Rascal Takes One For The Team ...

Dave has been doing some fix-up-the-house jobs trying to get ready for the next phase of our move -- having inspectors, appraisers, and Realtors in to give us the bottom line.

He's been staining the railings on the staircase and today we had a little mishap that could have been a catastrophe had Rascal not been in just the right place at just the right time.

As Dave moved the tea table that had the staining brush on it, the brush went flying and landed handle first (thankfully) on the carpet. It then fell over -- right onto Rascal's head! It fell from there onto the carpet but most of the stain had landed on poor Rascal. We were able to get the stain out of the carpet but weren't quite so lucky with Rascal's head.

Thank goodness he's going to see Jessie next week!

Minwax Gunstock -- a great look!

Sweet Look Rascal!

The Christmas Bug Strikes Again ...

Late Christmas night, poor Dave was hit by what we had now dubbed "The Christmas Bug". It lasted for a couple days and it was wicked.

Poor Bree was hit as well ... but not nearly as bad. She mostly had body aches and chills. Lucky -- if you can call it that.

Needless to say the plans to get together as a family with Mom on Saturday flew out the window. I felt like I'd been spared since I was still feeling half-way decent. Meanwhile the Country Place Paines were definitely under the weather.

I went to work on Monday but wasn't feeling great. Just a queasy stomach here and there. Still I thought I'd just gotten off with a touch of the bug. Ha!

Later that night I got to experience the gift that everyone else in the family has already enjoyed ... and yuck. It was NOT fun.

Monday night and Tuesday are kind of a blur but I'm feeling better today (Wednesday.) Still -- I didn't go to work and I sensed they weren't too thrilled about that but it hasn't been until this evening that I've actually started to feel somewhat normal. I'll be going in tomorrow and praying that Shannon hasn't come down with this yucky bug ... and there I'll be working on New Year's Eve all alone!

We are hoping to get together with the Twin Oak Paines tomorrow evening to finally give William his gifts and then with any luck we'll head out to see Mo on Friday afternoon.

Now -- the new year is upon us and there is SO much to do! Is it even possible that we'll be ready to have appraisers and inspectors in here any time soon?

Christmas Day 2009!

Since Josh and Jess were still recovering (as were the Hortons) we picked up Mom and paid a short visit to the Twin Oak Paine's house. What fun!

Santa brought William a train table and it was a major hit! He spent the entire day playing with his trains. He did take a few minutes out here and there to open a few more presents, to show us how he can pucker up and give kisses, and to read his favorite new book (Bear Stays Up For Christmas) with GG (Great Grandma Paine.)

Some pics and a video of the day:

William loves his puzzles!

I can't resist a pictures of Cheeks!

So serious!

The Scowl!

Playing with the train table ...

William loves his new book - Bear Stays Up For Christmas

Reading with GG ...

William has learned to pucker up!

The Christmas Bug Hits ...

Low and behold, on or about December 21st the Christmas Bug hit the Twin Oak Paine's house. Poor William! Josh heard him cough and checked on him only to discover he had thrown up all over his crib. A quick clean up and they brought him into bed with them.

Big mistake.

Three sheet changes later William finally had it out of his system ... but our little guy was still so sick! And just before Christmas.

Next up was Josh and then Jessica. I got a call on Wednesday after getting home from work asking if we could take William for the night. We ran up and got him and had a great evening with him. We could tell he still wasn't 100% but he was so much fun.

Unfortunately I had to work Christmas Eve day but Dave and Bree were home so William had lots of fun playing with everyone. Since I didn't get to grocery shop as planned on Wednesday night, Dave and Bree went and brought William with them. In fact, they even stopped by the bank and said hello! A nice treat for me.

Josh picked him up that afternoon and our Christmas Eve plans continued. We went out to see my mom for a bit then picked up Mom (Glennys) to come back to our house for dinner and "It's A Wonderful Life". Josh and Jess had planned to spend the evening with the Horton's but that was cancelled because the Christmas Bug visited their house too. We had a nice evening and ... yay! ... we all slept in!

Stay tuned for Christmas Day!

Next Up ... Jim Brickman

A couple months ago I saw that Jim Brickman was coming to Rochester with his holiday tour. I thought this might be a really special treat for Dave and I to enjoy. We seldom put enough time aside to just sit back and take in the sights and sounds of Christmas and this seemed like a perfect opportunity.


I am so glad I bought the tickets when I did. We had great seats. And the show was fantastic.

Jim played a lot of holiday songs but also included a lot of old favorites. There were several songs from his new "Beautiful World" CD as well.

The show featured several other artists -- Tracy Silverman who played the electric violin (absolutely beautiful but one display of his Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, and Metallica abilities was plenty) as well as vocalist Anne Cochran. Mark Masri (what an incredible tenor) was also part of the show.

While Silverman's violin was beautiful and the vocals were great -- I wish there had been more of just "Jim" playing piano ... without accompliment by others. The songs he played on stage by himself were the best part of the show as far as I'm concerned. There really wasn't a need to devote so much of the concert showcasing the talents of his guests (Silverman in particular.)


All in all it was a wonderful evening. I thoroughly enjoyed the concert and will enjoy listening to his CDs all the more having seen him in person.

Life Has Been A Little Crazy ...

I'm trying to remember how long it's been since I've blogged about life in the Paine household. I guess it was probably around Thanksgiving. Well, a lot has happened since then!

With all that we have going on in trying to clean out the house and get ready to put it on the market, about the last thing we needed was a car accident or sickness.

We got both.

On December 12th, Dave had breakfast with the GOBS guys and then came home for a short reprieve before going to meet the guys from his fantasy golf group up at The Distillery. Fate had other plans.

He was at the Ridge Road West/390S exit ramp and was turning onto Ridge Road when a woman ran the stop light. She hit the car next to Dave broadside (the car in the inside lane) and then that car was pushed into Dave (who was in the center lane.)

While Dave made out the best of all (the others were injured and I'm guessing their cars were totaled) he still had over $3,000 in damages. Dealing with the insurance companies and collision shop took up the majority of his week and of course, we were without a car. No fun for anyone -- especially at Christmas time with so many things to do. As of this writing, the VUE is still in the shop, but maybe, just maybe it will be ready tomorrow. I'm not holding my breath.

Here's a couple pictures of our poor VUE:




She is currently at Brother's Collision Shop on Lake Ave. Did I mention they said possibly tomorrow? Yeah. Thought so.

So believe it or not, Dave drove the VUE home. I couldn't believe it. I was waiting for him to call me back (he called and said he'd been in an accident, was going to try to get out of the car, would call me back -- then didn't) and finally told Bree to stay by the phone while I drove up there to meet him.

Imagine my surprise to get a call from Bree saying he was home. Geez.

Anyway, we had originally planned to meet Josh and Jess at Toys R Us to pick up some gifts for William. Believe me, it's a blast to let him loose in a toy store and that's a "gift" to us! Since there was nothing we could do about the car (Dave called the insurance company and not much can happen on a weekend) we hopped in my car and kept the date. Afterwards we headed to Sticky Lips for BBQ. It was so much fun! The food was great and I think nothing could have salvaged Dave's rattled nerves quite as much as sitting across from William and watching him eat!

So ... that was December 12th. So much more has happened but I think I'll make it another post!