Wednesday, August 25, 2010

teaching

working through the requirements for teaching this year.
slow panic is building...EEK!

Monday, August 23, 2010

updates

school starts in 2 weeks.
teacher training starts next week.
office (home) is still messy.
office (work) does not yet exist.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

summer is ending

summer is wrapping up and i'm sad to see it go. it's been a busy time, with all our travels, relatives and other visitors but i've loved it.

now when we get up in the morning it's not quite as light as it was the day before.

 such is life.

i'm still working on this camera situation, but in the meantime, here's a nice update of our weekends so far.
me, the ratdog, some knitting and (though you can't see it) doc hollywood on tv. we live the good life :)

Thursday, August 5, 2010

almost ready for the inlaws

the inlaws are coming!


i've repainted the bath and am hurridly cleaning scrubbing and washing!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

VOTE!

i'm pretty excited to be voting today...it's our primary and i've never really been that involved in politics before. i've actually met some of the candidates and have a pretty good idea of who i'll be voting for!

woot!

also--photos forthcoming. i need a new camera (hint, hint)

Thursday, June 17, 2010

date ;)

had a great date night tonight--walked to a restaurant downtown. the weather was great!

ahh, summer...

YARD-phase I

As you can tell, things have been a bit busy around here! Our one-year homeownership anniversary is fast approaching (july 10) and i've been trying to get everything caught up and pretty-fied  before then. i want to host sunday night dinner in our kickass awesome yard!! Here are some photos of the in-progress renovations:

Below, the hedges and driveway just after weeding and trimming but before i edged the driveway








next is a pic of mary helping trim the bushes. mary's a lady i do the dog rescue with and she has been AWESOME! thanks to mary, i got about 90% of the plants for FREE. our yard would not be the same without her!!




mary is great because she helped THIS happen:
while it (right) doesn't look like anything exciting, this hole USED to be a big, fat bush (photo lacking, sorry). a big fat bush that didn't want to go anywhere. i bet we spent close to 10 hours trying to get it out of there!!! we finally succeeded and it's really opened up the back yard!!! i'm so pumped. thanks mary!!
then, we moved on to other yard areas. below is the flower bed hubs and i installed/created, it's still a bit rag-tag looking, but this area just had random plants sticking in the ground with crazy weeds all over. this is a MARKED improvement!! you can't really tell, but those first couple plants (lower left corner) are baby HOSTAS! i found them choked by weeds in the back and rescued them. so far they seem to be thriving in the front, which is good. you'll soon see that my love of hostas borders on unhealthy...

 
this is tweedle dee and tweedle dum, helping out. they also love yardwork! juno, unfortunately, is less than enthused  


finally, this is what the place looked like all spruced up:
make careful note of the amazing dr. seuss shrubs. their lifespan is limited

more updates coming! turns out i LOVE yardwork :)

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Yard-tastic yardification

we've been busy--i just got back from a visit to the fam after a fun-filled roadtrip down south to see NEIL YOUNG. it was a great time!

i made it back in one piece and we're now busily working on the yard, trying to turn it into something a bit classier than the big fat mess that it currently is!



i know i keep promising pictures, but my camera is not playing nicely right now...

anyway, today we broke into our neighbors' house, took their van keys, and picked up a patio set from craigslist! (well, since we have their keys and an OK to borrow the van whenever, it wasn't as exciting as i just made it sound)

our 1-year homeownership anniversary is fast approaching and i'd really like to get our yard in entertaining shape before (by) then!!!

Friday, May 21, 2010

another awesome day

spent the day digging up FREE plants to plant in our yard!

photos forthcoming!

Friday, May 7, 2010

fabulous dinner

had some friends over for dinner--couple friends!--and had a great time! if i were any good at taking photos of food, i'd include snapshots of what i made.

alas, i am not.
thus, all i have are links:
awesome asparagus hash (made with bacon instead)
the most chocolatey cake ever


They both turned out so well! Dinner was great, conversation was fabulous, all in all a great night!

