I'm down to only 1/2 a door.

I've had a little side project here at home going for a while now. All the upstairs doors are going to get stripped down and repainted.

Well, I am down to only one half of one door needing to be stripped down so I can start the sand/prime/paint process. I don't think that will be a very long process at all once I get started.

The paint, it's old. Some of it came up nicely, other parts of it we needed to go to chemical measure to fix and remove.

Overall, not bad for the weekend.

...baby steps.

This weekend was a good one. It's the first time my lady has stayed at the house for the weekend... while the kids were home. It's a big step. One she didn't know if she was ready for. But, if we are going to move forward with our lives together, she can't just go stay somewhere else every other weekend.

It went quite well. My kids get a kick out of her. They respect what she has to say and don't pull the "You're not my mom" crap I have seen other kids pull on adults. My kids respect authority. They also know that they are at my house and that I won't stand for it.

So, this weekend had a lot of things that were different about it and will continue. My kids kind of got the law laid down about the house and how we need to keep it clean. They were shown the chores that they need to do on the weekends they are home and what they can "earn" for doing these chores.

It totally worked.

Right away Saturday morning, they started cleaning without being told. I was floored. Friday night we had told them they should leave a room "better than when they entered it" and I heard my daughter tell my son "no, you have to fold the blankets up before you leave the room!"

The one thing that was great was that I kept the video games to a minimum. They really should be a reward and not the norm when they are here. I get so little time with them. So, I confiscated the GameBoy that they each have and put them away. No "video" games for the weekend. Games were played though. We had a super long game of Sorry! that was quite fun to play. It took forever, but it got all of us talking and playing at the table instead of in front of the TV.

This needs to happen more often. It really sucks that more families don't do this. Eat at the table. Clean together. Reward for good. Play games as a family.

It was a fun weekend.

...I am actually feeling like I am in control of things right now.

The last few weeks have been crazy for me. School, work, band, and home have all been pulling at me for my attention as of late. It's been a struggle at times. School has been the hardest of all of this. I did not really know how to handle this semester. But after today when we had our little get together about who did how much work in the class it was decided that I did quite a bit of work and that some one else did not. For this, I get my final grade for the assignments shifted up one full letter, while his goes down.

I busted my ass to cover for the lack of having some one there. At least the rest of the group agreed with it. I had the one participant a bit lower, but kept myself even with everyone else. I guess I was just playing nicely and not trying to rock the boat for the most part.

Overall, I think I decided to take over in things in my daily life. I can't just sit around and wait for it to happen. I have to really get after it from now on.

...I got to sleep in my own bed.

I stayed at a hotel down in Chicago this weekend, I'm not going to say which one. But the bed that was there really beat me up. It was way too soft, no support for my body and when I woke up it felt like someone stepped on my head or repeatedly kicked me in the upper back all night.

I go to sleep in my bed last night though, that has really worked out a lot of the pain that I had from that.

So, with that being said, Chicago was a blast this past weekend. The lady and I went down just to get away for the weekend. We had a deal that we bought online a while ago and we needed to use it. This was the ONLY weekend we could. So, we went down there, got settled in at the hotel and just bummed around for a while. Then we wanted to eat. Eventually we ended up at Chicago Diner. As always, awesome food! The Karma Burger is fantastic. Love that place. The chili almost killed me though. Super spicy, couldn't finish the damn thing.

When we got back, we just kicked back and watched Airplane 2 through the wonders of using my phone as a wifi hotspot and connecting my computer to the hotel's TV. I'm way happy it worked. I didn't think it was going to.

The next morning, we woke up late, had to rush out the door and get our stuff to the car so we could head down Michigan Ave. and do some window shopping. I actually ended up getting a couple shirts for work, and the lady, well.... she didn't buy anything. She really wanted to though.

Side note, we were looking for a place to eat, and started going down Rush St. We're walking by this Italian place across from Giordano's and she goes "heh, Rod Stewart"... I stopped, looked at her and said "No, honey, that IS Rod Stewart." Sure as shit, there he was with his woman and what could only be their baby and some other younger girl. It was kinda funny.

After that, we went to the Sushi bar just past there called "Friends Sushi". It's a really nice place. Very clean looking, custom wood chop sticks. Very nice decor. I really like that place. They make their sushi differently than I am used to (they GRILL they asparagus for the asparagus rolls!) but it was all very well done. The presentation was nice and the staff was quite kind.

After shopping a little bit more, we started to make our way back to the car. It was at this time I was suckered in to a shoe shine. It just all happened so fast. The guy was lucky that I had cash on me. I didn't want to be that guy who gets pulled in to something like that and then not be able to pay. But, my shoes look better now than they did when I bought them.

Once we got back we cooked a simple dinner, I did some homework, and we started our venture back in to the Matrix.

But, the highlight was that I got to sleep in my bed last night and wake up in it with my lady again.

...things are looking up.

A few months ago, I couldn't say that. I had all sorts of things that would get me down on a daily basis. Work, not seeing the kids, not having time for anything fun, my house, bills. All of that was a huge stress pile of blah.

Home of the World Champion Green Bay Packers.

Now things are looking a lot better. April is quite a nice month for me right now as it stands. Homework and school aside, I know it will be good.

Tonight will be my 4th hockey game of the year, the third one with the lady. I really like that she can go to sporting events with me and enjoy them. We've been to three Brewer games, a Packer game in the luxury box, and three Admirals games just this year. It is a perk working where I work and getting free tickets to these things!

Work seems to be heading in the right direction now as well. The plan is slowly coming in to place. One more week and the whole building will be calling one spot for help. Just the way we want it.

This weekend is a trip to the big city, and what do we plan on doing? Whatever we want. Most of it will be spent in the hotel because it's a very nice one. We're going to just kick back, relax, watch movies, do our homework, and not think about life at home.

...I got put in my place.

Now, while it might seem this is a negative, this is actually a positive. I haven't really kept up on my end of things like I should. I need to take pride in things I own, even if it won't be for much longer. I have to focus, stop making time for stupid shit like Call of Duty, and just get it done. I like to relax. Who doesn't. But I have so much to do that once I really CAN relax, it will be that much more enjoyable.

Thank you to the one who called me out today (you know who you are). I love you for it.

...I took care of a huge debt.

I had to pay off a huge debt to the "taxman" today. It's been out there for a while, I wasn't able to catch up for almost three years. Today, I caught up. Big time. It's done. I don't have to worry about this anymore. I can't even begin to explain what this feels like. I sat at home quite often thinking that I would get a knock on the door from either my bank or the county telling me to get out.

No more. All done.

Now it's time to get the house up to speed, on the market, and sold.

(And maybe listen to Taxman by the Beatles a few times...)