Just got back from eating out with Fuzzy and Steph. We went to El Rodeo (where we always go with them) and it was very good. My favorite part of the meal was the fried ice cream for dessert….yum yum.

Work was OK today, kind of slow, so the day dragged a bit, but not too bad. I got to sit alot, so that always makes it better…my feet appreciate that!!

Glad everyone is finding their way to our new site…we will try to keep you up to date on what is going on around here.

My buddy / old intern Jared Christensen stumbled across this site today and passed it on to me. Some very cool artwork—the guy takes kids drawings and creates all-out paintings of them. Take a look at Dave Devries’s Monster Engine.

Had a busy day that started out with a 10am presentation to a class up at DMACC in Ankeny. It was a pretty big group of about 40 kids and it went really well—I’ve given the presentation before to a class at Grandview College here in Des Moines as well, so I didn’t have too much prep work, just had to make sure I didn’t forget the CD with the slideshow on it. Mowed at about 4:30 tonight and did a little vacuuming in the kitchen—it seems like that floor is always STICKY and we don’t even have a toddler running around yet. I have a lot of work on my plate, so I’m going to be starting the evening shift here in a little bit to try to get a little caught up while I listen to the Cubs and Yankees on the radio. Planning to go to El Rodéo tomorrow with Fuzzy (Brad) and Steph Cathcart after Brandy gets home from work, so that should be fun.

Jason is teaching me how to post pictures on the website, so thought I would put some of my baby shower from last weekend up. Hopefully this will work, Jason says it is pretty slick. Let me know what you think. Click here to view baby shower pictures.

Well, we survived the weekend with all our festivities. I had my baby shower on Saturday morning and then we had a big BBQ Saturday night……I would say we had around 30 people here or so. The rain stayed away, so we were very thankful for that…would have been alot of people to cram in our house if it had rained!!

Worked alittle in the nursery tonight to get all of the new things organized…things are looking pretty good. We finally got our carseat and Jason did a practice run of installing it tonight to see how hard it is. It is very easy in the new Equinox since it has the LATCH system for carseats….much easier than it is going to be in the Olds. But, we will get it figured out. Having all this baby stuff around is really making it seem real.

Have tomorrow off, so looking forward to that. Think I will try and sleep in (despite the fact I make a trip to the bathroom every 2 hours or so…..)

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day with a full slate of projects, then a baby-something-or-other class tomorrow at 6:30 and sand volleyball at 8:45, so I’m wishing Dad a Happy Birthday a few hours early—and Brandy has the day off so she’ll probably have a couple of odd jobs for me to tackle at some point as well…also need to mow the lawn at some point in time—man, being a grown-up really puts a strain on you.

Is anyone reading this blog yet?

Oh…if you do a Google search for “mcartor”, my company website is #2. Was surprised to see that.

If by chance you try to find our old Weblog, you will instead be re-directed to here. The old site is no more—although we may go back and pull some of our favorite photos and repost them on this site—once we figure out the best way to handle photos with this new system.

Today we got our windows professionally cleaned and man do they look nice. I think we are going to have a few bird casualties b/c the windows are just sparkling clean!! It was nice to have someone else do the work–the sunroom alone would have been enough to keep me busy for a couple of weeks!!!

Have tomorrow off, so looking forward to getting some stuff done around the house in preparation for our big weekend BBQ. We are keeping our fingers crossed for nice weather, but right now it looks like a 50/50 chance for rain. But, we will see.

Was alittle too hot for me outside today..I don’t know if it is the pregnancy or what, but it was more than I could take even being out for a few minutes. Also, now I have nice swollen ankles and hands which the humidity is not helping any. Could be a long 5 weeks if this keeps up!!

Ok, off to have a bedtime snack (frosted flakes…they are GREEAATT!!).

Talked to Mom on the phone this afternoon and everything sounds OK back in Winfield. Was going to do somthing fancy on the grill but Mom thought we should just do hamburgers—which actually sounds pretty good….soooooo I’m going to do “Rollo-burgers”, which is a tasty recipe that my old roomie Rawley King (we call him Rollo) introduced after seeing it on TV’s Mr. Food. You should give them a try sometime, they have BBQ sauce, canned french onions and green chilis on them. The recipe is on the Mr. Food website, but you have to create a free member account to view the recipes.

As a sidenote, an online (website) project I’m involved with just surpassed the 1,000 registered-users mark Sunday night. The discount green fee website GreatGreenFees.com is doing pretty well considering we’ve spent minimal money on advertising in the first 3 months of business. I guess the listed courses are having good luck and seeing quite a return on their investment, with lots of golfers walking in the door with coupons printed from the site. If you know anyone from the Chicago area, tell them to visit the site and sign up…it’s FREE.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of shipping over the past year or so with a company I am a partner in, GraphicAuthority.com, and while for large items, UPS seems to be the best answer, the Postal Service gives me the best “low cost” option for sending small packages and items under 1-lb. with their online Click-N-Ship® service. You have to create and account, and it helps if you have adhesive labels, but if you ship many itmes, you can get a package to someone anywhere in the US in 2-3 days for $3.85. I can have a create a shipping label and have a package in my mailbox in less than 5 minutes, it’s a little less time-consuming than sending something via UPS (although I like their online service too). Definitely beats running to the Post Office when you can spit out a postage label right from your computer.