22 posts tagged “weekend”
Everyone had an absolute blast, he hiked all around Natural Bridge as the autumn colors were really starting to show their glory. Then at the cabin there was organic mountain pizza from Miguels (hilarious commercial), campfires, smores, beer, taboo, cards, singing, dancing and unlimited jokes about bears (because our cabin had 34 bear statues hidden throughout). We laughed non-stop and had a great weekend. I'm so lucky to be part of this great group of people, although I'm not an AIAS member they still include me, the perks of being the presidents wife :)
We are almost a week away from the Fourth of July and I have a sudden urge to barbecue! So in slightly last minute fashion I've sent out the word that we'll be having a cook-out in my back yard to celebrate, all friends and dogs invited! Our neighborhood backs the most elite country club in town and they put on a great fireworks show so we should easily be able to see fireworks from our backyard.
We'll have to set up croquet, clean off the ping-pong table and borrow a few cornhole boxes. I've got plans to make Sangria and my grilling menu should a delight my vegetarian friends along with the meat lovers. This will be our first official backyard BBQ at our new house and I can't wait!
Though sometimes I get ahead of myself with planning...
maybe I should buy a grill first?
Saturday night Jon and I drove to Louisville to meet my flickr friend, Retta and her friend Shannon. Amazingly, this was only the second time I’ve met her in person, though it felt as if we were all old friends. We had dinner at Lynn’s Paradise Cafe, only the most eccentrically silly and wonderful restaurant in Louisville. A plate full of sweet potatoes fries and pecan chicken, mannequin legs dangling from the ceiling, pants made of teabags and I couldn’t be happier!
Because of my lack of ability to check show times we ended up taking a nice walk through Cherokee park to kill a half an hour. A little sweaty and stinky we ended up second in line at the show and guaranteed our spots front row as the doors opened. I was a little bummed because security wouldn’t let me bring in my camera because it couldn’t fit in my pocket. Who comes up with these silly rules anyway? I was really hoping to get some pictures and this just helped to reinforce the fact that I need to buy a point and shoot pocket camera.
The show was running late, about an hour behind schedule so we stood and chatted with our friends, which by the way are wonderful people to see a concert with! The opener, Neva Geoffrey, was great; a nice mix of Mazzy Star meets Nora Jones. Jose took the stage just shy of 10:00 and we listened intently to his amazing opening solo performance, all of us drop jawed as we held onto the stage and our front row views. His music was meant to be played live, though his stage presence was meek which gave him a real relatable sense. He played a great set list and came back in the end for a two song encore which included "cycling trivialities" one of my favorites.
As 1:00 am rolled around we stepped into the parking lot, said our goodbyes and headed safely onto the roads for our hour long drive home.
The weekend was a rush of little things that seemed to pile up quickly.
It started with the lawn, mowing, edging, fertilizing, spreading seed, pulling weeds, digging, laying topsoil and 100 sq feet of sod. Then we made the big decision to tackle our diseased tree. We inherited a fruiting pear tree when we purchased our home which just happened to be infected by fireblight, a disease that makes the tree look as though its branches, fruit and leaves have been burnt by fire. After months of debating and staring at the ugliness of it all, we finally made the decision to eliminate the 60% of the tree which had been infected. I'm not sure how its going to handle the drastic prune especially since there are baby pears fruiting on each branch but I figure if it does not survive we'll tear it down and replace it with something that has a resistance to the disease. I'd really hate to have to tear it down, only time will tell.
My arms are still suffering after three days of trauma from the fantastic tennis match Jon and I had on Friday. It ended with a tie, the both of us winning a game. I wore my HRM (heart rate monitor) to see what an hours worth of tennis would do for my weekly workouts and I was shocked, 870 calories burned in 50 minutes! Thats more than any other exercise I've attempted so far. I've made a new goal to have a few games of tennis each month.
Double dated at the movies, saw the new Indiana Jones and hated it.
