Colder than a Beardless Dwarf on top of the Lonely Mountain.

Well, the Holidays are over, and for a moment there it seemed like the weather was going to warm up a bit, spring was finally going to come....


.....


NOPE.


Thanksgiving came and went. The New Jersey Clan and the Delaware Clan of the Welker Family met at the Maryland Clan's settlement to feast on the deliciousness that is Thanksgiving Dinner. It went swimmingly.
It was also the first time Kara and I hosted such an event, and I don't mean to toot my own horn, but....*toot toot*

Then we had a break in Holiday Shenanigans for a couple weeks, and before we knew it, we were setting up our Christmas Tree, decorating the house and wrapping presents. We went for a color coordinated tree this year, While/Silver and blue. It looked great!  Though, I think we need more lights next year, and Kara says more ornaments. But hey, on a college budget I think we did quite well.

While all this Holiday stuff was going on, the students had to tackle finals.  As far as I know, everyone did reasonably well this semester. Kara changed her major from Business Information Systems to Business Management with a minor in Information Systems.  Mike (George) is still in Business Information Systems and Charlene is still in French. Good stuff.

So, the semester came to a close, Christmas wrapped up and the New Year was steadfastly approaching. The snow had come can gone (here in our neck of the woods, we just barely got nipped by it). With the year coming to a close, we did what any reasonable college family would do.
....We threw a party.
It was great.  As one of my friends who attended the party said,
"Good party. It was like two parties. One, a civilized affair with records and discussions of philosophy and tasty snacks. The other, a debouched event with fireworks, Cards Against Humanity, and naked people... I think your party may have been a Batman villain."

Good times, hahaha.

With the New Year brought it, it was time to make half promises to attend the local fitness facility in between the bites of the Twinkies and HoHo's we are stuffing into our mouths, and vow to get up off the couch and go for a run right after this episode of Family Guy. And by this episode, I mean the one 3 hours from now.
But all that is stuff, anyway. Here in Haus von Welker, we take things more seriously...okay, not really.

So, now all the holidays are over. Life is back to normal and I have yet to take my Christmas Decorations down. And since there is currently snow, it wont be happening any time soon. Luckily, our HVAC system was installed, so the house is warmish. (we keep the temp down at 60-65 and wrap up in a blanket...because bills suck...)

So, seeing as it's colder than a beardless dwarf on the peaks of the Lonely Mountain, I'm going to go wrap up in a blanket and watch tv all day.

Pain is Gain!!!

Been a few months, sorry folks!

So, almost all of the leaves are on the ground now.  The Halloween decor has disappeared off the shelves and is replaced by fat jolly Santa's and grinning little elves. The weather is getting cold and here we are...with no heat in the house.

Fun.

A few weeks ago, we had two of my nieces come stay the weekend with us. The house was freezing, so we had them sleep up in the attic where it is warm (The attic is our movie theater. We use it as a family room type setting).  Anyway, we had a heater plugged in up there.  Turns out, the outlet in our living room, the outlet that the refrigerator is on, the outlet in our bedroom, and the outlet that everything in the attic is plugged into is all on the same fuse.  We have blown this fuse (and yes, they are fuses, not breakers) about 4 times in the last 2 weeks. Luckily, Kara and I are trying to get an HVAC system installed in the next few weeks, so we need to upgrade out electrical system anyway.

We have the electrician picked out, and he is coming on Wednesday to do the work. We have the HVAC guy picked out, and hopefully he will be able to have everything done by Thanksgiving. (Hopefully).  And best of all, we have the Home Equity Loan to pay for it all. Good stuff.

The pain of it all is that this will add like an extra $100/month to our bills.  But the Gain is that it will increase the value of the house! That's always good.  Going through this process, I've learned a lot about this kind of stuff.  Learned all about HVAC and things like that.  It's completely and utterly useless in day to day life, but I'll take what I can get, lol.

Hopefully, we will have a nice and toasty house in the next few weeks.


In other news, they recently opened up a Planet Fitness in Salisbury (And I know Planet Fitness gets a lot a flack from the hardcore athletes).  Kara and I signed up.  I mean, I'm fat, I'm not active anymore and I'm super weak. So I figure it doesn't matter for me if their free weights only go up to 50 pounds, and it's $10/month. So it's a win win situation for me.
I've been going there every day for that past few days.  I'm working on a 3 day routine with one day of rest. Granted...I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing, lol.  I just know the basics. The guy I work with and I do Day 1) Arms, Chest and Upper back; 2) Abs, Lower Back; 3) Legs. I'm in pain. I'm in more pain than I've been in my life.  Like.  Crap.

