Hey, man!

Well, let me tell you what's' going on.  Every evening and every weekend for the last month and a half, I have been painting and working on the house.  The previous owners of the house had the worst color scheme going (pink in one room and a portion of the entry way, lime sherbet green in the other portion of the entry way).  There is a lot of trim, 4 doors, and a 20 ft ceiling in the living room and entry way.  So it is taking quite a while to complete.  One reason it is taking so long is other things keep breaking (disposal, toilet flanges, alarm system).  In the middle of trying to finish painting, we ripped out the floors in the bathrooms and entry and laid tile (I got the floors ready, we paid to have the tile laid.).  Tonya wants everything done now.  It doesn't bother her that I haven't finished a single project since we started the whole renovation thing.  But, IT'S KILLING ME!  I would like just one finished product.  One small room would be fine.  The house is looking a lot better, though.

I'm trying to not let the work take time away from the kids, so I usually start after 8pm each night.  Plus, when I do work while the kids are running around I pay a high price.  Last week I was painting the baseboards in the dining room, with the gallon of white semi-gloss next to me on the floor.  I had earlier used Windex to clean the window seal and had left the bottle in the middle of the floor.  Jake was coming into the room, watching and climbing up and down the step ladder (6 ft;  he climbs to the very top like it's nothing.  Other people come in and see him up there and freak out.  We just let him go.).  He is big into cleaning (guts it from his mom), so when he saw the Windex he ran and picked it up.  I told him to "take it to Mama".  He started out the doorway, but came back in and walked behind me.  I just kept working, thinking that he was watching me.  Then I noticed out of the corner of my eye that he had moved closer to me.  When I turned to look, I just lost my breath.  Jake had dipped the Windex bottle down into the paint can, pulled it out and was holding the bottle over our brown carpet.  White paint was just pouring off the bottle.  It looked like someone had poured paint straight out of the can onto the floor.  Thank goodness it was latex, after about 45 minutes we got it cleaned up.  Cole has helped me with some of the work, such as sanding the walls.  But, he carried his work a little farther than I wanted.  Yesterday, he had a friend over.  They got his tools (play sander/grinder, circular saw, screw drivers), climbed up on his bunk bed, and decided they needed to take the texture off the ceiling.  You should have seen the mess.

I am taking a break this weekend though.  Cole and I are going camping at Lake Livingston.  I am really looking forward to it.  I'm trying to start something with him (and will include Jake when he gets a little bigger)  where we do a guy thing each month.  Last month I took Cole to his first Rockets game.  He loved it.  They are getting too big, too fast.

At work, I guess I'm becoming a full fledge trader.  I will be getting my own book in a couple of days.  I'm pretty nervous about that.  There's not a lot of activity in the training/coaching area around here (hard to believe, huh?).  But, we'll see how it goes.  The last of the HPL/AEP people are moving out of the building tonight.  Everything is on course to close the sale on June 1st.

Anyway, I hope you and Linda are doing well.  We'd like to have you over if we ever get the house in presentable shape.

D
 -----Original Message-----
From: 	"buylow" <buylow@houston.rr.com>@ENRON [mailto:IMCEANOTES-+22buylow+22+20+3Cbuylow+40houston+2Err+2Ecom+3E+40ENRON@ENRON.com] 
Sent:	Wednesday, May 09, 2001 8:34 AM
To:	Farmer, Daren J.
Subject:	HEY


Hi,
What the heck is going on with you these days? Let's see, job,  family, house all settled ---- I just can't understand why you don't have time  to drop social e-mails to friends. (chuckle)
 
Ken