back to school

An intellectual shock looms this coming weekend as I return to school after taking the fall semester off. Evenings spent on the couch with Kyle, feeling smart because we beat the nerdy high schoolers on the Jeopardy Teen Tournament (Just put some mousse in that hair, sweetie! Hey kid, they even make contacts for moles like you these days!) and casting our vote for who should be told to pack up their knives and go home on Top Chef will be distant memories.



I'm a little more than halfway through my Masters program in Counseling. With about 18 classroom credits and a semester-long internship to go, I should be ready to graduate in May 2012. Even though I'm going to miss that free time to log a few extra miles or grab a drink with a girlfriend, I am planning to come back with a vengance this spring.



Why? Being halfway done with something, no matter how long the task, definitely helps motivate me to push through to the finish. Also, I'm taking Human Development from the professor who challenged me enough to lose a few decimal points from my GPA, and I want to show her and myself that I can do without that dreaded "-" after my grade.



This weekend's academic activity should help prepare me both for that class and for my busy semester and spring in general. I'm taking a quick 2-day 1-credit class on Reality Therapy, a modality which empowers the client to make real changes in his or her life through problem-solving type techniques and cognition, from one of the top practitioners and researchers of it today. See below for the title of one of the books we'll be using:

Yes, friends, this is why I study counseling. Some day it will be great to help others learn how to put and keep themselves together, but for now, it's not a bad deal to learn it for myself, for free (thanks, Hopkins!), and from one of the best. I'll letcha know how it goes.

P.S. Sign up in the comments section to borrow this book from me after class is over. :-)

patchwork

I guess it's time to jump on the New Year bandwagon and resolve to get back to this darn blog. I have some reservations about continuing it this year, such as:

- Um, we're not in pursuit of the place anymore. We found it like 2 years ago.

- I'm kind of sick (ok, really sick) of the title. I never really liked it in the first place but my laziness beat out my creativity and that's whatcha got stuck with. I do, however, still like the picture of the guy picking up trash by the bench proclaiming Baltimore's greatness. You might have to live here to understand.

- Once we found the house, the blog turned into a journal of our renovations. Well guess what, my husband has been busy and we're almost done with those too.

- I'm really busy! Like, REALLY! Here's what I do (prepare for the sub-list): Run 5-6 mornings a week, swim or bike a couple days a week, book club once a month (ok, wine club), string quartet rehearsal every other week (another wine club), bible study group every Tuesday night and church on Sunday(gotta repent for all that wine consumption), class one night a week for my Master's program, various volunteer activities and get-togethers as assigned for Back on My Feet, and oh yeah, my job. And I'd like to fit in the Financial Peace University classes that Tera & Brett gave us, and a date night (as much as I hate that lame term) with Kyle.

- I don't know what else I would write about. My life is not that interesting.

There are a few good reasons to keep going, which include:

- Blogging lets people choose whether or not they want to see my photos/hear about the mundane details of my life, instead of me inundating their email inboxes.

- Who am I kidding about business being a factor against it. I blog at work. Duh.

- Blogging makes me feel cool because my big sister and her friends do it. It's kinda the same feeling I got when Megan would convince Tera to just let me ride to school in the uterus with them already.

- Once we have kids in like 10 years, I won't have to set up a new blog to share every single detail of my pregnancy with the world.

Weighing the pros and cons....weighing, weighing....Oh! I almost forgot! My awesomely creative sister and brother-in-law think I am a good writer. (despite my, albeit intentional, overuse of the word "like"). Decision made. I shall press on. Thank you, TPS and BS - haha!!! Funniest set of married people initials ever!! - for your votes of confidence. I'm sorry, but few things feel better in life than the approval of your older sis.

Now, what to write about... here's what's on the docket so far for 2010:

- a few final renovation postings, including a grande finale before and after!

- funny names I encounter at work while cleaning hundreds of thousands of records in preparation for mass mailings

- a new name/look for the blog

- maybe some training stuff as I prepare for Boston and my first triathlon, but no self-congratulatory bs, I promise.

- a continuation of the great words-we-hate family email exchange started last night

Whatever else you guys (all 2.5 of you) want.

Finally, here's a cute picture from my Christmas vacation. Other people's kids are the best!

to tide you over

Ok, enough of you have been nagging me for a new post lately...sorry again it's been so long! I meant to post a bunch of updates on our recent projects this morning, but realized I didn't upload those pictures. Maybe tomorrow! Until then, here are a few of our recent non-house related activities...it's been nice to have time for those again lately!

In September I went to the Finger Lakes to celebrate two of my favorite people. Kerry got married and all of us girls had a great time together...

...and we celebrated Tera's impending nuptials with a ladies weekend at a lake house in Geneva.

I finally returned home to my husband (and a newly re-finished guest closet to be documented later!) and we were soon off to Virginia to top off his birthday celebration with a U2 concert, compliments of Lesley and Rob. The stage was not over-rated and really did seem like a spaceship at times. Great show and great company!





