Thursday, January 31, 2008

Yikes.

The BID. IS. IN. Holy master baths and ceiling fans. We had our inspection yesterday and everything turned out as we expected. The house is a VA foreclosure, so there are a few cosmetic things to fix, but overall a great house in a stellar neighborhood for the money. AND everything we want. We already came up with an offer we thought was fair (and hopefully above the others) last week, and after our inspection we were ready to roll with that amount. All we had to do was call our realtor to send that baby on its way. Now... we wait. All offers are due by the fourth and a decision will be made by the eighth. THAT'S LIKE AN ETERNITY.

Cross your fingers and toes, send your prayers, use your magical powers, or do whatever it is you do. We love having your good thoughts - thanks.

Today - is Sheri's birthday. Missus just-got-back-from-a-cruise hasn't posted to her blog yet and I'm waiting to find out how her trip was... especially her excursion to Dunn's River Falls, Jamaica. Hopefully IRIE (pronounced eye-ree - meaning all good).

Today is also the last day of the month, in a year that's going by too quickly already. This weekend is the Superbowl service at church and Dan and I are stoked. I laugh so hard every year - I leave with aching cheeks. If you want to come to Cincinnati Saturday night to get in on the action, let me know. It'll be good times.

I found out the other day that I won't have to do early Wednesdays at work anymore, which I'm pretty excited for. For the 1.5+ years that I've worked at this job, I've had to drag my booty into work at SIX AM. Now I don't know about you, but I didn't know that 5:00 existed twice in one day before I had this job. I was shocked. But really, I think this will help me get on with the morning routine I want. So far it's failed miserably, but I have hope. At least now I can get up at the same time during the week instead of having one day all helter-skelter throwing off the rest of the week.

Other things right now:

  • enjoying American Idol and The A Daily Show
  • waiting for LOST and Big Brother
  • addicted to Terra chips
  • finally sent in my laptop to get its sound wire repaired
    (who knew how much I would miss working speakers)
  • hoping I get my laptop returned after the "you can't even ship me an EMPTY box correctly... hopefully you can send me a FILLED box correctly" issue
  • Dan just got our desktop wireless keyboard working again
    (good thing the man has enough keyboards and peripherals laying around to sink a boat)
  • laughing at my crazy cats who exhaust themselves running after a laser light
  • trying to stay up past nine lately
That's all I've got tonight. I've added some new songs to the playlist. I might get ready for bed and read a bit.

Goodnight.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The flowers were hung on the shelving with care...


Apparently, "I might be back later..." meant a week later. The last week just up and left, and I'm sitting here at the end of January already. Wowsers.

Home front: after my last post, Dan and I went and saw several houses. I said three, but it was more like four or five. None of them really matter except for ONE that we really like(d). By the next morning (Thursday) both of our stomachs were in knots because we couldn't decide between the top choice (house1) in our first grouping of 11+ homes, and this new one (house2). If you remember, house1 had the master bath issue (because it's sans jacuzzi tub and that's a no-no on my list), and house2 has everything we want in it. The more we thought about it, the more we really wanted house2. Buuuuut, since it was just reduced in price, the seller decided to wait 10 days to accept more bids. DRATS. The special contract on this house also requires any inspections to be done before you bid, so we're taking in inspectors tomorrow morning. If all turns out hunky dory, then we'll make an offer by Friday. The cut-off for offers is Monday the fourth, and the seller will make their decision then.

Oh, and let's not forget to mention that there are already TWO OFFERS standing on this house. So if you're so inclined, we would love some prayers sent our way that we put in the best offer. Muchas gracias.


Wedding front: all is done with Mandy's wedding and the happy couple are down at Disney for the week. Whew! A year's worth of planning over and gone, and a beautiful wedding to show for it. I carried the flowers above and now they're hanging happily to dry. I'll let the bride share her details when she returns. Now I plan to get my hair trimmed up and in some sort of style, even though the pulled back look has been my style of choice for a while now.

Tomorrow: hump day means working early. Dan and I will meet our inspectors (aka family members with varying super powers) around 10a and take them to lunch before returning to work. After that, who knows where the day will go. I still haven't figured out the scheduling-my-everyday thing or the routine thing. I've just been going with the flow of our home search and whatever else pops up. It's sure been nice to let go of things, but I think too much is flying in the air now. Time to bring it all back down to some level of predictable-ness and focus.

