Hello again

Well, I decided to keep this blog up and see how it goes. I probably won't be posting very often - at least not for a while. I've taken down a lot of the more personal posts and won't be blogging about that anymore.

So...Moving on! We've been super busy getting moved into the house, which ended up happening the same weekend I had gallbladder surgery. Yuck! But Dave has been a trooper and did ALL.THE.WORK. while I recovered (thanks, honey!). We are almost settled and looking forward to having a little more free-time.

We got a duck! Her name is Bebe and she was rescued by our friend, Missy. She had been attacked my something and was in shock when Missy found her. The vet thinks she will make a full recovery and we are really hopeful that will be the case. She is getting really strong and could start walking again anytime! She's such a sweetie and the dogs get along with her really well. I posted a couple photos on Flickr if you are interested. :)

We are enjoying some lovely, warm weather and so glad summer is almost here!

Happy Holidays

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas or Happy (belated) Hanukkah. For all the girls that are TTC, I am hopeful that we will all find our babies this year. I'll be toasting to that tomorrow.

Peace and Love.

Random things

Evergreen tagged me on her blog this week to post 7 random facts about myself. I'm terrible at these, but here goes...

Rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about you.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end, and include links to their blogs.

Randomness:
1. I lived in 22 places before I was in 2nd grade.

2. When I was almost 5 I fell off a slide head first onto gravel. I had to have stitches and it took the doctor, 2 nurses & my mom to hold me down to give me a shot. I hate needles.

3. I used to play "mother nature" with my best friend in elementary school and we would rescue wild animals and "sweep" the forest floor with branches.

4. I didn't ride on a plane until I was 18. And now I've lost count.

5. I'm allergic to strawberries.

6. We don't watch TV/have cable.

7. I've had dogs, cats, rabbits, pigeons, parakeets, ferrets, a guinea pig, a turtle and fish. Not all at once. :)


OK, sorry if you've done this already! I'm tagging:
PJ, Shelly, Sarah, Missy, Leslie, G, and Shinejil

Happy Thanksgiving

Now that I'm out of my funk. :) I just wanted to wish everyone (in the US) a very Happy Thanksgiving. I have many things to be thankful for this year. My fabulous husband, my family and friends, we have a place to live that is warm and we have food to eat,and I have found a wonderful, supportive community that gets bigger all the time.

Thanks for stopping by today. I am thankful for you.

Love.

I'm grumpy

I know...it's two days before Thanksgiving and I'm supposed to be feeling all thankful and cheery. I've been sick since last Thursday and I think my body is falling apart. I'm too young for that, right?

I'll be back tomorrow or Thursday with a little more gratefulness to show. :)

What's next?

That's what I'm wondering today. Yesterday turned out to be a strange day indeed. On the high of the election I thought I would have a great day, but life has a way of balancing out the good with the bad I guess. Here's the list, so far (please let this be it!):

* A dear friend of the family was told she has cancer and is to start Chemo immediately. My thoughts are with you L.

* Dave's neice was layed off. What a time to be looking for a job! I have my finger's crossed for her.

* And just before bed, a call from the same neice that her mom, my SIL, is in the emergency room and has to have surgery today on her finger. Apparently, her dog bit it while playing. Not sure of all the details yet.

For the love of &*%@!. Can't I just have ONE GOOD DAY?

Yummy

Well, nothing productive happened this weekend, but we did make some yummy food! Dave decided to make a quiche for dinner on Sunday, so I made the pie crust. We had a bunch left over that I turned into some raspberry tarts and a little crust with cinnamon and sugar (just like my mom used to make!). Heaven.

Fall!

I am so happy it's fall. I LOVE this time of year! The leaves are starting to change, it's raining today, and I just feel like being all snuggled and cozy at home. Unfortunately, I have to be at work instead (not so cozy). But in a few hours...well, after work and the gym, I will be at home in my slippers. I guarantee it! :)

Life has been flying by as usual. Last weekend we enjoyed the company of about 7 of Dave's childhood friends. Maybe a little too much fun. All the guys went golfing on Saturday and I slept, and slept and slept. Nice. On Sunday, Dave fixed the brakes on the car (I love my handy man) and I worked on some freelance projects.

We are back to working on the house this weekend. More painting and bathroom remodeling. Fun, fun. I'm sure we will mix in a few relaxing things to balance it out.

Hope you are enjoying the start of fall as much as I am. Love.

artfest + congratulations

First of all, I want to say a big CONGRATULATIONS to my momma on getting a promotion! Way to go, mom. Or should I call you Miss Director of Nursing? :) So proud of you!





And...

I'm going to Artfest 2009! So, so, SO excited about this. Now I just have to wait until April, but it will be so worth the wait. I got into my first choice of classes for all but one day. And my second choice is awesome too. Definately not disappointed! I've heard so many good things about Artfest and have been wanting to go for a couple years. Yay! (can you tell I'm excited?) :)

Have a great weekend. Love.

what not to do

Looks like our work frenzy on Sunday took it's toll! Yesterday Dave and I were both not feeling well and stayed home from work. We slept almost all day and it's a good thing...

I made one of our favorite Thai dinners last night (Rama Showers - tofu, spinach and peanut sauce with jasmine rice). While I was cutting up the tofu to cook up, one of the pieces fell on the floor and Bubba (our mini-schnauzer) got it. We didn't really think anything of it at the time. However, an hour later our poor little guy had hives all over his body! Apparently, he's allergic to soy. We rushed him to the doggie emergency room and they fixed him up with some anti-histamines and cortizone. After we got home, he seemed to be much calmer and slept for a little while. Then about 3 in morning, the benedryl must have worn off, because he was totally restless and itchy. We gave him some more benedryl, but he never really settled back in.