I'm currently sitting at 235 pounds. I wanna be less fat, lol. I'm hoping to get down to 200.  I don't have a time frame for this yet.  But I'm going to do everything I can to be as close to this as possible by the new year.


As I type this, my room mate George is force feeding me nachos that are covered in jalapenos and cheese.

Anyway, life goals.  Be less fat, get heating and stop eating nachos.

The Winds of Change

So, it's only been a couple months since the last post.  Not too bad!

Let's start off talking about the project we had started over the spring.
The Garden:
What to say about this?  It turned out alright.  We kind of planted all of our stuff too close together.  The Zucchini and the Yellow Squash came in perfectly! But they overgrew the Cucumbers, so those didn't turn out good.  The Tomatoes are coming in really well, but they overgrew the peppers, so we didn't get any of those.  The Onions and Potatoes turned out nice, but next year, I am definitely putting compost on them so they get bigger!  Then there's the sugar snap peas.  They were delicious.  I kept eating them right off the vine, so we never got a good harvest out of them.  But overall, I think we did fairly well for it being our first time.

Lessons to be learned?
I am definitely building beds for next year! And I am also going to lessen the amount of stuff I grow (I had like 10 Yellow Squash plants, only need like 2 or 3) Finally, spacing is key.  Need to make sure I don't plant them too close together.

The House:
We are currently painting the Entry and the Stairs.  It went from everything (walls and trim) being yellow, to the walls being a nice tan and the trim being white.  I mean...the trim is still yellow, because the when I asked for white paint at the hardware store, they handed me gray -_-  I've switched it out, just haven't had time to paint  yet.

In other news, we have a new addition to the family!  I would like to introduce Ms. Lily Marie "Lil Bear" Welker! She's another pug that we rescued from this real hick family. They guy couldn't take care of her and was threatening to throw her on the street.  So we drove up to Cecil County a couple months ago to get her. She's really nice. Kind of quiet, but she gets along well with the other two.  Chanel (our lab) and Evil (our other pug) have welcomed her into their pack :)

Now, tomorrow (August 8th) is Kara's 22nd birthday.  We are going to have a nice little shindig with a few friends.  Figured I'd give her a birthday shout out.

Moving on now...it has come to my attention that I am really out of shape.  My work has 20 cent vending machines...those honey buns and Mountain Dews really did me in.  I've gained 30 pounds (I'm up near 240 now...I think it's like 237, but I'm gonna round up) So, it is my goal to reach 200 by Christmas.  This means I have about 5 months to lose 40 pounds. Shouldn't be too bad. My fat% is 30%, I want to get it down to 15%.  I've gotten really into looking into healthy alternatives to the evil vending machine of doom.
Now, instead of having change on me, I take some carrots and sliced cucumbers to work for a snack.  I've been eating eggs and whole grain bread for breakfast. Sometimes I'll do oatmeal with a sprinkling of cinnamon (get that fiber to feel full longer, and the cinnamon is a natural appetite suppressant).
It's different.  I'm used to always having a soda to wake me up.  But I've cut that out completely and am sticking to water.  Though, I will sometimes make some Green Tea with no sugar and drink that.
But my diet now contains fruits, veggies, yogurt, grains and water. Less sugar and saturated fats.  The only thing that isn't different is my protein intake. We've always been using ground turkey in place of ground beef, and we usually eat chicken.  We don't usually have beef here (We should be spokes people for chick fil a!) We, my protein is pretty lean. I'm also going to start eating more fish to get those Omega 3's

But dieting is just 80% of the work.  The rest is physical activity. Kara and I (and sometimes George) go for a 4 mile walk each night before bed. Then in the morning I wake up and do the Insanity workout.  It kicks my butt, but I've already noticed that I have more energy--and I've only been doing it for about a week.

So, I'm on my way to becoming healthier.  I figure while I'm only 20, now is the time to make those changes. Not when I'm in my 30's or 40's, because knowing my family history, that would be too late.

But yea...that's about it.
:D

Doom de doom doom

Would you look at that!  Two post within 30 days of each other!  Hope I'm not spoiling you all! ;)

So, nothing has really happened, lol. Kara, Charlene and Jorje have all finished the semester. It was a good one. All of them passed their classes and Kara came out happy with her grades :) (She took Mass Media, Business Law, Business Statistics and Information Systems--they all sound super boring to me, but she had fun). So, now we are planning our annual camping trip that we take every summer. This time we are going to go to Assateague Island so we can go to the beach. 