Goodnight Tuesday.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Pondering + anticipating...

Out of the 11 houses we've looked at so far, we're down to two favorites.  Actually, you could say we're down to one favorite, but we wish we could take the master bath from the one and stick it in the other.  IF ONLY.  Last night we went and looked at the final two again to get pictures and another run-through - the looks, the feelings, the similarities, the differences.  One seems to come out on top, except for that darn bathroom issue.  While we have those houses fresh in our minds, Dan and I are going to look a little farther down the road tonight.  THREE more houses (I think) are on the agenda to compare with our top two.  I'm excited to see new places and compare.

Tonight - looking at houses, thinking about my Matron of Honor speech (yikes), maybe finishing up some "best me" stuff since there's a new prompt, and I might be back later with some pictures and house bits. 

Let's do the humpty-hump and get this Wednesday afternoon moving!  


Monday, January 21, 2008

Coming clean...

Finally. Dan and I had a cleaning frenzy here this weekend. All that's left of our CLUTTER JUNGLE are the mail piles on the dining room table. We joked tonight that we should eat at that table one more time before we move to a house - since we've only sat there about three times since we moved here October 2006. Is that what that table's for? Ha, who knew.

Remember when I took those embarrassing photos of the office that I refused to show? Because they were so horrible? I'm going to post these and run - and never look back. (That's pretty much how the clutter got there, actually.) I can't take the humiliation of knowing that you saw our office like this. I can't believe our office looked like this. Yikes. It looks much better now. We can see the CARPET and have ROOM TO WALK. Amazing.

Before shots / After shots...









Now that those are safely behind us, let's never mention them again. We've got a vow over here to keep the place clean until we move. That's the goal. Done and goodbye mess.

Social weekend
Friday night we met with the Ricketts at Red Robin to celebrate Scott's birthday. Thanks for inviting us guys, it was yummy. Hope you had a smashing birthday! We also visited with my architect/builder/superhero brother that night to see what he thought about our housing choices so far, so that was good to refresh ourselves.

Saturday after a lot of cleaning, we went to run some errands, get some grub, and were invited to see a movie with one of Dan's friends. Cloverfield. We had no idea what this movie was about, but I was on the edge of my seat the whole time... mainly because I didn't take my motion sickness pills and was hoping I wouldn't have to hurl in my popcorn bag. It was pretty good though, very thrilling if you can get past the camera shake.


This is my next crazy project, and what I'm using one of my Moleskines for. When I read the goal of the challenge I knew it was something I needed - and that it would be very cool. I'm catching up on the first three weeks pretty quickly, and I'm not stressing over the weekly deadlines. There are things that I need to let go, things I need to learn, and a good balance to be achieved for me to become the best me. I'm looking forward to it.

Something else cool - Ali's weekend creative. I took her prompt from the weekend and incorporated it into my daily photo. There are too many inspiring things going on right now.


Inside tree at church.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Regaining focus...


It took me a few days, but I'm getting back on track. It's been here-and-there the last week. I finally have my to-do list in order from the randomness of the holidays, so I feel more in control.

This was one house that we looked at last week - while pretty on the outside, it went into the NO pile. Its only living room was in the basement and we're not big fans of that. The house sure looks big enough to have one on the main floor, so we were quite surprised to see that the garage ate it and left us with a big wall to look at. NEXT!


Friday night Dan and I went out for dinner at Olive Garden and a small trip to the mall for Mandy's bachelorette items. I had also read on Ali's blog about a cardboard Moleskine book and wanted to stop by the bookstore, which led to a Staples stop next door for some new pen/maker utensils (see above). I was so excited when I found THREE different sizes of the cardboard cashier Moleskines, and had instant confusion deciding which size I wanted. So I bought two different sizes. I'll show you what I'm doing with one of the larger ones next time.

Need for kraft/cardboard products pacified for now - check!


We got home from our date night and I put together these naughty goody bags for Mandy's party planned for Saturday. The design matched the invites.


Saturday - Dan worked one of his 20 jobs (the manual labor one with a co-worker). He's been a super duper trooper lately working all hours on a client's website and filling up the "house down payment" piggy bank. I pulled in some overtime last week, but I still don't compare. He's the man. I worked from home for an hour or so, and then got ready for the par-tay. I straightened my hair - which is rare for me to even dry my hair anymore - and I realized (I think) this is the longest my hair has ever been. And it's really not that long.

