blarg

so if you cant tell by my 5-6 month absence this year, ive either been busy, pre-occupied, or lost interest in this thing... im not entirely sure which is the winner. some morbid manifestation of them all? perhaps.

[cincy.house]
most of you are pretty up to date because one of the main reasons i started this thing was to update my long lost family back home on the status of the house and cincy in general [this was before the name change & relocation obviously] since relocating, i talk to most of you much more often and we discuss these things more often. but i suppose there are perhaps those of you out there that have read this blog from afar or perhaps dont stay in such close contact with me - to you, i do apologize, and will henceforth briefly update you.

the short answer is that nothing has happened. we finally finished reconstruction the last day of september, and we've paid everyone everything we owe them. we put the house back on the market, but had no interest worth mentioning in it since [nearly two months now?]

the crazy girl has popped up over and over and in the last 6 months we were forced to retain legal services and subsequently pay a shit-ton [i think thats metric] of money for essentially nothing. about every two months she pops back up with some nonsense amendment or letter that we have to pay to have our attorney, yet again, squash, disprove and render pointless... and then she disappears for two months.... i guess its about time for more of her nonsense? who knows. who cares. shes certifiable.

other than that, we discussed at great length the option of renting the house and have since gone through all the necessary paperwork and such to hire a property management company to handle things and get it rented out. they have another couple of weeks to find a tenant before the 45 day deadline - that come to think of it, i have absolutely no idea what happens after it expires. they seem certain that they can find a tenant before their time is up, so here's hoping they are correct. if we do manage to successfully rent this thing out it would cancel out the payments we're still making on it and in the end actually service as a modicum of additional income - sweet!

and that my friends, is the house update. such as it is.

[work]
work is good. staying moderately busy working on a handful of things. i still really enjoy my job and the freedom its granted me in addition to the obvious benefits of being gainfully employed. no worries here, i appear to be quite secure in the continued availability of my position as well as the continued happiness of my superiors. time and again i appear to have exceeded their expectations and they continue to assign me more responsibility, more respect, and more inclusion in things than i ever really could have imagined. as far as fellow employees go, i honestly like everyone ive met and have reoccurring contact with. there are certainly a few here or there that tend to have less than ideal personalities, but hey, to coin a common cliche - thats why they invented 32 flavors, eh? i dont mind. if im having a day where someone or someones are becoming an annoyance for whatever reason, i can simply turn up my headphones, shut my door and drown out my surroundings while i work away in the comfort of my office. [well, until i start to cook and have to allow in some ventilation, but those are sufficiently spaced intervals.] in summary, work is good.

[everything else?]
not really sure what to say. i could update you all on my wifes life, but really, shouldnt she be doing that? i dont really have the inclination.

||gadgets||
i did get a new toy for my birthday last weekend - yes, you missed it, and i'll only forgive you in the wake of lavish gifting - a kindle fire. you've probably seen them in the news, theyre supposed to be one of the most popular gifts this holiday season and are expected to be the only realistic rival to the ipad2.

i can say that in the few days ive had this thing it has completely abducted me. i am engulfed in its intricacies and discovering what all it has to offer. the main reason i wanted one was for games, movies, and books to take along on our cruise in a couple of weeks and so far im not disappointed in the offerings.

i havent yet started to purchase books for it, but ive done extensive wish listing on amazon and will soon make some decisions about purchase. the quality i can get in video is more than satisfying although i havent yet figured out how to get movies/tv shows directly to the device instead of streaming from the cloud... [apologies for all the tech-jargon if youre clueless] and lastly the games.

ive never been too terribly into mobile device gaming, but im starting to understand it a little better. other than a few word games that were mostly encouraged by the wifey, i hadnt really found any games that interested me much on them. oh sure, i test drove a few and they were fun for a little while, but after about 5 minutes, i was bored with most of them. not that i really have a ton of time for gaming anyhow, but its certainly part of the device experience these days. well, since acquiring my fire, ive found a few games im really enjoying. one is a pinball game that really took me back to pinball on our old win95. man its been years since i played that, but i rather enjoyed it then, and had a good time tinkering with it on the fire the other day. and then last night i really found some winners. i rediscovered mahjong [again, probably not since win95] and had a good time cussing it as i relearned the game, and even better was a crossword puzzle game. never been huge on crossword puzzles, but this proved to be very enjoyable as karen and i teamed up and spent a solid hour or two trying to solve the puzzles. we dont really play a lot of games together and this was actually a lot of fun for me, so that seems like a winner.

