From Slough To Ka-Pow In Under Two Hou....rs

The ripple effects of an accidental [pun] appointment with the dentist and the intention of killing three birds with one stone found us late on NYE way up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, which is every bit as wonderful as the Americanized late hit television series The Office depicts it, as in, not very wonderful. But as we do, we make the best of it, and managed to have an entertaining dinner at the only joint open at 9pm, one Ruby of Tuesday (still the only entity giving any purpose to that specific day of the week), with the company on Susie who downed her fair share of classic margaritas amongst a multitude of randomly shaped/colored pills from a gold brass box she keeps hidden somewhere on her person for just such an occasion, what we can only hold responsible for us now being able to add such visually magical terms as "the shrimp dance" and ... well, let's move on from it.

Laura got her steak so all was right with the world and Yuula enjoyed the challenge in capturing a photo of diners as they stuff their faces one last time for the year.

I felt a bit like I was watching it all happen, as I went for the 8oz of malbec and overheard the vast array of resolutions being made and subsequently broken before they even saw the light of day.

Then the baby boy dropped before the ball in Times Square.

We brought Susie back to her place, recovered from a day of highs and lows, and began the winding roads to our place just before 11pm. By the time we got to our home and got our shoes off, ready for bed, throwing in the towel on 2013, we (Yuula) got a 3rd wind and decided we'd take up our young new neighbors on their earlier invite to their place for a little Auld Langing. When we walked in the door it was 11:44. At 11:45 I was halfway thru a pint of Yuengling. At 11:46 I had a second, as we caught up with some of our other neighbors we'd met once before, but never scraped any surfaces. They were silly, and well ahead of us on the inebriation, considering the four of us were drinking for one. We giggled, one girl admitted to just vomiting moments before. This was a party. We found shelter from the beer pong in the warmth of the front room (I'm not sure this houses rooms have designations yet), as a mad rush to arm the parties occupants with things that make pops and smoke, including the three year old, and as the countdown hit 00:05 someone threw a blanket over me and ran away. I was thinking how strange this all seemed when we started hearing loud blasts coming from just outside, so....

Happy New Years. We were home and in bed by 12:06am.

Turkish Cake From The Oz

I'm actually dropping everything right now to do a little write-up, a catch-up, because while probably nothing of any significance outside our lumber riddled abode has occurred, we here feel the progress has been made and have the strange desire to catalogue the whole dreadful experience. So...

I have been working quite a bit. I think I need a new chair because the padding on this one has worn down to almost nothing. I am metal on flesh. But we've been busy, and I can't complain. I feel like responsibilities are being awarded unto me, or rewarded maybe. Who knows. Big job that took us almost a year is finally {almost} behind us and we're moving right along. 

Other than that, in pretty much eery waking moment not spent boothing or feeding the child has been on this reconstruction, which honestly, I don't have too many complaints over. I mean, there have been the mini-battles of me versus the tape measure or me versus the screwdriver or me versus the level, but for the most part, things are actually coming together. The last I think you saw was a bunch of lumber in the shape of a closet. Now that lumber is hidden. Mostly. From the inside at least. But sheetrocking may be an aspect of this whole mess that I can possibly handle. I mean, don't get me wrong, I thank Buddha for the invention of spackle and 2" tape, but I think it's a masterpiece.

At some point we must've gone out because here's a photo taken Wednesday of Yuula eating something we clearly did not make at somewhere that is clearly not our dining room. That's right, we had to make a material run to the HD for some wood and so on. And we stopped in the Tile City to try and get a quote and instead got some Turkish cake from the owner Oz.

They definitely got our business now.

I guess the latest is that we finally have a "normal" sized opening from our bedroom to the hallway. It was only about 16 inches for a while there and things were getting ugly. But we're taking the rest of the weekend (which is really only Sunday) off and enjoying a good ol' visit from Eric and his Turkish cake.

Dresses Down, Flowers Found

Another day off where it's just gonna rain all day. On good advice we came to take care of a few indoor errands that needed to be run on the weekend, but why not beat the crowds and save a Saturday. Indeed. Main goal: Girls need dresses. This is an intense and potentially drawn out situation. We better get going. Of course by the time we arrived at our only decent shopping mall everyone was hungry for lunch.

I no longer will eat anything but the tilapia trio.

Yuula found other uses for the menu.

Distractions continued when Laura spotted the Verizon store and remembered how much she wants/needs/covets a new phone. I kept Yuula distracted with my accessories.

Onto baby shops where finding a dress proved to be far more daunting than expected, but the girls were up for the challenge.

After relative success and failure in the Lehigh Valley we headed back up north to see above some flowerage. A quick rest stop at Unclaimed Freight to try out some couches gave us pause, but the rookie at DD gave us two coffees sans sugar so that got our goats. A switch to the sleepytime playlist gave Yuula a quick nap while coasted up to the Pocono Commons.

Then it was on.

She's a good helper.

Came home with a good mix of lovely petals and pearls. Plus Yuula got her dress(es) and in the 11th hour Laura found her outfit(s). But don't worry about me. I bought a new pair of shades.

I call them shades.

Then we danced.