The Priebes.com

I have a friend who’s been a vegetarian for about a year now. The first time we met, she wasn’t one yet, but the second time she was. Anyway, I was reading the Bible recently, and decided that Adam and Eve were probably vegetarians.

Genesis 1:29

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.

However, Adam and Eve were also the first sinners. God, on the other hand, appears to prefer meat.

Genesis 4:2b-5a

Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.

So who would you rather be like? The first sinners? Or God, who’s perfect?

(I’m kidding, of course. But personally, I couldn’t stand to give up meat.)

As you can tell from Josh’s blogging (but not Leann’s), Leann and Josh returned safely from vacation. Leann was tired from taking care of Josh 24/7, I was bored from Josh and Leann not being there, and Josh was spoiled rotten from being around relatives all the time. Leann is now pretty well rested and recovered (from what I can tell), I’m grateful to have them back, and Josh is nearly deprogrammed. So everything seems to be getting back to normal.

As you can see from Josh’s blog a couple of days ago, Josh currently has an obsession with “Superbaby!” He has that new Superman pajama set, only he calls it Superbaby. And now he calls most things with the Superman symbol Superbaby instead of Superman.

Last night, as he occasionally does, he donned his Superman pajamas and pulled me into mine and Leann’s closet. He then made me put on one of my Superman shirts, and we proceeded to run around the house with our arms raised, making “Fwoosh” sounds. Thanks for teaching him that, Nana.

We won’t talk about the fact that I did that before we had Josh, too.

On a positive note, our television was fixed yesterday. Everything seems to be working great now. We had to front the $650 or so, but will get reimbursed for the amount over $500. Thank goodness for the emergency fund!

I had dragged a desk into the middle of the living room and put the television from Josh’s room (which we never use) on it and hooked everything up to it. Actually, I just had the output from the big screen running to it. I think Leann described the setup as “ghetto.” I put the desk in our room last night, but not before she put that television back in Josh’s room. That’s despite the fact that she really shouldn’t be lifting anything that big this far along in her pregnancy. Bad Leann!

Okay, so maybe they just accidentally used an image of a Mac. But it’s still pretty funny.

Well, there’s good news today and there’s bad news.

The good news is that I’ll be missing church tonight. Well, let me rephrase. The good news is that when church starts, I’ll be returning from Ardmore, where I’m picking up Leann and Josh. I’m meeting them and my mom halfway between here and Dallas. We’ll meet at Braum’s (or where ever Leann decides to eat) for dinner. Then after dinner, we’ll head back this way. I’ve decided that 2 1/2 weeks is too long for them to be gone. So next year, I’m hoping it will be more like one week, if Jackson is up to travelling by then.

Now the bad news. While I was working on the computer last night, there was a power outage. The computer has a battery backup, and the outage lasted only about 10 seconds, so I didn’t think too much of it. That is, until I went to watch a little television before I went to bed. Upon turning on the 52″ Samsung DLP, I was greeted with about a dozen vertical red lines and loud static. Despite being hooked into a standard power strip, the television is fried.

I’m going to be calling a television repair shop as soon as it opens around 9am. If they can’t fix it, I’m not entirely sure what we’ll do. On the plus side, the big screens seem to have come down a bit in price. If we have to replace it, it looks like we could get a new one for around $1,500, if we’re willing to lose a couple of inches.

Or we could just get that 65″ for $3,500. Yeah, right.

Counting my blessings, at least I wasn’t on the plane in the picture below.

(If you just want to see how painting the office went but hate to read, check out this gallery.)

So painting my office last week definitely didn’t go as planned. First off, the good thing was that only two coats turned out to be needed. The bad thing was that the paint bled through the tape. Apparently I bought really cheap tape. Too cheap, in fact. The edges of the wall were pretty much fine, but the outlet plate and the baseboard had red paint on them.

So at midnight on Wednesday, I set out to WalMart. At 1am, I was back home, armed with a hobby paintbrush and flat white hobby paint. Each coat of paint on the top of the baseboard took about an hour. So a little after 3am, I decided I’d be better off staying up all night rather than sleeping for three hours.

I went ahead and put the furniture back right then, for the most part. The ladder did stay in the hallway a few days, though. I really like how the wall looks.

Prior to painting, I did pick up a new desk. This is for Leann to work at and for people I hire to work at when/if they need to come work at my office. It happens.

I also bought a Superman Returns movie poster to frame and hang. It looks awesome! However, it was much more expensive than it was supposed to be. Let me explain…

The poster was on some website for about $10 after shipping. I thought that was a great deal, so I jumped on it. I figured it would make a good big piece of wall art. When it arrived, I decided I needed to get a black frame for it to go with the decor. I went to WalMart to get one, and it was $20. Well, I suppose I can deal with the whole thing costing $30 instead of $10.

Then I got the poster in the frame, and discovered that although the frame was the right width, it was too tall. So I was off to Hobby Lobby, where a 40″x27″ bright red mat cost me another $15. Ouch. It looks great, but cost me $45.

On top of all that, I’d bought the frame in the morning on my way to work and had left it in the car all day. And on the day where the temperature hit 108 degrees. When I went to hang the poster frame, after getting the mat and everything, it was warped. It wouldn’t hang flat up against the wall.

With my natural ingenuity (yeah, right), I grabbed some foam tape and taped the frame to the wall in several places. It has held for a few days, and hopefully will be a good long-term solution.

I’m done messing with my office’s decor for now!

Here’s the wall that I will be painting, right behind my desk. The one with the whiteboard and calendar on it.

All the furniture was moved to one side of the room by yours truly. And the desk was a huge pain to move with one person!

Here’s the wall I’m about to transform. It’s all taped off, ready for painting.