other than that, karen seems to be a bit annoyed with the thing, and im afraid shes starting to regret gifting it. i dont feel like ive really been playing with it to the extent of ignoring her or neglecting my husband-ly duties, but she certainly seems off-put whenever i pick it up. im not sure why really, but im obviously not seeing things from her perspective. honestly, im just really enthralled with figuring out all that it can do and how it does it, and once the newness and the mystery wears off, im sure itll be less enthralling, and hopefully less intrusive. either way, i am enjoying it. =]

||house||
the only other item i really feel inclined to comment on is houses. not the one in cincy though, here in houston. for those of you that dont already know, karen and i have taken a serious look at things and have decided we are ready to buy in houston, and as such, have begun the process. we met with a mortgage adviser at our bank and found out that i have awesome credit and we've been unofficially approved for a more sizable  mortgage than i had ever expected and with a very reasonable interest rate in my perspective.

we've enlisted the help of a close friend/realtor to help us with the search and have started scouring the city for that perfect house. so far we havent found it, but have been able to really start nailing down what things we do want, dont want, areas and neighborhoods we are and arent interested in, things we're willing to compromise on, and the price range we actually want to be in - and what that looks like in terms of potential houses.

its a process and its ongoing. ideally we'd like to close on something before january 1st for financial reasons, but at this point its not looking terribly likely. who knows, perhaps that perfect-for-us house is lurking just around the next corner. in the meantime we have some solid options that we're planning to try and get showing for by the end of this week. we've already done one round of these that was a little disappointing, but thats all part of the process, im not discouraged yet.

hopefully it all turns out.

hmm...
so i guess thats all i have for now. not much of an update, sorry. hope i didnt ramble too much. really hope you all had a happy thanksgiving - please do me a great favor and ignore anything and everything fox news is reporting about the president's non-official thanksgiving you-tube video. actually, if you really want to do me a favor, never watch fox news again - what a bunch of idiots...

okay, thats it.

spring.cleaning

so obviously by the title of this post, youve already discovered that we went on a swimming expedition with sharks this last weekend. ;]

no, not really, im just pulling your leg. well, figuratively anyway. no this weekend we kept ourselves quite busy actually and it all started on friday...

[cue the harp as we flashback]

[friday]

well friday during the day was just a normal day, but friday night was the fun stuff. at some point earlier [i honestly cant remember when, could have been that week or the week before, beats me] my wife had caught wind of a party at the cincinnati art museum based on one of their current exhibits - surrealism. well, being the party animal that she is and having the affinity for surrealist are that she does, she was quite intrigued by the prospect of an art museum surrealist party, and once she looked for more information and discovered there was also to be dancing, drinks and catering from one of our favorite restaurants - the teak [http://www.teakthaicuisine.com/] - and a fashion show on top of all that... well. she was going, with or without me. so eventually she talked me into it [which didnt take too much, i could see how she was glowing with excitement, and im not one to kill her little dreams] and so we planned on going.

well, friday night was the party. it was supposed to start at 8pm which was fine with us, i usually get off work around 5:30pm, so that should give us plenty of time to do whatever we needed before then. well things got a little more complicated when on wednesday or thursday our favorite friend, amanda [manda], invited us out to the fore-mentioned-on-occasion wine tasting at whole foods. well, we were quite torn, we havent been able to go in a few weeks now, maybe more than a month. so we really wanted to go, but they start at 6 and we had a party to get to at 8 and then there was traffic to consider... so we were going to play it by ear.

as it turns out, when friday afternoon came, i didnt end up getting off work till nearly 5:45 so we decided it would be best to not go to wine tasting [sorry manda! we still love you!] and instead went home and got spiffed up for the party. well, it didnt take us too long [more for karen because it takes her a little while to squeeze into her extra-tight-sexy-jeans sometimes, heh, love you sweetie!] and by 6:30ish we were ready and decided to do a little dinner date pre-party. well we discussed it and decided it had been a while since either of us had been to deweys [http://www.deweyspizza.com/] and we love their salads [and well, obviously the pizza] so we decided that would be a nice little date spot for the evening.

deweys was delicious as always, we decided to share a big greek salad [the wife's fav!] and then split a build your own calzone with pepperoni, canadian bacon, black olives, and the various cheeses and sauces that come loaded inside. well, dinner was quite satisfying for me, karen felt it was cold, but i tasted her half and it was hot to me, i think shes having temperature issues or something... after dinner it was about 7:30ish so we decided to get on over to the party a little early and beat some of the crowd [if there was any.] soon enough we were parked and heading to the door where we discovered a short line had already started, so we got in line and started in on the nights festivities.