Mandy's party started out with dinner and drinks (and trying to mark items off of her party shirt to-do list) at Bar Louie. Then, we went back to her place for a fun party and some pina coladas... and I do mean "fun" party...AHEM. You can read about the night on her blog. I left around midnight so I could make my way back over the river and through the woods, and she went out to the bar with another friend. I hear she was horribly ill, so I guess the night was a success. ;)

Monday - after work Dan and I met up with our realtor to look at more houses. We looked at five more houses or so, and again found two that we really like. One had lime green walls in the entry way that was very cool looking. It also had four bedrooms, but they were a little on the smaller side because of an open entry that I loved. The other one we liked had a huge great room, a finished basement, a gorgeous kitchen, and tons of details throughout. Of course, in the basement there was a desk with scrapbooking products on it, so I wasn't surprised. I'd love to have that great room. We also saw a foreclosure property that was really nice except for some stains and mold we saw - it had an open entry and loft (love that), good-sized rooms, and an awesome master suite. The search continues.

Sheri asked if I have pictures of the houses we've seen, and all we have are the MLS links and some pictures they provide. We took the camera last week, but it wasn't the easiest thing to stop and try to take decent shots of everything - so we didn't bother.

Right now - it's time for bed. Tomorrow's hump day, I get to pick up my dress from alterations, and have another go at a daily routine. Let's roll.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Errands AHOY!

Aaarrrrrrg mateys. What a FULL and great day. Yesterday was just okay with some bad attitudes all around, so I was really looking forward to today. Today was crack-of-dawn day at work, so I got off early and dropped off my bridemaid's dress for hemming. I called before I went - just to make sure they had time and no appointment was needed. As soon as I walked in the woman must have known who I was (or maybe not, that would be even funnier) and pointed me to the dressing room. Well hello, I'm good... how are you?

Dan and I also went HOUSE SHOPPING. Bling bling (holla holla), we got our pre-approval the other day and contacted our realtor who said we should start looking. We saw five houses tonight and the first two were definitely the best. They are next door to each other with almost identical floor plans, yet totally different. Both have three bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, and a beautiful double-story back deck with a "valley view" toward the Ohio River. Swoon. Both have pros and cons. We'll be looking again next week in a different area in the opposite direction...but we have news that the main road we live off of now (which connects to the neighborhood we saw today) will be expanded from two lanes to FOUR, and have a bike trail/sidewalk. We're really excited for that - I would love to make walking it a habit whenever it's done.


After house hopping we drove through McD's for a quick dinner, and off to Florence (Y'all) to run some other errands. Tar-jay was one stop and we were sucked into its trendy, awesome products. I found an adorable (and cheap) scarf/gloves/head wrap set to match my winter coat, and the CUTEST refill for my calendar. I am downright giddy at the fresh calendar pages and possibilities. I know I can't be the only one... there's just something about having a blank calendar in front of you waiting to be written on and devoured.

Google calendar and I are still best buds, and I'll continue to use it like always because it's shared with Dan, but I can't get my head around scheduling full days (hour by hour, everyday) online to get myself into a balanced routine. I need it in writing, wherever I am. I've been sharing my recent thoughts on routine with Dan and he's right on board with helping me along.

It was good to spend an evening with Dan - looking toward the next step in our lives, connecting, laughing, eating fatty food, and enjoying our errands. He's doing some website work tonight while I'm blogging, and all is well.

Tomorrow - is quite possibly another full day. I'm not totally sure what's in store yet. Two meetings are planned for Dan that I can join, and I have to-dos to kick to the curb.

Here's to a kickin' Thursday.

Monday, January 7, 2008

New digs...


How do you like my new look? I have balancing on the brain right now, trying to think up a routine for myself. The evenings this week have not been good in that department because I come home from work and end up spending hours taking/uploading photos after dinner and aimlessly doing things on the internet. I need to limit my computer time - get into a groove - get moving with different things. A balance.

On the positive front, we had some friends and family time this weekend.

Friday
was Eddie's going away party in Columbus. You should have seen the LOOK on his face when he walked in the door. It was absolutely priceless. He was so thankful that everyone came to see him. We took the chocolate fountain and it was a big hit (just like the last party we took it to), and we obviously ate too much. I guess now we have an excuse to plan a little trip to New York sometime. I've never been there and I don't think Dan has either.

