This is What We Do When We're Bored on a Friday Night

When we bought this house nearly seven years ago, it had been an unloved rental house for the past twenty years. We have SLOWLY tackled the many repairs it needed, including: new roof, fence, air conditioner unit, kitchen tile floor (thought the rest of the kitchen is still shabby) some laminate flooring, french doors leading to the back yard, all new water pipes in the attic. But there has been one project that has been like a black cloud over our heads.... the back bathroom. It was still working, but incredibly dingy and ugly. The cost and work involved intimidated us, so we ignored it as long as we could. But today Eddie said he felt like tackling it, and I decided to let him. We sure as heck had better get a good income tax return this year.


Our buddy Todd volunteered to come help with the demo, and from the looks of him he likes doing it.

We uncovered a lot of termite damage once we ripped out the shower, but that was expected. The house was treated for termites when we bought it, and we still pay the yearly fee to monitor/attack them. Seeing what's underneath the shower tile makes me want to keep paying.

Our "plan," and I use that term very loosely... is to at least get new drywall up, new floor, and a new toilet this week. That should be a good stopping point before Eddie has to go back to work.

Stay tuned for updates.

Stay tuned.

Duran Duran at the Verizon in Houston.

Going to see your favorite band at thirty-seven is a bit of a different experience than when you are fifteen. Vacation days must be taken, babysitters found, and everything at home squared away first.

Before the concert I wondered how my tired feet and arthritic hip would hold up. Foam inserts were bought and stuffed into high-heeled boots. But, by the end of the first song, I was dancing on top of my folding seat, and stayed that way for most of Duran Duran's two-hour set.

The Houston show almost did not happen. Keyboardist Nick Rhodes had been stuck in Panama for a week with a severe ear infection, unable to fly. I watched the DD myspace page frantically, hoping for some news about Houston. Finally, the day before, vocalist Simon LeBon was on a live radio show. He mentioned that he was in LA but leaving tomorrow. The show host asked where he was going, and he said, "Houston."

Eddie and I stayed at a downtown hotel that was close to the theater, called The Magnolia. It was a beautiful place with a very upscale and spa-like feel to it. (Paid for by my credit card rewards I must add, in case any of you thought I'd won the Lottery or something.) Eddie took a nap, and I had a nice QUIET soak in the large bathtub. Room service hamburgers were also very unexpectedly good.

We headed downstairs to leave for the show, hoping to use the hotel's free car service. It was very busy in the valet area, so we ended up getting a cab for the five-block ride.

Our seats were the best I'd ever had at any concert; about mid-way back in the floor section, to the very left of the stage.

The opening band was Your Vegas, an unknown to me. They were incredibly, painfully loud, and I regretted forgetting to bring my ear plugs. Because again, when you are a thirtysomething concert-goer, you worry about silly things like noise exposure. I enjoyed Your Vegas in spite of the volume because their sound reminds me a lot of The Killers.

Duran Duran was on about thirty minutes later, to the screams of a frantic crowd. They began with The Valley, from 2007's Red Carpet Massacre. Everyone was right to their feet, but I discovered that there were some TALL women in front of me. I am not short, and I was wearing heels, but I still had to crane my neck and strain to see.

I looked behind me; there was a small empty section. Nobody at all to our left, so I grabbed Eddie's shoulder and hopped on top of my seat. It was a great view. I could see facial expressions and the muscles move in bassist John Taylor's face as he played. For once I could see Nick, even though he was behind his usual mountain of electronics. Every now and then an usher would peek around the left side of us or appear a few rows down from us, but they never said a word to me.

The next song was one that they are probably most well-known for, Hungry Like the Wolf. I like that song well enough, though it is not my absolute favorite.

Simon paused to say how they had almost not made it to Houston because of Nick, and then sidled up to Nick to ask what he wanted to play. Something in me knew it would be a new song, and it was, Nite Runner. The crowd was a little less hyped over the new material, but it was still well-recieved. All around people were dancing and hands were in the air for every song.

The set list for this show was nearly everything I had hoped, including a couple I have never heard live before.... the early 80's hit Is There Something I Should Know," "The Reflex," and their cover version of "White Lines." Standout songs were "Notorious," which is alway good live, and "Ordinary World."

Simon's voice and charisma were in top form. He was often chatty with the audience, and there was lots of singing along. I'd seen this guy a few rows back dancing throughout the show. By the time we were to the encore, he was steadily jumping up and down.