I then brought out my sewing machine. When Jon was accepted to the UK architecture program I'd planned on making him a zipper case for all of his drafting tools. With the little practice I had at sewing I tried my best and failed miserably months ago, so with this second attempt I was astonished at how easily things were coming together while working without a pattern. Five hours later Jon has a handsome, black canvas, wood button clasped, zippered case filled with all of his drafting tools. I was thrilled with the end result, though I have to laugh at myself for it taking so long, five hours to make a 12 inch pencil case! The Project Runway contestants would die laughing at me.
Rented and finally watched "The End of Evangelion" which had rave reviews but just felt like a Japanese acid trip to me.
Somewhere lost in the four day weekend I had also managed to do some thrift store shopping, and bought a gorgeous Anthropology blouse for $2! The find of the month, thank you thrift gods!
I introduced 5 plump, possibly pregnant, goldfish to live in my rain barrel and eat mosquitoes and algae. They are all named Funguys, like the fungus the eat. I gave them a group name to make their singular deaths less traumatic since I easily get attached to my little animal friends. One Funguy has already passed, Four are left. So far, I'm OK :)
Lets not forget the hours spent staring up at the maple canopy, swaying in my hammock to the cool spring breeze.
This weekend was filled with house projects. I'm amazed at how much we were able to get done and how little money we spent in the process. Saturday was spent taking everything out of the workshop, filling the driveway, and piece by piece organizing and finding a place for everything. Jon built a great workbench, we put up shelving and even were able to mount our bicycles from the wall. Its now a nice clean organized productive space, Jon finally has his workshop in working order.
Sunday my mom came over with the idea of helping me build a compost bin and rain barrel, which is somehting I've been dreaming of doing since we purchased our home. We spent $30 at the hardware store and a few hours later had a working rain barrel, made from a garbage can, screen and a downspout. I used stakes to make a 3 x 3 square and used plastic chicken wire to wrap a sturdy 4ft high square to be filled with compost. My original plan was to purchase a rain barrel and compost bin but after shopping online I realized that I could easily spend hundreds of dollars on these things and it wasn't necessary, they were extremely simple to make and real easy on the bank.
After working on the house all weekend we met up with a few friends in our neighborhood park for a tennis match. We had a great time and laughed at how horrible and out of practice we all were. Its been over a year since Jon and I played. We tied Luna to the net pole because there was a family in the courts with us and we did not know it they were comfortable with dogs. As we began our game she went to chase the ball and flung herself up in the air, flipped off her collar and landed on her back! I almost had a heart attach right there! We all ran to check on her and she ended up being fine but it was an awful fright. No more tying up Luna. We let her run free, luckily the family next to us was not bothered by her occasional visit. After a few hours of ball chasing we took a break and noticed that there was blood. Luna had ran so much on the concrete that she wore down her nail till it was bleeding! As silly as it sounds, I've made the decision to buy her doggy boots. I just cannot bare to watch her paw pads scraped and peeling and her nails filed down to nothing. So today, I'm shopping for dog boots. Don't laugh!
The weekend passed quickly, must faster than I had expected, I woke this morning confused and wishing it wasn't Monday already. I've gotta say though, it really makes my day when Jon comes in to wake me with a kiss and a greeting like todays "good morning pretty." It's such a great way to start off my day.
My weekend was an absolute snore and I loved it! The sun was shining for the first time in months and I couldn't believe the 64 degree warmth it brought. We spent hours outside washing the winter salt build up on our cars and removing dust from our dashboards. Not only does my car look shiny and happy but I did too. I pranced around outside in my hideous car washing outfit, head to toe in sweats, and I actually felt pretty. It could be the fact that I lost another pound (meeting my weekly goal) or that the sun was shining and I was getting a much needed dose of Vitamin D. Either way it just felt good.
I also spent a few hours organizing my collection of mp3's. I know it sure doesn't sound like a fun evening, clicking and dragging to my hearts content, but I find pride in my organizational skills. And though I know it will take years to complete, adding track numbers, album art, and sorting by genera, will be well worth it. In my eyes, at least.
