H-audry's Haphazard Hypotheses

Kombu Egg Soup

2011-02-21T11:52:00.003-05:00

Here's a new one. Sarah the Healthy Home Economist's video about Asian grocery stores a week or two ago pushed me to actually visit an Asian grocery store I'd been eyeballing for a while. While I was there, I saw many interesting things I'd like to try at some point - all kinds of frozen fish and other sea creatures, ducks, coconut, lots of pickled things...

I bought (this time) two cans of thai curry paste (no artificial ingredients or chemicals) and a bag of thinly sliced, dried kombu, a type of seaweed. I haven't touched the curry paste yet, but for lunch yesterday I made Kombu Egg Soup, recipe and photo courtesy of Mark's Daily Apple.

It was really quite tasty, and surprisingly filling. I used chicken stock rather than beef, because that's what I had, and I didn't have miso paste, so to give it a little more flavor I added a splash of soy sauce and several drops of hot sauce. Also, I don't know why the recipe doesn't mention it, but after adding the kombu to the broth, it formed an incredibly sticky, slimy clear layer on top. It was hard to tell if it was just a layer on top or if the whole pot had turned to slime, however once the soup boiled, this mucilaginous substance became more of a foam and I was able to scoop it out and throw it away (it stayed very sticky and I had to pull it off my slotted spoon with my fingers). The rest of the liquid was perfectly normal and not slimy at all. (The seaweed wasn't slimy either.)

If you like trying new things and want a really nutritious meal, I'd definitely recommend this soup.

Grok-stacle course

2010-10-05T18:05:00.004-04:00

Ungratefowl

2010-08-22T20:47:00.009-04:00

So you buy some chickens. They're cute little fuzzy things, but they get big quick and you can't have them living in your living room forever, so you build them a fancy coop and a nice, safe, secure run, about 3 times as big as seven chickens actually need, and you put them out there and they seem pretty happy.But after a while, you imagine yourself as a chicken and you think, "Boy, I wouldn't be happy cooped up in that little space, day in and day out."

So you start letting them out occasionally. And it's not too hard to get them back in at night, or when you have to leave to run some errands or something, so you let them out more and more often. Eventually, you're letting them roam free basically any time you're at home. After all, not only is it nice for the chickens, but the more natural food they eat, the better and more healthful their eggs, right? And that's the whole point, right?

Except that now they've decided they like to range in the front yard, where the neighbors can see that they're not confined to their run, and not only that, but they've also decided the gerbera daisies you have planted in front of the house are really tasty.

And mulch is the best thing ever for scratching up and making a mess in.

On top of that, you still have to go to work five days a week, and when you go out in the morning to check the chickens' water and food, they all stand in the corner of the run and moan and groan at you, and pace back and forth in front of the door, and plead with their eyes to be let out to feast on all the yummy grass (and gerbera dasies).

So you put up a fence, from the corner of the garage to the corner of the run, and from the corner of the coop all along the edge of the woods halfway up one side of the yard, and from the house down to the creek on the other, effectively confining them to the backyard (because they never venture far enough back in the yard, or deep enough into the woods to get around that kind of fence). So now they can free range all day long, even when you're not there.

And are the chickens happy? Are they grateful for all your hard work and sweat and all the mosquito bites you got stringing up 150 feet of deer netting? Are they content to be able to range all through the backyard, under the deck, and down by the creek every day, and dust bathe to their hearts' content under their favorite tree?

No, they just want to get into the front yard.

English Muffins

2010-07-24T16:28:00.006-04:00

I haven't bought bread in a long time, but I have still been buying English Muffins. For some reason, English Muffins just seem like the kind of thing that has to be bought at the store. However, Jeff recently asked me if I could get whole wheat english muffins next time, because the regular ones were starting to taste "doughy" to him. (HAHA, my plan is working - he's losing his taste for processed junk is what's happening!) Anyway, I grabbed a package at Walmart a couple days later, and was surprised when I read the ingredients. I mean, I knew there would be a lot of junk in them, but the thing that really knocked my socks of was the artificial sweetener! Granted, it's near the end of the ingredient list, but still.

Ingredients in Thomas' Hearty Grains 100% Whole Wheat English Muffins:
Whole Wheat Flour, Water, Yeast, Wheat Gluten, Honey, Farina, Cornmeal, Salt, Cracked Wheat, Preservatives (Calcium Propionate, Sorbic Acid), Grain Vinegar, Calcium Sulfate, Soybean Oil, Wheat Starch, Mono- and Diglycerides, Datem, Natural Flavor, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Ethoxylated Mono- and Diglycerides, Wheat Sour, Dextrose, Calcium Carbonate, Guar Gum, Lactic Acid, Molasses, Fumaric Acid, Whey, Soy Flour (Trivial Amount of Soy Flour), Caramel Color, Acetic Acid, Sucralose, Citric Acid, Sodium Citrate, Natamycin (a Natural Mold Inhibitor), Potassium Sorbate (Preservative), Nonfat Milk.

Actually reading the ingredients in these things pushed me to take the plunge and try making my own.

Ingredients in Audry's Homemade 100% Whole Wheat English Muffins:
whole wheat flour, milk, water, butter, honey, yeast, salt.

This isn't a great photo, and I didn't have the right kind of cornmeal for sprinkling on the pan, but they actually turned out really well. They're MUCH tastier than Thomas' in addition to being much more healthful.

P90X - Day 25-27

2010-06-19T11:25:00.002-04:00

Low Impact Circuit Cardio Blast premix

Core Synergistics did something weird to my hips, especially the left one. Not sure what it was, but that combined with working really late the past two days resulted in a great big nothing getting done in the workout department Thursday or Friday. This week I did CS once and Yoga once. I should have done each of those a second time and Kenpo once, so, trying to keep with the theme of the week, I decided to do a cardio workout today in place of Kenpo, and hopefully I can get my butt out of bed early enough to do Yoga tomorrow (instead of stretch) before church. That way the only thing that gets left out is one CS and a stretch :D

P90X - Day 23 & 24

2010-06-16T09:58:00.002-04:00

Core Synergistics

Does golfing 18 holes count as a workout? How about riding along in the golf cart while someone else golfs 18 holes (and occasionally getting out to help look for lost balls)? No? Not even if it's 90+ degrees, sunny, and you're wearing hot, confining clothes to comply with the dress code?

I didn't think so either. Which is why I did at least come upstairs and preview Core Synergistics yesterday after getting back from Jeff's first ever (4 hour) round of golf. Unfortunately, the workout looked really hard, and the combination of heat, sunburn, and leftover fatigue from Monday was just too much. I took a shower instead :D

Today however I got up rarin' to go. I thought I was going to hate this workout, honestly, but I didn't. I actually really liked it. I think my core is in pretty good shape (under the flab) and I kept up with the "superstars" for the whole workout. I did skip the bonus round, because we're planning a trip to the mountains today and it's already past the time when I'd ideally like to leave.

Hopefully I'll stay on track and be checking in tomorrow.

P90X - Day 22, part 2

2010-06-14T15:29:00.002-04:00

Workin' out in the heat

Whew! After I finished up my yoga workout this morning, I took a shower, then went down to help Jeff outside. Why did I bother with the shower?? It's 94 degrees out (might have been a few degrees cooler earlier) sunny, humid, and basically not the ideal environment for human existance. So, I put on my gloves, got the wheelbarrow, and started truckin' wood around from the huge pile next to the deck to the driveway and tossing it in the truck to go to the recycle center later. I don't know how many loads it was, but by the time the truck was full, I was beat! And starving. And dripping, literally. I changed my clothes, made a quick lunch and then crashed on the couch for an hour.

AND on top of that, Happy Hour class starts tonight at the Extreme Ice Center, so both of us will be skating for an hour from 7-8. Three workouts in one day! I think I've discovered the secret to getting lots of physical activity: don't work. Unless you're Pat. Then you've got it made.

PS Check out the remodeling blog in the next day or so for pictures of the woodpile I was moving, and why it needed to be moved, along with another related project :D

P90X - Day 22

2010-06-14T09:44:00.003-04:00

Yoga

Even though I didn't do any real workouts Friday Saturday or Sunday, on Saturday I was playing around with an online 1-rep max calculator and decided it would be fun to calculate my 1-rep max for standing deadlifts. (You don't actually try to lift your 1-rep max; what you do is try to pick a weight you can do a max of 10 reps with, do the exercise to failure, then enter the weight and your actual reps into the calculator and it estimates your 1-rep max.) So I said to myself, "I bet I could do a few with Jeff's 33-lb dumbbells," so I did. 12 actually, and I was pretty impressed with myself. Sunday I woke up and found out just exactly what muscles are used in standing deadlifts (mostly upper and inner hamstrings, but also back, shoulders, biceps... lots of muscles). Then sunday afternoon/ evening I was playing around on the pull-up bar. (I did 3 chin-ups in a row!)

So this morning I was feeling really tight all over and a little sore in some places, so I think it was a good day for Yoga :D It's supposed to be 96 today, so I thought I'd get it out of the way early. Just finished; now I'm off to shower my sweaty self off.

Tomorrow is Core Synergistics, a new one :D

oh, btw, Jeff and I both took today, tomorrow and Wednesday off work for our Anniversary. We usually take a long weekend trip, which we're skipping this year, but we're going to do some fun stuff these 3 days anyway :D so that's why I'm posting this at 10am on a Monday.

P90X - Day 19, 20 & 21

2010-06-13T20:48:00.000-04:00

Nothing, Nothing and Nothing

Here I come "Rest week" Week 4

P90X - Day 17 & 18

2010-06-10T21:30:00.004-04:00

Shoulders and Arms

Well, last night when I should have been doing shoulders and arms, Jeff was sitting out on the screened porch with a book and a glass of wine, and, well, my willpower just isn't that strong.

Rather than skip it altogether though, I decided to do yesterday's workout today, today's workout tomorrow, and then Saturday do Cathe's Drill Max video instead of Kenpo X, skipping the legs and back workout that's scheduled for Friday. My legs are a lot stronger than my upper body (everyone's legs are stronger than their arms, but mine are... proportionally? stronger) so I'd rather skip the leg workout than the upper body one. And maybe if I gave it a shot I'd like Kenpo, but I just don't think so. The whole shadow boxing thing has never really interested me. Drill Max is a seriously intense cardio + everything else workout though, so it should easily replace the Kenpo cardio and also make up a little for skipping the leg workout.

So, Shoulders and Arms, a day late: met or exceeded last weeks reps and/ or weight on every exercise, yay! Go me! I've also noticed this weird phenomenon since I started this program that I never knew about before. While lifting "heavy" weights, your muscles get bigger. Like, not the eventually-after-lifting-weights-for-x-number-of-months-your-muscles-end-up-bigger, but while you're doing it they kinda swell up and feel tight and when you make a muscle in the mirror you say "Agh! I don't want huge muscles like that!" But then after you stop, it goes away. Whew.

P90X - Day 16

2010-06-08T20:55:00.000-04:00

Skating..

..will have to do as the workout of the day. I'm beat.

P90X - Day 15

2010-06-07T22:03:00.002-04:00

Chest and Back

Ok short post, cause it's another late night. Rachael came all the way from Greenville to go skating with me, so that's where I was right after dinner. Came back, had some pizza, Rachael left, I farted around a littl (but not too much!) and now it's 10:06 and I just finished working out!

However, it was a good workout despite the late hour. I met or exceeded my reps and/ or weight on every exercise. (And MOST of them I exceeded.) This workout is almost all bodyweight, as I've said before, so there's not a lot of weight variation to be done. I'm definitely increasing my reps, particularly on pushups.

I tacked on Cathe's yoga-based abs tonight. Another one with some hard moves and some not-so-hard. I don't recommend it for after a pushup based workout though, because a good part of it (5 minutes of the 15-minute video) is a vinyasa type routine where you're holding a half pushup position for extended periods. yeah. haha, not happenin' and on some side planks my arm just gave out from under me. The abs were doing ok, but the arm couldn't take it :D

I'm considering subbing another Cathe workout for the plyo tomorrow. I'm also skating tomorrow, and I think I'm too tired to get up and work out in the morning, so I might end up subbing skating for plyo. We'll see.

P90X - Day 12, 13, 14

2010-06-06T18:57:00.003-04:00

Legs and Back, Kenpo, Stretch

Skipped 'em all!

But, "Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet." And tomorrow I'll be starting week 3 as though I never skipped anything.

Oh, and I did a (fast, strong) pull-up from hanging all the way down and got about halfway up on a second one today, and did 2 chin-ups in a row.