We set up a garden in the back yard. We planted Tomatoes, Jalapeno Peppers, Bell Peppers, Onions, Sugar Snap Peas, Zucchini, Cucumbers, Yellow Squash and (accidentally) Potatoes. Should be a good harvest! However, I'm hoping that next growing season, I will have enough money to build raised beds. This garden (my first garden I've done on my own) is right in the ground, and honestly? I'm far too laz--uh, BUSY, to weed it, lol.  But the grass is taking over so I gotta get on that.

We also have a few pumpkins that I need to plant. These are left over from the two pumpkins we had for Halloween.  

On another subject.  We have painted the Foyer/Stairwell/Hallway from that weird yellow/cream color to a nice sandy tan color. The trim was also the same yellow/cream color, and we are painting it white (Charlene is actually taping off the walls so we can paint, lol) So, that's my next project.  

Now, in my spare time, I kind of putz around on the interwebs, or watch Dr. Who, or watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic....but Kara brought home a copy of Brandon Sanderson's new book, The Rithmatist. It was fantastic! In true Sanderson fashion, the magic system was intense and the book was funny and action packed.

It takes place in a world similar to ours, in on of the 60 United Isles. The main character, a 16 year old boy named Joel--the son of the cleaning lady at the academy he attends--is not a Rithmatist. He's always wanted to be one, but the change for him to do so has long past. But that hasn't stopped him.  He still knows more about the science behind it than most people do. Well---I'm far too lazy to write a review/summary.  Here is what's located on the cover of the book

More than anything, Joel wants to be a Rithmatist. Chosen by the Master in a mysterious inception ceremony, Rithmatists have the power to infuse life into two-dimensional figures known as Chalklings. Rithmatists are humanity’s only defense against the Wild Chalklings—merciless creatures that leave mangled corpses in their wake. Having nearly overrun the territory of Nebrask, the Wild Chalklings now threaten all of the American Isles.
As the son of a lowly chalkmaker at Armedius Academy, Joel can only watch as Rithmatist students study the magical art that he would do anything to practice. Then students start disappearing—kidnapped from their rooms at night, leaving trails of blood. Assigned to help the professor who is investigating the crimes, Joel and his friend Melody find themselves on the trail of an unexpected discovery—one that will change Rithmatics—and their world—forever.

So...yea. Read it. It's really good. I busted it out in a couple days, so it shouldn't take long for other's ei
ther.

Anywho...not much else to talk about, so I suppose I'll sign off.

<enter some nerdy reference here>

Sacrebleu!

It's been just about an entire year since the last post!  Holy cow!  A lot has happened in this last year, it's been crazy. So, I guess I'll start from the beginning.

Last time we posted, we had JUST moved into our house! (Isn't it awesome? :D)

Isn't this house just the best? lol

We rebuilt the ceiling in the kitchen and bathroom.

Isn't that an ugly hole?

We tore up the floor in the attic to make room for

our in house movie theater! :D         .

We painted the walls from this ugly...Orange? Peach?

and Yellow Combo...

Really have no idea what color that is....

To this much better looking Purple/Cream combo =]

So, those were the major renovations we did.  We also took down some trees in the back yard, and the pile sat there until about 2 months ago or so (I tell you what though, made for some good firewood this year!)

It took a while to get the house set up, but now it looks like a home, not just a house. The general clutter left over from people who are constantly at school or work, the sound of puppies trying to kill the mailman...you know, that whole homely thing.

When we moved down here, Kara had a job at this awful company called Absolute. They dealt with Truckers all day. Not fun.  I was unemployed for a few months. But I finally landed an awesome job at the Credit Bureau of Delmarva (aka. Credit Plus). Really cool job.  I work in a call center updating credit reports for mortgage companies. I've learned a lot about the industry, and it's actually kind of fun.  The people I work with are awesome, I don't have to wear a tie (actually...I almost always show up to work in jeans, tshirt and flippy floppies), and the job is easy. And I make bank there with their bonus incentives ;)

Kara has since gotten out of her awful job, and is now happily employed at Barnes & Noble. A dream job for her while she goes to school. Her first semester at Salisbury University is coming to end (finals are next week). She is majoring Business Information System. I'm not sure what that means, but she explained it to me in classic Mike terms "Business on Computers". I suppose that makes sense. But she likes it well enough, except for one class where the teacher "couldn't be more dull if he tried".