we stood in line till the started letting people in at about 5 till 8 and it moved pretty quickly for us [we were maybe 15 people back] and before we knew it we were in. well my first judgements of the party were a guy singing opera in the lobby quite loudly as we waited [im sorry, did i say loudly or obnoxiously?], some acid-trippy lights they had playing on the ceiling in the lobby [lame-o] and from what we could see down the corridor there were spraypainted styrofoam and hanger centerpieces on a few small tables [gag me...] so i wasnt really in the best mood to start out. call me judgemental, but i wasnt enthused so much at this point. well, after we got our drink ticked and the caterer met us at the door with a huge tray of chicken screwers, i decided things might not be so bad, haha. in the main hall there was a dj playing some much better music than the dude singing and it drowned him out completely, not to mention there was a full bar waiting for us, and the chiken scewer was awesome... so i was in better spirits soon enough. =]

well we got a drink and wandered out to the courtyard where a lot of people were gathering to enjoy the weather, drinks and more catering that was floating around. we stayed there for a little while and tried some spring rolls that had something in them i couldnt quite place but were quite delicious and some beef skewers that were a little sweet for my tastes, but quite perfectly cooked.

after finishing our drinks we decided to hit the gallery and see the acclaimed exhibit. it was pretty okay i guess, there were definitely highs and lows [as i guess could be expected with most any art exhibit] and we actually saw a few quite famous pieces which was pretty cool. on the low side though, i hate going to an art gallery and having to look at a bunch of paintings that look like kindergardener work that is claiming to be fine art. i understand that some people think that painting in this manor is a valid way of expressing something or other, but in my opinion it just looks like crap and i dont go to an art gallery to see that. not to mention we were in a surrealist exhibit which is a rough genre in the first place. theres an extremely fine line between surreal and well, just plain bad art... and since when is jackson pollock surrealist? just thought id throw that in there... not sure what his work was doing in this show... at any rate, we viewed the entire exhibit and enjoyed ourselves, but noticed that the number of people was steadily increasing as time went on and soon it was getting a bit stifling from all the body heat. so we finished up and decided it was time for another drink and some fresh air.

after standing in line for at least a half an hour in the mass of writhing party attenders we finally had our drinks and had also been visited by the beef scewer and sushi fairy while we waited. [the sushi was actually quite subpar based on our past experiences with teak's sushi. its usually excellent and this was very, very disappointing...] so we ended up back outside where it was nice and cool out and enjoyed our drinks for a while before checking our watches and realizing it was almost time for the fashion show. 10:30 already?! wow, the night flew by. so we went back inside and waded through the sea of people and tried to go up to the second level to find a good viewing place for the show. well we found a pretty decent spot on the stair landing and were just waiting around until we were kicked out of our spot by a currator because some dancers were goingt to need the space, blah blah blah. uh, bummer... so we moved away and looked for another spot, found one, then were kicked out of it. grr... look around, find another, yet again! kicked out of our spot! well, at this point, i was flippin hot, i wanted to just get the ef out of there and ditch the whole stupid thing, but karen begged my to stay and calm myself down so we found another space amidst the chaos in the middle of the main floor where i was sure wed see nothing. and waited. and waited some more. and then eventually they started playing some music and a girl in the middle of the room started dancing - quite obviously something choreographed. so all eyes were on her and as the music hit a certain timing, a bunch of people in the crowd around joined into the dance... okay, i get it, i guess thats kind of cool, but lets not get carried away, theres a ton of people standing around and this chick almost kicked me in the face just now.... but no, they didnt stop, every so many beats more people joined in, and more, and more, and we all kept getting smuched further and further back into the walls and had more and more near misses with elbows, feet, head, you name it, to the face... at this point i was very annoyed... but karen was enjoying herself, so i sucked it up and watched. well after that song finally ended 20 minutes later [okay, i might be exaggerating, but you wouldnt want to have peoples appendages flying round inches from your face either...] there was some other dance/skit thing [terrible. absolutely.] and then finally they brought out a makeshift stage for the fashion show. so at this point we were ont he front row of the fashion show which was cool i guess, but it was presented by students from the fashion department at karens school... and well... out of the 15-20 ensembles presented there were maybe 3 that were cute. most of them were just awful. these kids need to have their fashion priveledges revoked and subsequently all of their work and probably their own wardrobes set ablaze.

anyway, after the "fashion" show we called it quits for the night. karen had had a great tie and was beaming smiles, so i was in a better mood as we made fun of all the tacky clothes and the models/students who were alittle too exhibitionist for their own good. all in all it was a pretty good night, we had some fun, and then went home and crashed.

