Work seems to be picking back up, so that’s cool.  I’d still like to finish my own redesign at some point though.  I haven’t worked on it all week, and there are a few things I’m waiting to do until I finish it.

I took Milly to play with Callie this morning.  I could hear Callie shrieking in excitement before we finished walking up the short driveway.  I chatted with Allison for a few minutes then headed off to do some work.

Before doing that I applied another coat of polyurethane to the stairs, and before doing that I had to sand the steps.  I didn’t realize I was supposed to go soft on them, so depending on how it turns out, we might have to completely redo the first step.

So the house smelled of fumes for most of the day.  Actually, it wasn’t all that bad.  I opened every window in the house, whereas before I think we left the upstairs windows closed.  Or maybe I just wasn’t thick enough with it.  Either way, I don’t think the fumes are as bad as they were last time.

Amanda picked Milly up and they stayed out a good bit of the day.  They went to Mayfaire for a while, stopping in Brilliant Sky, Barnes & Noble and Atlanta Bread.  They came home with a coloring book and a speaker amplifier that fits onto the bottom of an iPhone.  It was surprisingly cheap.

Amanda picked up the coloring book, more of a coloring pad really, because Milly has gotten lax on staying in the lines, and I think a coloring app we recently downloaded for her doesn’t help.  It’s one that restricts your coloring to whatever lines you started in.  So if you started coloring a face, it won’t let you color outside the lines of the face until you pick your finger up and put it back down.

The nice thing about this coloring pad is that the images are similar to the ones in the app Milly has.  It’s also got a place for you to put your name, which is cool.  Milly picked up on that one fast.  She stayed within the lines a bit, but we did point it out after praising her efforts.  She also tore through the pictures, not ever finishing one before going on to the next.  Amanda told her she needed to finish before moving on, otherwise she’d go through the whole book in one day.

We got dinner at Islands, mainly to get out of the house.  When we came back I called Gavin and invited him and Maddox over, so they came over after they had dinner.  Amanda went to the Wine Sampler with Cyra and got back just after 8:00.

Milly and Maddox played well.  They mostly stayed in the hallway and threw balls, colored and played with toys.  Gavin and I sat in the living room and chatted.  Marshall, Cyra’s puppy, peed at least twice (Maddox stepped in the puddle once) and left a poop behind the couch that one of the kids found.

They left right around 8:00 and I put Milly in the bath.  Amanda had told her that they were going to have a sleepover in the guest room tonight, so Milly was excited about that.  Not that she’s never slept in a big bed before, but I don’t think she’s ever slept an entire night in one in our house.  When we went to check on her she was sprawled perpendicularly across the bed just below the pillows.  I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to sleep in there or on the couch yet, but Milly said she was going to sleep in the middle so Amanda and I could sleep on either side of her, so I’m leaning towards indulging her.

We left Harvey on the bed with Milly when we put her to bed, but he didn’t stay too long.  Amanda and I were continuing to catch up on The Following when we saw him standing near the foot of the stairs, which we’ve blocked off.  I called Harvey to the back to show him he could sleep on the guest room bed, but I made the mistake of opening the bathroom door and turning that light on, which I did so there wouldn’t be too much light shining into the guest room.  I didn’t think about the fact that Harvey is terrified of the bathroom, but after I went past the bathroom and into the guest room and called to him he warily headed on back then stayed most of the rest of the night on the bed with Milly.

Zach Dotsey