P90X - Day 11

2010-06-04T06:57:00.002-04:00

Yoga

The reason I've been doing my workouts so late this week is that I've gone back (at least temporarily) to full-time at work. It's still a slightly funny situation though... I can work up to full time hours, and I'm allowed to work less if I need to (for afternoon commitments I may have already made, etc.) but I don't magically have vacation time yet, and my attached unemployment has expired. I'm taking 3 days off for our anniversary this month, so I'm trying to work as much as possible to make up for that. So all the things I've gotten used to doing in the afternoons I now have to remember how I used to fit them in when I worked full-time. Where last week it looked like I had this great situation (exercise-wise) for sticking to the plan, now I'm suddenly busy busy busy and exercising at night.

All that said, if you've got to exercise late at night, Yoga is a pretty good choice, since it ends with about 10 minutes of relaxing - lying down in different positions, stretching, etc. I started at almost 8:30 last night and finished at about 9:50. Bedtime is 10, so that's why I'm posting this report this morning rather than last night :D And no, I didn't get to bed at 10... I think it was 10:19 when the light went out.

Due to an accidental double-booking of my time this afternoon, I may end up here a little earlier than expected, and if so I fully intend to take advantage of that fact to get my legs workout out of the way. I'm also planning to get up tomorrow and exercise right away so that the same thing doesn't happen as last weekend, where I just never had a chance to stop for an hour. We'll see. I have to say, writing this daily report has really been helpful in keeping me on track.

P90X - Day 10

2010-06-02T21:39:00.002-04:00

Shoulders and Arms (+Cathe Pilates-Based Abs)

Well, I sure put this one off. Didn't get started till almost 8:30, so I skipped the "bonus" round. I don't think it's really a bonus, since it's a dvd and you watch the same one every time, but they call it a bonus on the worksheet, so I gave myself permission to skip it in order to get to bed on time :D. For the rest of the workout, I'm happy with how I did - I matched or exceeded last week's performance in either reps or weight (or both!) for pretty much every exercise. See? I said I'd stop pacing myself after the first week!

Also did Cathe's pilates-based ab workout for the first time. Not the hardest one ever, although a couple of the exercises really had my abs screaming ("bicycles" in slow-motion anyone?). 18-20 minutes of abs with Cathe is so much more enjoyable than 18 or 20 minutes of Ab Ripper.

I can't wait for yoga tomorrow; my back has been really tight the past couple days and I still remember how nice and loose and relaxed I felt after yoga last week.

Now, I think I have just enough time for a quick hop in the shower before bed. Think I'll be able to sleep with all this adrenaline pumping?

TTFN

P90X - Day 9

2010-06-01T06:27:00.003-04:00

Plyometrics

I hate this workout. Seriously. It's hard, and it's so boring. I have Cathe videos that are just as hard, but they're fun. I know myself, and if a workout isn't enjoyable, I know I'll lose all my motivation. So from now on when plyo comes around in the rotation, I'm substituting a Cathe video. They're about the same length, probably not quite as high impact, but I'll still get the cardio if not 100% of the plyo benefits.

I got up early to do this today, because the rest of my day is looking like it will be a whirlwind and I wouldn't be able to fit it in later. Plus, I'm skating again tonight, and a little recovery in between is probably a good thing.

Oh, and I didn't finish this time either. Pbbtthhtt.

ETA: I'm getting quite sore in the abdominal region from my Ab work yesterday, and pretty sore in the shoulders and back as well

P90X - Day 8

2010-05-31T12:43:00.002-04:00

Chest and Back (week 2)

My first repeated workout. I liked having all my weights and reps (mostly reps since this workout is mostly body weight exercises) written down from last week so that I could try and beat them :D And beat them I did! Here are a couple of comparisons:

Wide Fly Pushups
Last week: 6 + 5
This week: 10 +5

Lawnmowers
Last week: 9 lbs for the first set, 13lbs for the second (lots of reps - weight was too light)
This week: 13 lbs for the first set, 19 lbs for the second (15 reps)

Back Flys
Last week: 5 lbs (16 reps)
This week: 9 lbs (13 reps)

My weight increases were due probably 90% to just not finding a heavy enough weight the first time through, not to me being measurably stronger already, but I think that's just as valid a benefit to recording everything as tracking strength increases.

Still using the chair for pull-ups, but I'm concentrating on doing as much work as possible with my arms and back and just using my toe for that last bit to get me up. I'll be doing real ones soon!

I also substituted Cathe's No Equipment Ab routine from her Ab Circuits DVD instead of Ab Ripper. Much more interesting workout and very difficult! I highly recommend it.

P90X - Day 7

2010-05-30T10:41:00.002-04:00

Stretch

I don't have much time to review this one - I just sat down to write while Jeff finishes changing for Church. I expected to like the stretch video more.. it has quite a bit of overlap with the yoga video, but I actually felt much more loosey-goosey and stretched out and relaxed after yoga. I'm still surprised how much I liked the yoga, and I'm really looking forward to the next time it comes around. I may end up doing the yoga video instead of stretch on my "off" days. We'll see.

P90X - Day 6

2010-05-29T20:57:00.002-04:00

Kenpo

I didn't do it. Broke my perfect attendance before even making it through a full week ::sigh::

I can tell Saturdays are going to be the biggest enemy to my ability to stick faithfully to this workout. They're my day to get things done, and as it is I never get everything I want to do done.

Case in point: I was wiped out yesterday - all this exercising is kicking my butt - so I intentionally slept in this morning (till 6:45 :-P) Got up, had breakfast, cut my hair, took a shower, then spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon deep cleaning the bedroom and two upstairs bathrooms. I mean all out, moving every piece of furniture to vacuum and dust behind it, wiping down the baseboards, cleaning every slat of the blinds, washing the bathroom floors with a rag.. and vacuumed the rest of the upstairs, the kitchen and the stairs. Then I had a quick lunch at about 2, did a little more dusting in the office, made a list and went out to run several errands. Got home around 5, went out to do the monthly wine shopping with Jeff, got home around 6, ate dinner, then made pasta salad to bring to Mom's tomorrow. I HAD to do all that stuff. There's a list a mile long of other things I wanted to do today that I didn't get to. I just didn't have TIME to take an hour to exercise, plus probably having to take a shower afterward.

Oh well, I'm not going to beat myself up over it. I doubt I increased my aerobic capacity or my strength today, but I'm sure I burned some calories. I'll try to plan next Saturday a little better to include time to work out.

P90X - Day 5

2010-05-28T16:53:00.002-04:00

Legs & Back

I think this might be a record number of consecutive daily posts for me. Might be a record number of consecutive daily workouts too :D

I was very surprised that I was able to do the workout today. When I got up this morning (and actually, even when I left the office this afternoon) I was still having a lot of trouble going up and downstairs due to my never-ending DOMS from plyo on Tuesday. However, I managed to do everything on the video, including all the squats, one-legged squats, lunges, kicks, etc. and even used weights on all the exercises where they were presented as an option. Once the legs get nice and warm I think it suspends the DOMS, at least temporarily. Maybe this will be the end of them.

This was pretty hard. There weren't any exercises I couldn't finish (except pull-ups, of course), but I was pretty much maxed out at the end of several. What's nice is that as I get stronger, I can use heavier weights, or add weight to the non-weighted exercises. There's no such thing as the video being "too easy." If you're not working, it's your own fault! Sweat was pouring down my face at points as well. That's probably partly due to the fact that, well, it is in the 90's today... but I turned on the AC before I started, too.

Pull-ups are definitely my weakness, but I'm making an effort and at least doing some with the chair for every set. Hopefully it will pay off... :D

Tomorrow: Kenpo X

P90X - Day 4

2010-05-27T21:22:00.003-04:00

Yoga

The burning question in my mind throughout most of the day today was, "How am I supposed to do yoga when I can barely walk?" My legs were SO SORE today from plyometrics on Tuesday.. I sounded like a double amputee getting used to her prosthetics as I made my way down the stairs. It was ridiculous. So I shuffled around all day at work and running errands, came home, puttered around, made a big dinner.... kept putting off the workout.

Finally, around 7:45 it was now or never. If I didn't start, I wouldn't finish in time to take a quick shower and get to bed on time. I told Jeff I was going to give it a try and see how it went, and hobbled off to change. To my great surprise, I was able to do the whole workout. It was long. It was boring at times. By about the 37th time he told me to put one of my heels in the air from downward dog, I was telling the screen, "Come on, how may of these stinkin' warrior things are we going to do??" I actually considered quitting at that point because it was getting so boring. But I'm glad I stuck it out. The final few vinyasas (sp?) were the most interesting, and it got less repetitive after that. Some balance poses, which were fun, and a bunch of stretches and some ab work (sneaky! Abs were yesterday!) The only thing I couldn't bring myself to do were the "ohms" at the end... I don't care what he says about massaging the central nervous system, it was just a little too Buddhist for me :D

Overall I enjoyed this one a lot more than I expected. I feel really loose and stretched out and nice now. I went downstairs halfway through to get a drink, and in my warmed-up state, made it down with much less agony than any other time today :D

P90X - Day 3

2010-05-26T17:57:00.004-04:00

Shoulders and Arms (+ Ab Ripper X)

First of all, just let me say that my legs are ridiculously sore from Plyo yesterday. And I didn't even finish! How convenient that today's workout was all upper body. Shoulders, Biceps, Triceps, to be specific, in that order. Times ten. Fifteen different exercises in groups of 3, two sets of each. I'm pretty happy with how I did. I started off with 13 lb dumbbells, but switched to 9's as the exercises got harder and I got tireder.

Observation #1: My left arm is significantly weaker than my right. I knew this, but it was really interesting to see how much more quickly my left arm got really tired, and how many "both arms at once" exercises I maxed out on due to my left arm not being able to hack it rather than both arms. It's just as well... I need my right arm to move my mouse around at work tomorrow, the left one can be immobilized by DOMS and it won't really matter :D

Observation #2: There's no way I'm going to be able to do Ab Ripper X three times a week for ten weeks. ( there's no Ab Ripper on "recovery" weeks 4, 8 or 13) That kind of repetitive, painful workout is so boring... I'm already getting bored with it and I've only done it twice. One of the most appealing things about P90X is how there are so many different workouts to keep it from getting old, so why the same Ab Ripper every other day for the whole three months? Luckily, I have this amazing Cathe DVD - Ab Circuits. Six different 20 minute ab routines (same length as ARX) meant to be added onto another workout 3x/ week. The workouts are all as hard as Ab Ripper X (maybe harder!) but more fun, in my opinion. I figure I'll rotate through those and Ab Ripper to keep it interesting.

Tomorrow: Yoga

P90X - Day 2

2010-05-25T15:38:00.002-04:00

Plyometrics

This is a hard workout. None of the exercises is that difficult by itself, but put them together practically non-stop for an hour and WOW. Killer.

I actually didn't finish. Partly because I'm a baby, and I'm using the excuse of pacing myself for the first week; partly because I'm skating tonight and I'd like to have enough strength left in my legs to not collapse when I try to jump :D See, I have all kinds of good excuses.

Maybe next week I'll get up early and to Plyo in the morning so I have some time to recover before skating. Maybe. Either way, next week: NO more pacing myself, NO more seeing what the program is like. Next Tuesday, I will finish the entire Plyometrics workout. Hold me to it!

P90X - Day 1

2010-05-24T18:21:00.003-04:00

Chest and Back today. Lots of pull-ups, lots of push-ups. A couple weight exercises. And Ab Ripper X.

Observations:

My back is much weaker than my arms. I started out all 3 weight exercises with 9 lb dumbbells (the lowest weight possible besides using the 3 lb bars on their own). For "Heavy Pants" and "Lawnmowers" that wasn't nearly enough; for Back Flys it was too much. Couldn't find my 4 lb dumbbells anywhere for the Back Flys, so I ended up holding a 5 lb plate in each hand. I think I need to just tough it out with the 9's next time and build up to the appropriate # of reps, because the 5lbs ended up not being enough. I switched the dumbbells to 13 lbs for the second set of the other two exercises, and I think it's still not quite enough to get the most benefit, but the next increment is 19 lbs, which I'm sure will be too heavy. Not sure what to do about that, but we'll see. This workout doesn't come around again 'till next Monday. I'm definitely interested now to try the other resistance workouts and experiment with different weights in those as well.

"Diamond" push-ups are hard. Even harder than decline push-ups. Even harder than Dive Bomber push-ups.

Overall, I'm excited to keep going :D

P90X - Day 0

2010-05-23T21:29:00.007-04:00

Tomorrow I will be starting Power 90X, hereafter shortened to P90X. If you're not familiar with this workout, click here. The only pieces of equipment needed for this are a set of dumbbells or resistance bands, a pull-up bar, and a mat (or carpet) for the lying down exercises. Jeff has adjustable dumbbells and even the optional pushup stands. I've got a carpet remnant to lie on. The only thing missing was the pull-up bar, which was remedied by a quick trip to Dick's sporting goods:

I'd like to say also that I will be following the workouts only, I will NOT be following their nutritional plan. I don't agree with it. I will be eating much more healthfully and not drinking any powdered "recovery drinks" etc.