[saturday]

well saturday was rough when the alarm sounded at 6am... we'd gotten to bed somewhere around midnight and 6am was cruel to say nothing of torturous. why 6am you ask? well ill tell you [because thats obviously what this is all about, eh? yeah... i totally have conversations with myself whilest blogging, its weird i know, but youre still reading so obviously entertaining to some degree as well...] karen and i had volunteered on saturday morning to participate in a community service project. basically our church was participating, along with a dozen others in cincinnati, in an annual event called "go cincinnati." for those of you from a&m, think big event lead by the churches and youre spot on. for those of you not from a&m, essentially they got together as many volunteers as they could and then we all were to go out to homes, shelters, underfunded churches and programs, and just help out in whatever way they needed. mostly this tends to involve landscaping or painting or cleaning of some kind, but as it turns out you got to sign up for your preference and there was a little area called "artistic painting" and since my wife was the one that actually signed us up online after i told her i wanted to participate... guess which type of work she put us down for? haha... yeah. well apparently one of the underfunded churches or daycares or something or other needed murals done, so we were in the group that painted "murals". now i put that in quotations because they were muralist in that they were quite large paintings and were designed to be this gaint piece that told the tory of creation, however they were on 7 different large canvas panels and well... that really not a mural in my mind. anyhow, so karen and i spent the day painting. we got day 5 of creation which has something to do with the fish and the birds and we had a lot of fun. i discovered that i am quite terrible at painting [although this is nothing new to me, just a reinforcing of earlier knowledge. im much better at the arts that have ore control and less... lets call it expressiveness, lol.] but karen was a pro and cleaned up all my messes and in the end we had a pretty nice panel. 

[karen's cell phone photography is quite impressive i think.]

so when we were finished it was around 12:45 [we finished a little early because the event ended at 1]. well, after the working part they had set up a giant lunch for all the 6500 volunteers, the homeless, and whoever else decided to show up at one of the big parks in downtown. there was going to be over 1000 #'s of pulled pork, and sides to go with it and if that wasnt enough it was being prepaired free of charge by 10 or 12 [i cant remember which now] of the top chefs in cincinnati. so that was really cool... however, logistically it was going to be a nightmare. we know the park in question and there is no parking around it, only street parking which would fill up in about 2 minutes, not to mention 6500 people in one park waiting in line and such... well... karen and i arent really big crowd people [if you hadnt caught on to that by now...] so we decided to obstain but instead get bbq on our own because it sounded really good.

we headed over to city bbq [http://cityqbbq.com/], our bbq spot in cincy, and had a very nice lunch. even more nice because instead of 6500+ people crammed into a small space it was just us and like 2 other couples enjoying our lunch in their giant restaurant. =]

well at this point the day gets a bit less interesting. after lunch i got a haircut a few doors down, then we got some coffee at starbucks a few doors down again [because we were out and needed a few more bags of the stuff] then went home and exhausted from the day so far and lack of a good night sleep the night before we passed out for a nice long nap. around 4ish we got up from the nap and then my wife decided it was time for spring cleaning and we spent the rest of the day and night cleaning the house from top to bottom. eventually, around 9ish i think, we stopped and had dinner and watched a little west wing season 5 [yeah baby!] before going to bed.

now ill be honest with you, it wasnt just spring cleaning we were doing - although it was definitely that time again - but also my in-laws called us up last week or the week before and informed us that they were planning an improptu visit to cincinnati over the memorial day holiday weekend so we were also preparing for their stay. the house had somehow, although im still mystified as to the how in question, managed to get in a nice disaster and was definitely not in parent approval shape. im still searching for the evil culprit[s] that destroyed our beautiful home and caused us so much pain in cleaning it, so if you hear anything make sure to call me and let me know where theyre hiding. ;]

well, at this point, my lunch break is over, so we'll have to do sunday and monday at another time. although, theyre less about spring cleaning...

hope you all had a great weekend and are having a nice week as well. if you havent done so yet you need to go check out my brothers blog and pictures, his house is damn near finished now and i think they started it like last week or something? its getting built CRAZY fast!

adios!

unanticipated.productivity[two]

as promised...

[sunday]

so sunday morning i didnt get up quite as early, not sure when karen got up, but i know it was before i did. after all the day before's activities i was pretty tired and slept like a rock. so around 9 i drug myself out of bed and stumbled down to the office to see what the wife was up to. again she was busy studying and doing homework and we discussed the days agenda. well she was planning to go to studio a little later in the after noon and the weatherman had threatened rain in the afternoon earlier in the week, so it sounded like we had a few hours in the morning to get stuff done before we did our own thing for the evening. well, after thinking about what we'd gotten accomplished on saturday and how easily the planter had been going together i decided i wanted to go ahead and finish it sunday morning while karen was around to help and we had the good weather and then she could go to school after and i was planning to go see the new star trek which karen was a little iffy about anyway - so it worked out pretty well really. =]

so after deciding on our shopping list we both got dressed and filled our coffee cups and got ready to go. well, while karen was finishing getting her things together i wandered outside to review our progress and started tinkering with the fence posts that were still remaining. they were these two lone pole awkwardly standing in the "front yard" and were bugging the heck out of me so i started to mess with them until the first one actually started to come loose. well more encouraged i fought with it a little more and then it just slid right out, perfect! well now even more encouraged i started messing with the second one in the same way and before long it too gave way, although not quite as cleanly. instead i managed to tear it out leaving a small portion behind, but low enough that it was sufficiently submerged... eh, good enough. well not long after id placed the two poles on the side of the house karen was wandering out the door in search of me and was pleased to discover id gotten the poles out. so far, this was already starting to be a successful day.