We got to Sheri and Adam's pretty late and had a little time to chat before getting some sleep. Saturday was spent eating lunch and dessert at Applebee's, taking photos at a lake, video games for the boys, editing photos and new blog looks for the girls, eating dinner at B-dubs (pina coladas rock), more photos, and staying a second night. Adam and Sheri were fabulous hosts - thanks so much for letting us stay, eating too much food with us, the awesome Christmas gifts, and the two granola bars we stole Sunday morning (they were good!). Oh, and I'm not sorry if I have Sheri hooked on life in 50mm. We let her try our lens and get a new perspective on life with yummy light and color. Here is Saturday wrapped up in a few photos...


The Harringtons - awwww.


Chilly Dan, but still cute Dan.


Taken by Dan while Sheri was shooting from the front.


This is what the boys had while Sheri and I played around on our laptops. Poor boys had to stand, move, and repeat about five minutes until Sheri and I could get the lighting right. Practice!


Sheri with Aunt Jamima of the dog variety - aka Brutus.

Sunday we were back in our neck of the woods. Some of the evening was spent with Dan's family since his mom's birthday was Saturday. It never fails that I get there and fall asleep on the couch for an hour or two. Since we visited his family yesterday, and have plans with them two Sundays from now, we're going to take a stab at alternating family visits. Normally we visit my parents every other Sunday, but don't have a set schedule for his parents. We're looking to create balance there too.


Tonight - This song has been on repeat. Buckcherry's Sorry, love it. Can't get enough of it. It's just so raw - full of emotion and communication goodness. I love songs that are blatantly about communication, especially ones that use THEORIES - like Jack Johnson's It's All Understood. Go check out the lyrics and see if you can figure out the comm theory stylin' of Jack (who will be on repeat now). Wonder if he knows he's a comm genius? Maybe we'll have a lesson here sometime.

Something else I've discovered and love: the zen habits blog. It's a new addition to my Google reader.

Friday, January 4, 2008

Some kind of...


Yesterday was like that song - some kind of wonderful. I got some emails sent and calls made that were sitting on the front burner, I got my to-do list in order, and now we have some extra storage space.

After work, Dan had to meet someone at our church and I tagged along. Let me tell you that DAN is embracing the power of go. I think that might be his word of the year. I wasn't sitting for more than ten minutes while he went to the bathroom - just sitting on a comfy chair, with my coat on, enjoying the warmth and nothingness, doing some people watching, not pulling out my laptop - when Dan came along and said GO. Excuse me? So I sucked it up and got moving, but the coat stayed put.

For dinner we headed to a Thai restaurant that we love in that area, and I actually TRIED SOMETHING NEW. This is really unheard of, and a rare occurrence at best. My tried and true dish is beef teriyaki (spice factor #2 please), but last night the shrimp and asparagus with mushrooms and garlic sauce was added to the favorites list (total = 2). Dan went with his normal dish - chicken thai spicy - BORING. Come on Mr. GO.


Next stop was Home Depot. They're having a storage sale right now and we wanted to check out their supply. We made the mistake of thinking they closed at 10:00, so when we walked in at 8:30 and they close at 9:00, we had to browse quickly. After walking through all of our solutions we decided to go home and think about it - not too impressed with what we saw, but some of those individual "white metal bar shelves" seemed good to hang in the office closets. What are those things called? We decided to check once more at the front of the store, and there it was...a silver metal shelving thing like we already have two of, but bigger and the perfect size for our closets. We threw two of those in the cart and also got an even larger black one for my baskets and crafty crap that is taking up precious floor space. Woohoo!

Tonight and tomorrow - we hopping in the car and going to Columbus. We've had it with the wimpy melty snow here in Kentucky, and we're going north to find some REAL SNOW. That's my excuse, but really there's a surprise going-away party for Eddie at his and Sonya's place tonight. Shhhhh. He's moving to New York (as will she eventually) and will be missed. We'll be shacking up with Adam and Sheri tonight and hanging out with them tomorrow. Double woohoo!

I need to run out the door, so I'll post my photo-a-day(s) later. Irie.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Challenges galore...


