Thanks to Kembe!

...for the cute pictures of Frankie and his buds.

Superfriends!

They're wearing capes!

I personally like to call mine 'the napless wonder.'

Frankie solo, all bright red. Unfortunately he got that from me, along with the propensity to sweat whenever he even thinks about heat.

Last but not least, with Bishop Sullivan.

Frankie loves his best mates! And for all who are wondering, we're still moving on Saturday and it's still nuts. We'll take plenty of pictures this weekend, though, as both of the boys (F+J) have their birthdays and Juston is hitting a particular age of note.

Juston, hard at work.

This past weekend, Juston went to Comic-Con in San Diego and left me behind to deal with the packing and a fleabag (yes, Bridget attracted parasites for the first time. It was a blast.) To be fair, though, it was a work trip...yes, a work trip to a Comic book convention. Tough job, right? He took my camera, so there are no new pictures of Frankie, not that we did anything photo-worthy this week.

Some unorganized pics of Juston at the convention and the Cartoon Network booth. (For the record, Juston works for CartoonNetwork.com and was there shooting video for the website.)

Juston tells me that this is a character from He-Man. I have no idea.

He stayed at some really expensive hotel. This is the outside.

We're thinking about doing this to our shower door now! Fancy!

People who drive these kinds of cars stay at fancy hotels in San Diego.

That lady was a hotel employee...she worked the front desk wearing that dress, I kid you not.

Cobra Commander from G.I. Joe and his girlfriend? I think?

And last but not least, Juston with M.C. Batmaster from The Aquabats. Juston's boss is friends with the band, so they all got backstage passes to the show at the House of Blues and sat on the side of the stage to watch them play.

So there you have it. Next year it's going to be a family vacation, right? At least there's Dragon*Con in September - I already have Frankie's tiny Star Wars shirt, so he'll fit right in!

Frankiefest.

Because I cannot deny Frankie's fans (I hear that there are several silent relatives lurking on my blog) and because I'm bored with work, I decided to upload some pictures from my camera to my computer tonight.

Eat your popsicle...yes, he's eating it on the couch...yes, I did think it through before giving it to him, bribes seem to work most of the time. You will notice the dishrag on his shirt, and you will not notice the towel underneath the little sticky monster.

Last week, I decided to pack the contents of my desk for the impending move. During the process, I found a bunch of old stickers, along with a lot of other sentimental junk that I trashed. To keep Frankie busy, I covered him with the stickers, and it worked. I'm still finding them stuck to my floor in unusual places.

Last night when Abe & Jay came over, we did the only logical thing to do with moving boxes - we made a tent!

Frankie tents it up. (Thanks, Grandma Chrys, for the lantern two years ago. I finally pulled it out of storage, changed the batteries, and we made good use of it!)

This morning as I was trying to get ready for church, Frankie raided my basket of clean laundry. He walked into the bathroom wearing one of my skirts (I've resorted to elastic these days *sigh*) and then started flapping his arms like he had wings. Cute, yes, but potentially embarrassing!

So that's it for this post. The house is coming along, which it'd better be since we're down to less than 2 weeks until move-in date. The appliances are being delivered tomorrow morning, the floors are finished, now we're just waiting on the countertops (being made, should be installed later this week), the HVAC (almost done), and the plumbing, which will all be hooked up once the kitchen stuff is in place. I'll make sure to put up more pictures before we crowd the place up with our things. If I can keep the anxiety to a minimum, we might actually survive to enjoy living in our new house!

Quick update....

We are so swamped, I haven't had the time nor the motivation to update the blog. We're moving in two weeks (yikes!), plus I still have one more exhibit to write for TCM Latin America, which is due next Friday. On top of that, I got word yesterday that if I want to teach my course in the fall, an unexpected amount of the course's preparation would fall into my lap and that I must get started on it next week. So that's where I'm at - spending time with Frankie and when he's asleep, working like mad. Somewhere in there we've also got to pack and if anyone around here has any extra boxes, we're in dire need. Don't expect too much from me, but if Juston takes any good pictures on his phone, I'll try to upload them so that no one goes through Frankie withdrawls. :) Oh - and the fire station did close, but - this is the good part - at the closing ceremony, people were heckling the mayor, booing her, and trying to get her to give a good explanation as to why it was happening. There are still no clear answers, so just pray that we don't have a fire any time soon.

Protest!

Yes, I attended my first protest yesterday. Someone said it would be the first of many since I'm moving to the West End. The mayor announced on Friday that, as part of budget cuts, Fire Station #7 would be closing, effective immediately (aka Monday.) This is the oldest operating fire station in the city of Atlanta (100 years old in 2010) and the 4th busiest in the city. The neighborhood has had a huge push recently to work with the fire station to help repair the aging building and make it a pleasant place for our fire workers, but then the city turned around and basically pulled the rug out from under us. In talking to one of the firemen yesterday, he said it was a purely political move as there is no reason to close this particular fire station. We residents are angry and we're not taking this lightly. We're already paying inflated property taxes due to mortgage fraud that falsely inflated our home values and we've only seen our public services go southward. And I can guarantee that the city wouldn't get away with this in the more affluent areas of town. If you live in the city of Atlanta, please e-mail Mayor Shirley Franklin (mayorfranklin@atlantaga.gov) and let her know that you are disappointed with this decision which will adversely affect the public safety of several Southwest Atlanta neighborhoods. It's not our fault that the city has a budget crisis - why should our safety be put at risk?
And here are the photos of the protest on AJC.com - I'm in picture #4 (above). Here's a link to one of our news stories (scroll down and click on the video) - it was the top story on every local news show last night. It was an invigorating experience and it made me proud of my community. SAVE FIRE STATION #7!

