Tucker Barn

It's been a couple days since my last entry. Anybody visiting the site recently has been treated to a nice shot of the toilet. Well, two weeks ago Rachel and I both put on the robes of an apostate priesthood and graduated. Rachel was able to graduated at the law school graduation ceremonies. So it was nice that we didn't have to sit through two ceremonies. Although, they replay the undergrad graduation on the local channel and I couldn't turn away. Something about wondering if the person would wave to the camera, or just smile, or show no signs, combined with me waiting to see somebody I knew, combined with the confusion that it was on TV, combined with the confusion that I was watching it.

Now my job has been to study for the bar. I've been taking a bar review course. It's 4 hours of lecture in the morning, and then assignments and practice questions for us to go over. It's hard to keep up with the pace of the assignments. Especially since we have tons of work assigned to do on Sunday. I'm going to not do any on Sunday, and just try to play catchup the rest of the week.

I've put Rachel into a state of no-man's land. It's hard for her to know what she is supposed to be doing right now, since she graduated. We don't know where we'll go after I take the bar, so it makes it hard for her to know what to do. I tell her to relax and take advantage of the time. But she always likes to be doing stuff. I guess she's one of those crazy people who needs a purpose to their life. She's been doing tons of odd jobs for everybody. She is a jack of all trades. She's mostly been doing some tree trimming with this crazy guy who likes to make up stories about mormons.

That's about all we're up to for now. I'll attach a picture of "tucker Barn". It is the site of one of our first dates. It's pretty romantic. We were chased off by this giant crow that lived in there. Usually its all green around it, instead of ugly brown. Rachel's mom is really artistic and whatnot and she's going to paint us a picture of it, but with inserted green...and a better river....and she'll take out that ugly bush....and she'll move the structures around...and make it more hilly...and make the barn look nice...or maybe she'll take the barn out of it altogether.

The fish died

Our lame fish died. I think he costs us about a dollar a day. I think we murdered it by feeding it too much. But that is just a guess. He will best be known for eating really loudly and sitting underneath the toy bridge. I've attached a picture of his tombstone.

In other news we had a real funeral to attend. It was for Rachel's cousin Jeff. You may remember that Rachel wrote about him on this blog a long time ago. When somebody has lived a good life, funerals are such spiritual experiences. Jeff's family was so strong and amazing.

Today Rachel and I went to the park and played catch with a baseball. Rachel did take two off the leg, possibly leaving bruises, but she caught most of them. The hard part is she tells me to throw her pop flies, but I know she's going to get smashed in the face with it. But I do as I'm told and more often than not it works out. The most impressive is how she would throw the ball a quarter mile. She almost threw it over them mountains. She's got a cannon on her.

Our New Baby

Coming up on our one year anniversary, we decided to add a new member to the family. His name is Mr. Sprinkles. He is an Oranda Goldfish. For you non-fish people that means he was not as expensive as the $14.95 fish but more durable than the $.23 cent fish.

He is the perfect addition. He is not grumpy, and doesn't seem to have any expectations that his life will get better.

I wanted to name him "Puppy" or "The Dog" but Brett wasn't to keen on that. So Mr. Sprinkles suits him well enough.

Welcome home Mr. Sprinkles.

broken streak

I hate to write an entry and lose my streak of pretending like I don't have a blog, but alas, time moves on & I need to make changes. And as graduation approaches - I come to a realization. I need a job. So since we are not planted anywhere so I might get a regular teaching job (and the fact I secretly hate teaching- no offense to Bubs who I will eternally respect and admire for being good at it/liking it) I have been looking for a job.

That was probably the worst idea I've ever had. Over spring break I contacted someone who I thought would be a pleasing retired old fella to help "spring clean" at $8/hour. It seemed like a good rate, that is, until I got into the 4th hour of pine needle raking. You see, that was after I was prancing on top of his roof with a rope tied around me, sweeping the pine needles off. As dangerous as it was, I thought it was fun. I didn't know at that point I would be raking the needles up after I pushed them off. Oh my nieve ways are always my downfall.

Anyways, I don't mean to complain... however I do want to clear up one crucial item. Cleaning chimneys IS NOTHING like they show on Mary Poppins. Unless of course if by using brushes they really meant using a 20 foot rope with 40-50lbs of chains at the end, and by dancing and singing they mean crowched into the top of the chimney and choking on carcinogenic dust - THEN YES- its just like on Mary Poppins.

But on the bright side I think I got a job with a man who prunes trees. He doesn't believe in bucket trucks or machinery so he repels in the tree. All I do for now is watch him from the ground, pass up tools to him, and read propoganda he wrote about being a vegetarian and a hippie. Just kidding, but not really.

The picture at the top is what I will look like at my new job.

Windy City

I spent a few days with some of my friends in Chicago. We did a pretty good job of packing in the sights and sounds. One of the most impressive things is that despite not being any sort of video game player, I ended up the champ in both Tiger Woods Golf, and whatever the NBA basketball game is called.

I also was able to go on the world's fastest elevator to the top of the Hancock building. The poor man's Sears tower. I looked across Lake Michigan and saw Michigan City, my former mission area. We then looked down upon a helicopter hovering over traffic.
We got caught in some wind and some snow, but were still able to pretty much own the city. We bought a city pass, it had 5 activities for $50, so we had those activities going for us. Second City comedy club didn't disappoint, neither did the deep dish pizza, or the art museum. I saw that painting that is on the cover of the old Masterpiece board game, turns out is was painted by Rembrandt. Who knew?

Last night Rachel and I really treated ourselves. We drove about 40 minutes west, out to Helmer, and enjoyed a famous Helmerburger. It is in a town without even a stop light, and it is the best hamburger in the world. If you are lucky you will have one.

Battleship luck?

Rachel made s'mores the other day. They were off the hizzle. I was eating them constantly for 4 days.
I don't know how Rachel beats me in Battleship so often. I don't get it. She says she reads me like a book. I find it completely lucky, but I can't explain the 7-game winning streak.
The amount of basketball I play has picked up over the last few weeks. I'm headed out the door right now. We like to play at the Staples Center. It's the perfect place. It's the new stake center behind Staples, hence Staples Center (also the name of the place the Lakers and Clippers play).
I'm headed to Chicago with some friends in a couple of weeks. It's with the Federalist Society, which I am not apart of, but I hurried and joined when I saw that we could go on a trip for cheap. It'll be me and 3 of my other friends from here. It'll be a 5 day adventure.