AUTHOR: Robert TITLE: Ch..Ch..Ch..Changes! DATE: 9/04/2003 04:46:00 PM ----- BODY: So, lots and lots more going on. Life is just one big change right now. Nothing bad in and of itself, but all at once its a little much to take. Just a reminder, you can sign up for regular updates in the right-hand toolbar. They don't send you spam, they'll just let you know when we've updated the Blog. Let's see if I can give you an update: House and Home Adam and I have completely torn the house apart. I mean it. Entirely. Everything is out of a closet one place or another and laying on a table. We're going through everything we own and asking ourselves whether or not we really need it. Its crazy, but it feels really great. Here are some links to pictures and some descriptions of what we're doing, what things look like around here, and what we've accomplished for now. The Office So, here we've just taken *everything* out of the closet and put it in the dining room to be sorted through. We had boxes and boxes of files and papers that we hadn't gone through in years, and we'd moved with us a couple of times. Nightmare. Its amazing how much this stuff weighs on your mind. Picture - Office Closet & bookshelf The Living Room Here, we're going through *all* of our CDs, we're ripping them to our own music server so that we can move them between our computers and iPods. We've also cleaned out the window box of everything that was in it, including 3 copies of "Scrabble" and two copies of "Monopoly" Picture - Living Room 1 Living Room 2 The Hall Closet We took everything out, sorted through all of our camping equipment and other things that we'd stored for a long time and thrown most of it out. We've also pulled out all of our clothes and gone through them to see if they even fit any more and thrown out the ones that don't make sense. Picture - Hall Closet The Bedroom Closet Went through all of the clothes there and threw out things we didn't wear anymore or didn't fit. No Pix The Vanity Haven't attacked this yet, but we're going to throw out everything that's out of date, half-dead or empty. Kyan would be proud. No Pix The Kitchen We're partway through this, we've thrown away all the food and stuff in the cabinets that was old or stale or that we didn't really like anyway, we've cleaned out the fridge really well. Now we need to go through all of the cabinets and thow out any dishes and other things that we don't use any more as well as put the storage boxes we've got somewhere where they're not in the way. No Pix The Dining Room Right now, this is our War Room, so we haven't done anything except given Hoover back his chairs, but we're using the tabletop as a place to sort and look at things. It looks horrible and its a bit depressing to be in, but Adam's already made two trips to the dump to get rid of bags and bags of trash. Picture - Living Room 1 Living Room 2 Other Changes Going On We bought a car. But not a cooper or anything, we bought a used car from a friend (its a 1985 Honda) and its really just to solve things for the interim. We're also storing Sheila's "new" car for her (Adam's brother Daryl and his wife Jennifer sold it to her) until she needs it longer term, or she may sell it as well, who knows. Our old car (The Achieva) completely died. In a big cloud of black smoke. Adam ran screaming from the car, which wasn't fun. The weird thing was that it died literally moments after Adam had driven the new Honda into our driveway. Once Adam put the new Honda into the garage, he went to get in the Achieva to move it behind the Honda, and he tried to start it, and a huge cloud of black smoke poured out of the tailpipe, the car shimmied and sputtered and died. Yar. Rob's Work For the moment, things are alright here, though I'm overwhelmed with things to do. I'm working consistently 12 to 18 hour days, which is exhausting given what we're trying to do in the house as well. However, my boss seems to be more pleased with my performance, which is good. I'm trying really really hard to make this work. Adam's Work It seems like things are alright here as well, at least for now. Adam is also trying really hard to make his supervisors and everyone else happy with what he's doing. Life In General Though we've been going through a really hard time, things are better than ever between us. We've gotten even closer and more supportive of each other through it all. We've also decided just to be honest with the people around us about what's going on. I mean, how can we expect to get support from our friends if we don't tell them we need it? So, we've just been sharing with people as we see them on the street; telling them that we're having a really hard time, that work is tough for both of us, that we got some really difficult feedback (each of us separately but within a day of each other) and that we're working harder than we ever have to make sure things get better. Which is one of the reasons we're cleaning the house so much. I firmly believe that (and I believe Suze Orman turned me on to this idea) the more crap you've got sitting around your house, the less mental "room" you have for new things. Its also to some degree a spiritual thing. If spiritually my whole world is filled with stupid crap that I don't really care about, then I have no room for the good stuff to get in. Since Adam and I are talking about trying to make room for new concepts and ideas to come into our lives, possibly starting a business together, possibly moving (who knows) possibly possibly possibly --- but there's no room for possibilities because we haven't taken care of what's sitting on our plates right now. Its a really good feeling to know in your heart that you've done everything you're supposed to do. I *hate* letting things slip through the cracks -- finding out later that you've hurt someone's feelings because you forgot something. All that stuff really sucks. Rob's Birthday Rob's birthday is coming up on Monday (the 8th). You can always send him an email at rob@robandadam.com. Rob also *loves* amazon.com gift certificates, no matter how small. :) Peg-Mom sent Rob a package that arrived today, he's very excited to open it, but is probably going to take it to LA with him to open there. Trip(s) to LA Adam and Rob went to LA two weekends ago, had a wonderful time. Rob's written a little bit about Ann's birthday and might include that in the blog at some point. There's some pictures of the party... suffice it to say, it was an amazing party. Kudos to Sheila! We're also going to LA this coming week for Rob's work. We'll be there the 8th, 9th and 10th, returning on the evening of the 10th. Funny thing is, Sheila is coming to SF during that time, so she's going to stay here at the house while we're gone. Hopefully, we'll get to spend some time with our LA friends during our time there. Websites Well, we own a lot of domain names now... but robandadam.com , chipandreichen.com and reichenandchip.com are the only ones that really have anything up on them at the moment. If you get a chance, check out www.chipandreichen.com , Rob feels its his best work yet in terms of the look. There's really nothing up there yet in terms of real content, but when there is, it will be pretty cool. As far as RobAndAdam.Com goes, Rob is planning to do a major update there soon, adding a lot more pictures and such and some more areas to browse around in. Also, Adam has *promised* that he's going to take a look and learn how to modify and edit the website, so he'll hopefully be posting a lot of stuff soon. I imagine once we get him started, it will be difficult to get him to stop! If you want to encourage him to start, send him an email at Adam's email And that's about it So, thanks for reading this far, if you made it this far. We hope this message finds you all in good health and happiness. Much Love, Adam and Rob ----- --------