Today I took their "Fit Test," which lets you know if you meet what they consider the minimum standard of fitness to be able to do the program at all. After 90 days, you take the test again to see how you've improved. Here are my results, along with their minimum standards for females:

Resting Heart Rate
Taken before getting out of bed in the morning. No minimum, just for comparison later.
67

Pull-ups
minimum: 1
me: 1

Vertical Leap
minimum: 3"
me: 11"

Push-ups
minimum: 3
me: 10 (I can actually do 18-20 on a good day, but I've been doing pull-ups all weekend, playing with my new pull-up bar, and I was really sore today :D - it's ok, this way I'll look like I've improved even more!)

Toe Touch
minimum: should be able to get fingertips within 6" of toes
me : 6" past toes

Wall Squat
minimum: hold 1 minute
me : 1 minute (ok, yes, if my life depended on it I could have held it longer, but it hurt! I gotta save my masochism for the actual workouts!)

Bicep Curls
both hands at once
minimum: 10 reps / 8lbs each hand
me : 22 reps / 9lbs

In & Outs
minimum: 25
me : 50

Heart Rate Maximizer
2 minutes of jumping jacks, 1 min 30 secs at a moderate pace, last 30 secs at sprint pace. Pulse taken by heart rate monitor immediately afterward and at 1 minute intervals after that. No minimum standard, this is just for comparison later
Immediate: 174
after 1 min: 141
after 2 min: 118
after 3 min: 108
after 4 min: 103

After 90 days, I'll post these again with my new, hopefully improved, scores.

I also took some "before" pictures today, which there is no way in heck I'm going to post. Let's just say they're very motivating. Maybe I'll post them at the end along with my after photos, if my after photos are WAY better and super impressive, but I don't think so. You'll just have to trust me that something needs to be done. In lieu of photos, here are my "before" measurements and my goals. I'm not setting goals for things like weights and reps and stuff like that, because I just have no basis for doing that kind of thing. I will say I'd love to be able to do 10 pull-ups... but I think that's a pretty tough goal. OK, the stats:

Weight: 108 (goal 102)
Bust: 36" (goal 34")
Waist: 27" (goal 24")
Hips: 36" (goal 34")
Arm: 9.5" (goal ??")
Leg: 20" (goal 19")

Think I can do it?

Obnoxious Neighbor Kids

2010-04-12T20:16:00.002-04:00

This kid two doors down from us is the biggest brat. I don't know how old she is, maybe 4, but she cries like a two year old. It's ridiculous. Every time the parents put her in the car she has a temper tantrum, every time they take her out of the car. Random times like right now. It makes me want to go out and throttle her, even though I'm sure it's the parents who really need throttling.

The Ruckus

2010-04-01T20:09:00.003-04:00

by Dr. Seuss

On top of a hill, on the island of Zort,
lived a bird called the Ruckus
whose favorite sport was making loud noises.
It gave him a thrill to be known
as the loudest-mouthed bird on the hill.

Then one day he said, "I can be louder still!
My voice is terrific - it ought to be heard
on many more islands than this," said the bird.

So he made his voice stronger,
till one day he found
that he learned how to make a tremendous big sound
that shook every island for 50 miles round.

"I say," laughed the Ruckus,
"I'm really some guy, but I can do better than that if I try.
I'll build up my voice, why I'll practice a year.
I'll cook up a noise that the whole world will hear."

And after he practiced for 52 weeks,
the Ruckus let loose with a mouthful of shrieks
that burst from his mouth like the moans and the groans
of ten thousand elephants blowing trombones.

He yapped and he yolded, he yelped and he yilped
he gargled, he snargled, he burped, and he bilped,
and the sound went to China and knocked down 3 cats,
and in England, it blew off 8 bus drivers' hats.

"Oh boy," laughed the Ruckus, "I'm really some bird.
I've opened my mouth and made myself heard."

Then a little old worm came up out of the ground.
"That's true," said the worm, "that was quite a big sound.
But I have a question to ask, if I may:
You've opened your mouth, but just what did you say?"

ohhhhh, I am so SORE

2010-03-22T21:10:00.003-04:00

Seriously, I've been walking around all day like an old person. Or should I say shuffling around?

A more detailed description of this project will go on the remodeling blog, but the short version: I unloaded a 1-ton pallet of stone Saturday, then, as if that wasn't enough for one day, I proceeded to move 3/4 of that ton, piece by piece, to lay out a nice pathway from the deck to the chicken run door, around the chicken run to the back door of the coop, and then around to the nesting box. And then I squatted down and started using a flat bar and a hand trowel to dig shallow recesses in the ground to sink the stones into. My hamstrings in particular are so sore and tight that walking is really miserable. My shoulders are also really bad, and my mid- and lower back, forearms, and the muscles in my hands are up there too.

And I've got a lot more stones to sink. I think I'd better do the rest in smaller increments.

Money saving and Delicious Idea #3

2010-03-19T17:30:00.003-04:00

If you live in the south, check to see if you have an Earth Fare store near you, and if so, go to their website and sign up for the weekly e-mail. Plenty of stores offer e-mail savings that turn out to just be mailbox clutter, but Earth Fare has some really great coupons.

Today I got:
a 16.9 oz bottle of water
1/2 a Turkey BLT wrap
8 oz. cup of Thai Chicken soup
spicy blue corn chips
a 15 oz. bag of organic frozen mixed berries
a 7oz. block of "Dubliner" Irish cheese

Grand Total: $3.55

Coupons used were: free $5 lunch with purchase of Earth Fare water, vitamin water or iced tea, and free Irish cheese with any purchase. I needed the berries because I put them in yogurt for Jeff's lunch almost every day, and I like to get them either at Earth Fare or Trader Joe's because they have organic for less $$ than Harris Teeter... and good luck finding organic at Food Lion or Walmart.
The wrap and the soup were both delicious, the chips are probably cooked in canola oil or something equally awful, but I didn't eat that many :D the rest of the lunch was quite filling on its own. The CHEESE is AMAZING. It's seriously some of the best cheese I've ever had. DE-lish.

Some other deals I've gotten with their e-mail coupons:

- free pizza dough and free 4 oz ball of fresh mozzarella with purchase of a jar of Earth Fare organic pasta sauce (which was on sale for $2.50)
- free 5lb bag of organic russet potatoes with any purchase
- free pound of fresh roasted coffee AND free box of Earth Fare granola with any purchase

Money saving AND Healthful idea #2

2010-01-26T10:31:00.001-05:00

Grab a ham when you see it on sale.

Last week a local grocery store had spiral cut hams on sale for 99 cents/ lb. I grabbed one. This isn’t as healthful as it could be, since I’m sure the ham is conventionally raised and probably has a lot of additives injected into it, but I’m doing what I can. I couldn’t get really healthful ham for 99 cents/ lb! Since then, we’ve eaten the following:

Dinner:
Sliced Ham + pasta + frozen vegetable (twice)
Ham a la King (twice)
Pea soup (once, plus 4 more 2-serving containers in the freezer)

Lunch:
Jeff – Ham sandwich
Audry – Ham a la King

Breakfast:
Ham and eggs (twice)

I also still have enough ham left over to freeze 3 or 4 dinner-for-two sized portions.

Including the extra ingredients in all those meals, I spent just about $20 for 12-13 dinners, two breakfasts, and one lunch. (maybe a little more if we eat vegetables and potatoes with the frozen ham when we thaw it) That works out to $1.25 - $1.50 per hearty, nutritious 2 person meal. Not bad.

Money saving idea #1

2010-01-23T12:43:00.006-05:00

Cut your own hair.

I've been cutting Jeff's hair basically since we got married. I think he might have gotten it cut somewhere else maybe twice in the few months right afterward, but ever since then, I've been cutting it myself. That's about 89 haircuts x $25 (how much he was paying for a haircut before then) = $2150 over 7 1/2 years. The clippers cost about $30, so say $2120. That's not small change.

I've been saving money on my hair, on the other hand, by only getting it cut about once every 6 months. Yes, it gets ratty and I end up just putting it in a ponytail for 3 of those 6 months, but it just kills me to spend money on haircuts so I always end up putting it off and off and off. Well, one thing I didn't really consider when I got my short haircut back in October is that there's really no way to ignore a pixie cut for 6 months at a time. Nope, 6 weeks is pushing it when your hair is that short.

I don't really know what the going rate is for women's haircuts these days, but the salon where I originally got the short haircut charged me $60! That just seems ridiculous to me. So for my second cut, I went to a different, cheaper place that only charged $30. They did a crummy job, so for the 3rd cut I went back to the $60 place to get it fixed. The same lady who did the original, wonderful haircut cut it again, but this time she cut it too short! Argh!

So, today I cut my own hair. I think it came out ok for a first attempt. Not perfect, but not lock-yourself-in-the-bedroom-for-3-weeks-while-it-grows-out either. I think I cut it a little too short. Other than that though, it came out well enough that I will definitely be trying it again next time :D

Why say it myself when someone else already did such a good job?

2010-01-18T16:45:00.001-05:00

Excellent post:

http://www.nourishingdays.com/?p=2548

Bread

2010-01-16T19:51:00.007-05:00

This January, Jeff and I made sort of an unofficial New Year's resolution to eat more healthfully. Not that we eat particularly badly now, but we want to try even harder to avoid processed foods and preservatives, vegetable oils, excessive sugar, etc. I, being the primary shopper and cook, have also resolved to try really hard to cut the amount I spend on food. (I'm trying to reign in the budget as much as possible in every area, but food seems to be the hardest one to control.) It's hard to work toward both of these ends at once, since healthy, whole, good food is generally more expensive than its highly processed, nutrition-less counterpart. However, it is possible if you're careful, plan ahead, and have time to prepare foods that you can't just throw together. Since I have more time on my hands lately, well... it's a perfect time to make these resolutions. One of the things I've been doing is baking bread rather than buying it.

Warning: if you have any inclination to bake anything at all, clicking on the embedded links in this post is a dangerous proposition. Proceed to the King Arthur Flour website at your own peril.

The first bread I tried was a braided Challah. A word of advice: start with something simple. First, it wouldn't rise, then it rose too much and got flat and soft and I, not having any experience with yeast breads, didn't have any idea what to do about it. It was all soft and stretched too much as I braided it and then didn't rise in the oven. I didn't even take a picture of the embarrassing flat results. (It actually did taste good, despite its ugliness, so it wasn't a complete loss.)

My next attempt was Chewy Semolina Rye bread. This one was a little more successful, but again I had trouble getting it to rise, so the end product, while tasty, was very dense. It also took 45 minutes longer to bake than the recipe called for, probably also because it was so dense. It was usable for sandwiches, but I had to make Jeff two sandwiches every day because the loaf was so small and therefore the pieces were so small.

Last week, I made 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread and had my first marginal success. The bread got puffy when it was supposed to, then continued to rise in its pan like it was supposed to, and finished baking in the appropriate amount of time. Unfortunately, it had a bit of a sag in the top, and when cut you could see it was much denser on the bottom and full of big holes in the top half, but it was delicious and a very good consistency for sandwiches. It was moist and sliced really easily. Jeff ate sandwiches on it all week and I ate it with butter for breakfast at least 3 times, and it didn't start to get stale till Friday.

Since it turned out so well, (and since I still had most of a bag of whole wheat flour) I decided to try the same bread again for this week. This time the dough seemed a little nicer when I was done kneading it, but it didn't rise nearly as much as it was supposed to during the second rise, despite me leaving it for an extra 45 minutes. I finally decided to just bake it and see what happened. Success! It rose beautifully in the oven and came out better than the last one. No sag on top, and the sides are smoother than last time (they were a little crumbly before). It's still hot, so I haven't sliced it yet, but I think it'll be good.

Resolution

2009-09-15T20:39:00.007-04:00

I just realized that it was a year ago this month that I said I was going to take the Architectural Registration Exam "this year." And that was a year after I'd started scrambling to get one test taken before the format changed. So now it's been two years since I decided I'd really better just take the thing and be done with it.

So. I am going to do it. I finished filling out the application, got it notorized, wrote the check for the application fee and attached a photo of myself (why on earth do they need a photo of me??) I have a shelf full of study materials here, so now all I need to do is stick the application in the mail and decide what order to take the exams.

