The Net Newborn Challenge: Hungry, Sleepy, Grumpy

I'm 36 hours old and can't figure out if I'm hungry, sleepy, or grumpy. Any guesses?

Mom' s doing great - she needs to get some sleep tonight so I'll do my best to let her have some quiet time. I think she's been awake for 800 hours straight, so I'll probably just tap dad or the friendly nurses for a late night diaper change.

Tomorrow I'm heading home. Apparently I'll meet Uncle Harry the Cat (everyone who visits us calls him something like Uncle Scary the Claw); I think mom will also start putting me in some of my non-hospital duds. Unfortunately those won't include baby jeans yet; dad keeps saying something about having to pay for some college thing, although mom is just rolling her eyes, so I'll work on her a little more once dad is back at work.

Dad's First Bad Home Improvement Idea

Hey, what do you get when you mix a home improvement rookie with an old carpeted staircase?

What you get is an unnecessary amount of manual labor, including painting, sanding, suspected toxic paint removal, and trips to Lowe's and Home Depot for new tools. Then you also fork over a few trunkloads of money and time, as well as any interest in ever undertaking any other home improvement project.

That said, a now infamous stair project is starting to wrap up, and while it was difficult, the results are taking shape. While it has nothing to do with Pat (except that she or he will one day need decent stairs to run up and down), I had to post at least a few pictures for family and others to see the progress. For someone who has never really done any major project involving wood, unless you count the magazine rack we were forced to make in seventh grade, it was a great learning experience. I admit it's no 2nd-story addition like Beth and Jake just finished up, but you need to start somewhere.

By the way, special thanks goes out to Davis Lee, a.k.a. McGyver, who thanklessly provided excellent advice every time I either hit a wall or was about to make a big, costly mistake. Except, potentially, the mistake of taking on this project. Grampy also gets a save as well for keeping me from over-complicating the whole thing. Two words: Liquid Nails. Lastly, I'd just like to confirm a bit of wisdom that was once shared by good buddy Ezra when we were about a month into painting my parents' entire house back in 90-degree summer 1998 weather: "hey, this is why nobody wants to end up painting and sanding." affirmative, ez.

Time to make a bad mistake.

Post tear-out of carpet. Hard to see, but these 100-year-old stairs were pretty much riddled with nail holes and dents. Nice and creaky, too.

Some of the old stairs in their almost-final resting place.

The new oak treads are in, along with a fresh paint job for the staircase...not done yet, but it's usable again. The new balusters and some moulding work is on tap for next weekend...

Above is the first-ever chisel job; it's dedicated to Davis McGyver, who told me that yes, i would need to use the chisel to do this properly. Given it was Dad's first-ever chisel job, it caused Melissa to see more of the Pats game on Sunday than me. Luckily they won. Anyhow, here's Davis McGyver this past Saturday night in his favorite "Sou-Wester?" hat. Had to memorialize it. Thanks McGyver.