Turn it Off

This ad is wonderful, more about parenting and literacy than getting him elected.  

I can even use it in the Every Child Ready to Read workshops when Obama is president!

(The version I saw on TV here is for FL, not NC.  And I don't know why the quality of the video is so bad, looks just fine on YouTube and on Obama's site....)

The Map Keeps Getting Prettier

The New York Times election map has been changing color lately.
I can't wait to see the FL yellow turning blue.
You can click on each state to find out the facts, and you can make the colors change if you are so inclined.

The Mask Slips

"For the nitwits who vote for the man or woman they'd most like to have over for dinner...I suggest you take a look at how well your 401(k) is doing, or how easy it will be to meet the mortgage this month, or whether the college fund you've been trying to build for your kids is as robust as you'd like it to be....Voting has consequences."

What I want to know is, who in the world would actually rather have a batty old man over for dinner than an eloquent, intelligent middle aged man.  Really.  One thing is for sure, they are not people I would want to have over for dinner.

You can read the rest of Bob Herbert's excellent and important column from today's Times here.

And check out Gail Collins' clever column today too.

In the Future, We Will Be Hipsters

Not only did we pull our money out of the market before it collapsed, and put it into real estate in one of the few places in the country that hasn't "cratered", but we actually bought our apartment in Brooklyn's new hipster hangout!

Sarah Killed the Moose

And yesterday she killed a blue whale.

How very Alaskan of Sarah.

Final Day of Driveway & Wall Work!

Another very long day of work, but the guys are now finally done.  

It's raining, but not hard enough to wash away the last of the sand yet.

Our new retaining wall.

Our new mailbox surround.  And all the stuff that will be removed tomorrow.

Soon the doors will be stained and hopefully soon Mark will get the changes done we have planned in the landscaping, and then we will be done.

Except for one thing.

We need a fabulous new mat outside our front door.

Ideas anyone?

Third Day of Driveway, and Wall, Work

The guys worked for a really long time today.  EVERYTHING is covered with a thick layer of cement dust from all the pavers that had to be cut.  The driveway, the front door, the trees, there is some on the roof, in the yard, and our neighbor's roof, trees and yard.  So it's a little hard to see what it will look like, but it still looks great.  The low walls around the landscaping right up against the house are done.
The retaining wall will get higher and be capped off like the ones in the front, making a top people could actually sit on.
Tomorrow the job will pretty much be finished.  The low wall around the mailbox will be built, everything else finished off, concrete poured around the sides of the driveway, the pavers covered with sand and then washed, to push the sand down in between.  It will be beautiful when washed, and we can choose, for more money, to have it sealed in about a month if we want, to keep that beautiful just washed look for a few years.  I think maybe we will do that, and maybe do the pool deck at the same time.  We'll see how much we feel like spending another couple of thousand dollars.

Monday, hopefully, all the pallets and the dumpster will be removed.  Mark will still have to figure out what to do with the old wood wall, and we will have a lot of pavers and some of the wall stones left so we might do something with the totally overgrown pond area in the back....

I am so happy with how this is turning out.  And the neighborhood likes it too -- the contracter has three appointments from people on our block who have stopped by!