It is funny though, if you go to enough DD concerts you notice that they do certain things over and over. The audience was thrilled when Simon described their "nice little dressing room" backstage, and that he "wished we could all come back for a drink." Hmmm gee, he said the same exact thing at the show in Grand Prairie last December.

Guitarist Dom Brown, who has been touring with the band since Andy Taylor left, did a fine job with some harder-edged playing. Andy was at one time the most "hard rock"musician in the band, but I think now Dom's got him beat.

After nearly two hours the show ended Girls on Film and then Rio. As I have seen before, they did band introductions during Girls on Film. It would have been nice to hear the original version of that one, since it is one of my favorites, and one of their best live songs.

Eddie, who was mildly interested in the band, stole my DD CD's from my car the next day to put on his itunes. I think a new (closet) Duran Duran fan was born.

I have posted a link to a video of Girls on Film from youtube, taken by someone else that night. My pal Tressa was next to the person with the camera, and at about 1:48 when John pauses and points, he was pointing at her. I don't think she's recovered yet....

Maybe someday I'll be on that front row.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99bGKly0F0s

Twas The Night Before Christmas Eve

It's 11:56 p.m. and I should be in bed. I have spent the day cleaning the house for Eddie's family's Christmas Eve thing and entertained a bored and antsy-for-Christmas eight-year-old. I happened to look on the blog, and was flabbergasted that I have not posted anything since October. I mean, our wonderful wedding anniversary is such old news.

When I have my wits about me, I will write that post I've been meaning to about seeing Duran Duran in Houston, and whatever else that seems important. Maybe there will be some Christmas stuff thrown in there too.

A Dozen

Today is our 12 year wedding anniversary. A lot of what they say about marriage is true. The first year was very hard. We had no money and lived in a tiny OLD duplex apartment in the absolute worst part of town. Eddie and I had different expectations about how we would spend our time once married. He was either working one of his three jobs or drinking beer out on the front porch with our neighbor. While I respected his determination to work and pay off his sizable credit card debt, I frowned upon the constant hanging out with the troubled neighbor.

Fast forward to now, and things between us are much more settled. We occasionally disagree on money... he has a penchant for buying project cars, but never has the time of funds to complete them. But I have to say.... we really rarely ever disagree on anything else. His working shiftwork has been hard on us since we've had children. But for the past 6 months or so, he has been helping with the kids a lot more on his days off.

He has been so supportive of anything I do... whether it was working part-time again at the clinic, running my stepmother to medical appointments in Houston, and now my starting a degree and always studying or obsessing about studying. He also doesn't make fun of my Duran Duran obsession, and is even taking a night of vacation in December so he can go to a concert with me.

I am trying to be more supportive of what he enjoys. We still don't have the money for him to buy cars as he likes. But I try not to roll my eyes too much when he buys parts for his current toy, a 1966 VW Bug. I would like to see it in prime driving shape someday soon. I make fun of his geek model airplane club friends, but am actually pleased he has joined. I keep nagging him to go ahead and get his gun club membership, because he likes collecting guns and needs a place to actually shoot them.

These days we hang out with friends some, but also enjoy time alone. Last week we spent the night at the condo in Galveston and had fun. OK, so he spent half the time sleeping, but when he was conscious he had me howling with laughter.

It is good to be married these days. I enjoy our friendship, love, and partnership more and more each day. Happy Anniversary, Eddie!

Above is a pic of us drinking the controversial champagne wedding toast. Eddie's very churchgoing grandpa was not pleased we had alcohol... and was worried we would have a wreck on the drive to the Houston hotel.... on SIPS of champagne.

October

It has been so long since I've written anything that I decided it was time for another "What The Heck Has Amanda Been Doing?" post.

1. Evacuated with the kids for Hurricane Ike and spent a week at my brother's house.

2. Came home to no electricity for eleven days. Provided meals for my family from an ice chest and gas grill. It was kind of like camping, except that it was not fun at all after about two days.

3. Got back into school routines for kids and self, all while STILL with no electricity.

4. Took a day off from all of the powerless fun to go to Raquels' husband's 40th birthday party in Houston.... a paintball playing party. The bruises on my body actually made my female teammates gasp.

5. Came home that evening to lights and AIR conditioning. The next day I joyfully filled my refrigerator.

6. We spent the night in Galveston of all places in honor of our 12th wedding anniversary, which is tomorrow. The San Luis condo is up and running fine, as are a few of the nearby restaurants. But, the waterline and wrecked boats from Ike's storm surge comes inland about five miles on I-45.


