Update

Well, it has been a while since my last post. Things got away from us around here and blogging has had to take a back seat for a while. Commence the blogging...

I noticed that my last post was 12/23/2009. That was three days before our oven caught fire and our house was filled with dry-chem from my attempts to extinguish the flame. To make a long, boring story less long and boring, the element in the bottom of the oven arced and was burning like a fuse. I emptied a 5-pound extinguisher on it to no avail, followed by a partial 10-pounder. The white flame would dim a little when it got hit with the dry-chem, but then kick right back in at full speed a moment later. In case this ever happens to you, don't try an extinguisher on it. Pull your stove out from the wall and unplug it - because that killed the charge to the element and the flame went out. Funny thing about shooting a fire extinguisher into a small enclosed area...it comes right back out at you. So, into my face and the air came the majority of the dust, and once in the air into the air exchanger and HVAC ductwork of my house. Now we had dry-chem EVERYwhere!

(This is the point where I cuss long and loud.)

Again, to make the long boring story only slightly less long and boring, the insurance company was great and covered most everything. The downside was that my daughter and her husband and two boys were here with us for the holiday and we had a destroyed home and nothing on which to cook. To top it off, my daughter is pukey due to her pregnancy.

So - to save time and effort, a rundown:

1. Oven fire December 26th
2. Amber and Nick are expecting a boy (more about that later) whome they intend to name Taber Gregory
3. Replaced carpet in upstairs with wood laminate using money from insurance company
4. Replaced stove with insurance money
5. Replaced dishwasher due to unfortunate "wrecking crew" accident with old dishwasher
6. Spent an entire day clicking "refresh" but finally got the MN appliance rebate
7. Cut tip of my left-hand index finger with the table saw immediately after thinking "I should not reach so close to that moving blade"
8. Still employed and loving it at Marco in the Managed IT group
9. Marco is financially doing well and has weathered the storm nicely
10. Building guitar effects pedals in my spare time
11. Jeremiah's hockey season is over
12. Grace's first season of figure skating is over
13. Grace is continuing with the Stroia Ballet Company through the summer
14. Grace taking piano lessons, Jeremiah self-studying her lessons to play piano also
15. Jeremiah is taking violin lessons, Grace self-studying as well
16. Adrian is awarded "Tech of the Year" at Royal Tire where he is doing OTR tires and doing well
17. Sandra is getting heavily involved in HEY (ask me about it if you don't already know)
18. Sandra is, as always, awesome and my favorite part of every day
19. Jadyn insists on doing all things by herself
20. We're still alive and well, thanks to God for keeping us safe and sound through several trials
21. My Dodge needs a water pump, which means the whole front end needs to be removed
22. Decided to start my summer bike commuting to work a couple months early and not charge any car repairs
23. Playing in a little group with guys from Marco, which we are calling "Green Light Night"
24. Glad to be alive

So anyhow, that's everything I can think of in 10 minutes or less. I'm off to work on composing a drum track for a song Adrian is writing. We'll post to my MySpace music site when complete if Adrian deems it satisfactorily recorded.

Can't wait to hear from you all. I'm hoping to post more in the coming months, as long as I can keep my fingers out of saws...