ARE study materials

There are 7 parts in the new format, and each one (except Schematic Design) has a multiple choice section and a graphic section (where you solve design programs with a really clunky drafting program designed specifically for the tests). I'm pretty comfortable with the subject matter of 4 of the 7 tests, but I'm a little worried about the ones that cover structural and mechanical systems. It's just been a bit too long since I learned about them in school, and unlike most of the other content it's not stuff I use every day. So I'm torn right now whether to take those ones first and get them out of the way, or save them for last. I'm reading through the study materials now, and after I do that I'll decide.

If I don't post updates on this regularly, leave me comments telling me to get my butt in gear!!

***Updated to add my tentative testing order***

1. Schematic Design (graphic only, kind of a warm-up)
2. Structural Systems
3. Building Systems (mechanical and electrical)
4. Building Design and Construction Systems (more general than the previous two, but the material overlaps)
5. Construction Documents and Services*
6. Programming Planning and Practice*
7. Site Planning and Design*

*I may change the order of 5, 6 & 7, but I plan to take those three in quick succession. The content of all three is very closely related and the prevailing wisdom seems to be to study for all three at once and take them close together. These are the 3 that I scored in the high 80% on practice tests without even reviewing any study materials first, so I figure I'll save them for last. (If you fail an exam, you have to wait 6 months before you can retake it, thus the strategy of taking the ones I'm least confident with first)

Handwriting Font

2009-03-23T12:42:00.004-04:00

Here's something kind of random I stumbled upon today. A website that lets you create a font based on your handwriting. You download and print a template and write each upper- and lower- case letter in its assigned spot, along with numbers and symbols, scan it, upload it, and the utility creates a font you can download. You have to be careful that you write each letter with the bottom at the same height, or when you type your text will be all up and down hill. But it's pretty cool. I now have a font that really does look very much like my handwriting. Check it out:

http://www.yourfonts.com

100 Pushups

2009-01-24T13:50:00.003-05:00

Jeff and I started an experiment this week. We found a website www.hundredpushups.com that has a set of charts for 5 sets of pushups 3 days a week. You test yourself to see how many pushups you can do in a row, then pick a column in the chart for week one based on the result of that test. Then each Monday, Wednesday and Friday you do the prescribed number of pushups, with the prescribed breaks between sets, and after two weeks you test yourself again. Based on that number you move on to the appropriate column of the chart for weeks 3 and 4. The idea is that after 6 weeks you'll be able to do 100 pushups without stopping. Of course, 6 weeks is the minimum, they do have a disclaimer that you may have to repeat some weeks, but the idea is that even if it takes 7 or 8 or 9 weeks, if you do them the way they say, you'll eventually be able to do 100 in a row.

For my initial test last Saturday, I did 19 pushups. Three days this past week, I've done 5 sets of pushups for a total of 40 on Monday, 42 Wednesday, and 46 yesterday. You max out for the last set each day, so you're always getting a good workout. Jeff could already do about 25 pushups, so he started on week 3, and he did 78 pushups Monday and 89 pushups this morning! (in 5 sets-- the ones he was supposed to do for Friday-- but still, it's significantly more than he could do even on Monday.)

We're pretty excited, even if we don't get to the goal of 100 in a row (I'm betting Jeff will) it's still cool to be able to do a lot of pushups, and the program is a good motivator.

I'll post an update when we take our progress tests next weekend :D

Slippers

2009-01-04T21:13:00.003-05:00

Jeff got me some very nice slippers for Christmas. The color matched the robe he got me perfectly. Unfortunately, they were too small, and when we took them back the larger size just didn't feel quite right.

Sooo-o-o-o.....

I got these instead:

Aren't they a hoot? I love 'em!

Pictures!

2008-12-24T22:44:00.003-05:00

Gingerbread Men!

Tree!

Christmas Preparations

2008-12-22T12:12:00.003-05:00

I've noticed that part of the reason I never post is because I like to have pictures to go with all my posts. But obviously wanting to post pictures doesn't actually make me post pictures, it just makes me not post at all. So here's a post without pictures, and if I get around to taking some pics, I'll post them later :D

I was a little stressed about Christmas the past couple weeks, (mainly due to a fairly sizable project I'd committed to that was taking longer than I expected) but that's in the past and things are well in hand now, so I thought it was time for an update.

The big thing this year was that, after two Christmases away from home when we did absolutely no decorating, we were finally going to have a tree again, and we do. The implied corollary was that by Christmas the house would be ready to receive a tree. Whether that goal has been reached is debatable-- we hired someone to sheetrock the downstairs part of the addition, so the tree is at least surrounded by walls instead of studs and exposed insulation, (see the Great Remodeling Escapade for more about that) but there is still exposed framing above, it's still sitting on a plywood floor, there are still construction materials surrounding it... it actually looks a little silly right now, but in a good way. After Jeff brought it in and set it up yesterday, I somehow managed to get all the lights and ornaments on it. We'll move the couch in from the other room tonight or tomorrow, and the end tables, so we can set up some candles, and I think it will be cheery for our Christmas eve first fire in the fireplace.

After decorating the tree, I started another fun project-- making gingerbread men! I've never actually made gingerbread men before-- I've made gingerbread houses, and I think a gingerbread stocking one year, but never good ol' fashioned gingerbread men. I got the idea when I came across this website with gingerbread recipes dating back to the fifteenth century. I thought I'd make gingerbread men for my coworkers and include funny old gingerbread recipes as part of the package. I did NOT get around to the old recipe part, but the men (and women!) came out very cute, and the gingerbread is very tasty. I decorated them only with white royal icing piped through a thin round tip, to try to give them a "classic" look, and I made 5 of them to *sort of* look like the people I work with and handed them out this morning. I think they were well received. I tried to take a picture this morning but the camera battery died and I just wasn't in the mood to deal with it. There were 7 more that I didn't give away, so I'll try to photograph them later.

I've been wrapping gifts as I get them, so everything is now wrapped and just waiting to be put under the tree-- I think I'll do that tonight, unless Jeff beats me to it. Then, I just have to wrap what I have for Jeff, which I'm also planning to do tonight, and the only thing left to do to prepare will be shopping for Christmas Eve noshing goodies, Christmas morning breakfast, and my contributions to mom's Christmas dinner and Rachael's Christmas Evening get together.

Fun, fun! :D

It's All About the Ice Cream

2008-11-05T12:15:00.005-05:00

This is from an e-mail forward I got today, cleaned up a little for grammar and clarity. I doubt it's a true story, but the analogy is a good one.

The most eye-opening civics lesson I’ve ever had was while teaching third grade. The presidential election was heating up and some of the children showed an interest, so I decided we would have an election for a class president. We would choose our nominees, they would each make a campaign speech and the class would vote.

To simplify the process, candidates were nominated by other class members. We discussed what kinds of characteristics these students should have. We got many nominations, and from those, Jamie and Olivia were picked to run for the top spot.

The class did a great job in their selections. Both candidates were good kids. The day arrived when they were to make their speeches, and Jamie went first. He had specific ideas about how to make our class a better place. He ended by promising to do his very best. Everyone applauded. He sat down, and Olivia came to the podium. Her speech was concise. She said, "If you will vote for me, I will give you ice cream." She sat down.

The class went wild. "Yes! Yes! We want ice cream." A discussion followed. How did she plan to pay for the ice cream? She wasn't sure. Would her parents buy it or would the class pay for it? She didn't know. The class really didn't care. All they were thinking about was ice cream. Jamie was forgotten, and Olivia won by a landslide.

Every time Barack Obama opens his mouth he offers ice cream, and fifty percent of America reacts like nine year olds. They want ice cream. The other fifty percent know they're going to have to feed the cow.

Cleaning Bathrooms

2008-10-24T08:24:00.004-04:00

I just want to take this opportunity to say what a wonderful husband I have. In addition to all the other things he does (like remodeling our house) he cleans the bathrooms. He always cleans the bathrooms. He cleans the toilets, and the mildew on the bad caulk job in our shower, and the sinks and mirrors and everything else. I occasionally clean some minor thing in the bathroom, but I don't think I've cleaned a toilet since we've been married.

AND... I never even asked him to.

He's the best. Thanks sweetie :-*

My New Neice

2008-10-13T12:53:00.004-04:00

Abigail Brooke Clark
born Oct. 4, 2008 7:50 am
5 lbs, 12 oz

and here with her big brother:

New Remodeling Blog

2008-09-11T21:47:00.005-04:00

Jeff and I have decided to create a new blog dedicated to the remodeling project where we will be co-authors. All construction news from here on out will be posted at http://jaremodel.blogspot.com (easy to remember: J A Remodel)

The brick post is over there as well.

Brick

2008-09-11T21:05:00.003-04:00

We picked out a brick today. Had to order it, but here is a photo:

of course, every monitor is different, and while I adjusted the color of this photo so that it looks really really like the actual brick on MY monitor, what you see could be totally different. And our mortar joints won't have that line in them. So, you'll just have to come visit and see it in person once the fireplace is built. :oD

Windows and other updates

2008-09-10T09:27:00.007-04:00

Ok, so the windows are in. This should be very exciting, and it was when we first saw them. However, the excitement has been tempered a bit by the discovery that the guys neglected to install the sill flashing before setting the windows. The roll and the instructions were sitting right on TOP of the windows in the garage, but they just threw it on the floor (apparently) and ignored it. So now we have to decide whether we want to 1. just not put the sill flashing in, 2. Jeff try to take the windows out himself and flash them (not likely, they’re VERY heavy) or 3. get the guys back here to redo it and risk them damaging the windows taking them out and reinstalling them. Obviously, none of these are particularly appealing options, and it is SO frustrating to not be able to get anyone to do ANYTHING right. I just feel crappy about the whole thing.

On a brighter note (hopefully) the mason is coming Saturday to start working on the fireplace. He should be able to get the whole firebox built, but will need 3 more days to build the chimney. This is an inherent constraint of working with brick—you can only stack up so much at a time, because it gets too heavy and will start squashing the mortar. So you stack so many courses, let the mortar harden, and come back for more. Unfortunately (I seem to be typing that word too often lately) he is working in Raleigh for the next few weeks, so the 3 days he works on the chimney will be 3 Saturdays…. so that won’t be completed for a while. And we can’t get the framing inspected till the chimney is done, which holds us up being able to insulate and sheetrock.But, what can ya do.I’m sure the time will go quickly, and we don’t have set dates for the electrician and mechanical guy to come either, so depending on their schedules the chimney might not even delay things all that much.

Oh, and one other setback… going back to the framer. He was always going to shingle the roof. It was part of his original estimate, it was never discussed as any kind of problem, etc. But when he showed up Monday, he told Jeff that his guys “didn’t want to do it.” So now we need to get a roofer too, which is undoubtedly going to be more expensive. ::sigh::

Thursday, we’re going to look at bricks for the inside of the fireplace (not the firebox, but the raised hearth and the exposed brick surrounding the opening)

I’ll keep ya posted.

Living Room Ceiling

2008-09-07T21:40:00.005-04:00

For today's project, we decided to tear down the horrible "octagonal tray ceiling" in the living room. This silly thing not only looked totally idiotic, but also completely destroyed any air currents created by the ceiling fan when it was turned on, so it had to go. Since that room is now half framing anyway, why not now?

We moved the rest of the living room furniture into the future dining room, and actually set it up as a living room, so we'll actually have a real room to retreat to now when we need to get away from the construction. I should take a picture tomorrow, since I didn't do it today. Then Jeff started tearing down the sheetrock on the living room ceiling, exposing the most completely absurd framing job either of us had ever seen. I would have taken more pictures, but my camera battery died (the new one, I swear, I'm battery-impaired or something) and it wasn't recharged till after everything was down.

Seriously though, it was like some guy just randomly started throwing 2x4's up there and when it looked like he had enough he covered it with sheetrock. It was all made of random pieces fitted together every which way, with the triple 2x4 that was ostensibly holding the frame to the ceiling not actually attached to the ceiling... so the frame was really holding it up.... no wonder it had separated about 1/8 of an inch since we moved in. And other, totally useless, boards were nailed to the wall with like, 15 nails. Of which 10 didn't actually hit anything but sheetrock. Yeah.

So, here's a couple pics showing the living room after the ceiling was taken down and we'd hauled all the debris out and put it in the truck for Jeff to take to the recycle center in the morning. You should have seen the pile, but unfortunately that potential picture was lost to the dead battery as well. Maybe I'll take a picture of the loaded truck in the morning.

MESS!

2008-09-05T18:34:00.002-04:00

Ugh. The scene that greeted us when we got home today was not quite as nice as yesterday. Yes, the second floor and roof are framed, and they're lookin' good from outside:

Inside, on the other hand, is another story...

