The Lewis Show

I successfully made a path to the trash can... And we're able to get away if the leaves do win this year.

Our house became a grave yard. The witch was in attendance. So was the spider. The Ghost owned the night. Everything looked great, inside and out! Janine did an amazing job. You can see the Flickr set here . I have 25 shots of the house up for your spooky viewing pleasure.

I posted this picture earlier on my Posterous  account. I wanted to share with with my blog too for posterity. So here's my day in review: I woke up as usual, ten minutes later than I had to be up, completely dragging arse. I felt kind of weird though. I felt dizzy. I figured maybe I slept wrong but I didn't have that tell tale sign that I slept wrong. Sometimes I'll wake up with my head at a 90 degree angle from my neck and wake up with a terrible crick in my neck, but I felt fine. So I went into work but now on top of the dizziness I felt completely nauseated. I figured if I ate maybe this will all go away, but it only felt worse because now I felt as though I had given my stomach ammunition and reason for ejection. I decided to call it a day after lunch. I go home to lay down. Not twenty minutes after I put my head down I hear a succession of loud popping sounds. I thought for some some idiot wanted my foot shoved in unmentionab...

Janine suggested I share and post about her own personal cake disaster. So this was her idea, and no attempt on my part to tease. The post will speak for itself. She's still the best ever and this disclaimer should keep me from getting glares, pokes, or even food throwing. She made an awesome cake yesterday. I'm just now reminded so after this post, I'm going to sneak a piece. She reminded me of the last cake she made a while back. The saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, but this picture is worth about eight large pieces of cake. She had basically just layered and iced the cake when I heard a frantic call for help from the kitchen. I sprang into action only to find the cake slowly starting to lean and fall apart. We both ended up holding portions of the cake trying to keep it all in one piece. One of us had to break away long enough to grab plates to catch this now crumbling dessert. As one can see, it ended up in a few large pieces and to this day I'm...

You've seen me post about the leaf monster It's gone now! Both of them!  Now what do I do with a ditch?

Fun sign we keep in the utility room Sun setting in Chamberlayne Farms Janine's handywork. I take no credit for this one! The leaves are FINALLY ready to go...

  The crazy peeping cardinal is back!   He's got reason to make noise though. Upright, walking cats.   First 4th of July at the house. Hope everyone has a safe and fun holiday.

Our magnolia tree, ironically named Shelby has started to bloom. And yellowy white it is! Plenty of green everywhere else. I'm not sure what kind of house plant this is, but she's all plant.

  There's something new spotted in the house. This is a device of torture and pain! It's not really that bad, it's our new treadmill. We got a pretty fair deal on it and I look forward to putting in 30 minutes a day getting my daily dose of exercise. Walking is great though, it means I can tune out and listen to my iPod or put something on Hulu. If you don't find me in the house this summer, you will see me outside for sure, hopefully using this new riding mower. Sears delivered it with a dead battery, so after they replace it for me tomorrow, I'll be riding. The rain hasn't helped either. Mother Nature knows when I'm trying to do something outside.   I could just go through my half an acre of yard with this weed eater, but that just sounds too much like work! I think I'd rather sit around and play on the new DSi I got for Janine. At least I thought I was tonight, I have a feeling someone has it at work and is enjoying it during her lunch break tonight....

  As promised a picture of the new utility room. Janine did the work, I took the picture. I told you she did a great job. Doesn't that just make you want to do laundry? I have two loads to run if anyone's interested. I'll even throw in the vase!     Things are a lot greener now that spring's here. The pollen this year is insane though! Everythings coated in a fine layer of yellow dust.   Very cool to see what is flowering so far. There's a lot of pinks and reds, which is fine. I decided to go with a Halloween theme for the rest of the flowers. Everything else will be purple and orange. I call that "Neen Approved". The best part of the warmer weather isn't the flowers or the lawn mowing, or the bugs, or the pollen. It's being able to go outside and throw slabs of meat on a fire and eat to exhaustion! And listen to Heavy Metal! (Testament - Souls of Black)

Things were quiet here at The Lewis Show this week. Janine got a rare week off from work and spent the week updating the utility room. It looks really nice and it's probably not fair to tease without showing off her awesome work, but the camera is in her car. So I'll take some shots tonight and tomorrow and post again the newer, prettier utility room.  I don't think I could begin to make such renovations. Janine basically sandpapered and scrubbed the walls, patched holes, painted, moved out the washer and dryer, tiled the floor, put in wall shelves, and a hundred other things that I couldn't even fathom. While that's insanely hard work, it's the most rewarding work anyone can do. She's improving the investment that we made in this house. I'd like to think I helped, but it was mostly some help moving some heavy things, and going out for dinner.  I'm so proud of the room. Our next big projects will probably be the kitchen and the window/door replacemen...

