Busy and Productive and Duke Who?

Yesterday I accomplish most everything I wanted to...and more. It is a great feeling to have a task list and complete it.

I managed to get the entire house vacuumed thoroughly. When I mean thoroughly I mean under all the furniture, in all the corners with the edge tool moving movable items out of the way, etc. I did this for every room but the kitchen, where I just vacuumed and edged.

I also stripped, vacuumed, and made the bed. I shook out the comforter to get any stray dog hair off of it. My wife washed it last week so I that chore was done. After all that I washed some dishes and put away a load of clothes that were in the dryer.

My next chore was a trip to the Home Depot to pick up weed killer, crab grass preventer, fertilizer, edger blades, and a propane refill. It did not take me long to find what I was looking for since I knew where all this stuff was (I shop there often) and I also wanted to get home to do the last part of my punch list: edging and trimming mine and my neighbors yard. That took a little longer than expected, but I still was on schedule...enough that I put down crab grass preventer (Scot's with HALT...supposed to be good stuff) and fertilize both yards (except our back yard. Our dogs need a place to do their duty). My arms were tired from lugging all those heavy bags around (I am still not 100%, but getting there) and need to rest.

I jumped in the shower and was almost done when my cell phone rang. My wife answered told me it was Ray*. She told him I would call him back and I did once I was done washing off the chemicals.

"Ray" was shopping for some Christian Rock CD's and wanted to know what I thought of his choices. He was picking up Disciple's self titled CD and one from Pillar. Both are great choices. "Ray" is like me in that he loves heavier rock and had trouble finding Christian stuff that we liked. I think we have solved that!

After all this my wife an I bought some salad fixins' and drove 30 minutes north to Mickey and Mary's* house. They had invited us up to eat and so I could get his network up and running. There was not much to do on that last part. I just had to make a couple of setting changes and move the wireless hardware so he could get better reception.

They had made chicken legs and had some leftover beef ribs for dinner. There were also pork laced pinto beans, pasta salad, biscuits, the tossed salad we brought and cookies for dessert. I work better with a good meal in my belly.

When all the eating and work had been done, I asked "Mickey" if we could watch the UNC-Duke game on ESPN. He agreed and we settled down to watch a battle. It actually started before we were finished with the network and all the while my wife (A huge Duke fan) was taunting me since Duke got out to a quick and rather large lead. I was not worried and let her gloat a bit. About half way through the first half, UNC started to reverse the flow and made Duke a bit nervous. At the half, the 'Heels who were down 11 very early on, were down 1 and were fighting hard. I could try to recap the game, but I will let you read about it here.

During halftime, we loaded up the van with all the moving boxes that Mickey had used, so they could be recycled. Even flattened, there were a lot.

The second half of the game, my wife nursed a Mike's Hard Lemonade. If Duke were to lose, she might need the whole six pack. She was talking serious trash. When the game was over, I did not gloat. Duke played as well as they could. They have 2 stand out players who have carried the team this far. They finally broke down.

To be honest, it was a good game that ended with a group of young Tarheels winning 83-76 at Duke on Duke Senior Day. There have not been many of those lately. Duke has a strong program and Carolina has been rebuilding ever since Dean Smith left. Then after winning a national championship last year and having SEVEN of their top scorers leave (NBA or graduate), the job got harder. Roy Williams got a very talented group of freshman to come to Carolina and they are doing a great job. I am a very happy man this morning, despite the fact I need more sleep!

*Not their real names.