I also spent all of my day cleaning the kitchen. 10-7 cleaning and scrubbing. Strangely, it doesn't really show unless you know where to look. I cleaned the coffee pot, the cupboards (reorganized), scrubbed the fridge, cleaned out the oven, and scrubbed the floor like nobody's business.



Technically it could use some more scrubbing, but I'm choosing not to think about that....

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Travels

Went to a sculptural garden today, it was great! I'm including a couple pics below, it was fun...like a botanical garden meets art museum.

this is in the main conservatory path in the big greenhouse. there were so many great plants and displays! there were also sculptural displays intermixed in the plants, here's a closeup of one of the funkier ones:

They were so cool--the majority of the gardens were actually outside. So you'd be wandering around and as you turned a corner, you'd see this:


or this:
Unfortunately, it wasn't the best of days to go walking about, however:
All-in-all, it was a great day! I followed up my adventure with a trip to a local cafe where I got soup and quite possibly the most amazing scone in the history of the world (it was that good). I'm pretty excited abou life. Not sure what I'm doing tomorrow while the hubs is in business meetings. Maybe the zoo?

Friday, April 30, 2010

fabulous day!

proof that i have the best neighbors EVER: i was mowing with our reel mower (aka no engine) and our back yard was like a jungle! i had the mower on the tallest setting and i was still having to get a running start! so one of our neighbors just showed up and started mowing with his real (aka engine) mower. then we sat on the grass drinking ice tea.

i love my neighbors!

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

....annnnnd we're back!

So, this last semester has been BUSY, but i'm done friday, woot!
more updates then!

Sunday, March 7, 2010

ugh

i had a nice spring break but now it's time to return to reality. alas.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Crappy blogger

 I've been trying to keep up with this, but somehow it keeps falling to the wayside.

Things are good but busy.
Fam coming over the next few weeks. Just got some snow.

SPRING BREAK (more on that later....'spring', hah!)

Monday, February 8, 2010

a case of the mondays

so i've been really good about exercising this year (haha, ok...last month). but haven't been as great over this last week and i'm definitely starting to feel it.

i get busy, don't work out, get stressed, get busier, don't work out, etc, etc.

and now it's monday and i feel like i've gotten nothing done (which isn't true. i've just gotten zero school-stuff done).

oh well, here's to the afternoon!

Saturday, February 6, 2010

also!

i'm going to be married again!

i've had my ring redesigned. do i have a before picture? no. of course not. oops.

but! it's coming tuesday!!!

since i've been unmarried since december, this is new and exciting for me. wahoo!

big changes coming

ahh, to be a homeowner on a saturday ;)

i'm doing homework w/the dogchildren.
miles is scraping vinyl tiles off the floor in the kitchen
the handy man is putting in a new front door (photos forthcoming).

what an exciting day :D

Monday, February 1, 2010

Busy

I keep thinking I'm going to write some awesome, insightful update, but that is just not happening.
It's amazing that I can be on here reading other blogs without the motivation to update my own!

This week, backwards:

Yesterday: skipped church and slept in. felt great! met up with a friend for lunch and played with his adorable little girl. made super-dark chocolate brownies for our dinner and had homemade pizza!

Saturday: spent the whole day on campus doing homework. Boring, but productive. Got my workout in! (although it was a bit rushed).

Friday: AMAZING concert. So fun. Very moving. More on that later!

Thursday: choir. I love choir, but it takes FOREVER!!!

Wednesday: busy, busy, busy. Not sure what happened. Other than it was a crazy day.

Tuesday: Who knows. That was a long time ago!

Monday: culture fest: great dinner and got some homework done.

This semester has been MUCH crazier and way more hectic than last semester, but also way more enjoyable in terms of content/material.

I'm hoping things will slow down a touch soon!