Lessons learned: don't work too hard and don't feed your dog tofu. Who knew?

high five

Phew. This weekend was super productive! We got so much more done than I thought we would. And we didn't even really kick it into gear until Sunday!

Saturday we called our "planning" stage. Which mostly meant that we slept in, cleaned the house, drank decaf coffees outside in the sun, picked up supplies for our projects, and took the doggies for a nice long walk around the lake. Yum. It was such a great day.

With all that rest and hangin' out time, we were ready to go on Sunday! We started two major projects: 1. unclog drains with industrial sized snake. 2. put sealant on all the brick. And we finished both of them and even trimmed a bunch of shrubs around the house! What a day. We were exhausted by the end of it, but it was so worth it.

We've also embarked on a new life project starting today. It includes exercise and eating less. Doesn't sound like much fun, I know. But we are dedicated (so far) and have even decided to stop eating meat. So, we are looking for new recipes, counting calories and going to the gym 5 days a week (gasp!). We'll see how long this motivation lasts. We are going to squeeze every last drop of it for at least the next month. Our goal: lose 10 pounds. Wish us luck!

Anyone know any good Tofu recipes?

Shelly tagged me! So I guess I am coming out retirement for this :) but it's about time!

Here are the rules:
1. Link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Mention the rules on your blog.
3. Tell 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
4. Tag 6 fellow bloggers by linking to them. (if you can)
5. Leave a comment for each tagged blogger that they've been tagged.

My list of Quirks:
1. I involuntarily say "hmmm" when I disagree with something my husband says.
2. I don't like my food to touch. STAY ON YOUR OWN SIDE!
3. I just can't bring myself to use all the acronyms floating around on the internet. I don't mind if other people do, but I feel like a copy-cat when I try to use them.
4. I snuggle with my doggies under the covers. They sleep like people.
5. I put my hand on my husband tummy in almost every photo of us together. I can't help it, he's got a cute tummy.
6. I spend WAY too much time reading blogs on a daily basis. Being able to look into other peoples lives is kind of voyeuristic. Much more interesting than working, that's for sure!

I can't think of anyone to tag who hasn't been already. So, I'll just make this rule: if you are reading this and haven't been tagged, you can leave your 6 quirks in the comments section or a link to your blog with them on there. Now YOU are tagged! :)

It's all eights

Happy Birthday, Annie! I know I say it every year, but I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW OLD WE ARE GETTING. I hope it's a good one.

Take me out to the ballgame...

go Mariners!, originally uploaded by eklektic*photos.

We spent Wednesday afternoon at a Mariner's game. It was a nice break from work in the middle of the week! We had a good time and went out to dinner after. It was a great game too. It was tied until the 12th inning when Boston scored 3 runs for the win. But it was close!

We are off and running this weekend - lots to do. We are starting on the clean-up and gathering of items for our garage sale. It will be so great to unload a ton of stuff that's just been sitting. Combining two households into a thousand square foot house has proved to be a little complicated. But I'll tell you what, it makes you take a hard look at a lot of the crap you hang on to. And for what reason! I mean, really, DO WE NEED 3 COFFEE POTS? I don't think so.

new curtains + a gift

I wanted to have some pretty curtains for our new workroom since we'll be spending a lot of time in there. Once I saw this Amy Butler fabric, I knew it was the one! The blue almost matches our walls, and this is my current color combination obsession. Here's the first set - I still have one window to go.



______________________________________________________

My father-in-law sent me the sweetest gift this week (along with the sweetest note). It's a child's place setting! I think it must have been David's or one of his siblings. He sent it for our future (hopefully not too distant) children. He has been so kind to me, I am blessed to have in-laws that I truly adore. Lucky girl.

Our weekend...

was filled with family time, friends, relaxing, fireworks and good weather. We had a visitor (my father-in-law). It was really nice to get to hang out for a few days. We fell right into a morning routine of showers, chatting over coffee at Starbucks (decaf for us, of course), and running errands. It was lovely.

We spent the 4th with the Watts at their house for dinner. The boys played with fireworks (which turns my husband into a 12 year old - so cute) and the drum set. Then we came back to our house for cupcakes and the local fireworks display. It was a good time.

Sara (Dave's neice) joined us on Sunday, which we spent at the Farmer's Market, taking walks and enjoying a nice lunch.

I could really get used to that kind of schedule! Love long weekends and family visitors. :)

Yeah, the Fratellis

They pretty much rocked our socks. We are paying the price today, but it was SO MUCH FUN.

It's nice here today - supposed to be almost 80 or something. Hope you are having a good day wherever you are.

Love.

New York photos

are uploaded and can be viewed here.

we're back...

Returned home from New York a few days ago. SO GLAD to be in cooler weather! It was really hot while we were there. We really had a great time though. My brother got married, so we were there for the wedding. But we spent most of the trip exploring the city. Neither of us had been there before.

My Momma was there too! You should have seen my brother's apartment (we all stayed with him). The three of us took over his living room with air mattresses and our luggage. It was pretty cozy! (Thanks for putting us up, guys! or should I say, putting up with us?)

I have a ton of pictures to upload from the trip - hopefully will have time to do that this weekend. There was a lot to see!

My SIGG

After hearing a lot about the potential dangers of drinking out of plastic containers, (you can read about it here or here) we decided that we would rather not take the chance and purchased some non-plastic bottles. I'd read about the SIGG in one of my design magazines and did some research on them before purchasing.

We are totally in love with our SIGG bottles! The first thing we noticed was how comfortable they are to drink from. It seems a little strange to say that about a bottle, but it is! They are lightweight, but durable - and they don't release anything into the water, gotta love that! I would recommend them to anyone looking for a reusable bottle.