so we piled into the truck and headed back to home depot to get the remaining supplies for the planter. we needed a few more timbers, more of the giant nails, and we also decided we'd better get some weatherproofing to put on this thing or we were just going to have rotted wood next year. well the wood and nails went easy enough. we got 3 times as much this go around, so it took a bit longer to load up the cart with, but we managed on our own without bugging the lumber guys that were no where in sight anyway. after getting all our lumber supplies we went down to the paint department to find some weatherproofing and soon enough i found exactly what i was looking for - thompsons waterseal advanced. id used it once before and knew that it worked well and had an easy application, so i was satisfied with using it again. anyway, now that we'd bought everything we went to the check out and made another nice dent in our checking account... oh-well, its just money, right? heh...

well after we checked out we made the drive back home and had a quick early lunch on the porch before getting started unloading. well, as we were lunching some woman pulled up behind my truck and made my life a little more difficult but still manageable between the two vehicles for unloading. anyway, i was hoping shed move it soon, so i decided to go ahead and get the weed whacker out [finally charged] and tackle the yard before getting to the construction. well it worked well enough in my opinion, although it had been some time since id swung one, all those muscles that had been well trained in the past snapped right back into action and i quickly and easily had the whole "yard" trimmed. so while i was doing that, karen had the broom out and was sweeping up the mess i was making and then we raked the yard and shoveled up all the mess. well at this point i was ready to get started on the real work and the woman was no where in sight and didnt seem to be leaving anytime soon, so i just sucked it up and started carefully unloading over her car [which to be honest was pretty beat to hell anyway...]. well im pretty good and never had an issue with her car or the truck, although it did take a few acrobatics with these huge timbers from time to time, but whatever. anyway, as i got started measuring and plotting everything out karen got to work applying the waterseal to what was already put together on the ground. before long i had drilled all the pilot holes i needed and cut to size all the members for the next level and karen insisted i let her coat the bottoms of the timbers before i installed them. well believe it or not, this was the point when i decided we'd better get the camera out and document a little of this, so its not quite the end of day 1's progress, but its close enough, so heres the first progress picture [see yesterday's post for the "before" shot].

[progress.one]

so you should be able to make out pretty clearly where the fence posts used to be, and this is the first layer of planter after its weatherseal coat and you can even see one of the bottoms she was working on standing vertically on the porch. at any rate, moving on.

so we started to assemble the pieces of the next tier as karen finished applying her waterseal coat to the bottom and after a little elbow grease we soon had that tier finished and were ready to start the next. ill tell you though, this time around i got some longer nails to drive through two tiers worth and after they made it through the 4inches or so of pre-drilled hole they were a uh... bugger and a half to drive the rest of the way. and given the number of them i was using to tie everything together it took a little time and a lot of tiring muscle to get the stupid things in there. however after they were secure the end result was a pretty damn rigid construction that was well worth the effort. as far as i can tell, this thing aint goin anywhere. =]

so soon enough i got started measuring, marking, cutting, and drilling on the next two tiers [with occasional assistance from my beautiful sidekick who is quite the pro at holding for me] and we were getting those put together as well. well... i had kind of promised the wife that she could leave at 1, and when 1 came we'd only just finished the second tier and she was getting a bit perturbed with me - not to mention sick and tired of applying weather seal. so i asked if she could give it just another half hour and she agreed, so i started measuring on the final tier. well, this time around half the assembly was strategically already cut when getting the others cut to size, so the cutting was actually quite minimal. all we needed to do was notch the tops a little so it would fit under the porch ledge and then drill the holes for all the fasteners. well... notching was a little easier said than done, especially with the chainsaw and the members definitely wanted to move around a little. but we got it one and no one lost any limbs [or even came close really] but by the time we got that finished karen had had enough and was ready to be taken to studio, she had other things to accomplish that day. so frustrated, we cleaned up all the tools and i took her to school only to return home and get them all back out so that i could finish this project once and for all. and at this point we took another progress picture before i took karen to school, so heres that little update.