Janine has done such a fantastic job cleaning up house that I had to show off a couple of pictures. The corner with the piano is all cleared out. It looks so nice.  Here's our new entertainment center which can now house the flat panel, FiOS receiver, DVD player, and potentially a kitten or two. I'm also looking into getting gas logs for that fireplace. It's going to be so nice and toasty! Speaking of toasty. We've been putting our new stove to work. It cooks everything perfectly. I made the best shrimp tempura the other night. That is one white stove though. We're going to have to paint the kitchen first. You can see the off white of the counter next to the stove and the wall. One last touch to the new house. Our kittens find it sport to climb our front door screen. This was one habit that was cute for 15 seconds and then became a great source of aggravation. We had to break them of this little stunt quick. And the last big project was putting all of our clothes aw...

Yeah, we're getting there, slowly but surely. The move went pretty flawlessly actually. Now that we have everything at the house, the slow process of unpacking all the boxes has begun. We carried three cats with us, Topaz, Maude (pictured), and Luci. So far they have adjusted well. We have had a few distractions in the meantime. We went to Maryland over the weekend to visit Janine's friends (I can say they're my friends now too, they seem to like me). We all had a good time and got to witness another youngster enter his thirties. We also did some siteseeing around Chestertown and I'll post some pictures soon. For now, we're both settling in, cooking at home, enjoying each other, and enjoying all this newfound space.We are completely without the internet for another week, so the blog will be pretty quiet still for a while. I plan on making a few changes around here once that FiOS is up and purring!

Maude is ready Originally uploaded by Mike and Janine Is packed and ready to move. One of my first projects, maybe in the spring, will be to put in a cat door. I am so ready!

So welcome to our house? Well, the front door is probably going to get very little if any usage. The home inspection was today, which was actually a comforting experience. It's relieving to know that someone who really knows a lot about houses, and this area feels that the house is in pretty decent shape. I also had a good time just hanging out with Janine and our agent while we looked around and I snapped a few shots. I'm pretty sure the first project is going to involve a paintbrush. The house has a lot of neutral colors, and I think it was a rental before the owner decided to outright sell the property. The hardwood is in great shape so the next project will probably involve shopping for rugs. It didn't take me long to realize that no matter how good the house is kept, there are always potentially a million projects both inside and out. The fireplace is workable, but that's another project in itself. I think we'll probably seal that off for now and focus on...

Today Janine and I took that first actual big step into getting a house. We were actually able to get a contract signed and put a bid on this house shown. It's probably in the best location in the city, it has a huge yard, it has a nice back deck, it has a mancave, it has a nice fireplace, it just has a lot of good stuff going for it. I think we made a good decision to get in now. I know the market and the news has been really scary lately, but sometimes you take that risk. You know, that risk to start my life with the woman I love in a place that I love in a neighborhood that I love and love life in return. I think it's going to pay off well for the both of us. I'm just so excited!

Today started my vacation and the first real break I've had from work since March. I'm just relieved that I get to kick back for a couple days before rejoining the rat race. Day one was spent looking at houses. We've again found a really nice, retro house in the North Side and we're going to put in a bid tomorrow at noon, so we shall see what happens. So stay tuned, the excitement is coming fast!

I've always heard people say that house shopping is the most painful thing that they've done. I know why now...the heartbreak can be immense. We did find a house yesterday and wanted to place a bid, but before we could even say yes, the property owner accepted a bid and the place went under contract in the late evening hours. It's just not fair. We both knew right away that this house was a good thing. I just feel crushed by it all, but I'm going to take the lessons learned and continue to plug along. Treat it like a business transaction my ass. Not getting what I want hurts..it hurts a lot!

We're just now going into the second week of house viewing with our real estate agent. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be. There are so many uncertainties that one can face when taking this step. I'm looking at some more houses in the morning. I'm hoping this will help us narrow down our prospects by a lot.

Over the next couple days, Janine and I are going to be looking at two or three top quality houses. I have a feeling we'll be choosing from one of these three options. We shall see. Keep your fingers crossed that things go well tonight. That's the house that I really, really want. You cannot go wrong with a backyard fort!