It’s long past time for a serious update.

Christine’s job

There’s been a lot of acclimation, on everyone’s part, with Christine’s work. There was a period of a couple weeks where every afternoon I had to call and ask Christine if she thought she’d be coming home for dinner. In some cases, she simply didn’t know.

Christine had to go in for a 1 A.M. software deployment last Friday night, but that was planned in advance and she didn’t have to spend the whole evening there. She made it home before 3 A.M. and, for the most part, I understand things went well.

Christine’s boss’s boss took a bunch of the Q.A. and development personnel (and their spouses) out to dinner last week at a nice Japanese restaurant in Provo. It was a really nice gesture on his part to show his appreciation (and appreciation on the part of the company as a whole) for the sacrifices made by the employees and their families.

Christine’s never been one for sitting by when processes aren’t optimized or when there are not processes defined, so she pretty quickly realized things would be a lot easier if the company set up a server for testing. With the help of a tech writer, Christine wrote up a formal proposal for this server and how it would be used to test the server software before it was deployed into the production environment.

This proposal was received warmly by upper management. Today, Christine came home with two American Express gift cards that work like credit cards and are redeemable at any retail or dining establishment. We went to Sears and Christine bought clothes for everyone. It was fun.

Our kids have adapted well to the change in routine. I think we were smart to minimize the time they spend away from home, having my mom watch them — at our house — two afternoons each week, and having me home two afternoons each week.

Having my mom around has been great, too. Since our church schedule changed at the beginning of the year to 3-6 P.M., we had to discontinue our weekly pilgrimage to my parents’ house for Sunday dinner. The kids wouldn’t get to see their “grammy” very often if she wasn’t tending to them on Tuesday and Friday afternoons.

Plus, she uses her magic touch on our house. It always looks better after she’s been there.

The only downside to having my mom around is that she nags me about unfinished projects. She doesn’t appreciate the fact I’ve always got a bunch of projects going on that I’m working on an inch at a time.

Home projects

Now that Spring is starting to wind up, I’ve started a few projects in the yard. That doesn’t mean anything will get finished soon — just that I’ll have more projects to work on an inch at a time.

So, we plan to get the backyard done this year. This is actually several small projects:

• Landscaping in preparation for sod.
• Installing sprinkling system
• Setting up space for garden
• Digging out area for sandbox
• Digging out area for cement pad under shed/playhouse
• Installing sod
• Planting trees
• Planting garden

We’re hoping to get a swingset and some other stuff in as well, but that may not happen until later.

I also have a block retaining wall to get installed in the front yard where I have the lawn terraced. I’ve got about ten feet of it done so far and about 30 more feet to go.

The lawn in the front is currently plagued with a nasty weed infestation. I think it’s the weed responsible for all the sticker thorns that were there before we planted the grass seed, so I want to get those weeds taken care of before they beget more stickers. I’ve been pulling out the weeds by hand, trying to get the whole root, but there’s a lot of them.

There’s still some work I need to do to get the sprinkling system finished in the front as well. I’ve got about a month or so until the secondary irrigation water is turned on.

We need some fence installed between the house and the fence along the east property line and across the driveway on the west side of the house to keep kids, pets, etc. safely in the backyard. I had Home Depot send a contractor out to give us an estimate for a white vinyl six foot privacy fence on the east side and two 5-foot gates on the west side. Their estimate came to nearly $1400 — more than I was expecting. Of course, nearly four hundred of that is core cuts in the driveway. I need to call them and ask them if we can do those ourselves and get that knocked off the bid.

I can’t imagine what it would cost to do a whole yard in vinyl fence. A lot.

The old Subaru

My 1998 Subaru Outback Sport is getting old. The engine still runs great even though it has close to 150,000 miles on it, but other things are giving out. I got the water pump and timing belts replaced a couple months ago and then today I had a wheel bearing replaced because the car was making a “whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh” sound when you drove it. It had gotten so bad yesterday I didn’t know if I was going to make it to Orem and back today, so I took it in to get fixed today rather than take a chance.

Next, I need to get the front struts replaced. After that, the brakes need to be done. The clutch may need to be replaced in the near future as well.