Much poorer.

I bought a computer today - it was going to cost more than the worth of the computer to fix it, so I spent the cashola to get a shiny new one! Hooray! Once I finally get around to setting it up, I promise to upload pics (this is for you, Mom.) The old one will probably be retired for Frankie's use - its just the screen that's burnt out, so theoretically we can hook it up to a monitor and use it that way. And as a word of advice, do NOT go to the Apple store this weekend. There was literally a line all the way down the corridor of the mall with people wanting to buy that new iPhone. It's a phone, people! That is all.

Lotsa news.

The good news is that Juston finally bought a camera, so the photographer will be back in the house soon. The bad news is that my laptop screen decided to go kaput tonight, so I won't be uploading any new photos until I get that resolved. I'm visiting the Apple Genius Bar on Saturday, so we'll see what happens. We're hoping it's not too expensive to fix!

Lighting is in.

Down the hallway- the last light is a bit wonky, so we might have to replace it, but we like the look of the different hanging fixtures.



The kitchen pendants and chandelier. The pendants are a bit small, but I think they'll end up being okay. They don't show up well in the picture, but they are white art glass with colored accents. The chandelier is an el cheapo Home Depot special, but it'll do for now. I'll probably keep my eyes peeled for something cooler and more 'found object' looking.


I accidentally uploaded this but figured it could stay. We love fakey cheese!


Now off to work on researching more movie factoids (I was instructed that the people in Mexico love factoids,) including stuff about pre-Love Boat Ricardo Montalban for the TCM Latin America exhibits. If you're an expert on him, please drop me a line. :)

More Boring Grownup Stuff!

Work, sleep, keep kid from losing a limb - that's about what it's like these days, which is why I'm not posting anything interesting, although I'm sure I've taken some photographs. Give me a few days for the motivation. Until then, you'll have to make do with an image of our new refrigerator!

Okay, so it doesn't exactly look like that one. We bought the scratch 'n dent floor model, but it's a pretty cool fridge and I'm very, very excited that I'll no longer have to make my own ice. It's white with silver handles, which I think will work very nicely in our kitchen.

I'm outing myself as a big nerd. Bigger than you originally thought.

On Wednesday night, Juston and I drove to the quaint college town of Athens, GA, to see the Unlimited Enthusiasm Expo. We had an uneventful drive, and upon arrival, checked into our hotel. When we told the girl at the hotel desk what we were doing in Athens, she proceeded to give us a discount because she was jealous. We then ate at a diner called 'Clocked' and I really should've taken some pics there - it was great! Only in a college town could a place like that exist.

Athens!

The show itself was pretty crazy. I don't drink and I was doing stuff like this:

Juston relaxes before the show and pulls his 'John Barrymore thinking' pose.

The opening bands were almost more entertaining than the headliner, with the first being Uncle Monsterface, headed by a guy named Marty who was wearing suspenders and had his hair in ponytails. We talked to him for awhile - he makes his living by selling portraits of his puppets in Union Square, New York City. Seriously. He was awesome. Uncle Monsterface incorporated puppets and multimedia into its act, as well as a full-grown guy in an 'Uncle Monsterface' mask. The kids in the audience had a great time. And whey I say kids, there were like six-year-olds there.

'Pope' Uncle Monsterface dances with the kids during a cover of Madonna's "Like a Prayer."

Requisite photos of us dancing with the dude in the mask.

What what!

Math the Band - on stage, like a really nerdy version of The Dandy Warhols. On the album, not so much. They rule.

Harry and the Potters, probably the biggest Harry Potter-themed band to date (I know, there's a whole 'wizard rock' movement.) The band is comprised of two brothers, Joe and Paul DeGeorge, who answer the question, "what would happen if Harry Potter from year four got together with Harry Potter from year seven and started a rock band?"

Wizard Chess! (This is one of my fav HatP songs.)

So there you have it. If I'd been sixteen, it would've been the night of my life.

I'm going to bore you to death.

Yes, more talk of paint. I finally uploaded the pics from the weekend and since I'm avoiding putting away laundry and it's almost midnight, I might as well post them on the internet, right?

The master bedroom is definitely green.

Go sinks! Go cheap fixtures from IKEA! Juston ended up having to put together the sink basin because things that require exactness frustrate me. It's why I always try to get out of cutting things with the saw - 'close enough' usually doesn't work.

These next few are just to show how the paint colors work against one another. I know that they are a very specific taste, but we're going to live there long enough that I decided to do what I want. Juston's still not convinced on all of the colors, but I think he'll come around. :)

Frankie doesn't enjoy working on the house; last night he kind of gave up and decided that the kitchen floor was as good a place as any to throw a fit and then have a thumb suck.

Tonight I wanted to do something for the house, but since I have to be home earlier than Juston due to an uncooperative toddler (I was bluntly asked to leave the neighborhood association meeting by a slightly rude woman, but that's another story and I don't want to get started on it), I thought 'hey! I can pack!' and then I came to my senses. Besides, we don't have any boxes. Instead, I put together a couple of pictures I'd been wanting to do for awhile. I printed up my three fav drawings and put them against this cool damask paper with some scotch tape. I love the look of scotch tape. Not exactly long lasting, but they'll do the trick. I still need to stain two of the frames, but I figure we'll have some leftover stain from projects on the house. These will go in the kitchen, I think.