Saturday night, after a few pounds of southern cooking and combo pie at Ramsey's Diner, we had a few beers and wii tournaments into the early hours of the morning. I laughed at Carolyn's hilarious punches as she royally kicked my little wii's digital behind. I had almost peed myself when her boyfriend used the term "wiimote" in such a serious manner. We raced cows and I could hardly keep in the giggles as my little brown cow jumped hurdles with its legs swinging rapidly in the wind. I couldn't believe the excitement when we drove to Meijer at 11pm so that Carolyn could buy guitar hero, which by the way we couldn't put down for the rest of the night and played until the morning.
Since moving away from all that I knew in Florida, its been hard to meet new people and I feel relieved and happy to now have someone to laugh with, thank goodness for the Carolyns of the world.
For the past few days, I've sat down to write entries and within the first sentence have lost all interest, logged off and walked away. I'm usually so good about keeping my vox up to date but life has been such a rush recently. My apologies to my friends, neighborhood and myself... I'll get back in the groove soon enough, I promise.
Weekend update:
Thanksgiving: I tried a new recipe (roasted sweet potatoes and carrots) and it was fantastic. Even Jon the veggie hater ate it with a smile. The turkey breast was melt-in-your-mouth-awesome, but the dark meat was under cooked and too pink. In the end, a half wasted expensive Amish turkey, though I'm still counting it an overall success.
Black Friday: I Avoided the crowds and shopped online. On a whim... bought a new bed! Thats right, I've purchased a memory foam mattress online without ever testing it in person. I figure it was such a good deal + free shipping and anything, even a piece of plywood, would be better than my 16 year old current broken spring mattress.
Christmas gifts checked off: Mom, Jon, Brian, Greg, Alicia & Julia. Only four more gifts to go!
Tree Hunting: It's been something like ten years since I had a real Christmas tree so this year I was on a mission, a new house with plenty of room for a real tree, I was on it! We drove out to the country, found a tree farm and cut down our very own tree (a first for me). Six feet tall and five feet wide, its a fat one, but a beauty.
Decorating Tradition: We follow the tradition in decorating for Christmas the weekend following thanksgiving. Red boxes were pulled from the attic and a Sufjan Christmas Album played in the background as we pulled old memories from Christmas past and hung garland and lights to brighten the room (pictures to come soon enough).
Thirty Feet of Insulation: I was worried about the uninsulated water pipes in our unheated utility room and attic so my dear husband installed fun-d-noodle'esk pipe huggers (technical name unknown) to keep our pipes snug for the winter.
Wet paint: An unsuccessful window of time to paint our fence. First coat down and starting to dry when it began raining. A day later it is still raining.
It's the first weekend of August and that means it is time for the 127 Corridor Sale. Whooho!
What started twenty years ago as a small scheme to pull a few travelers off the interstate onto old U.S. 127, using the irresistible lure of a bargain, has turned into the World's Longest Yard Sale. It stretches hundreds of miles from Kentucky to Alabama, spanning 3 sates with a total of 450 miles. The Highway is lined with antique dealers, car collectors, crafters, cooks, and more than 3,000 vendors, offering just about any collectible anyone could ever imagine.
Guess what lucky lady lives twenty minutes away form this sale... tomorrow plan to see me rummaging and heckling my way south on the 127 corridor, one of my favorite summertime traditions.
I spent this past weekend visiting with Jon's family just outside of St. Louis. The five hour drive is always a killer but well worth it in comparison to the 18 hour drive it used to be while we lived in Florida.
Highlights from our visit:
¤ spending one-on-one time with greg and his finance
¤ seeing brian, again!
¤ visiting with parents & grandparents
¤ taking photos of mum-in-law's house (for sale!)
¤ luna, being soooo well behaved
¤ corn fields
¤ meeting more extended family
¤ walking "the loop"
¤ telling everyone about our new house
¤ alisha's good cooking