[progress.two]

so you can see how all the tiers are stacking and going together now and its pretty obvious the color difference between where the weatherseal had been applied at this point.

well, by the time i got home it took me about 5 minutes to drill the rest of the holes and assemble the remaining parts and that was it! construction phase complete! so i cleaned up all the tools and then got started applying the weatherseal to all the remaining wood. it was pretty interesting to see the reactions we got from the neighborhood as they passed by, i must say. we live on a pretty main street and almost everyone that passed by as we were putting this thing together had questions or comments of some kind for us. it was pretty entertaining, haha. well as i put on the final touches of weatherseal i was pretty pleased with myself, but starting to feel the sun... i was definitely getting a little more sun that usual. but i was so close to being finished! so after completing the planter i got out the new seeding and started spreading it throughout the freshly cut "yard" and not long after i was sweeping up and finished with the entire project.

so at this point i took a few more shots, and heres your final progress shot for the day.

[progress.final]

so now all we need is some soil to fill it up the rest of the way and then we can start planting some flowers or grasses or whatever we end up putting in this thing. the problem is that the front of our house is north facing, so im afraid we might end up having to get mostly shade plants, but thats an issue for a future time.

well after getting cleaned up and showered and what not it was getting close to movie time so i called mom to tell her happy mothers day and around 4:30 i left to go drop the truck off with karen at school. well... things didnt exactly go as planned at this point. i should have timed it a little better, but by the time i got to school and helped karen load up some stuff it was pretty much 5 and the movie was supposed to start at 4:45. damnit. well there was no way i was going to miss the beginning, so i decided id just go to the showing at 7:30 instead and after rethinking her schedule karen decided shed come along after all and we spent another hour or so at her school while she finished up some studio stuff, then went home for dinner and then at about 7:10 we were at the theater and i was excitedly waiting for the new star trek to start!

well i loved the movie, it was absolutely incredible. no not a huge trekky by any measure, but i have seen all the original movies and was excited to see the prequel. well it was definitely a great movie and had everything i hoped for and more. theyve even managed [as hollywood always does] to open themselves the opportunity to start a whole new franchise of star trek movies with the new cast if this one does well [which it totally will!]. so im pretty excited about that. this was probably my favorite star trek yet, although thereve definitely been some really good ones in the past as well. i think this one is just more generationally appealing to me and i can really relate to the production value a little better than the late 70's versions, although they were definitely awesome for their time. =]

anyway, after the movie we headed home for the night and i got some laundry going and then sat down to blog. my mind was racing from the weekend and for some reason i had plenty of energy so it seemed appropriate to blog while i waited for the laundry to be finished. anyway, by about midnight i was finished blogging, karen had passed out a half hour to an hour earlier and the laundry was done so i turned in for the night.

and well, that was our weekend!

hope you enjoyed the story and the pictures, and feel free to check out a few more shots of the construction on my web albums if you feel so inclined.

hope you all had a great weekend and a happy mothers day, and have a great week!

unanticipated.productivity [one]

so when last we parted, i mentioned that we didnt really have anything planned for the weekend. well, as it turns out, that was partly a lie. unbeknownst to me, my wife had already started quite a list of errands for saturday morning that would in turn breed an entire weekend of activity. 

so lets get to the guts shall we?

[saturday]

so saturday morning we actually got up kind of early, i still dont know why, especially considering id been up past midnight watching battlestar and karen had dozed off somewhere around midnight herself. either way, we were both awake at around 7:50 if memory serves, and while she went down to the office to work on some homework i watched another episode of battlestar, hehe. [ive only got 8 episodes left of the series and im on pins and needles! is there really not going to be a 5th season??? theyre just going to start this new series, caprica, told through the eyes of two cylons?? im in utter disbelief... i must be in for one hell of a series finale...] anyhoo, around 9ish i ventured down to the office to inquire about my wifes ongoings and discovered she was already planning our day out. so we both started getting ready and then somewhere around 10:30 [i think] we were getting on the road to start our list of errands for the morning. 

first up was a stop at the hardware store to return some items from studio that she didnt end up using. after that, a stop at the bank so karen could get some forms notarized for something or other and put them in the mail. after the bank it was around 11:30-ish and we were both decidedly hungry so we popped over to the panera bread next door for an early lunch. i had the egg salad and karen had some chicken panini of some kind - both quite delicious. and on the way out the door, we could help but stop at the "window of guilt and shame" and select a few mouth watering pastry deserts for the road. i dont know about you, but that window should be outlawed, i have no where near the self-control to pass that up, and it would be much better for me [and by me, i mean my wasitline...] if the powers that be stepped in to put a stop to the madness... but i digress.... after lunch the next stops were the library - for karen to return some items shed checked out for studio, the rec center... well, thats obvious, then onward to the depot and the grocery store. actually, come to think of it the bank didnt open till 11 when we went there first and so we decided to do the library and rec first, then the bank and lunch, but i dont suppose the order is terribly significant at this point.