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Thankful

This week was much busier than I expected and I didn't get hardly anything done that I wanted!!
However, I was very busy on Weds, behind on homework and it was time to go work out. Usually I would skip the workout and focus on homework. However, one of my resolutions was to make myself more of a priority. SO, I decided that I needed to work out and that the homework could wait.

I'm pretty thankful for that small victory.

Otherwise, we've been progressing some more on the house. Putting up some wainscoting in the bath (pics forthcoming) and got a new front door. (of course, it's not in yet. that's in progress).

we've been working and out and about. you know. the usual.
hope all is well in your neck of the woods!

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

updates

had a fun weekend: I 'fixed' the toilet, but the new hose didn't work out because it needed a washer, even though it said it didnt need a washer. Bastard. So I took the new hose off and put the old one back on and all was well.


 Best story ever: so on sunday our neighbor shows up and goes 'surprise, you've been voted in the club!' we were like 'what?!'. Well, the week before a different neighbor invited us over for dinner and it turns out we were AUDITIONING for the weekly neighborhood dinner party. haha. Neighbors are weird.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Ms. Sophie

We got a new rescue puppy/dog! (pic forthcoming...explanation below)

She was rescued from a puppy mill....she's 5, so she was a puppy-mill-popper-out-er. WOW.
I knew puppy mills were bad, but she's like a puppy mill spokes-dog.

She's super cute (a light silvery grey), but her legs are bowed from all her time in the kennel and she's VERY skittish (I'm not sure if a closeup would freak her out or not, my bet is yes). I think she really wants to be social--and she seems to really enjoy being with percy--but if you turn to look at her, she'll run back to her kennel. She spends a lot of time in there on her own. However, right now, she's passed out napping with percy the wonder-farter (oh MAN does that dog STINK).

I'll try to upload a pic of her, and put in updates as available.
At this point, however, all i'll say is--DONT SUPPORT PUPPY MILLS!! you might be 'rescuing' the babies, but mom and dad are still there! ::steps down from soap box::

thank you and have a nice day :)

Another Glorious Week

This week was exciting for all sorts of reasons:

1. Classes started.
2. We got a new foster puppy! (well, dog)
3. We had a great dinner with our neighbor friends
4. WE GOT A NEW BED.

While they each hold their own fun-ness, you can obviously tell which I find the most thrilling.
However, I'll start at the beginning:

Classes were good this week. I'm still struggling as I'm not sure I feel like I'm on the right path for me right now, but I'm hoping to make it through. I think this degree will be useful in the end...I'm just not sure where it will take me!

More on the puppy in the next post.

Dinner was great! It turns out we have neighbors who are funny and good cooks. We had great food AND a chocolate-chip-coconut cake (from this month's gourmet magazine, I think she said). It was awesome. We met a stay-at-home dad who lives down the street and is really funny. I love clever neighbors. We also learned that we have many stay-at-home men/dads in our neighborhood...This makes me feel very safe because I'm sure they're all watching protectively over our little block. When I met the neighbor, he asked if he'd met me before b/c I looked familiar. I told him I walked downtown/to the bus and he said that's where he recognized me from! I'm choosing to interpret this as awesome and not weird that some/all of our neighbors spend their time scoping out the neighbors to see who's walking outside/whatever.

BED: oh. my. god. I need to get a picture of it. We went from a full to a KING. It pretty much takes over our bedroom. And I love it. One of us is a sweaty, bed-hogging beast at night and it will be so great for the other one to finally have some personal space! YES! Plus, there's a great story to go with its arrival:

we went to a mattress superstore where the dude was rude and completely unhelpful. regardless, we bought the bed. however, when i called to schedule our delivery time, he told me that he couldn't predict what time they would bring it by tomorrow. he said the delivery guys would call and give us a one-hour warning...and that we'd have to pay for an extra delivery if they came by and we weren't here. since we work/go to school, it's hard to think of a time when i have four hours during which i will be home before THREE PM.

i was pissed, but whatever. then i thought about it and thought, f*** this. I should have bought locally and this customer service is AWFUL. so, i called the guy back and told him that we were going to buy from somewhere with better customer service and that we wanted to cancel our order. we bought a mattress from a local mom-and-pop store that was cheaper AND had same-day delivery! i'm SO happy we switched! i'll let you know how our first night of sleep goes :)

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Back at It

This week marked my first week back for my SECOND semester of graduate school, woot!

