Hopefully things will get back to normal around here soon. We are hoping that the Wife’s Aunt gets back into her house today. The water has gone down enough that the backway should be travelable soon. I don’t mind having houseguests, but her Aunt has been here since Easter, and Grandma and Grandpa have been here for two weeks. It’s getting a little long.

Yesterday it was just me and the Grandparents at home all day. I am not much of a people person to begin with, but how much do I have in common with an 80 year old? I didn’t have much to talk about. Grandpa pretty much watched TV all day as I sat on my computers. Grandma isn’t doing so hot, but the cancer hasn’t spread as far as they had feared. She had surgery Wednesday, and is on a feeding tube now. Grandpa was in charge of keeping her fed.

I on the other hand was in charge of keeping Grandpa fed. He is obviously from a different generation than me. He has nothing to do with the kitchen. He wont cook. He wont even nuke leftovers, or even make coffee. He is totally a nice guy, but all his life the kitchen as been the “women’s place”. Plus I am sure he feel out of place, and doesn’t know where anything is in our kitchen. I didn’t really know what to cook, so we had leftovers for lunch, and I just ordered a pizza for supper.

It was a little weird when lunch time came, and right at noon he walked into my computer room and told me it was time for lunch. He is pretty much programed to eat the same time every day. Not that that’s a big deal, I know I have my little quirks too.

Today should be another busy day. More of the wife’s family is coming to visit from the east coast. They will only be here for the day to visit though, as they fly back tomorrow. I am really looking for things to get back to normal around here soon.

I have this weekend off, but it going to be a busy one.

We are heading back to our home town for the weekend.

My Mom recently bought a piano, and she wants to get rid of her china hutch to make room for the piano, so we are taking the hutch. It would be tough to pack for the weekend and get everything in the cab of my truck, so we rented a trailer for the hutch. They wanted $133 to rent a trailer to haul one way, but only $15 a day if we bring it back to the same place we rented it from. So we will be towing the trailer there and back.

So we will be spending Friday night and Saturday with friends and family. Then Sunday we have tickets to see Wicked down in Minneapolis. Erica went to it a few weeks ago and enjoyed it, so I am sure we will have fun.

We will then have a long drive back to get home in time for work on Monday morning. I am hoping the weather is good. So far they are just say flurries for Sunday.

I hope everybody is having a happy Thanksgiving. I wish we were having Thanksgiving. I have been married eight years, and it is still weird when I miss a holiday with my family. My family has rock solid traditions. Thanksgiving dinner is always on Thanksgiving, at Grandma’s house, at noon, not 11:30, not 12:30, but noon. Now it’s been moved to my Aunts house since my Grandma is getting up there in age and has downsized to an apartment.

The Wife’s family celebrates holidays on different days sometimes to work with people’s schedules, so I won’t get my Thanksgiving dinner until Saturday. They also don’t have lutefisk, or lefse, because nobody likes them. I don’t know how they can be Norwegians and not like them. I guess I will have to do without this year.

It was a beautiful day out today. It got up into the 40s, so I took advantage of it and got our Christmas lights up.

Now I gotta find something to eat and watch some football for the rest of the day.

This year we are spending Thanksgiving with the Wife’s family. We usually go to her Aunts house here in Fargo. Fargo is pretty centrally located for our families, so everybody heads here. Well, her Aunt’s house is a mess because they are remodeling a couple of rooms. That means everybody is going to be at our house. I hate having a house full of people. Our house is also smaller than her Aunt’s, so it’s going to be a little crowded. We are putting heaters and tables in the garage so everybody has a place to sit and eat. My job today is to clean and sweep out the garage. The Wife said she is going to handle everything else, so that’s cool. I will be glad when it’s all done.

Thankfully this is all going to happen on Saturday and I have to work. I will miss out on all the fun. Shucks.

So we game my Brother-in-law a three month noticed that we wanted him to move out. In that three months his didn’t look for a place at all. We were nice and gave him one more month, and he still hasn’t starting looking, and now that college is starting, all the cheap apartments are gone. When he got his current job he said it paid pretty good, so he quit his other part time job. This week we found out that his pretty good is only $8.50. I don’t know how a person could live on $8.50. I think him telling us was his way to try and buy more time here. A couple months ago he got a speeding ticket, so now his parents are making him pay his own insurance, he also got his second minor a couple months ago, so he has that fine to pay off, plus he has been putting off his student loans as long as possible and has to start paying on those. Basically after all his bills he would be left with $300 for rent and spending money. Not really enough to live off of. We kinda felt bad kicking him out, but he has known about it for months.

Today the Wife talked to her Aunt, and she agree to have him move in with her until January when a few of his bills will be paid off, and hopefully he finds a better job.

He should listen and follow his Aunts rules better than his sisters. I am sure she will charge something for rent and food. She wont put up with the phone ringing all hours of the night. I don’t think she will put up with his coming home at three in the morning and waking the whole house up. They have four dogs, they will wake the whole house up.

These are all things that my Wife has gotten on his case about, but he just ignores her.

My fingers are still crossed. I will believe it when it happens, but it is sure looking like it’s going to happen soon.

In about two hours we are heading out of town. My Mom rented a cabin on a lake, and the wife and I, and my Brother and his wife will be there all weekend. There will be no Internet for me until Sunday night. It might actually be kinda nice, but I am dreading how much catchup I will have on Sunday night, but it shouldn’t be too bad.

