It was so nice out Saturday, (e:Paul) (e:Terry) and I were finally able to get something done outside. The garage apparently has been a hoarding place for the past 7 years and even before that from the church (still not the worst I've seen). It was so damp and moldy - you can see from (e:paul,58896)'s post the extent of the decay. I hope our lungs survive.

We filled a 15-foot dumpster with all the moldy rotting wood no problem. The garage is much cleaner and less moldy, although the roof still leaks. Terry nd I think we can build a new green roof or even a greenhouse for the garage - the flat roof set up is pretty easy to redo.

We didn't even touch much of the basement or attic, but that's for another day. I still felt so satisfied with getting stuff done outside on such an amazing day.


Men at work

Before


After


Terry got the front garden and bunch of the back ready for spring planting. I hope the cold doesn't kill everything already.

This post is #7cfc00 like the jacket Paul got for me.

Friday night, (e:paul) and I went to the Melting point with Emily, Carrie and (e:czarkasm).

Afterwords, we met up with (e:terry), (e:heidi) and (e:flacidness) to go to the Nightmare show at Dreamland. The party was pretty fun - all the art was all animal bone themed and they had a whole wall of skeletons. There even was some skull tacked onto a virgin Mary statue.

Paul ended up being super allergic to the house since there were now dogs and rabbits living there. So we headed out up to Allen before he died, and had not one, but two rounds of Lloyd's (three if you're Paul). Then we finished up the night at Funky Monkey which was dead. The people there were boring and creepy.




Basra is now an official artist. We'll have to see whether he gets any offers for his work













Saw Lindsay at Madonna's

Lloyd's time
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I finally finished the Duolingo German tree yesterday. I really started working on it in the beginning of the year, so the majority took about 3 and a half months.

I think Duolingo was really useful, and sort of frustrating, to get basic grammar and vocabulary down for reading and writing. But in terms of listening and speaking, I got almost nothing - I'm still pretty terrible but getting better.

I am going to keep using the review part to practice, but I think the only way I can pick up more is immersion with news/shows/music in German and trying to speak it when I can. It's hard for me to start speaking it, even to (e:paul) and (e:terry), because I mess up a lot and it gets frustrating. Back to chatroulette, or chat-de?

It's picking up fast and I really love learning it - I can't believe how much I know already when before this weekend ((e:joe,58063)) the only German phrase I knew was "Der Hund schwimmt!"

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Well it wasn't sunny, but it was so warm today. And there were no guns outside, but my legs and a tortoise. I wore shorts, and Basra was free for an hour. I've never seen him run as fast as when I put him down in the yard. I felt guilty taking him back to be cooped up in the brown room. He's so heavy - it was a fight carrying him up and down the stairs.





It's supposed to be nice all weekend. Maybe time for the second hike of the season?

This months beer club was a complete 180 from the disgusting stout one last month. Most of the beers were IPA's so it was a good night for (e:heidi), (e:terry) and I. (e:flacidness) came to his first beer club and both he and Terry won in the raffle.

Plus, there wasn't even any gaming when we got back. Just a bean dip/dance/Smash Brothers party. For some reason I didn't want Terry to make the bean dip so I started it and subcontracted the rest out to (e:heidi).


Erryone



Forcing Terry to take a picture I could send to my friend Karnick





Big winners
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