All their tools, scraps, debris, just littering the bedroom, guess they didn't think we'd need a place to sleep tonight. And worse than that, they left the window openings wide open! Hello? Jeff is out there now covering them with plastic. ::sigh:: I sure hope they're planning to come back tomorrow.

Here's the disaster area outside:

Addition!!!

2008-09-05T12:28:00.009-04:00

Ok, I know it's been WAAAAY too long since I posted anything, but here I am again, with great news. Most people who read this blog already know pretty much the state of things (which is part of why it's so easy to neglect posting) but most of you haven't SEEN the latest, so here goes. Since many of you also haven't seen the previous few stages, I'm going to take the advice of Mary Poppins, a very wise woman: "Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start"

The beginning: If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go into the archives and read about the hassle we had getting a variance for this thing, and look at the floor plans. :D

The hole:

The footing:
(too bad they poured the fireplace footing WAY too big, so there's like 2 feet of concrete hanging out past the chimney foundation, and they didn't pour the wall footing quite wide enough so the wall is sitting RIGHT at the very edge... but oh well, the inspector didn't care)

The foundation:Now we're getting somewhere! Actual construction! This was very exciting, and I'm happy to say that despite a dubious job on the concrete work, the brick is very well done. This was a little stressful in addition to being exciting, because the foundation LOOKED really small compared to the vision in my head. Foundations ALWAYS look smaller than you expect, but it was still unnerving.

The new condenser:
Even though I'm totally not an Air Conditioning person, having it down here where it's regularly in the 90's or 100's for weeks or more at a stretch during the summer is pretty important. Our old condenser was barely big enough for the house without the addition, and it was also in pretty rough shape. So here's the shiny, new (BIG) 4 ton unit.

The First Floor:
They framed the first floor Wednesday (unfortunately had to redo a lot of it Thursday, since they framed all the window openings the exact size of the windows) and then Thursday they closed it in and covered it with the second floor. I think Jeff's body language says it all.

And finally, drumroll please......

The Living Room!
Because of the way the existing house is framed, we needed a pretty substantial beam to hold up the outside wall of the house. To put the second floor on, they needed to put the beam in, and to do that they had to break through into the house, even though the windows aren't in yet. So when we got home, it was to a HUGE (in comparison to the original) new living room. The space is bigger than it seemed from outside, and feels really really good. the window sizes look good, everything is living up to "the vision" and we're really really excited. (The post in the opening there is temporary, they just didn't get to taking it out yesterday.) This photo is probably more meaningful to those who've seen the house as it was, but trust me, it's a HUGE difference.

They're planning to have the second floor framed today, and break through into the bedroom, which means.... YES! no more sleeping on the floor! We've been sleeping on a mattress on the floor for 15 months due to not being able to get our box spring up the stairs. Before they put the windows in, the framers are going to put the box spring in through the wall. So tonight, we should have a bed.

I'll post more tomorrow :-D

Grandkids

2008-07-13T17:23:00.003-04:00

All the grandkids (my parents' grandkids) were gathered in one place this past weekend. From left to right: Liam Wolfe, Alethea Thompson, Hunter Thompson, Logan Clark, Silas Wolfe, Shamus Wolfe

Cute huh?

A Word of Advice, from the (not so) Wise

2008-06-18T20:37:00.002-04:00

When you go to the beach, it's not enough just to buy sunscreen.

That's right folks, simply buying the sunscreen and setting it in the sand next to your towel does not protect against sunburn. Also, slathering it on your back but completely neglecting chest, face and legs is also horribly insufficient.

I will not post photos proving my point. You'll just have to take my word for it...

Bridge!

2008-05-26T10:14:00.004-04:00

Jeff built our first bridge yesterday! And I helped! I don't have a ton of time to write right now, but I think pictures speak louder in this case anyway.

Squaring it up:

Bridging is in, but the light is fading fast:

He got all but the end pieces of decking on (those needed to be ripped down and shaped) but the dark won!

The next morning: FINISHED!

(eventually the area between the decks will be landscaped, with a nice, stepping-stone path down to the bridge)

Doesn't it look lovely from upstream?

Barber-que

2008-04-26T09:27:00.005-04:00

Last night we had a fun time with all Jeff's co-workers over for a barbecue in our newly yard-like backyard. (Although down here I suppose I should say we had a cook-out, since there was no pork, no vinegar, and no slow-cooking in sight.) 5 of his co-workers, four of their spouses, 5 assorted kids, and lots of chairs, salads, appetizers, desserts and beverages started showing up at our door around 6 o'clock. Jim brought us a pot with a little Japanese maple and an ornamental peach tree, and Brad brought Jeff this fancy beer from Holland that comes in these crazy bottles with stoppers. By 7:30 Floyd had taken over the grill, everyone was happily filling their bellies and the kids were running around the yard having a great time. One of the kids, Maggie, who I guess was about 13 (7th grade) treated us to a pretty amazing show of walking on her hands-- even down a step! I wish I'd had a camera.

It was a good time. I can see how Jeff and his "work buddies" get along so well. The funniest thing, though, is that even though they all get along really well in the office, this seems to be the first time that camaraderie has left the office.... even though some of them have been working together for 10 years. As they left, a few of them were already making plans to "do this at our house" next year.

A Funny Story

2008-03-29T22:36:00.009-04:00

So, Jeff and I like to drink wine. We don't go crazy or anything, but we like to have a glass with dinner pretty regularly, and to keep ourselves to a budget we take our monthly wine allowance to Total Wine and More at the beginning of each month and pick out our bottles for the month. Well, we were almost finished with the ritual tonight-- I had picked mine and Jeff needed a $7 bottle to be right on the money. He wanted to try something new, so we're trolling around the store, trying to find something interesting-looking, when all of a sudden out of nowhere a salesman comes walking over to us, asking quite enthusiastically, "What does the perfect glass of red wine taste like?"

Jeff and I look at each other, and back at him, slightly confused, and he asks again. I shrug, not sure how to describe the "perfect glass of red wine" and Jeff says "Aahhhh" in a contented voice.

The salesman's reply to this: "Six dollars and ninety-nine cents, Nostrada Tempranillo Tarragona"

"huh?"

"Nostrada Tempranillo Tarragona, it's a fantastic wine, we sell tons of it, people come back looking for it. More even than a Blackstone or--"

"Blackstone's one of my favorites," says Jeff

"Oh!" says the salesman, "Oh, you're going to love this, I'm going to blow you away, come here..."

He scampers over to a computer, and we follow along and watch over his shoulder as he pulls up the monthly sales records for Blackstone Merlot, Jeff's favorite wine and one the salesguy says is probably the most popular wine in the country right now. They sell about a case a week, with some weeks quite a bit higher. Then he looks up the Nostrada he's been touting-- the store sells over 40 bottles most weeks. So Jeff says sure, throw it at me. It's the exact price we were looking for after all, and at this point it's definitely safe to say it's "interesting." The guy leads us to the Spain section of the store, picks an unassuming bottle off the bottom shelf, hands it to Jeff, and hurries away as suddenly as he appeared. We took the bottle home and of course had to try it right away, and you know what?

It's delicious.

Pear Tart

2008-03-24T12:18:00.004-04:00

My entire family (except for Rose and Nate, waaaaay down in Mississippi) convened at Bradley's and Clayton's apartment for Easter this year and I was asked to bring a dessert. Actually I think I asked Brad what he wanted me to bring and was told "if theres anything u can think of for dessert u can bring that cuz i haven't any idea what to make"

So, being me, I decided to make a pear tart, which I have never done before and which required the purchase of not only ingredients, but also a tart pan in which to bake said tart. It was a multi-step process that involved pre-freezing and pre-baking the crust, whipping up a frangipani base (no, I never heard of that either till I found the recipe) and poaching the pears in a mixture of water, sugar, cloves, lemon, and vanilla before slicing them and placing them on top of the almond frangipani. However, I haven't taken on any outrageously difficult or time consuming projects lately, so I was overdue, and honestly the tart wasn't as much work as I thought it'd be from reading the recipe.

I think the results ended up looking pretty good, and the tart was very tasty as well, though it was very sweet. I think I'll omit most if not all the sugar from the pears next time.

Teaching

2008-01-21T21:22:00.000-05:00

For anyone who was wondering, my first class was a week ago tonight (I'm not teaching tonight, because the school is closed for one of those holidays that only schools and governments get-- Martin Luther King Jr. day) I think all in all, both classes (we meet Monday and Wednesday nights for 3 1/2 HOURS each time) went pretty well. I'm already making lists of what to do differently when - and if - I teach this class again, but mostly just ideas of things that may work better, not things that went wrong. It's hard to write specifics about drafting when I'm not really writing to a drafting audience (with a couple exceptions) but I'm happy with my students' progress so far. I'll post updates if anything interesting happens. :o)

New Year, New Color

2008-01-02T20:32:00.000-05:00

same layout, but a slightly different look. I can't promise it will last all year though :o)

Soon I will delete my "books II have read in 2007" and start a "books I have read in 2008" list... but, I figure I have till I actually finish a book in 2008 to do that.

ok this is a pointless post, I think I'll stop now. Auf Wiedersehen.

Graphic Design Efforts

2007-12-31T08:08:00.000-05:00

My brother is starting a Mold Remediation business, and he asked me to put together a business card for him. He had a pretty well defined idea of what he wanted but couldn't draw it.

Here are the criteria he gave me:

Black background
BioForce- one word, all caps, but with the "B" and "F" larger, letters should look like metal
cartoonish, tough-looking soldier with exaggerated upper body using the "B" of BioForce for cover as he shoots at mold spores with faces in the upper right corner of the card

And here are the results:

This might not be what a professional graphic designer would come up with, but I think for free my bro got a pretty decent card, no?

A Word of Advice

2007-12-15T10:29:00.000-05:00

If you ever think there might be a dead mouse in your shop-vac, take the thing outside BEFORE opening it to see if you're right.

PEE-EWWW!!!

My crazy family

2007-12-11T21:28:00.000-05:00

So my phone rings about 7:30 tonight, and since I'm in the middle of eating my delicious sushi dinner with Jeff, I let it ring. After dinner I check my voicemail, and what do I hear but my mother and 2 youngest sisters (who all live in new york) singing... "happy birthday to you... happy birthday to you..."

they go through the whole thing, and then comes my mom's voice: "we're having a birthday party for you, with special ice cream, so we figured we better sing to you before we ate it."

click.

oh my word, i was dying

thanks for the Birthday Laugh :-D

23 things of Christmas...

2007-12-07T18:32:00.000-05:00

1. WRAPPING PAPER OR GIFT BAGS? Wrapping paper, even for he most ridiculously shaped things... don't ask me why, I must be a masochist.

2. REAL OR FAKE TREE? Real. We had an artificial tree my whole life when I was growing up, but Jeff would NEVER get an artificial one, and after the first time out cutting one, I was hooked.

3. WHEN DO YOU PUT UP THE TREE? the weekend closest to my birthday

4. WHEN DO YOU TAKE THE TREE DOWN? in theory around Jan 6th, but in reality I think it was up till February one year...

5. DO YOU LIKE EGG NOG? aghkk-cough hack pbbhhth... GAG! gross. no.

6. FAVORITE GIFT RECEIVED AS A CHILD? Cabbage patch.... I remember YELLING at the top of my lungs THANK YOU SANTA!!!! lol

7. DO YOU HAVE A NATIVITY SCENE? Yes, and I get more pieces for it every year :-D

8. HARDEST PERSON TO BUY FOR? My In-laws and my teenage brothers.

9. EASIEST PERSON TO BUY FOR? Grown/ Married siblings.

10. WORST CHRISTMAS GIFT YOU EVER RECEIVED? not sure

11. MAIL OR EMAIL CHRISTMAS CARDS? umm.... someday maybe I'll send out Christmas cards. When I do, they'll be real, not virtual.

12. FAVORITE CHRISTMAS MOVIE? It's a Wonderful Life, How the Grinch Stole Christmas

13. WHEN DO YOU START SHOPPING FOR CHRISTMAS? around Thanksgiving like all the other schmoes who wait that long

14. HAVE YOU EVER RECYCLED A CHRISTMAS PRESENT? I don't THINK so... maybe for like gift exchange things.

15. FAVORITE THING TO EAT AT CHRISTMAS? Roast beef and yorkshire pudding for dinner and chocolate mousse cake for dessert

16. CLEAR LIGHTS OR COLORED LIGHTS ON THE TREE? Clear clear clear clear. can't stand colored lights, they're so not Christmas-y

17. FAVORITE CHRISTMAS SONG? "O Holy Night" (favorite version - Josh Groban) and "Mary, Did you Know?"

18. TRAVEL AT CHRISTMAS OR STAY HOME? Up till last year it's always been home, but from now on it will probably alternate from year to year.