I was not, and still am not, ready to come back from break. However, this semester's courses look very interesting and I'm excited for them. I am not excited for all the reading/stress that will inevitably come with them.

Now that I have one semester under my belt, I've been comparing 'grad school life' to my life in the real world--or the junior version I experienced--over the last two years. I definitely miss being able to come home and work on things that I want to work on, rather than problem sets or infinitely long, infinitely boring articles. However, I do like thinking that I have direction and purpose...which I didn't necessarily have at my old job.

Overall, I feel like where I'm going has value, but that what I'm doing right now probably doesn't. And, I guess I will learn to be OK with that, but I do feel a bit as though my life is a big, murky mess. I think I'm starting to come to terms with the idea that I'll never REALLY know what I want to do or be when I grow up...and that I probably never will "grow up". I do hope that I get better at appreciating this journey, as its likely to be all that I get.

In other news, my resolutions are going OK and we have a new member of our household again! We got a new rescue puppy who will be featured tomorrow :)

Monday, January 4, 2010

Irresolute

I've always sort of danced around that whole resolution thing...since I'm a list person, I've always loved making lists. However, it usually ended there. If I could make it to March even half-assedly keeping up with these resolutions, that was a great year!

Then, last year I made only one incredibly achievable resolution: floss my teeth every day. While I still failed, my days-between-flossing average declined precipitously. I think I now floss, on average, about once every 1.5 days. I'm very satisfied with this and am keeping it for next year. Keep things within reach, right?

2009 was a very long, hard, challenging, emotional year for me and I'm glad I made it through (relatively) unscathed. I look forward to 2010 as a year to blossom as myself. The me I always wanted to be, but haven't been.

Last year, I learned a LOT about myself as a person, and about what type of person I wanted to be. I realized that you don't get to decide when you're a grownup...it happens without your permission. I learned to accept that things can't always be perfect, that sometimes you only get one shot at something, and that it's OK to fail. Most importantly, I learned that you are a collection of your behavior, not what you resolve to be or how you think of yourself...but by what you do, what you say, and what you are.

When I think about 2010 and what it might hold, I think about everything I've learned in the last year and am hopeful I will put it to good use in the next.

Even though it's already Jan 5, I'm ok with being a bit slow to get started on my resolutions :) I'll edit this post as needed to reflect the new additions, but I really want to keep them simple. I'm throwing in a couple bound-to-fail-but-great-ideas to keep me pointed where I hope to go, but I'm also going to put in things I *know* I can do.

2010:
1. Floss daily (hey, it worked last year)
2. Work out 1x week
3. Half Marathon (yes, I *AM* crazy)
4. Spend more time with family
5. 100 Blog posts (I think this is a good way to keep track of what matters and what I've been doing)
6. go to bed before 11 (most nights)...i've been getting worse and worse about this one!
7. Use facebook/the internet (recreationally) less [this might be toooooo hard]



best wishes to you and yours in 2010

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Wedded

This last weekend, we had the amazing opportunity to go to a friend's wedding in Dallas, Texas. We were on board because a) our wedding attendance lately has been quite low, b) we love traveling, c) it was going to be warmer than here, and d) it's always great to catch up with old friends.

We rang in the new year with people we haven't seen since our wedding and had a lovely, fantastic, smashingly good time.

A bit of a run-through of our week:

Weds: dropped P-diz off at the dogsitter's. It was his first real dogsitting experience away from home. I'm not sure who was more nervous about how that would turn out...but everything was great! Our dogsitters said they wanted to keep him, he was so great!