Last week's sleeping schedule sought its revenge last night. After tossing and turning, somehow I woke up at 5:00a surprisingly awake. Had a nice, easy Wednesday to start off my three-day work week - and some pretty snow too.

I felt slow as a turtle tonight - wasting time - just trying to research and figure some things out with my word for 2008 and another challenge I've started. Yep, I know... another, but it's something I've been doing lately anyway. While I was feeling shelled in and slow, Dan and I decided to start a puzzle together. It was just what I needed for my photo del dia (of the day) and to get me going again.

First thing: my word for 2008. After talking with Mandy this morning, and Dan this evening, I decided to give the hat pick another go-round. The two words in question were GO and BALANCE. Last night when I blindly chose out of the hat, I got GO. Tonight, I let Dan choose out of the hat and we did the best two out of three. Both times he chose BALANCE - so balance it was. The fates must be telling me something about the balance I need in my life. I'll miss GO, but it doesn't have to be my word of the year for me to use it and be motivated by it.

Balance: to bring to or hold in equilibrium; mental steadiness or emotional stability; habit of calm behavior, judgment, etc.; composition or placement of elements of design, as figures, forms, or colors, in such a manner as to produce an aesthetically pleasing or harmoniously integrated whole.

There’s no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves
. - Frank Herbert

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony. - Thomas Merton
There are so many aspects of balance, but I chose a few that I liked. For me, I want balance to get me out of the computer chair and doing different things. Not necessarily spreading myself thin with a BUNCH of things, but doing things that are better for me and my relationships. Allowing more of a balance between Dan, family, friends, our business, and personal time. I want to find friends in our area since we'll be searching for a house here soon. Eating balanced meals. Starting a yoga routine like my 101 list tells me to do. Being collected and confident mentally and physically - and just plain ol' feel the calm of "thinking balance" in stressful times. Bring it on, balance. I'm ready.

Second thing: 365 days in photos. So many people are doing this right now, the peer pressure was MURDER. Kidding - it's also on my 101 list to take photos of myself for a year, but I'm going to extend it to the things around me. Documenting what I do all year sounds rockin'. And why not start when the new year starts? Dan's photo in the previous post was for day one, and the photo above is for day two. You can find the 365 photo posts in my categories, or see just the photos on my flickr.

Tomorrow after work: calls to make, a new blog theme to whip up, day three photo, spend some time with Dan, create a routine for fitting in yoga, blogging, and cleaning a little each night before I go to bed.

Now: it's more than past my bedtime. I need to get out of here. Go check out Mandy's new blogging home, and Sheri's 365 days in photos.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

New year + delayed perspective...


Just here to post something small. Last night turned out to be a good time with a bunch of couples - mostly friends and some we were meeting for the first time. As you can see, the poker chips came out for those who wanted to play (not me, that's Dan's territory), and some dice came out for a Yahtzee game with the remaining peeps. I had never played before, but caught on pretty quickly. I didn't get a Yahtzee, though.




These were two guests that we brought to the party. If you don't know about my obsession with pina coladas, then you haven't been reading this blog long enough. This might be a new staple in my diet. Oh it's so good, and just to smell it takes me back to Jamaica ordering booze with my breakfast. Irie mon. The tin of cookies are also a new favorite. Dan and I bought them to go with the chocolate fountain last night, along with a lot of other dipables, and they are abso-freakin'-lutely the best cookies ever with that vanilla filling (and even dreamier dipped in chocolate). I noticed that the serving size is three cookie sticks, so you should obey the serving size for calorie calculation purposes.


Today - I didn't get as much done as I wanted to, and that's okay. Dan and I took down the tree and some decorations, relaxed a little, went to the grocery store, and Dan made a cabbage soup for our New Year's dinner. I love that he cooks because that part of my brain was lost somewhere during college. The new year has started out just perfectly.

I'm sorry to say that I haven't chosen my word for 2008 yet. I'm stuck between two words. These two words convey totally different things and make me think/feel two totally different things. I thought I could remedy the situation by sticking the words into a hat and blindly picking, but no such luck. I need both of these things. Just because I pick one doesn't mean that I can't practice the other, so it should be easy...but no decision is easy over here.

Tomorrow - is my first day back to work, and an early day at that (6:00a). Yuck. It is Wednesday, though, a nice big hump day with a downhill slope to the end of the week.

Time to get some shut-eye. Enjoy your hump day.
First post of 2008 - check.

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