This One's For Dave

So the other day, my brother Dave sent me a text that simply said, "A new blog post, please." It's nice to have fans, of course, but I feel it's necessary to point out that Dave hasn't posted on his blog since March of 2012. He doesn't have a ton of cred where blogging is concerned.

Nevertheless, I am a dutiful brother so post I shall.

We bought a house. It's a nice, two story colonial in a tree-lined neighborhood. It's the most grown-up house we've ever owned. The day after we closed on it, water started pouring out of the ceiling of the basement. Stuff like that makes me hate being an adult. A plumber is coming on Monday to take a Sawzall to the deteriorated galvanized pipe and replace it with good ol' PVC. He is also switching out the jet black toilet in the half bath on the main floor - because, you know, it's not 1976 and we don't live in Studio 54. I will rip out the matching black faux marble vanity and replace it with a normal-human-being white vanity.

We've spent the last week ripping wallpaper out of the dining room, kitchen, and two half baths. It is 2014 - I feel strongly that wallpaper has no place in modern society. Peeling wallpaper should be reserved for convicts and juvenile delinquents. It makes me hate life. I hate it only slightly less than I hate painting.

Speaking of which, I've spent the last two days painting. I've figured out exactly what it is that I hate about it: it's that I spend a million years taping, painting, painstakingly touching up, carefully edging, etc. and then when I peel the paint off, it still looks like garbage day. It's sort of the same feeling I have about cooking -- all that time and effort and anxiety for semi-craptacular results. Not cool.

I am grateful for whoever invented the ceiling edger, however. It's not a perfect tool, but it does make things go faster for sure. I hope the person who came up with that thing is a kajillionaire sitting around on a solid gold yacht, drinking green smoothies made out of hundred dollar bills. Some people deserve the riches, you know?

The girls and I are going to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier on Tuesday after school. We couldn't manage to fit it in this weekend, and they've been very helpful and very patient as we've made countless trips to Home Depot and to the new house. So they deserve a little superhero goodness in their lives - and frankly, so do I.

The semester is coming to a swift end. I think we have four weeks left or something like that, so the end is coming fast. I have several stacks of papers to grade and get back this week and another set coming in next week. (However, my little secret is that the next batch of papers are only five hundred words long. In contrast, the first paper my 112 students wrote this semester was 2,500 - 3,500 words long. Bleh. Five hundred words I can do.)

Today has been the first day of General Conference, and I have been impressed how the church has responded directly to the concerns about gay marriage and women wanting the priesthood. I appreciate that they are giving these issues the respect of dealing with them head on. The church obviously isn't changing its stance on these matters, but at least it is acknowledging that they are things people feel strongly about.

Well, it's almost eleven p.m. My brotherly duty is complete. I will check in again sooner rather than later, I hope.