"OK, I can Like This House..."

...is what Tom said this morning, as a small deer nibbled its way through our back yard while he was making breakfast.

Meeting the neighbors...

If you've been keeping up, you know that Tom and I have been refinishing the wood floors in the bedrooms of our new house. This means that we cannot sleep in our bedroom, for several reasons. Among them--it was very dusty; the sealer and/or polyurethane was wet; it smelled really bad. First we tried sleeping on our air mattress in the basement. This proved to be very cold, as the cement floor conducted the cold right into the air mattress. So the next night we tried the kitchen. It made sense--small room, upper level, nearby electricity...and when we went to sleep, I opened the door leading to the basement to block the view of the kitchen from outside the kitchen door, which has six glass panels. Tom thought I was being silly, as we haven't seen much of anybody since our first day when I waved to the little boy next door and his mother as they waited outside for the school bus. I insisted and he left the door where it was.

We were awakened the next morning by knocking on our kitchen door! Our neighbor was locked out of her home and asked to borrow our phone. We were both a little sleep-goofy, with Tom coming to his senses first, putting on his pants and scooting me into the other room where I could get dressed quickly so I needn't be embarrassed in front of our new neighbor. The poor woman apologized repeatedly, saying 'what a terrible way to meet' and so forth. Anyway, her name is Kathy, they have lived here 19 years and she says it is a nice neighborhood. At least it was until we moved in....

Oh, and the floors are done, they look great and we are back in the bedroom where we belong!

Voter registration

So our daughter reminded us to verify our voter registration since we have just moved back to our home state. Tom and I both registered to vote using the Motor Voter service at the MVA--back before we moved to Belgium. That was 2001. Since then, Tom is 100% certain that he voted by absentee ballot in the Bush vs Gore election. Me, not so sure. Anyway, I called the Election Board and was told that I have no registration at all and Tom is listed in another county (where we lived a long time ago) AND his registration is inactive! He suggested that Al Gore's campaign had challenged his absentee ballot, thereby counting it as 'no vote' and causing his registration to become invalid. How wrong is that?

Anyway, I asked over the phone what identification we need to register. Driver's license is all. Tom's is expired because his remains active, even if it shows expired, as long as he is still Active Duty and not in his home state for over 30 days. So I asked what would work in place of that--his passport, maybe? That would work IF it has his new address on it. There are no addresses on passports...so the lady told me to bring a bill with his name and new address on it. Luckily, we have one. Then I realized MY license has the wrong address because we only just bought this house...so I took the papers from the settlement. We got to the Election Board--and were asked to write our license numbers on the application. That's it. Tom pointed out the issues with his, and was told 'that's not our concern. We just want to be sure the registration cards come to you at your current address.' Weird. Anyway, we are all registered, legal and everything. So we both get to vote is this historic election. So cool!

What we did on our 32nd Anniversary

Worked on refinishing hardwood floors--rented a sander; brought it home; Tom began sanding floors; I vacuumed floors; Tom sanded some more--some by hand.... I worked on cleaning the "Summer Kitchen" . I also scraped soap scum (or mineral build-up or something) from the bathroom tiles. I'm going to love this house when all the work gets done! ;)

What was that?

Rewind to about two weeks ago. Tom and I are driving on the local Army base, onour way to do some grocery shopping. I am watching the scenery, when I notice what looks like two small dogs in a culvert...wait a minute. "Those are foxes!" In broad daylight. Just sitting there, watching the world go by.

Fast forward to today. I arrive home after soending the morning with Lily while Jen was out. Tom says "I can't beat your two, but while you were out, a fox ran through the back yard."

Too cool.

Good gas mileage?

As we were moving the last of our things to our new home--packing my car and his truck with more stuff than they have ever carried for a distance of about 550 miles--I was thinking 'our gas mileage is going to be just awful with all this weight.' When we've made this trip in the past, the mileage on my car was generally about 34 mpg, and I didn't expect anything better on this trip. Surprise! 37.6 mpg! Now, if I could only figure out how THAT happened...