Home Improvements

My parents arrived yesterday. Berch and I were waiting for them at Oakland Airport, and surprisingly enough, their luggage appeared on the announced carousel in under and hour. We were back at the house by 1:30, my mom and I hit Berkeley Bowl while the Bean napped, and by 3:30 we were all fed, awake, and ready to do something fun.

Of course, "fun" is a relative term. My dad nearly took out a piece of his skull with this ridiculous cabinet the previous owners installed on a wall that is really a thruway. I casually mentioned that we were planning to remove the cabinet. Within 15 minutes we were having "fun," dad style - we were recharging the drill battery, and he was hammering a screwdriver around the paint encrusted screws. 3 hours an 2 trips to Home Depot later (all home projects at the Lake household involve no less than 2 trips to Home Depot), that behemouth of a cabinet is in the garage and the wall has been patched.

So as I type this, my father is impatiently waiting for Berch to wake up from his morning nap, because there is the other cabinet on that wall, calling out to him, waiting to be removed....

This is what a visit from Dad entails - having a list of home improvements ready for him. Tomorrow I believe it's a section of wall that needs to be patched. I haven't come up with a Sunday project, but if anyone has any suggestions, I am all ears.

Berch finally feels better today, though his cute factor didn't suffer from the illness. Case in point, here is this movie of him crying because his throat was bothering him. Yes, yes, evil mommy, filming his tears instead of comforting him. Good stuff. To balance that, I leave you with a few pictures of him sleeping last night.

Back in the saddle

It is freezing in our basement. For the last hour I've been sitting here posting items for sale on ebay - for the most part outfits and tchotchkies that were given to Berch in that first flurry of his arrival that we never got around to wearing. And a fair amount of clothing that I truly hated. So I have finally learned how to sell items on ebay - Guy just asked me through IM if I wanted to be a Power Seller. Um, hell yeah! I must say, now that I understand how easy it is to sell your crap on eBay, I find myself eyeing items in my house that I have been "holding on to," though for what I'm not entirely certain. "I wonder how much I can get for that dusty phone with no cord that's been sitting in a corner of the basement since we moved in?"

So the Bean has been quite the sicky. Some of you may have known that he was really sick a few weeks ago and needed to be hospitalized. Thankfully, that's overwith, but once again the poor guy is suffering from a fever and what I can only imagine is a sore throat. I guess that because he keeps making a very cute and pathetic mouth/tongue maneuver that is different from his cute and effective "I'm hungry and want to try what you're eating" mouth/tongue maneuver.

But other than being a little sick, he is doing great. Here he is still bouncing in his bouncy seat, despite being way too big for it:



I suppose I should get back to my power selling. I have a few more precious, precious outfits left to list. And I think I need to find a pair of gloves and a down jacket