19. CAN YOU NAME ALL OF SANTA’S REINDEER? yes

20. ANGEL OR STAR ON THE TREE TOP? angel

21. OPEN THE PRESENTS CHRISTMAS EVE OR MORNING? morning

22. MOST ANNOYING THING THIS TIME OF YEAR? politically correct people saying "happy holidays"

23. WHAT DO YOU LOVE MOST ABOUT CHRISTMAS? remembering that Jesus came to earth to die for MY sins

Things about me...

2007-12-03T21:23:00.000-05:00

that sort of (but don't really) have some sort of connection to the letters of the alphabet.

Jennifer posted this on her blog and asked me to do the same. Since she's so nice and sends me lots of things like audio books and italian lessons and stuff, I figured I'd oblige.

A - Age: 28 (for another week anyway)

B - Best Friend: Jeff... if you want non-husband best friend that would be Jennifer

C - Choice of Meat: yum! meat! how could I pick a favorite, I love so many meats prepared so many ways

D - Dream Date: wandering the Italian countryside with my sweetie

E - Exciting Adventure: Going to Italy, renting a car, and trying to get by without counting on Italians being able to speak English :-D

F - Favorite Food: Sushi!

G - Greatest Accomplishment: me? accomplish? I'm more the type to get some great idea and finish it 3/4 of the way ::sigh::

H - Happiest Day of you Life: let's see... I was happy on my wedding day, but also kind of stressed... maybe the day after my wedding? the day we FINALLY got the word we would be closing on the sale of our NY house was pretty happy too :-D

I - Interests: currently-- Learning Italian, getting my Architecture License, Ancient Egyptian Chronology, Old Testament Chronology, Teaching, Photography, Audiobooks... I have too many interests for my attention span, that's always been my problem

J - Joke: How do you kill a blue elephant? (shoot it with a blue elephant gun)
How do you kill a pink elephant? (No, hold it's nose till it turns blue, then shoot it with your blue elephant gun)

K - Kool-Aid: no way you'll catch me drinking Kool-Aid

L - Love: is a good thing

M - Most Valued Possession: sadly... probably my computer. At least, it's (contents anyway) the least replaceable and therefore what I'd be most likely to try to grab if the house was burning down. or can i list the house as my most valued possession? That's certainly the most valuABLE...

N - Name: Audry

O - Outfit You Love: Idk, depends on my mood

P - Pizza Toppings: Everything (yeah, I even like anchovies, though i RARELY eat them because I never eat a whole pizza, and nobody ever wants anchovies even on the other half of their pizza) generally the more toppings the better though

Q - Question Asked to You the Most: idk. i don't think I get asked one question more than others, unless it's something like "how you doing?"

R - Radio Station: 89.9 WDAV Classical

S - Sport: Sport?

T - Television Show: I haven't had TV for 5 years and rarely watched it for some years before that. If you want to go WAY back though, my favorite show of my childhood was definitely MacGyver. I LOVED that show.

U - Umbrella in the rain?: every time it rains I say to myself, "man, why didn't I get an umbrella after the last time this happened?" and yet still, I haven't bought one, even though I'm always looking at them at the store...

V - Video: um.... 2 at a time from netflix :-D

W - Winter: not my favorite season. one good snow is nice, but having the ground covered for months and moths I can do without. also not a big fan of being COLD ALL THE TIME. which is one reason why I moved to NC, where it was 60 deg today while my siblings who still live in NY had a snow day :-D

X - X-rays recently?: not unless you count those bitewings at the dentist

Y - Year Born: 1978

Z - Zodiac Sign: are stupid

Holiday Visiting

2007-11-12T14:51:00.000-05:00

Wowsers, are we in for some craziness soon...

First Jeff's parents are getting here Friday evening. They'll stay and visit for the weekend, then leave Monday morning.

Tuesday (yes, the following day) my parents and 3 youngest siblings are arriving from NY. Wednesday I'm taking off from work and going to be making all the stuff I can possibly make ahead of time, while Mom makes pies. Wednesday night Rose and Nate and their 3 kids are arriving from Mississippi, bringing the total number of people at our house to 12. Thursday late morning-ish the rest of the gang (7 adults and 3 kids) will be arriving from Greenville for a grand total of 22 people!!! That's 13 adults, one 17 year old boy (read: eats as much as 2 adults) 2 girls ages 11 and 14, 3 little kids and 3 babies.

It will be the first time my family has all been together since last August (for Shielagh's wedding) and the first time all the current family members have EVER been together (since 3 of them weren't born yet last August)

whoo hoo

It's gonna be GREAT!

Thanksgiving Menu

2007-11-12T14:37:00.002-05:00

Dinner
Turkey - roasted in the oven,
...........Bread stuffing with mushrooms
...........Pan Gravy
Turkey - roasted on the barbeque
...........Sausage Apple and Cranberry stuffing
...........Wine Gravy
Mashed Potatoes w/ Horseradish Cream (on the side)
Sweet Potato Gratin
Green Bean Casserole
Purple Hull Peas (courtesy of Rose)
Cranberry Sauce
Sourdough Bread (courtesy of Rose)

Millbrook Proprieter's Reserve Chardonnay
Blackstone Vineyards Merlot
sparkling grape juice

Dessert
Apple Pie (courtesy of Mom)
Pumpkin Pie (courtesy of Shielagh)
Pecan Pie (courtesy of Mom)
Cheesecake with Cranberry Topping (courtesy of Rachael)
Sugar cookies (courtesy of Rachael)

Evening Relaxation
Hot Mulled Apple Cider

Variance

2007-11-12T14:37:00.001-05:00

YES!!!!!!! WE GOT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unanimous (5-0) vote :-D

Windows

2007-10-16T07:03:00.000-04:00

For those of you who know more about these things than I do, I have a question: How come every time I turn on my windows computer I set the screen resolution to 1680x1050 and yet, every time I turn it on it's reset itself to 1080x768 and I have to change it again to make things display normally? Why can't it just stay how I put it? Also, why does it think my flash drive is a new piece of hardware it's never seen before EVERY TIME I plug it in??

Someone, help me...

Jeff is Back!!

2007-10-13T08:58:00.001-04:00

YAY!!

Aside from it just being nice to have him home, I actually managed to sleep last night.

ARE here I come!

2007-10-10T21:20:00.000-04:00

I have an NCARB Council Record!!!

After sitting around being ambivalent for 5 years, I've suddenly gotten it into my head that I NEED to get my license. So, I created my record online today and am currently in the process of getting my hours straight for my employment verification. I also need to request a transcript from RPI to prove I actually graduated. Once I send all this stuff in and they approve it all, they officially say I'm eligable to take the exam. However, if I want them to actually send my record to a state registration board so I can sign up for the actual tests, I either have to wait a year, or pay them an extra $570 to do it within a year of my creating my record. The reason for this, I believe, is to encourage people to start the record when they graduate and start working, and gradually submit hours as they're completed, rather than doing it all 5 years down the road and basically making the hours up, like I'm doing. (I have the experience, but do I really know how many hours of Construction Documents I did at Sacco + McKinney vs. at Crisp? No.) But, I am a procrastinator, so this is how I'm doing it. I don't want to pay the extra money, but if I wait a year I'll be taking a totally redesigned version of the Exam and I'm not sure I want to do that either. ::sigh::

Jennifer is also thinking about getting herself moving again, and finishing the exam, so we've decided to study together. She scans her practice books to work on them anyway, so she's going to e-mail the scans to me and we'll work on them at the same time, and she's sending me half her flashcards, so we can ask them to each other at lunch. Should be fun. She has so ridiculously much energy and motivation, it should keep me going :oD

**update** I found binders of review materials, practice tests, and flashcards at my office, so I actually have prep material to contribute to this joint effort.

Updates

2007-10-01T20:22:00.001-04:00

Well, it's been a while since I wrote anything of any consequence, so I'm thinking it's time for an update. The problem is, there's not much to update. Our variance process is at basically the same stage as it was after the meeting-- we have talked to an engineer, but at this point we haven't actually hired him as we haven't actually determined what he's going to do for us, other than accompany us to the November ZBA meeting to use his professional engineering authority to squelch our neighbor's whining. He's also going to come to our house on Wednesday to meet with us, someone from the Mecklenburg County water quality dept., the Matthews Town Engineer, and possibly one of the Town Planners to talk about impact and mitigation, and the impossibility of anything we build affecting drainage in our neighbor's yard. We've also invited our neighbor, but I'll be really really surprised if she comes.

We've also been getting some quotes on things like appliances, and looking into financing. Since we don't really have any equity, we need to get a construction loan, which might take some fancy finagling since we're planning to only contract out a small amount of the project and have Jeff do most of it on his own. However, there are options, we're just going to start at what's likely to be the least expensive way and go from there.

Another inconsequential (to anyone but me) update is that Jeff has to go to Chapel Hill for a week for job training. He's going to be away for 5 nights... the most we've ever spent apart since we've been married is 2 nights, and we've only done that twice in 5 years. ::sigh:: (Rose, if you read this, just ignore me :o)

Other than that, I can't really think of anything. Life is just mooching along. Will update if there's any news.

Salesmen

2007-09-19T22:40:00.000-04:00

No matter what they tell you, don't ever let a salesman into your house. These gutter guardian guys just took up our whole night and they are so pushy. All salespeople are the same. Their tactics are the same.... it's almost funny to watch the step-by-step as it unfolds the same way no matter what they're selling. And yes, they ARE all the same. Even if they don't start out that way I think the companies have rules that MAKE them all act the same. Pushy beyond enduring.

Variance

2007-09-07T05:51:00.000-04:00

Soo.... were you expecting

YESS!!!! we got it!!!!!

or

BOO HOOOOO, we didn't?

Well, I thought I'd be writing one of those last night, (we didn' get home till 10 o'clock) but what actually happened is they continued our case till the next meeting. For those who haven't heard the story, our next door neighbor has this ridiculous and illogical fear that, if we're allowed to change the buffer in any way, it will make the water in the creek back up into her yard and maybe even her house. It doesn't matter to her that we're not going to disturb the creek, that we are not going to be building in the drainage easement that existed before the houses were sited, that our addition will be at a higher elevation than her house etc. In fact, though she stated in her original letter that if an engineer could assure her that our addition would not impact her, she wouldn't oppose the variance, a letter that I got from the town engineer stating exactly this was dismissed out of hand by her at the meeting.

From the way she stood at the microphone last night and talked and talked and talked, and not one question, comment point, or suggestion made by us, the board, or the town planner made any difference whatsoever to her, we have begun to believe that she's just enjoying being able to meddle in something. If she'd just be slightly reasonable, if she'd just give some hint that she's actually listening to anything anyone says with the mindset that SOMETHING someone says MIGHT POSSIBLY have the ability to change her mind it wouldn't be as frustrating.

Now, in the Board's defense, I don't think that they really think she'll have any trouble with water based on our addition, however, the way the meeting went last night she is definitely what got them going down the path of thinking that no one involved has quite sufficient knowledge of how the creek behaves during a heavy rainstorm or flood, so they've suspended the case until the next meeting (first Thursday of October) so that, during the intervening time, we can find out whatever it is we need to know and come back to the Board with more information. One of the 2 Town Engineers is apparently a stormwater expert, and she, (not the guy I've actually been talking to) recommended in her report that 50 year flood calculations be done in case our addition, located so close to the stream, should be in danger during a significant flood. (notice, not because there's any danger to our neighbor!) So we're supposed to start with a conversation with her about what those calculations mean, if she can/ will do them, if not will she recommend someone who can, how much will THAT cost, etc.

So we'll see. We're going to go back not just with engineering, but with photos of that part of the yard, information on exactly what a rain garden is, how to size one, and a plan for where ours will be (that came up too-- how do they know we'll build the rain garden, and properly?) maybe i'll even do some other pretty presentation type thing (they seem to like that, based on the case before ours)

We are both seriously annoyed at our neighbor now, especially since though it's completely her fault we're in this situation, even if she changed her mind comepletely at this point it wouldn't do any good.

i was going to post some long-winded rant...

2007-09-05T20:26:00.000-04:00

...but I don't feel like it any more. Stay tuned for the outcome of our variance hearing tomorrow night.

Kids and Money

2007-08-17T20:16:00.001-04:00

This post was prompted by a facebook discussion (maybe facebook isn’t all bad!) so if you found this via the link on that facebook page and want to post comments, consider posting them both here and there, so as not to steal the discussion away from where it started.

The original question: “What is your children and money philosophy? Do you believe in wages or allowance? How about that first car.. do you buy it for them? What if you were rich.. how much is too much?”