well the first couple of stops going as planned, and we were feeling pretty pleased with our success for the day as we headed on to get more errands done. soon we were pulling into the oh-so-familiar home depot parking lot full of that depot anticipation. [which from my experience is a pretty good mixture of excitement for all the goodies we'll find and dread for the number at the bottom of the receipt...] well the reason we were there was that the "front yard" had become quite overrun with weeds in the last few weeks and after a few weekends of rain they were getting to be quite tall. so we'd about had enough of it and with a good weather weekend in-process we decided we better take advantage of it. so the plan was to get a small lawn mower and possibly some grass seed, and also we were going to look at the possibility of a new door for the second floor shop at the house [see posts on karens studio project vs. my missing door] ao it turns out that the cheapest lawn mowers that they carry are the old wheel blade kind that you push, which is exactly what wed anticipated getting, however even those run for 100 freakin bucks, and theres no way in hell im paying that. so we considered our options and opted instead for a small rechargeable weed whacker. considering that our "front yard" is about 10ftx15ft [if im being generous] i didnt think a small battery powered weed whacker seemed all that unreasonable. especially since it was only a moderate 30-something bucks. so after picking up the weed whacker and explaining to karen why we'd need an extra spool of line even though it said on the box that there was line included... [women...] we headed to the garden center to find us some seedin. well right inside the door they had exactly what i was looking for - scotts turf builder plus with weed killer and advanced hydrating something or other - 15 bucks for 1000sf... haha, ive got 150sf, so that might be a bit overkill, but its the smallest bag they carry, hahaha. so we got that and after having some conversation i convinced the wifey to head over to lumber with me to have a look at some timbers for a planter i want build in the front yard at some point. no commitments, we didnt have to buy anything, just looking... right. ;]

so we looked, and found these really cool rough cut 6x6 timbers for a very reasonable price and the wheels in my mind started turning. as we left the timber section discussing our options and debating the financial practicality of it all we strolled through the door section. at this point they had to pull out the paddles and revive me from the floor as we discovered that the least expensive door they carry with any kind of glass is almost freakin 200 bucks! ha! no thank you... well, after that catastrophe i convinced the wife we should have another gander at the timbers [that project seemed a lot more inexpensive now, haha, these were only 14 bucks each!] and as we debated the possibilities and the design details, we decided we could try out a few timbers and build a small planter and see how it went. so excitedly we got one of the guys to help us pull down 3 timbers [they were on one of the higher stacks and well, they were big.] and as he helped us and i had him check the quality of each timber for cracks and splits and what not, he inquired about our project. well i told him we were going to build a planter and he told us about some other items on the next isle that we might be interested in. so he walked us over to the next isle and pointed out some 1/2 inch rebar landscape spins, and a bunch of giant galvanized nails that would probably be useful. well, i was quite excited to see all of these goodies and quickly re-assessed our design ideas in my mind and decided we would definitely be needing to acquire these items, heh.

well soon enough wed loaded up the items wed need to investigate the planter and found our way to the checkout counter to do our daily damage. i dont remember now how much we spent, but im also not sure i want to. at any rate, i was very excited to get going on the new project and was ready to skip the grocery store altogether. however, my wife being the pragmatist of the moment insisted that it was on the list and was an actual necessity [unlike my pipe dreams] and convinced me it would be getting checked off the list next. so i seceded my opposition and reluctantly drove over to the grocery store to get it off the list. 

well after not too much longer we were pulling up to the house and unloading all the groceries and while karen put some of those away i got started unloading the home depot stuff. well after wed gotten everything unloaded and found all the necessary tools we jumped into constructing the planter and getting some yard work done. the first thing we did was to go through the yard and pull all the tallest weeds that we could and dispose of those. after that i started moving some dirt around to fill the hole in the middle of the yard and try and level out the area that we were planning to build the planter. at this point i cant remember the order anymore but there was some raking, some more weed pulling [as the weed whacker charged and charged and never finished charging on saturday...] and then at some point we made the decision to disassemble the chain link fence in the front as well. we'd discussed doing this a number of times and were both in agreement and now seemed as good a time as any to do it. so we managed to get the chain link down and only the pipe posts remaining and were satisfied as we moved on to the construction of the planter. well since these timbers were 6x6 and rough cut anyway i decided the best way to get them to the size we wanted was with the chainsaw [which worked like a charm! shockingly so in fact.] and then we drilled out holes for the rebar and pre-drilled holes for the nails. before long we had the timbers in place and we were driving the rebar and fastening the thing together. come 4:30 or 5 we were finished for the day and had a small planter constructed and had even relocated a small pile of dirt in the front inside of it. so the yard was really starting to come together and we were quite pleased with ourselves for the day. 

