good management "NOW".

Ah, Mondays. I thought mine was going less than swimmingly until my husband forwarded me this correspondence from his oh so tactful (and well-written!) supervisor. If you think you are fed up with your job/boss, read this and you'll be thankful for what you've got. It is verbatim, except the names have been altered slightly so when poor Laron Washingtan, who is already embarrassed for being singled out by the delinquent boss, googles himself he won't find this.

Team,
Please let's not adopt the practice of "Out of Sight Out of Mind". This morning I asked you to supply me with any change(s) you may have in the February, 2010, Visitation Schedule. Up to now I have only received responses from Valerie Gallup, Art Square, Larry Marton, Roscoe Hensin, Marlin Johnston, and Laron Washingtan. Needless to say this is totally unacceptable that out of 15 people I have only 6 responses. I have a deadline to keep and when I have to gather information from people responding at the last minute it makes you look bad and it makes me look bad. I don't like it when I look bad and you should not like it when you look bad. I need this information "NOW".

Needless to say, Kyle continues to search for a new job. Happy Tuesday.

budgeting 101

One of our goals for 2010 is to create and stick to a budget. Sub-goals include giving more to church and charities, saving more in our 403b/IRA, and saving for a big trip we're planning with Tera and Brett. I love Excel so I made a kick-@$$ (why did that create a link? I don't know. where does it link to? Please don't blame me if it's something dirty...I was trying to keep it clean!) spreadsheet to track our expenditures. It's on google documents, allowing me to update whenever, wherever, we'll always be together. I'll be there and you'll be here -- oh sorry, Shakira took hold of me there for a minute!

Anyway, back on track! I've still got a ton to learn about money management and budgeting, but I feel like we're on a really good start after a couple very expensive years of getting married, buying and renovating a house, and generally living a carefree newlywed lifestyle. It is SO much easier to say no to impulse purchases if you know you have to go home, enter it into that spreadsheet, and watch the balance for that category decline. It's really been making me re-consider my choices and only purchase things I love. And I get to use Kyle's favorite phrase of the post-Pike ladies "I don't love it", which of course conveys a feeling only slightly better than indifference.

Now, onto the GO DO THIS RIGHT NOW part of the post. I just got off the phone with Comcast and had our monthly cable/internet bill reduced from $109.25 pre-tax to $84.95 pre-tax, and ended up with 20+ more channels, including HBO! Oh, Larry, Brett and Jemaine, how I've missed you! I had put off calling for several weeks since I'd heard that my sweet-as-pie sister-in-law Lesley did this, because I really hate confrontation and asking for things, even when it's over the phone and I know I could just hang up the minute things get awkward if it bothers me enough! But I worked up the courage and got a really nice girl on the phone, whom I told that I was considering switching providers because I just couldn't justify spending more when others were offering the same service for much less. Without question, she offered me the current promotions being offered to new Comcast subscribers.

Off I went to my budget spreadsheet and changed the cable category from $120/month to $95/month (just in case we are too lazy to go to the redbox and fall victim to the temptation of pay-per-view). That extra $25/month will be going toward paying off my new bike and our other athletic pursuits. What would you use it for?

+

=

I heart

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.