So long until Sunday Night.

So when my In-laws were up for the weekend the Wife talked to them about her Brother. We both want him out bad. Since the chance of him actually calling on apartments is pretty slim, the In-laws called on a few. They found one that he likes, but it was up to him to go back and sign all the paperwork and stuff. Well, it’s been almost a week and he hasn’t gone back. Who knows if that apartment is still open now. The Wife said if he doesn’t have a signed lease by the 15, she is kicking him out, otherwise he has to be out by September 1st.

I am not getting my hopes up this time, but I am keeping my fingers crossed.

So I was looking at my browser history and I noticed my Brother-in-law was browsing porn last night. He was only on one site, so I blocked it. It’s not that I am against porn, I just don’t like the thought of him spanking it in my computer chair. He never use to use my computer, but now that the wife has her laptop we took down her desktop. Her computer was the one his usually used. I am pretty anal when it comes to my computers. I don’t like other people messing with them. He sure as hell better not get my computer infected with any spyware. He is supposedly moving out August 1st. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Wow, it’s Friday already. I am still catching up on stuff from the weekend. It was a crazy five day weekend. It started with a sad day at my friends fathers funeral last Friday. Then Saturday we spent the day with the wife’s family, grilled out, and had a good time. Sunday we headed up north for a three hour drive for my cousin graduation. It was my youngest cousin, so it was the last graduation in our family for quite some time. Monday was the usual Memorial Day services. We have been doing the same thing for Memorial Day since I remember. My Uncle died in Vietnam, so Memorial Day has always been about him. After the cemetery visits we went out to my Aunt and Uncle’s lake cabin. It was a crappy ass day, so we just sat inside and ate too much. Tuesday we headed down to the Cities for the Honda Civic Tour. It was at the Myth which is a pretty cool place for a concert. It was a sellout so the place was packed. We saw Phantom Planet, The Hush Sound, and of course Motion City Soundtrack. We actually left after Motion City Soundtrack, so we missed Panic at the Disco. We have seen Panic before, they are good, but there was no way they were going to be better than Motion City. We had a four hour drive ahead of us and wanted to get a head start. We finally got home at 2:00 AM, and were up at 6:00 AM for work. This weekend should be much more relaxing. I have today and Monday off, so it’s a four day weekend. It’s starting to feel like I never work.

It still seems weird when people that have gotten married after us get divorced. To me I still feel like a newlywed, but I guess after eight years that title no longer really applies. Where have the last eight years went?

Yesterday we heard that the Wife’s cousin is getting divorced. They just got married last summer. They wanted to save money on pictures, so they had me take their wedding pictures. Everybody thought they turned out great, I thought they were only so-so, but then I am probably my biggest critic. Maybe it was a good thing that they didn’t want to spend much money on wedding pictures now.

I didn’t care much for the guy she married, so I am not really surprised that they are getting divorced. He was lazy and irresponsible. He was always going from shitty job to shitty job not making much money, but still making sure he went on all his hunting and fishing trips and spent all his money on his toys. My Wife’s cousin is going to school and working two jobs to try and cover the bills.

There is no way I would make my Wife work two jobs and go to school. Paying bills and providing for my Wife is number one, even if I have to get three jobs. My toys come last. Maybe that’s why I am still married.

So my Brother-in-law is still living with us. I am pretty sick of him living here. The wife told him he has to move out by August 1st. We will see what happens. My guess is he will quit his job and not be able to move out because he has no money. He actually got a full time job about a week ago. It’s a little nicer around here with him gone all day, and now he goes to bed at night instead of making a bunch of noise and keeping everybody up watching movies and playing XBox.

One thing I have really noticed with him living here is I have really bad OCD. I can’t stand it when things aren’t put away when done with. He leaves dishes all over, never puts XBox game and gamepads away, and the phones… they are never put back on the charger, or even kept on the same level of the house. It drives me crazy! We have a phone in the kitchen, a phone upstairs, and a phone downstairs for a reason. Half the time he leave all three of them sitting on the same end table. How hard is it to put the phone away when you are done. he also talks on the phone all the time. He pretty must uses up all are Vonage minutes every month. It’s a good thing that it’s only 4 cents a minute to go over, so he hasn’t racked up much of a bill.

We told him he could live here for a while as long as he did a few things, paid us rent, and keep his bathroom clean. Well, he hasn’t paid us rent since January, and he has never cleaned his bathroom. The wife has cleaned it a few time, but I refuse to clean it. It is pretty nasty.

Another thing that bugs me is his smoking. He doesn’t smoke in the house, which is a good thing, but his room still reeks of smoke just by having his clothes it, and our yard is full of cigarette butts. The wife told him to clean them up last week, but talking to him is like talking to a wall. I am sure I will end up cleaning them up one of these days.

The thing that drives me crazy the most is his bill paying. He pretty much has one bill. His truck payment. That bill comes directly out of his parents bank account, so he has to send a check to his parents every month. So every month he hands a bunch of cash to my wife and tells her to write a check and mail it and it has to get there today. WTF? He has a checking account. I don’t know why he can’t write a check and mail it a few days before it’s due. One of my biggest pet peeves has to be people being irresponsible.