Originally I was for a small allowance, probably called a wage, since it would be docked if chores weren’t completed on time. (But the chores would still have to be done, regardless) I also might allow kids to complete extra chores to earn more money if they wanted, provided they hadn’t slacked on their regular chores. But someone pointed out that they wouldn’t want their kid asking them how much they’d get paid every time they asked them to do an extra job, and I think that’s a great point. Now I don’t think I’d want to give any option of earning extra money for extra chores. Kids need to do what they’re told and to understand that as part of the family they have responsibilities. The same person suggested that in their experience allowances “don’t work” -- that parents don’t follow through, that kids don’t do their chores, but still expect money, etc. She doesn’t think parents should give their kids any money at all.. that kids should earn their all their money outside the home, just as they’ll have to later in life.

I agree that once kids are old enough to get a job outside the home, whether it’s a “real” job or babysitting/ mowing lawns, they should work for money if they want it. A nominal allowance given to a small child should not grow to meet the wants of a pre-teen/ teenager. But the opposing viewpoint focuses mainly on younger kids. Little kids really can’t mow lawns or baby-sit or any of the standard kid jobs, and that the neighbors shouldn’t be bombarded by kids knocking on the door looking for work every time they want money for something. And some of the people commenting on the original discussion focused on the goal of using an allowance to teach their children to tithe, budget and save. I think that’s a nice idea, but I wonder how realistic it is.

Here’s the thing - little kids don’t need money.

There just aren’t enough demands on a kid’s bank account for the concept of budgeting to sink in. A kid can save up for something he/ she wants, (I remember saving forever for a Nintendo) but when the weekly income doesn’t HAVE to pay the electric bill and the mortgage and the car insurance and buy groceries, it’s just a whole different mindset. I think you can teach a kid the theory with or without real money but they’re never going to really understand it, deep down in their gut, until they actually have a car that needs gas, and probably an apartment and bills to boot, and it becomes a lesson in being able to eat, rather than a choice between instant and delayed gratification.

I think that in the area of money management, as in most other areas of life, kids are probably going to get more out of how they see their parents behaving than out of what they hear their parents telling them.

I think that if parents manage their money well and carefully, if kids are allowed to see that their parents have a budget and are conscious of the cost of things, and that they don’t make impulsive purchases; if they can see their parents tithing, and they are aware that a certain amount of each paycheck goes into a savings account, etc. then that leading by example will be far more effective than all the “teaching” parents may do by giving the kids their own money.

I personally got an allowance (it was actually referred to as “wages”) only for a few short periods during my childhood. Most of my life I was not given a regular income by my parents. But I did watch how my mother handled the money/ budget and it had a lasting impression. I never had a budget as a kid, yet I am (if I do say so myself) a very good budgeter and saver now that I’m an adult. I don’t think that having a small allowance as a child would have hurt me in this regard, and I also doubt that I would be a better financial manager today if I’d had one. I think as long as parents are careful not to spoil their kids and to be consistent, it probably doesn’t matter whether they give their kids an allowance or not.

Cars will be tackled in another post. If you actually got through tis one, congratulations, I’m impressed.

Butterfly

2007-08-12T12:16:00.000-04:00

We have these really pretty butterflies in our backyard, and they're not afraid of people at all. There was one on the deck this morning and he let me walk right up to him... he appeared to be eating (or trying to eat) some of the sap or juice out of the bits of hickory nuts that the squirrels are constantly dropping on the deck. Very interesting, I thought they only ate from flowers.

I just looked this guy up, he's an "Astyanax" Red-Spotted Purple:

Hard worker

2007-08-12T12:11:00.000-04:00

Jeff spent another long day working outside in the heat. At least it cooled down a little and was only 95 this weekend :-P (compared to 102 on Wednesday and 104 both Thursday and Friday)

He chipped all the brush piles that he cut down about 2 months ago. Unfortunately 2 months in the North Carolina sun is enough to really dry out 3" and smaller branches so they took quite a bit longer to chip than if they'd been fresh.

The pile of chips in the picture is the second one that size, the first one is a bout 20' closer to the house... anybody want some free mulch?

Screens!

2007-08-04T20:46:00.000-04:00

Woo-Hooo!!! my wonderful husband worked outside all day today in the 95 degree weather and we have SCREENS on the porch! ALL of them! Yay!! The doors (which were fitted last weekend) will go on tomorrow. I'm not taking pictures till it's all done, but expect them soon.

My Thoughts on Myspace

2007-08-02T19:45:00.000-04:00

First there was xanga. Actually, there was probably something before xanga, but xanga was my first encounter with one of these monster websites where people can combine blogging, text messaging, and photo hosting along with a collection of links between themselves and all of their friends who are doing the same thing.

I never had a xanga, but at least one of my sisters, and quite a few other people within a few years of her age had them, and I had some fun occasionally looking through the comments they posted to each other, looking at pictures they uploaded, reading their blog entries. Then something interesting happened. Some of these kids' parents started having xanga sites. And the kids themselves were posting less and less. I realized that most of them had started something called myspaces, and were abandoning xanga for the newer and less populated network.

I have a myspace. I don't really use it. If I want to write something for more than one person to read I put it here, and for personal conversations I have e-mail, Instant messenger, and a cell phone. Who needs myspace? But it lets me look at my siblings' myspaces, and my cousins' myspaces (although sometimes that's just depressing) and if someone sends me a message there, I can read it and will usually reply. Lately it seems like everyone has a myspace, including, most recently, many of the parents of the kids who've had them for a while.
Recently I've noticed a serious downturn in Myspace activity. In fact, among the younger myspacers- the same ones who used to have xangas- that decrease in activity happened some time ago, probably a year or more, but lately it's become widespread. I knew many people were going to facebook-- from those in the know about this sort of thing, "facebook is better" is something I had heard more than once. But now practically nobody writes on their myspace anymore, and this turn of events has gone hand in hand with another one:

I also have a facebook. I actually started in a few months ago, when I was bored, and for the sole purpose of "poking" my uncle, who I had discovered also had a facebook. I didn't add any friends at the time, and after that initial "poke" I never went back until the other day. A friend of mine was invited to join by her cousin, and implored me to remember my password so that she could add me as a friend. In the process of locating her based on my e-mail contacts, I found some of my siblings' pages and, what the heck, added them as well. Since that day only a week or so ago, I have not only gained a number of friends, but I've noticed that many of my friends have just signed up. And THEIR friends have just signed up. It's like everyone I know just discovered facebook this past week. And I'm wondering, is facebook big enough for everyone, or am I part of the beginning of the wave that will push everyone on to the next big networking site?

I have the coolest Uncle...

2007-07-26T21:25:00.000-04:00

My Uncle Rene is, among other things, an awesome artist. He just sent me a link to look at this installation he's been working on for 8 years, which he's finally finished. (the slow progress was part of the concept of the piece)

here's one overall photo:

"Shaker Seeds"

to see the progress along with some cool detail shots and commentary, click on this link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/renterprize/ShakerSeeds

More Clearing

2007-07-21T16:52:00.000-04:00

Yay, it was cool again today! well, not as cool as last weekend, but it was a beautiful day and we got about 4 hours of jeans and boots work in without dying of the heat. We lopped for 2 hours first thing this morning, before even showering (why shower just to get dirty and sweaty?) and then spent 2 hours this afternoon chipping. There's still a lot to chip (everything from last weekend plus everything from this morning) but the new chipper works great, and it's fun too :oD

then of course, there will be more lopping, cutting down everything that's too big to lop, chipping it all... going to be a long process.

Here's a couple pics of where we were working today. In case you haven't been to our house and seen what it looked like before, this whole area was impenetrable brush right up to the path, pretty much everywhere you see skinny trees standing:

and here's another project for the not-too-distant future, the poison ivy field:

work on the screened porch will resume tomorrow afternoon.

Ridiculous

2007-07-15T14:09:00.000-04:00

You know what drives me crazy? Going to Wal-Mart (or anywhere) and seeing 3-year olds with pacifiers stuck in their mouths.

Clearing

2007-07-14T16:49:00.000-04:00

It's not very warm today, so we took the opportunity to do some work that requires wearing jeans and boots-- not fun when it's 90, but not too bad at 70. Clearing!!

Jeff already has 2 pairs of loppers, but he bought the second pair because he'd worn out the first, and the second has had it by this time too. So, we went to our favorite money-hole, Home Depot (ok actually our favorite is Lowes, but HD is closer to the paint store where we also had to stop) and bought 2 more pairs. Some Home Depot Employees teased us about "his and hers" loppers.

We started next to the house, intending to clear out the bit of brush keeping you from seeing the creek that's right there, and got through that so quickly that we just kept going. And going... and going... and going... we went along up the creek, clearing anything small enough for the loppers to handle, (that's about 3/4" for me and 1"-1 1/4" for Jeff) pulling down vines, battling prickers, sweating and exclaiming over how much we could see each time we cut something down. We made it a good 50 feet up the hill from the farthest deck, clearing from the stream to the path, and then hopped over to the other side of the path a cleared a bunch on that side as well. We spent about 3 hours out there, and the backyard is a totally different place.

On the screened porch front, we now have blue soffits:

and a mostly black ceiling fan:

Note: I thought I was doing good this morning, lopping away, not even taking breaks, totally keeping up with Jeff.... but after lunch, he went out and painted the soffits blue (and is out there now, working on the white) while I totally crashed and fell asleep on the couch for an hour and a half. oh well, so I'm not as tough as him, surprise surprise :o)

Alethea Grace

2007-07-10T20:31:00.001-04:00

I'm afraid I can't remember Alethea's exact birthday (I have to start writing these down) but it was just before Thanksgiving which makes her about 7 months old or so now. I took these the same day I took the ones of Logan, but unfortunately am just getting around to posting them. Isn't she a cutie?

The Continuing Saga of the (un)Screened Porch

2007-07-10T19:54:00.000-04:00

So, on Saturday Jeff had this brilliant idea.

Let me start at the beginning. On Friday we were talking about staining the deck(s). We've been going back and forth about what color to use, and whether it should be solid or semi-transparent, etc. Part of the reason for this is that we don't like the railings. They're made from alternating 1x4's and 1x6's on the flat, with about 4" of space between them and they're just very rustic and camp-like and not at all our style. There are pictures somewhere in my old posts if you want to look. So anyway, we want to rebuild them, but it's really not at the top of our priority list right now. But staining the deck is, cause otherwise it's going to rot away. We like the colors our deck was on our old house (dark brown deck with white railings) but we can't really see those huge in-your-face railings being WHITE. And, of course, railings like that have so many darn surfaces that they take forever to paint. Anyway, we were out there Friday and realized that most of the deck is only 18"-24" off the ground, and you don't even NEED railings until you're 30" high (we won't mention the railing-less stair inside) so, we're going to take most of the railings right off and not stain them at all. We'll stain the remaining ones for now, and plan to rebuild them in the future.

So, back to saturday and the brilliant idea. The bottom and top of the screened porch are built in the same design as the deck railings (and therefore have 50 million little surfaces everywhere) and it is taking FOREVER to prime. Anyone who has never painted old, dry pressure treated lumber (especially in the shape of a porch) with icky, sticky oil-based primer just can't understand how miserable it is and how slow-going. So we're standing around out there, trying to get motivated to prime the last few bits, when Jeff says something to the effect of "Why don't we just cut all those flat boards out?"

**dead silence**

um, yeah, why not?

HELLO? WHY DIDN'T WE THINK OF THIS BEFORE PRIMING ALL BUT ABOUT 4 BOARDS??

It's funny, because all along neither of us has been crazy about the design of the porch, and once we talked about killing all those railings, I was even thinking about how much the porch REALLY wouldn't match once we rebuilt the rest of them. The problem for both of us, I think, is that when we thought about changing it we immediately thought "rebuild the screened porch" and that's just way too much project right now, with the bump and the kitchen looming. I for one never thought of just cutting out the part we don't like.

You can see from what's done in the photos that it's way more open this way. It's much brighter on the porch and in the kitchen, and you can see the blue ceiling from the deck without having to look for it. The whole thing also looks a lot taller, which is neat. We know there's a chance that little kids visiting could be a hazard to the screen on the bottom portion, but if it ends up being an issue, we'll probably just reinforce it with heavier-weight mesh. And even though we didn't save time priming it all, we're still saving the time it would take to put 2 coats of paint on, and we've done away with the little niches the bats like to sleep in too :oD

Owls

2007-07-10T19:27:00.000-04:00

We have a couple of barred owls living in our yard, in fact, in a nest in a tree that's visible from our bedroom window. They appear to be an adult and a younger one... the smaller one mostly sits around making whiny screeching sounds rather than the hooting sounds the larger one makes. The craziest thing about these owls is that they don't seem to understand that they're supposed to be nocturnal. They're out flying from tree to tree by about 6 pm every night, and sometimes earlier. They're also not too afraid of people. Yesterday the small one was sitting maybe 40' from the un-screened porch on a low tree limb, and actually stayed there long enough for me to run and get my camera AND go OUTSIDE and take some pictures of him. In the second one he looks shorter because he's sticking his head out toward me, just before flying off.

