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This afternoon will be the Fun Finds Friday, but I figured I’d write something to catch you up with how the week went. Here’s what I did every day this past week: went to work, came home, made dinner, read, went to bed. Here’s what Greg did: went to work, went fishing, came home, ate dinner, went to bed. A few days the went fishing and came home were switched. But that’s about it. It’s been kind of a crummy week, weather-wise, which makes me sad. I want to be outside reading in my hammock. I haven’t even bothered to turn my computer on at home for most of the week. So if you’ve sent me an email and haven’t heard back yet, I’ll try to follow up this weekend. It’s hard because I spend 8 hours a day at a computer at work, so when I get home, the last thing I want to do is be on the computer.

This weekend we’re going to look at a bunch of houses. I’m excited, but Greg (aka Mr. Negativity) is trying to bring me down. We haven’t even looked at them but already he doesn’t like any of them. Pretty much Greg wants to live in the middle of a wooded 40 acres with a river. I wouldn’t mind that either, but he just needs to realize that that isn’t going to happen at this point. Because if we bought 40 acres with a river, we’d be living in a tent on it for the next 10 years until we could build a house. Anyway, I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’ve been thinking a lot about summer now that it’s May. Here’s what’s on the schedule so far:

1. The weekend after Memorial Day, we’re heading out to visit Kami and Ryan in Minnesota. I can’t wait. Theresa’s coming out, too, and we’re going to have so much fun.
2. We have my parents’ Nahma neighbor’s daughter’s wedding in July (does that make sense?) on the beach like Amie’s was last summer. Apparently I was misinformed, and the wedding is actually the same weekend as my class reunion. I’m so disappointed that we won’t get to go!
3. My 10-year high school reunion is in August. I can’t believe it’s been that long already.
4. Chris and Theresa’s wedding is in September. It’s so weird to think that she and I will be related. But that wedding will be a blast, too, I’m sure.

That’s it so far. I’m sure more will crop up, because summers are always busy. Well, I didn’t factor in the buying-a-house-and-moving thing in there, either. That will make things crazy. I’m looking forward to it so, so much.

And lastly, today is my dad’s birthday. Happy birthday, Dad!

Today’s secret word is snow. You all know what to do when anyone says the secret word, right? Scream! Let’s try it. We’re forecasted to get up to 8″ of snow tonight. Aaaahhh! Very good, boys and girls!

I wish it was a joke. What’s up with this? Why isn’t it spring? It was supposed to be spring two weeks ago. *Sigh.* Anyway, why gripe about it, right? It’s not like me complaining is going to make it spring.

According to some “ice fishing expert” Greg talked to, the ice is supposed to be safe for fishing for another month. Yeah, right, is what I say. These are the same “experts” who tell him all of the different tricks to catch fish, and has that worked at all for you, Greg? So I wouldn’t be putting too much faith in them, if I were you.

I don’t know if you’ve been checking my photoblog at all lately, but you can see that we bought more birdfeeders. We’ll see how long these ones last before the squirrels rip them apart. Speaking of squirrels, the red squirrels (of which there seems to be a gang near here) are living in the roof of our front porch. There’s a small hole in the side of it and they get in there and then fight. The first time I heard it, it freaked me out. They’re loud and noisy and run around all over the place in there. We called our landlord, but he hasn’t gotten back to us yet. I would think he’d want to block that off somehow, but whatever.

We went last Thursday to look at two houses. Hilarious. The first one, which we knew was an old farmhouse, was awful. It looked sad from the road, but up close was a mess. It looked like the setting for a horror movie, no joke. One of the closets upstairs had a huge, huge collection of old National Geographic magazines from the ’60s and ’70s. Depending on their condition, you could probably sell those on eBay. There were also old wall calendars from 1957. Basically, you would need to gut the entire house and redo it all, which is way more of an expense than we want.

The second one wasn’t bad, but the ceilings in the upstairs were only about 6 feet high. Greg had to duck his head to go through the doorway, and one of the bedrooms had a ceiling fan which, if it were running, would probably smack even me in the forehead. So that’s a no, but we’re still looking. It was fun, though. Hopefully we see some better prospects coming up.

And hopefully this snow (aaahhh!) is the last of the year. I can wish, anyway.

So it’s now officially spring, but you wouldn’t know it to look around. It snowed all afternoon, big, fluffy flakes that hopefully won’t stick around long. Our driveway is a slippery, icy mess. I can’t wait for it all to melt away.

We’ve been working with a realtor, getting listings and preparing to start looking at houses. This is totally nerve wracking. I’m anxious about it but I have to be the strong one because Greg is a total worrywart who would make himself sick if I didn’t reason with him and calm him down. Don’t tell him I said that, ok?

So, are you watching American Idol? Who do you like? Greg likes Brooke White, and I’m not sure who I like best. I don’t really like David Archuletta, though he does have a good voice, for some reason he drives me crazy. Who really drives me crazy, though, is Kristy Lee Cook. Do you think she’ll ever get kicked off? And what will she sing next week? We Are The World? God Bless America? Enough already! And are all of the results shows going to be an hour long, you think? I hate this new, call-in part of the results show. What’s the point of that? Stupid filler. I much preferred the half-hour versions. Hopefully they go back to that at some point.

