Healthy Living Through Home Improvement

  Jeff and I have been meaning to get back to our 10,000 steps-a-day walking goal, but we haven't actually managed to get back on track with it. Jeff has become busier than ever this month. He completed his Bachelor's degree in computer animation and is now onto a new course program. He is still working at Sabelhaus West Inc., and FOOTBALL SEASON has begun!!! Well, pre-season is here, but the regular season is upon us and Jeff must prepare his Fantasy Football Team, as well as devote his energy to ensuring his beloved Seattle Seahawks have a stellar season! I'm not exactly sure what part Jeff plays in the success or failure of the Seahawks, it's a spiritual thing that I don't have a complete grasp of yet. I think it involves victorious imagery, speaking in tongues loudly to the players on the screen and a complex system of Numerology. Regardless, I support him whole-heartedly. GO HAWKS!!!

You BET I'm a fan of the Legion of BOOM!!!

  Jeff is also trying to launch his new career (putting that degree to good use). Fuchs Media will have it's humble beginnings in our basement. Which means a lot of physical labor on our part. If you have met Jeff or any of the Bremerton-born Fuchs men, you know that they do not do anything halfway. Jeff, his brother Jason and his dad Denny are all very talented craftsmen in some form or another. Woodworking, mechanics, electronics, technology, flooring, and countless other skills and manly kind of stuff. And if your project is going to have the Fuchs name on it, it is going to be done well. So we can't just shuffle some couches around, set up the computer and be ready to go. No way! We are going to put in countless hours of exhausting manual labor (womanual labor?) so that Fuchs Media is housed in the BEST basement possible. 

Uncle Gary, Denny, Jason and Jeff. A skulk of foxes! ( I googled it)

  Jeff did not ask me to help him. He very excitedly detailed his plans for all the work that he plans to get done and what he wants to get accomplished within his (ambitious but unrealistic) timeline. I could've left him to his work and gone shoe shopping or had my nails done. But I did not. I offered my services, such as they are. We spent a good five hours yesterday cleaning up the shop side of the basement. Jeff moved all manner of heavy items while I donned my oh-so-fashionable rubber gloves and scrubbed the walls, swept, vacuumed and sucked up at least 100 spiders of no less than 10 different species and all of their webs and egg sacs with the shop-vac. If there are any interested arachnologists out there, I have a shop-vac FULL of your little buddies, a little spider-utopia, just waiting for you to collect and study them. Please. Before they figure out how to escape. 

Good Heavens, that's terrifying!!!

  We had to stop working at about 4:00 so that we could watch the Seahawks in their second pre-season game. Side note-if you are someone who is not a HUGE football fan, but you live with one DO NOT EVER say "It's only pre-season. It doesn't really count". Apparently, that is a false statement and will NOT result in a sigh of relief on your Super-Fan's part. You will, however, be the recipient of a Gaze of Confusion or possibly the Glare of Horror. Just don't go there.

The look you get when someone says "It's only Pre-Season. It doesn't Count"

  Last night I agreed to get up early and get right to work with my sweetheart. How could I say no? He was so happy to have my help. He looked at me with so much love in his eyes and told me how much he appreciated our partnership. I'm a sucker for that sort of thing. This morning, I was awakened to breakfast in bed at 7:00 a.m. and the handsomest smile. And then, far too soon, the clock struck 8 and it was time to get to WORK!!! I finished scrubbing the walls, swept and vacuumed the floor again. Jeff's dad arrived with his truck. I helped them load up the trash to take to the dump and got to work on painting the walls with primer. To be clear, I am not a Fuchs (right now I'm just in the pledge program. I'm hoping my application gets processed in the next couple of years. Fingers crossed!). I do not have the skills of a Fuchs, nor do I possess the attention to detail of their people. I wish I was that meticulous, but alas, I am more of the school of "good-enough". And I work at a fairly slow pace, as I am unsure of my skills. And rightly so! I do try, but I get frustrated easily and after my first smudgey mistake, I give in to my desire to just Get It Done Already. But my rates are very reasonable (breakfast in bed) and you only get what you pay for...

Good enough! It's quitting time!!!

  Jeff and Denny returned from the dump and got to work on installing 18 "can" lights and taking out the existing shop lights and nest of various electrical wires while I continued to do a remarkably sloppy job of applying two coats of primer to the cement walls. I was trying to fill in all the little holes with paint and becoming really frustrated. And sore. And cranky. By about 5:30, I could do no more. Jeff was somewhat distressed with the fact that I was giving up and the job was unfinished. How un-Fuchs-like of me. Uh-oh! I may have blown my shot at joining the tribe! But I had reached the point of becoming resentful, which is not healthy for our relationship. I was so sore and tired. Jeff and Denny completed the entire re-lighting project. And it looks amazing and works perfectly. I don't know when we will have time to get the painting finished. Tomorrow is Jeff's Fantasy Football League Summit and Draft Picks. The earth will stop spinning until that is all taken care of. Serious business folks!
  So Jeff and I haven't been for a walk, but I think we have been getting in a good amount of physical activity and we have a lot more work to do. I need to get my Jawbone Up charged and on my wrist again so I can get credit for all the moving around. And I hope on weigh-in day that this hard work pays off!