Trees

2007-06-27T07:08:00.000-04:00

Well, I can always count on Jennifer to give me a hard time if I go too long without making a post, so thanks to her, here's the latest.

Yesterday we had a crew of tree-service people here from about 8:15 - 5:45 to take down 8 trees. Our backyard is so wooded that we barely get any light in the back rooms at all, particularly the kitchen. we're planning to eventually cut down quite a few more, and transform the backyard from woods to lawn-with-large-shade-trees-scattered-about. These 8 though, are too close to the house, leaning toward the house, hanging over the house, etc. for Jeff to take them down, hence the tree service. Yesterday they got 4 trees totally down and all the limbs and about half the trunks off of 2 more. They're coming back today to finish up. They hauled a truckload of wood out with them when they left, but here's how our yard looks:

The other project we have going on now is the screened porch. We were really happy to have a screened porch when we moved in, but of course, like the rest of the house, we couldn't be happy with it as is. The 14 year old pressure treated lumber had never been stained/ painted, and was kind of mildewed and very dirty. The screens themselves were aluminum and bent/ torn in places, the doors were rotted at the bottom. etc. So Jeff took out all the screens, pressure washed the whole thing, and we're in the process of priming it right now. I took all 10 million nails out of the little 1x1 strips that hold the screens in :o) Once it's painted, we'll put new nylon screens and new doors. Another thing we decided to do while we have it taken apart was to rearrange the doorway. It used to have double doors out to the deck way to the left as you walk out onto the porch from the kitchen, but we're planning to have the grill just to the RIGHT as you walk out, so Jeff took a portion of the rail from the right and used it to fill in part of the existing doorway, and built a new doorway to the right. So now we have 2 single doorways instead of one double and we're really happy with the new traffic pattern. That description probably makes no sense, but in this picture you can see the old doorway is to the right (cause i'm facing the house :oP) and the new one is to the left. The grill will be against the house at the very left edge of the photo:

Also, we're very excited about painting the ceiling blue :oD here's the first coat (couldn't wait to try out the color):

Well, I think I still owe nasty carpet pictures.... we'll see if I ever get to that!

Baby Pictures

2007-06-11T21:48:00.000-04:00

my new nephew, Logan Matthew Clark, born May 27, 2007

Back Online!

2007-06-06T21:42:00.000-04:00

My compupter has been packed away in its component parts for 13 days... I think that's an all time record. But now, after 2 visits by the cable guys, a new coaxial cable all the way around the house and deck, and an hour crawling around the floor running wires and plugging things in, I am back online. So much has been happening that I think i'm just going to post a bunch of little posts... one about each project we've tackled to far. First though, I have to find my card reader so I can get some pictures up.... ::sigh::

I lifted 2 tons today

2007-05-12T19:35:00.000-04:00

Yes, with my own two arms.

No, no pulleys.

Well, no. Not all at once.

I never really thought about how much 1836 square feet of solid oak flooring WEIGHS until last night when Jeff and I suddenly had to come up with somewhere to store it and a means of getting it there... by 9:30 this morning.

Most people who read my blog know that we're buying a house in 2 weeks and that we plan to do some major work to it as soon as we move in. You may not have heard that we bought enough wood flooring last weekend to do the entire house except for the 2 full baths and one bedroom. It seemed a little like putting the cart before the horse, so to speak, but the price was unbelievable... less than carpet... and they said they were happy to hold it for 3 weeks until we closed on the house and had a place to store it.

Well, fast forward to last night when we got a call from the store manager who sold us the floor saying that a deal for someone to buy the chain had fallen through and the store was closing, his job had ended that night, but he still had a key and could get us in to pick up our flooring the next morning, provided the security company that had just been hired didn't put the store into lockdown mode before then. He didn't seem to think we'd have much of a chance of getting our hands on it after then-- the store claims no responsibility for merchandise not picked up at point of sale. Oh, and we'd paid by check. It had already been cashed.

So, what's the cheapest way to transport all this wood to wherever we're going to keep it? Will it fit in a u-haul pickup, or would we be better off with the cargo van? wait a minute, how much does oak weigh? 48 lb/ cubic foot... let's see... 1500 square feet x 5/8" thick = 78 cu. ft....... um, 3750 lbs. Yeah. No 3/4 ton pickup for us. Nope, the Home Depot truck can't carry 2 tons either. And the 10 foot u-haul box truck costs 89 cents/ mile in addition to the rental fee, and the flooring is like 20 miles from us. Oh yeah, and WHERE are we going to PUT this stuff???

Well, to make a long story short we found a storage place, Uncle Bob's, where they have a 12' box truck that they'll let you use free of charge if you rent a storage unit. Amazingly, not only do they have climate-controlled storage, but they also rent month to month, they rent from the first of the month to the first of the month, and if you sign up on May 12th, yes, you can rent only till June 1st if you want. And if you found them on the internet you get 1/2 off your first month. I think this place was MADE for us. We got truck rental and a 5'x10' climate controlled storage unit for 2 weeks for $39 including the $15 administration fee.

Now we get to the lifting 2 tons part. When we got to Pineville, the now unemployed store manager was waiting with 2 pallets of material and a forklift. He also threw in all the rest of that flooring that was in stock for another $100, bringing the total to 1836 sq feet.... and 4590 lbs. (The truck was a Ford E-350 and both of us, believing the -350 to mean that the max payload was 3500 lbs, were extremely stressed out the whole time we were driving around with 1000 lbs more than that in the back. I looked up the truck's specs later, and depending on the wheelbase it actually can carry from 4600-6600 lbs, but that didn't help our stress level at the time.) Getting it onto the truck was no problem. Getting if off, on the other hand, had to be done 1 box at a time: 136 33-lb boxes of wood flooring. When 33 lbs is about 1/3 your weight this is no easy task, but if Jeff had had to climb into the truck to get every box, it would have taken 3 times as long, and he'd have been even more tired at the end. So I stood in the back of the truck and moved each box to the back, where Jeff picked it up and carried it into the storage unit. 33 lbs at a time, I lifted 2 TONS of flooring and carried them a few feet, and put them down again. A few months ago I did 3 two-arm curls with one of Jeff's 33-lb dumbells, and I was sore for 2 days. I'm very worried about not being able to move tomorrow, but we'll see how it goes.

10 Random Things

2007-05-09T10:43:00.000-04:00

I've been tagged by Jennifer to do this, so here goes. Of the following 10 random facts about me, one is actually a random lie about me. Do you know which one is the lie?

1. I am a registered Republican.
2. I am an active member of a Baptist church, but don’t consider myself a Baptist.
3. I can’t stand eggplant.
4. I love wine and drink it often, but have never been drunk.
5. My hair used to be so long I could sit on it
6. My husband is 12 years older than I am.
7. I have 3 neices and 5 nephews.
8. I believe that the Earth (and the Universe) is about 6,000 years old.
9. My dream car is a MINI Cooper.
10. I eat breakfast every day.

Leave a comment with your answer, and I'll tell who's right once I get a few comments.

(Jeff, you can't answer this, you know too much about me :o)

Pictures!

2007-05-01T19:42:00.001-04:00

Well, we went over to the new house for a couple hours this afternoon to watch our home inspector inspect, and, as promised, I took a bunch of photos so everyone can see this house I've been talking your ears off about. Most of the photos are exterior, in part because it's hard to get interior shots that show more than a corner or a door, and in part becuase the outside of this house is so much more interesting. There will be a bonus at the end of this post for anyone who's really interested in the inside :o)

(click on any photo to see it larger)

First the front:

close up of the porch:

If you turn around and look back toward the street you see one of our favorite features- the long, slightly curved driveway :o)

We never even saw this before we made the offer, but inside the garage is this huge array of cabinets and a built-in workbench. Jeff was drooling:

Above the garage there's a huge amount of storage (just needs a floor.) You can see the doors in the outside photo as well:

Heading inside, step into the Living Room and see the lovely "Octagonal Tray Ceiling" (mentioned in the listing as one of the house's features.) Isn't this one of the silliest things you've ever seen?

Here are 2 pictures of the kitchen. I took two in order to show the whole thing. The kitchen needs some help. I just don't understand having a house with 4 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths, and 4 feet of counter space!

Out the back of the house and you see the real reason this place was such a find. There are 5 decks out back (if you count level changes as going from one deck to another) one of them a really nice, LARGE screened in one. And one holding a (non-functioning) hot tub. This photo doesn't really do it justice, but it was the best I could do (click on it to see it bigger):

Right next to the deck is a little stream that runs roughly along the property line:

And, finally, the vision. We stopped by Sunday after church, (since the house is between church and our apartment,) knocked on the door, and introduced ourselves. The people were very nice, showed us around a little, and, most importantly GAVE US THE ORIGINAL DRAWINGS TO THE HOUSE! So I've been feverishly drafting them up and working out how we'd like to remodel the inside to make the floor plan work better, and add some space to the living room. The plan is pretty dysfunctional right now, but by adding a bump off one side and reconfiguring the interior walls, we can make it A LOT nicer.

(if you want to see an aerial photo of the lot, check out Jeff's post)

Splat!

2007-04-28T21:02:00.000-04:00

One of the worst things about living in the south, I've discovered, is the bugs. Roaches to be specific. So far this year we've only had a couple in the apartment, but tonight there was a huge one- a good inch-and-a-half plus. But tonight, rather than try to catch the thing under a container, and then slide a cardboard underneath and transport it to the toilet, all the while worrying that it will manage to slip out, Jeff has this great idea to SHOOT it- with a rubber band gun that is:

The bug actually took 3 hits- the first one knocked it off the wall, and i think took off a couple legs, the second slowed him down as he ran frantically in circles, and the third one literally shredded him:

Pretty effective.

JOB!

2007-04-28T05:48:00.000-04:00

Yay!! Jeff got the job with Union County he interviewed for on Wednesday! The best thing is that even though it was a long time coming, this is really the best job he applied for the entire time he's been searching. To read all about it, look at his post on the Blah Blah Blog.

On the Porch

2007-04-28T05:32:00.000-04:00

The last firm I worked at, Crisp Architects, did high-end, very traditional, single-family houses, often with large, beautiful porches. After one of their projects was published in I don't even remember which magazine, Taunton Press approached the owner and the senior project architect about writing a book about porches. Well, while I worked there they were always jetting off to meetings with their editor to go over text, photos, marketing and goodness knows what-all else, and now, the fruits of their labor are finally available to all. On the Porch, by James Crisp and Sandra Mahoney is available at bookstores everywhere. If you want to see some really nice photos of porches, check it out next time you're at Barnes and Noble, and if you're thinking about building a porch, well, you might find the helpul advice inside more than worth the cost of your very own copy.

2007-04-26T19:55:00.000-04:00

Jeff and I just got back from a nice dinner at Showmars with our Pastor and his wife, where we discussed the Newsletter we're going to be putting together. We edited the newsletter at one of the churches we used to go to before we moved down here, and when the pastor of our current church found out about that he didn't waste any time pegging us for our new ministry. They had started one a few years ago, but quickly realized that they didn't have the manpower in house to keep it going. He's very excited to have one again, and we're excited about starting this one fresh. We enjoyed doing it before, and this time it will be fun to really design it from scratch and not have it handed down to us with it's quirks already in place. We still have to choose a title... any ideas?

Grump on a Rope

2007-04-20T22:23:00.000-04:00

Our lizard, recently dubbed "Grump," has been acting up lately. He'll run around his tank furiously trying to get out, literally THROWING himself at the glass, until we finally let him out, and then he'll run over to the sliding glass doors and do the same thing until he tires himself out and goes off to sulk behind the TV or the paper shredder (his 2 favorite spots.) So Monday I bought a leash so we could take him outside. I think he likes it :o)

House!

2007-04-20T07:03:00.000-04:00

We FINALLY bought a house!!! Well, we're under contract anyway. Inspections are scheduled for May 1st and all that's left to do is set a closing date.... May or June? The house itself needs work (nothing that makes it un-livable, just some updating and layout issues) but it's on 2.3 acres! I'm very excited about the potential of the yard, and these great decks out back. I'll take some photos on the 1st when we go over for the inspections.

So now I have a blog. Are you happy?

2007-03-30T21:37:00.001-04:00

Content, on the other hand, is still up in the air :o)