We spent the night in Richmond and had just enough time to play with these gals for a while the next morning. Kate and I take a self-shot each time we're together, which is much easier than capturing Lauren and Jenna in a still moment on film! The picture below depicts well what they're up to lately though...bows, necklaces, and stealing bows from the other's hair. Ouch!


Finally we were off to Atlanta for Tera and Brett's wedding. We had a great time all weekend, from the family mexican feast on Friday night, through the Braves game on Saturday, to the main event on Sunday afternoon. They were a gorgeous bride and groom and threw the most fun and stylish wedding I've been to yet!

Congrats Mr. and Mrs. Smith!

The End.

patio progress

We're just waiting for a few finishing touches on the bathroom, and in the meantime have started yet another project - a new patio! The house was previously surrounded by lots of old, cracked, mis-matched cement, including a sidewalk from front to back that really wasn't necessary. Also lots of random flat rocks placed around the yard, including a mysterious figure 8 formation in the back yard (a tribute to Baltimore's favorite Cal Ripken, perhaps?).

Kyle and a former co-worker jack-hammered up the old concrete a few weeks ago, and we've been pulling all the rocks out and stacking them up by the garage for use in a future project - fire pit!

Anyway, here is what our yard looks like as of last night. They are pouring the patio as we speak! It's going to be exposed aggregate, that pebbly looking tan concrete that you often see around pools.

a room of a different stripe

Finally, the surprise! It's going to be a disappointment, I promise - we only decided to re-paint a room. But it does look a lot better and feels a lot cozier to hang out in.

The blue-gray we had painted the tv room, aka service porch, was a little too close to the color of the kitchen, so we decided to darken it a bit. And to get a little crazy, we left some of the old color at the top. We've since added roman shades similar to the color of the couch but I haven't taken pictures of those yet. They are nice though and make it really dark for watching movies.

executing the perfect stripe

We also got a new rug really cheap from WS Home. It reminds me of an LL Bean boat & tote! We got a nice cushy carpet pad to put beneath it - here I am cutting it in my pjs.

And here is our male model, dressed to match the new room:

Now we just need to get some shelves on the wall above the desk (just barely visible in the left corner of the above picture - it's a hard room to photograph), get some stuff on the walls, and replace the light fixture.

new look

I've pretty much been copying my sister my whole life, I'm just old enough to admit it now. She got a great new background for her blog, so naturally I had to follow suit! Sorry Tera, hope you're not mad.

you say spotty, we say shoddy

The renovation of the original bathroom has been a loooooong adventure. We had planned to have it finished several weeks ago, but two big things beyond our control have stood in our way.

First, the window...it was one of the few that had not already been replaced when we moved into the house. Kyle called the supplier he had used at former jobs and ordered a replacement window - the guy said it would be delivered in about two weeks.

Fast forward about three weeks...no window yet. Kyle called the store and they had no record of the order. Sweet. So he ordered it again. A few weeks later the guy called and said he'd leave it on his front porch for us to pick up. Of course he wasn't home when we stopped by and Kyle realized it was a new construction window - not a replacement. (I wouldn't have known there was a difference 15 months ago!) Kyle was, um, not happy.

He talked to the guy later and they decided that Kyle would just try to cut the flashing off (I think that's the correct terminology...fortunately, most of my readers probably wouldn't know the difference anyway.) and see if it worked. After installing and spraying water at it for 10 minutes, we were satisfied. So, about 6 weeks later, we had our window installed.

Meanwhile, we visited the granite store where we purchased our kitchen countertops to choose a top for the vanity Kyle and Corey built. It's a small vanity, only 30 or so inches across, so we were able to get a marble remnant for a great price. Score!!!

Delivery #1: while drilling the holes for the faucet, they cracked the marble. Fast forward two weeks to...

Delivery #2: Install successful, and it looks beautiful from afar, but up close there are these little brown spots (in gray and white marble) with greasy looking "halos" surrounding them. It looked as though they had filled in a scratch with some brown putty and it seeped through the porous stone. In choosing marble, I was aware of its porous nature and agreed to be really careful with hair products, toothpaste, etc (and you guests had better be too!) but I would have liked to at least start out with a perfect piece. See the evidence below:

See what I mean? Not awesome. So my persistent (and dashing, might I add) husband sent digital pics to the store. They agreed to send someone to the house to check it out. The guy who came - one of the owners we think - claimed that it was naturally occurring in the stone. We disagreed because 1. these marks go against the natural grain that all the other markings follow, and 2. that is just b.s. I mean come on, we're not idiots. That halo effect wouldn't happen naturally.

So, finally after Kyle pushed up the sleeves to show his rippling biceps, they gave in and agreed to try one more time. (oh, and after Kyle went to the store again to see other pieces and verify that they didn't have those same kinds of spots) So Delivery #3 is happening this afternoon.

We have a suprise that I'll try to unveil in the next few days. Try not to get too excited.

UPDATE: Delivery #3 did NOT happen on Monday. Big surprise. They just didn't show, even after Kyle left work a few hours early to be sure he'd be there when they arrived. Supposedly they're coming on Thursday - I'll believe it when I see it.