Thurs: early flight down to DAL, reunite with everyone. We had a great time. In fact, it was so great, I took ZERO photos. Oops.

Friday: we met up with extended family. The visit was great for many reasons that included, but are not limited to the following: fun family hangout time, ribs, and julie & julia (which i've been wanting to see, but knew there was no way i would be watching it with anyone but myself).

Saturday: Wedding! First we headed out to IHOP for pancakes. On friday night, the boys held an impromptu bachelor party and we wives were left to fend for ourselves (oh no!). As a result, I lobbied for an IHOP breakfast. As you can see, some of us did not favor that option:


The wedding itself was fun. It was a night wedding, and a very HIGH CHURCH catholic wedding, which meant that a) there was a lot of sitting, standing, kneeling and verses, b) it lasted awhile, and c) we didn't eat dinner until 9:30. However, the energy in the room was great and I danced all night. Miles supervised...he's not much of a dancer ;)

I thought we cleaned up pretty well. I was so excited for this wedding because I haven't had a good opportunity to dress up for awhile. I also did my hair in a french twist, which looked great! I was so proud it didn't disintegrate in 15 seconds. Of course, even though I looked pretty good, Mr. Three-Piece-Suit wasn't too bad, either:

note: these shoes were amazing! I danced in them for 2-3 hours straight and my feet were only the tiniest bit sore with NO BLISTERS the next day! rock on!

We had a great time with friends new and old. Diana and I learned that we both love london times AND vonmaur...which is where we bought the london times dresses we're wearing!

Ah, such fun.

Curtains!

So, right before we left for Dallas, I managed to get a last-minute curtain project done. I was excited to work on them because we have had NO window coverings in the living room and kitchen since we moved in August. I decided it was time for curtains after our neighbors, who haven't been over since we decorated, commented on how nice our holiday decs were. I thought perhaps it was time for a little privacy....


First, we have a GIGANTO window bloc in the kitchen...my temporary solution was to put up simple curtains. My plan is to get two thick ribbons to tie the curtains up so that some light can come in.



This is the window over the sink that matches EXACTLY with our neighbor's window. If we have our kitchen and livingroom windows open, our neighbors can actually see all the way through our house! This curtain will also be tied up so that I won't get dishwater all over it. I was going for simple--these are essentially folded-over pillowcases on mini curtain rods that were already here. I lined them for added light blocking and so that they would be reversible. The backs are a beautiful, crisp white. Turns out that white was also beneficial b/c it had a diamond pattern on it in a GRAPH, which made sewing and cutting about a billion times easier!!


Same curtain idea, different fabric. My camera (and its operator!) sucks, so I couldn't get a close up of the fabric, but it's actually a beautiful shimmery gold/tan color with dark brown/black 'slubs' in it...it's supposed to look like silk, although i'm fairly certain it's synthetic. The rod's a bit bent--I hope to get a 'fancier' looking one put up soon. This curtain will have a bow to gather it around the middle, again to let in light. It's the same double-sided design as the kitchen.


I also have curtains for our room and my office to put up--the backing (plain white) will go in our room and I have the coolest, funkiest fabric for my office. I'm really excited. I bought a couple extra yards of my funky fabric, so I might try to make a roman shade and see how it goes.

It was a lot of fabric, BUT joann's was having a 1/2 off all clearance sale, so everything was $3/yard!! (I think the silky stuff was $3.50).

Overall, I think these curtains turned out even better than my last curtains and I think I'm getting the hang of this sewing thing. I'd like to start doing more complicated projects sometime though. Right now all I can make are rectangles...although I made a REALLY COOL pyramid bag. Now I need to figure out how to put in a zipper....


Also, during my mad crafting spree, I decided to trim p-diz's ears (since he looked like BatDog). Unfortunately, he now looks like Yoda. Everytime I look at him, I just feel bad for him. Poor guy. He looks like a dork. *sigh* (I know, the sweater's probably not helping).