Have you watched New Amsterdam at all? It’s on Mondays on FOX, and it’s about this guy who’s immortal because of some Indian curse until he finds “the one.” It’s pretty good. Anyway, I was reading an article about it which mentioned how the show’s premise was very similar to a book, “Forever” by Pete Hamill, so I checked it out from the library. I just finished it about 15 minutes ago. Awesome. If you’re looking for a good book, you should check it out. It’s a little long (608 pages), but it’s great, especially if you like history. I highly recommend it.

Our Easter was good. We made the 15-pound ham that I got from work at Christmas, and between the two of us only ate a slice and a half, but Greg gave some to a woman he works with, so our leftovers aren’t what they could be. Thankfully. I’m not a huge fan of ham. Mashed potatoes are another matter. I love mashed potatoes. So you would think that I’d make them a lot, but I don’t. I didn’t even make a lot, so we only had a little bit left over.

Oh, I just saw a preview for Nim’s Island. What the heck is Jodie Foster doing in that movie? I mean, I don’t know what the movie’s all about, but it doesn’t seem like a movie she’d be in. Huh. Oh, and have you seen that lie detector show at all? I’ve only seen parts, since it’s on right before Idol, but why on earth would anyone go on that show? Seriously. Ruining your marriage and all of that for $500,000? No way.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings for now. Greg is standing here doing something with the camera, I have no idea what, but he keeps asking me to stay absolutely still while he takes a picture and then laughing at the results. Thanks a lot, Greg. What a goofball. Oh, I should totally post the picture he took of me last night. I was in bed already and he came in to fix the covers (he always steals the covers so we have to pull them all back to my side the next night) and he arranged my hair so I looked like Elvis and then took a picture. Really. Maybe I’ll add it at some point. I don’t know, though. I’m half asleep and crabby-looking, so I’m not sure if I really want to post that. We’ll see.

You know, it’s really sad when 40° feels like a frickin’ heat wave. That’s how warm it was yesterday, and it’s supposed to near 40° again today and tomorrow. On my lunch hour yesterday I drove to the lake to eat my lunch because it was warm enough if you stayed in the car. There were people all over, and a few people walking on the beach. Now, it wasn’t that warm. Not walking on the beach warm enough, but when you’re ready for spring after being cooped up for months, I guess you’ll take whatever you can get.

I know that Greg isn’t ready for the snow to melt. He went ice fishing last weekend and is planning to go again this weekend. Even people I work with who snowmobile as much as they can are ready for spring. Guess what that makes Greg? I won’t say it, but it rhymes with “treek.”

Some of my photoblog friends have been posting pictures of themselves swinging in their hammocks, and of green grass and tree blossoms. Every year about this time, I seriously wonder why I live here. Why? Why do I do this? I don’t like the cold and I’m always cold. Just ask Greg. When I get home from work I change into sweatpants and a sweatshirt and huddle on the couch with a blanket. Of course, the Heat Nazi keeps it freezing cold in our house all the time and yells at me if I turn it up even one degree. I don’t think I’m ever completely warm from October through May.

We’re going to start looking for houses to buy. That is so scary. It’s been nice having a landlord come over to fix whatever goes wrong, so it’ll be an eye-opener when we have to start paying for repairs ourselves. But it will be nice to be able to paint the walls a color other than white, and to hang pictures without worrying about having to fill in the holes. Oh, and fixing up the yard and having a pet… I can’t wait.

Buying a house and the crazy gas prices (they jumped 25¢ yesterday afternoon) means we probably won’t be going to Nahma every weekend this summer. I’m sure we’ll have enough to do around the house to keep us busy, though. And we’ll have time to train the dog we’ll be getting. Just kidding! Maybe.

Yesterday was a bowling outing for my company, and it was a heck of a deal. We got 2 1/2 hours of bowling for $5.60 a person. You can’t beat that! A guy that I work with brought local weather guy Karl Bohnak as one of his guests. He was pretty nerdy and very entertaining, especially as he and everyone else drank more and more.

Later on Saturday night we decided to go the NMU-Lake State hockey game, and while standing in line a man came up and asked if anyone needed two tickets. I said yes about half a second ahead of the guy behind us, so we got free tickets, and the seats were pretty good. NMU tied Lake State, so I’m not sure how that figures in to our streak. I’ll add some pictures of our day later on.

Today was pretty slow. We were going to go to the Eben ice caves, which we’d visited a couple of years ago, but it was already getting kind of late. It’s really cool, if you’ve never been there.

I’m not sure what’s on the agenda for this week. Not much exciting, that’s for sure. Tomorrow I head to a special dentist to try to pry my jaw open. I have TMJ and the one side of my jaw is like frozen up. I can’t open it more than an inch or so. I can’t fit a burger in there, and anything hard really hurts to eat. I tried to eat a whole apple the other day and it was so painful.

So do you like the new site? I really need to update my page. It’s way out of date, but it’s hard when I’m updating my photoblog every day (or trying to, at least). I need more time!

Karl Bohnak & Leah’s co-worker	Leah bowling
NMU’s giant 6’4″ goalie	Close to the action