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 |   A little bit of everything, colored my own way. |
| THE PROMPT: "If you were going to redecorate your home, what would you change?" Good evening, fine people out there. One last prompt for the month for me before April's official "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  . No offense nor boycott of any kind is meant for the "serial portion" of prompts, but know that I'll have a busy weekend coming up between our work schedules and some friends we're hosting Saturday from out of town after work for pizza, wings and Sabres hockey. You'll understand.So an interesting topic came up at work this afternoon. There's this Lottery drawing, the Mega Millions Jackpot or something like that, and apparently the next draw is up to over $500 million. $500 million!! Say those words over and over in your head and try to place some significance in it. Let it wash over you. A lot of people play that "What if..." game and the going rate generally starts at $1 million dollars. Like, "What if I had a million dollars? How would I spend it?" Now multiply that one by, ohhhh, 500, and ask yourself that question. And hold that thought. I don't play the lotto. Well, I should say I don't play it anymore. I rarely if ever have played the daily numbers or Pick 4. Occasionally I'd do the Take 5 or the Daily Lotto. Every once in awhile I'd play Quick Draw while grocery shopping, but for years my biggest gamble was on the instant scratch-offs. I'd blow through $20-$30 at a time when I had the money to do so. But I gave that up a long time ago, because it wasn't worth it, and it was no longer fun to waste that kind of money so quickly. Well, today I took a chance on Friday's Mega Millions drawing. Just like millions of others who never play the numbers until the jackpot makes it seem like you'll get stupid rich really fast. But let's face it...say I take home the top prize. After taxes, I'm only pocketing $300 million. Let the question answering begin! For starters, I don't need much. I don't need a fancy house to live in. In fact, in lieu of "redecorating our house", the house we rent by the way, I'd rather just buy our house with straight-up cash money from our landlord. Shit, he don't need it...he's got plenty of other houses right in the neighborhood he owns. Give him fair value and let it be. I'd definitely get us a second car, and get Jess a new one. Maybe (big maybe) get the boys cars too, but they're still paying for gas and insurance. They didn't pick the lucky ticket, even if their mom picked the lucky guy, ya hear? I wouldn't even go crazy with the car...maybe a decent, but not over-the-top, truck of some sort. Back in the day for me it would've been a silver, two-door Chevy Blazer. It's been so long since I've even paid attention to what kinds of cars are even out there on the road today that I would not even care to know what I want. I know I like PT Cruisers and Jeeps. So I'd be thinking something like that for myself. And honestly, justjessica1 handles most of the decorating. The living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom are all pretty much her ideas, with my input quieried as a courtesy. I called dibs on my ManCave, and all I'd really do is maybe get a bigger tv and some matching furniture. Maybe get the shelf built I want to display distinctive bottles of adult beverages I've had the opportunity to let my taste buds experience over the years. But that's really it. Now, on the other hand, I'm sure Jess could easily find a million ways to blow through $300 million redecorating, and do it probably no sooner than the ink has dried on that giant fake cardboard check they hand you when you do your publicity run after winning. Oh, actually, there is one little redecorating project I might consider undertaking. I'd buy a modest home, somewhere close by, and put the basics in there...some furniture, a washer and dryer, a few things here we wouldn't need, and let the kids live in it. Rent would be negotiable based on their incomes/responsibilities/legalities. And they can see what it's like to have to start out on their own, doing their own dishes (without a dishwasher) and laundry (they're ok with that) and having to clean up after themselves. And they could host us for dinner once a week. Sure, we'd lose a lot of our fortune on the deal, but I could think of a lot of other things we'd be saving. Is it that wrong of me to consider that as possibly the best renovation project I could easily blow $300 million on?  MUSICAL BREAK!! Gotta bust out some jams for this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k456in_fDA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjZRAvsZf1g VITAL STATS:   Huge win for the Sabres last night, swiping 8th place and the hope of securing the 8th seed in the Eastern Conference by defeating the Caps and breaking their tie for 8th. I know, that's a lot of 8's. But you'll have that. I'm excited at the prospect of hockey later on into April and May.  So the grill was busted out in March...I know we're not the first to do it this year around here but it's always good when you can say you had the grill out in March. Steaks...yeah!! Now had we not run out of propane, maybe I wouldn't have eaten at 9pm. And if the grill had been shut off once or twice after using it by the people using it (and it was not me...I'm vigilant about wasting propane), we would've had dinner at a more normal hour with less issues. That's a lot of March's and usings. You'll have that too. Uhhh, that'll hafta suffice as a "nap" emoticon, since that's what I did when I got home, for the first time in forever. And it felt almost like I didn't...one minute I was hearing the hum of voices on the tv (I need sound when I sleep), and the next minute I was in the middle of crazy dreams. But I'll take that over some of the reasons as to why I normally don't nap...the terror naps I used to take were about enough to scare me off naps unless absolutely necessary. So it was a good nap.And with that, I'mma go on and get back to a little routine I like to call "nothing big" and settle down before I actually sleep for real tonight. Have a great tomorrow people, and wish me luck on Friday! Peace, and GOODNIGHT NOW!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kOg97PvOxE |
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