years, and thus I have never felt like I really get a good night's sleep. Well, despite the general distrust for the medical community that I inherited from my dad, I decided to finally do something about it and go to the sleep lab. They hook you up to about 15-20 different diodes all over your body and they watch you sleep. Not the most comfortable gig in the world, but apprently effective. I just got my results, and found out I have severe sleep apnea. I completely stop breathing about 33 times during the night, have labored breath about 155 times a night, and, on the average, my sleep is disturbed every 1.5 minutes. My jaunts into actual REM sleep are brief visits at best. So, I go back in about 2 weeks and sleep again with a CPAP. It's basically a mask that forces air into your nose and mouth and allows you to get enough oxygen during sleep. Everyone tells me you feel like a champ after you get one, so we'll see. Maybe I won't need as much coffee as I do now? :)

Alright, that's pretty much all I've got in way of an update right now.