7. I have taken two tests in A&P lecture, and have a biggie coming up again this week. I have also been spending extra time in the lab preparing for lab quizzes.

8. Last night I took the kids to the Fall Festival at the girl's school, and also worked the tatoo booth.

9. Today Dad, Charlene, and I took the kids to the pumpkin patch and out to eat at Fudrucker's.

10. Big stuff coming up includes Halloween and a birthday party for both kids at a pizza/jumping place. I could not figure out how to slash the 24-kid guest list. I hope it is not too chaotic and everyone has fun.

Sometimes It Gets a Little Crazy

I am still trying to figure out how to fit school in with my family life, and this week was not even a "full" week of school. We missed the first lab due to the Labor Day holiday.



Today, by 9:20 a.m. I had :



Gotten the kids fed, dressed and off to their respective schools. I had to walk the boy inside to meet his counselor, who is hoping to distract him and help his nervous stomach problems.



Talked twice to my friend whose dog died unexpectedly this morning.



Picked up a shopping list from Eddie's grandparents



Arrived just in time for class to start.



The rest of the day never slowed down. After class I ran by the pharmacy, grocery shopped for my family and the grandparents, with barely enough time left to eat a sandwhich and go get the girl from school.



An hour later it was the boy's dismissal time, then homework and snack time.





I also unwisely decided to try a new Rachel Ray 30 minute meal recipe. When will I learn that none of her recipes truly are easy and 30 minutes to make?

Today's lecture was waaaaayyyy over my head. I hope this weekend, when I am not so tired, I can look at a video of the lecture and make some sense of it.

Old

This post is for my brother, who says he is tired of looking at the horny cowboy pic from the previous post. :)


Today was the long-awaited first day of school for The Girl at her preschool, and for me at community college. As I gave little bit a kiss and handed her off to the teacher, I could not believe that she is going to be in her PreK 4 year old program from 9-2, almost as long as a Kindergarten child. I hope it is not too much and that she has fun this year. She seemed a little shy with her new teacher, but she'll be fine.

I pulled into the college parking lot and noted that when you arrive at 9:15, the only parking spots are in the middle of nowhere. I hopped out of the car, limped to class, and cursed the plantar fasciitishttp://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/plantar-fasciitis-topic-overview problem in my left foot.

I found a seat where I could see the screen at the front of the room and waited for the professor. I purposely chose the one I used do some work for in the Math and Science department when I had a work/study job back in 1990-91. Professor J was always fairly pleasant, and his class had a reputation for being hard. I decided it would be best to at least know what I was getting into as far as instructors go.

A quick glance around the room confirmed what I already felt would happen. I am the oldest person in class. There is a male student who is probably close to my age. If he shows up in lab I am going to snag him as my lab partner because, well, he doesn't look like a TEENAGER like everyone else!

Professor J handed out the syllabus and asked if anyone was nervous about taking the class. Several people raised their hands and he replied, "Good. A little nervousness is good because it makes your brain work better."

Large signs at the front of the room reminded us to turn off cell phones. I did not, as I am the only person my children's schools can call if something turns up. I furtively turned my phone to silent and looked for missed calls occasionally. Nothing came up.

One interesting thing about being a non-traditional (older) student is how technology plays a role in learning. Instead of marker board there is Powerpoint and a screen. We are encouraged to use some resources on the Internet, instead of the professor's former favorite reference book. If we miss a lecture he has a video of it on his website.

He began with discussing the syllabus, absentee policy, and how taking A&P is the first step to a career in health care. Then he dived into the semester's first lecture, about homeostasis. He first asked us to list the body's eleven different systems on our paper, just what we could come up with. I got stuck at eight. The young girl, ahem, woman next to me had zero. Professor J commented that he saw papers with none, and some with 8 or 10 systems listed. That gave me some hope that maybe my previous (and comparatively superficial) knowledge of human anatomy from LVN school will resurface.

I was absorbed in what Professor J was saying and taking notes for the rest of class. The tension from being cooped up with my kids for three months while my husband worked lots of overtime, managed his parents' business affairs, rehabbed our trashed rent house, and took care of his elderly grandparents faded. I was no longer worried about my son, who again had a stomach ache before school and was tardy because he was in the bathroom.

It is more clear than ever that I need to be something more than wife, mother, dog poop cleaner, and kid shuffler.

Class ended. I rose from my seat, and my left hip painfully popped, a reminder that there will probably be an MRI in my near future. I hobbled again out to my car with a smile on my face.