Did I mention last week that we were painting? Well, we are. Did I mention what we are painting? We are painting our living room, dining area and hallway. Did you hear what color we are using? We’re painting the living room a light shade of green, the hallway a darker shade of green, and the dining area blue. Well, Cheryl THINKS we are painting the dining area blue. I’m not to sure about the whole blue dining area concept. When I tell people what color we are using the reaction seems to be universally unenthusiastic. “Oh.” “Green? . . . huh.” “Hmmm.” “. . .” (the blank stare)

What is it about green that seems to bring out such apathy from so many? Does anyone really like green? How many people do you talk that admit their favorite color is green? Now that we’ve finished the living room, the green is starting to grow on me. Now that we’ve started the hallway I know that the darker green will not. Even though we haven’t started the dining room, I still feel strongly about no blue.

The upshot to all of this is that we may have saved some money repairing our microwave instead of buying new. The dang thing was only two years old, so we figured it ought to have more life left to it. Plus, repairing it only cost 1/2 the cost of a new one. I told Cheryl this when we were deciding whether to repair it. It was a verbal exchange that, to me, spoke volumes about our personalities. I’m thinking to myself, “hey, it will only cost 1/2 to repair it, that’s 1/2 the cost of a new microwave saved – let’s repair it.” Now, I didn’t say all that, that’s just a summary of what was going through my mind when I actually said, “it will cost 1/2 the price of a new microwave to repair it.” Apparently what Cheryl heard was, “that’s 1/2 the cost of a new microwave to keep the piece of crap that broke after only two years.” I guess I was sending the wrong nonverbal signals. We repaired it. It works like a two year old microwave again.

We made up for the savings on the microwave with the DVD player (I’m not even going to talk about Cheryl’s car … that piece of #$%^ is off the charts). The DVD player was not immediately repairable. I called tech assistance with the manufacturer, and they suggested a “DVD lens cleaner.” They said that if that didn’t work, it would be time to call him back to find out where the nearest authorized manufacturer service provider was located. Yeah, right. The lens cleaner was not successful, so I went off in search for a new one. Why repair the microwave and not the DVD player? What may seem contradictory on the surface, is only somewhat conflicting once you dig a little deeper. Since it seems that no one is waiting outside my door with shovels, I’ll spare you the explanation. I will say that replacing the DVD player became somewhat more important over the weekend. My iBook was filing in admirably as a replacement DVD player until I heard a suspicious thump in the family room while Beth was watching The Wizard of Oz on Saturday. I got worse when, as I approached from the other room to see what was wrong, Beth immediately starts franticly asserting, “I’m sorry daddy, I’m sorry.” There on the floor was my recently plugged in, formerly open and sitting on the counter, iBook. This prompted the end of the iBook’s career as a complete home entertainment system, while at the same time increasing demand for a dedicated DVD player. My search for a new player was an epic tale of travels, lies, deceit, and redemption. It gets less interesting when I get to the details, so I’ll just leave it at that.

May your work week be short and your weekend even shorter.