Living here in Salisbury, we are about 30-40 minutes from Ocean City, MD (Not to be confused with Ocean City, NJ....because really...who want to go to NJ?  It's the armpit of America). But...we really only went to the beach like 2 times last Summer. We were far too busy planning a wedding!

On September 15, 2012, Kara and I tied the knot at the Fallston United Methodist Church in Fallston, MD. Not to toot my own horn, but the ceremony was beautiful, the reception was awesome and overall, it was a blast!

The Beautiful Ceremony!

The Awesome Reception!

The overall success!

After a long night of partying, we ran off to Lancaster, PA where we spent the first night at a Bed and Breakfast. Then we proceeded to catch a plane and flew to the Bahama's for a week in paradise.

Sadly, the week in paradise had to end, and we came back to the real world.  But the experiences of that week are still with us. It was amazing there.

So the next few months went by uneventfully, then come the new year, our little home got two new additions. (No, not kids...but sometimes I wonder about George, lol). We got two room mates. Charlene and Mike (aka George) moved in with us! They are both going to SU with Kara. George is majoring the same thing as Kara, and Charlene is majoring in French. 

Now, in May of 2013, we are getting into the warm season. We have a vegetable garden growing, the yard is looking great and we built a shed! We are almost halfway through the year, and it's been pretty good so far.  We have the rest of the year to look forward to.  Hopefully, it wont be another year before another post is written.

May you always find water and shade.

Housework...how I hate you.

So, while Kara has been at work, and I once again find myself in a tight spot with work (They were supposed to transfer me a week ago, and still haven't!!!), I have doing the housework! I hate it soooo much, but the reward is awesome.  I just built my own custom shelves out of some scrap wood we had in the basement, pretty cool.  They look good too!  Not crooked or anything! lol.  We are using them to hold some of our movies, but we still a bajillion more movies to put somewhere for now (to the basement they go!). I've also spent today hanging up the pictures, and getting the house ready for the weekend, because we will be gone.  Heading back up to Elkton for the Scottish Games, and for Kara's graduation. Our living room looks like a living room now!  The tv center is all set up, cable, dvd/vcr, wii, ps2 and ps3 :D Pictures on our end tables and on the walls.  It's looking like a house now!

I'm gradually getting through the two spare bedrooms upstairs.  One of them will be turned into an office, but we have a futon in there that we bought at a yardsale.  Smells hardcore like Asian, but that's what OxyClean and Febreeze is for!  Getting a lot done, and still have more to do...but tonight, Kara and I are going to this wedding expo because we won a 3 day 2 night trip to somewhere. We get to pick, all we have to do is pay for the airline tickets to get there. Totally stoked.

And now my lunch is devoured, so back to work...

May the odds be ever in your favor.

The House!

So, the house is coming along well.  I'm actually posting this because I'm procrastinating...really don't feel like doing anything.  It's raining and gross outside, Evil is asleep in my lap and Chanel is at my feet, and Food Network is on.  But Kara is off at her first day of work, so I should have some stuff done when she gets home.

Today so far, I've gotten the primer/sealer on the ceiling we installed in the kitchen and bathroom.  But total work done on the house is new paint in the living room, dining room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom.  New ceiling in the kitchen and bathroom, floor torn out of the attic, trees cut in the back yard to start cleaning up the fence line, and all the furniture moved into the house.  I have to arrange the furniture this week while I wait for my transfer at Staples to go through. Hopefully I can get completely unpacked.  We'll see lol.

But so far, Kara and I LOVE Salisbury.  We are half a mile from the on ramp to route 50, which takes us directly to Ocean City, MD.  The locals have told us it takes under 30 minutes to get there.  The mall and right down to rad too, and a bajillion different restaurants. The people here are all super nice, and the neighbors are friendly. It's great down here.  We haven't gotten around to meeting too many new people, other than the neighbors and the cashiers at walmart, but still, they are all nice.  Hopefully, when we get around to getting back to school, we will still feel the same way.  We don't plan on starting school until January, because we have a full schedule for the summer and fall, what with a few weddings to go to, including our own, then our week long honeymoon to the Bahama's!  (Totally stoked for that!)

But, it's been 30 minutes since I put the last coat of primer on, so I suppose it's time to actually paint the ceiling now.

May the Force be with you.