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Stripping Fun

I'll bet you all wondered where I disappeared to on Friday. Wait - I take that back, none of you cared as evidenced by the lack of guestbook signing. Punks. Anywho, in case you do care, I spent the day doing wedding shit with The Boy. We interviewed a photographer, made the final decision on tuxes, purchased all of the paper for our wedding invitations that we will create ourselves, made a list of wedding shit to delegate to other people and even discussed what the centerpieces on our reception tables would look like. Stellar. We spent Thursday night listening to music and trying to decide which songs would grace our wedding cd, and which would be appropriate for the dinner and dance at the reception. I think the only thing we came up with was the music for the opening of the buffet line.

On Saturday, I rolled up my sleeves and got busy restoring the entry to my home to its original beauty. You see, sometime during the past 93 years, someone decided that they should paint the natural oak side windows and trim white versus reapplying a coat of stain to preserve the wood. They also decided that the best thing to do to highlight a beautiful oak front door was to paint it black and then hide it behind a cheap metal storm door. Last fall, we took the front door down and stripped all of the nasty black paint off of it revealing a beautifully crafted door. A couple of months later, I happened upon a killer deal for a brand new storm door, however in order to install it, we needed to finish stripping the paint off of the side windows and re-do the trim around the front door. I've been putting this off for months, but when the weather folks said that we would have an unseasonably cool weekend, I believed them and got busy. Here is the before picture:

What you don't see is the crappy metal trim above my front door that displays my street number in HUGE SHINY STICKERS. Uber-tacky. I can't wait to destroy those. I got started on the stripping, and immediately felt the sting of the power stripper I was using. I donned some fancy exam gloves I'd gotten from a vendor at work, and all was better. After about 45 minutes of work, my dad came down to survey my progress. Here's what he saw:

About an hour later, I'd finished removing the majority of paint from one of the side windows. Yee haw! I cleaned up the mess and then spent the evening eating steaks and talking wedding shit with Paco, Jane and Holly.  Funny side-story: The Boy and I decided that we would like my brothers to be a part of our big day, and wanted to ask them to do us the honor of being ushers at our wedding. I know - big honor - stand up front and greet people and tell them where to sit! Woo! Both Paco and Chris are wonderful with people, but I'm sure both would prefer NOT to have to approach our 175 guests, greet them and then lead them to their seats. Both Paco and Chris were also the world's most accomplished alter boys, er acolytes, in their youth due to the fact that my mom volunteered them to be on the schedule no less than 3 times per month. This information will be important in just a second.

During the course of the evening, we started talking about Holly and some of the logistics surrounding her role as The Flowah! This gave me the perfect lead-in to ask Paco to be an usher. The conversation went a little something like this:

Me: Speaking of wedding roles, Paco, The Boy and I would like to ask you to be a part of our wedding. We would really like for you to be an Alter Boy.

Insert chirping crickets and look of shock and horror here.

Jane let out a good laugh and I rescued Paco with the invitation to be an usher and he gladly accepted noting of course, that he would have been the best damned alter boy that church had ever seen. I still have to ask Chris, and God only knows when I'll see him again. We might have to ask him via phone call, or more likely, via voice mail instructions to go get fitted for his tux.

Anyhow, I bet you are waiting to see the after pictures for the weekend project. Well, I hate to break it to you, but you'll have to keep waiting. We are going to sand off the excess paint tonight, and even after that, the entry will still only qualify for a "during" picture. Maybe I'll post one tomorrow...maybe...

During our wedding shit extravaganza on Friday, I introduced The Boy to the wonderfully tasty treat that is Steak and Shake. He didn't realize I had my camera with me. Hee hee!

10:51 a.m. - August 09, 2004

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