at this point we decided to take showers and get cleaned up and then at 7 we made our way over to one of karen's professor's house for a small studio dinner party. they had a pretty cool house and some amazing views of cincinnati and we had a good time. it was one hell of a dinner party and there were a lot of people to mingle with, im not sure how they pulled off the food, but it was delicious and we had a really nice time. 

so by the time we pulled up to the house around 10:30/11pm we were both pretty exhausted and soon passed out for the night. 

and with that, im going to call it a night myself, and we'll continue the story of sunday for another time. =] night!

the.before

alright, so this isnt actually from this weekend, but if you can imagine a forest of 2ft tall weeds in here, then its close enough. [note the hole in the middle of the yard to the left of the center of the image. its the black spot and its probably about 3 ft in diameter and a ft deep - give or take]

no.70

so this saturday went pretty much as scheduled.

karen had to go to school at 10 for this personal trainer class shes taking, so while she was in class i went to the grocery store to do our normal shopping and then a little extra for the party. then went home to unload groceries and start doing the final cleaning stuff. i did mostly outside work while she was still in class, just making the place look a little more presentable and moving all the "junk" into a less conspicuous place. then around 2pm i went and picked karen up and we decided we were both pretty hungry and needed to get lunch. so since we didnt want to make anymore messes to clean up at the house we decided to go to currito again. this time i got a bangkok burrito and karen got a mediterranean burrito - both were excellent - although the feta was a little over-powering for my tastes, but karen loved it.

anyway, after lunch we went back to the house and got started cleaning up everything, for the next few hours we just did a lot of that, and probably around 5 we were satisfied and went upstairs to get showered and ready. by 6 we were in the kitchen getting food prepped and then just hanging out in anticipation of who might arrive first.

well a little after 7 amanda, patrick, and caity arrived with treats in hand, and so the party started. not long after they arrived, cae & emil were the second group and we all chatted and snacked for a while as everyone looked around at the various rooms on the first floor. amanda and patrick were the only people who had seen the house other than the family and the neighbors across the street so everyone was very curious to check everything out. well, soon enough another friend of karens arrived and then soon enough the neighbors from across the street did too, so all the boys started working on the kabobs while all the girls chatted.

everything was going pretty great for a while, the kabobs were on the grill and smelling great, and everyone seemed to be having a good time and someone asked how the grillin was going, so we checked em out and uh oh... there was no fire. whoops, must have gone out on us when we werent watching it. so we tried to relight it... and nothing happened... and again, and again... crap, we were out of propane. sooo... the girls decided to let us run and get some more propane while they continued to party without us. and sure enough we ran down the block and got a new tank of propane and were back without much notice from them at all, haha. well, we hooked the new tank up, got the fire going again, and then karen and i decided it was time for the grande tour while we waited on the food to finish. so we started giving the master tour of the house and ushering the mob from room to room, until we got into the attic and patrick and emil remembered the food. so they raced down to save it before it was all black, and we finished up the tour. they apparently were just in the nick of time and once we all got back downstairs everyone grabbed a skewer and chowed down. turns out we didnt do half bad for our first time grilling kabobs. =] they were quite tasty and before we knew it we were totally out and started a second batch while everyone mingled. soon enough the second batch came out and everyone enjoyed those as well.

so i cant tell you for sure how much longer it was, but everyone moved into the dining room after the second round of grilling and started in on the desert that amanda had brought, and i got started cleaning, heh. at some point there was crazy dancing in the kitchen initiated by my wife and joined by a few of the girls and that was definitely fun to watch, haha. but overall it was just a lot of fun to socialize and snack and relax. somewhere around 11pm everyone was saying their goodnights and we were pretty exhausted from the night... well, i was. karen was ready to go out dancing but eventually i convinced her the bed was a better idea and we retired for the night, lol.

on sunday we had a similar morning, karen had to be at personal training again, so i dropped her off at school, and then this time around i decided to go to church, and then get a haircut, and then pick up a few items wed managed not to get on the grocery list the day before. well, while i was at the store i decided to get a bunch of goodies [like this awesome chicken salad that biggs has in their little fresh market area] and pack a picnic lunch to take up to karen when she finished her class. she told me she was going to be working on studio for most of the day after the personal training class, so i thought it would be a nice fun thing for her to have a little picnic at studio.

well soon enough after i got home it was about that time, so i headed up to her school. well... i didnt know her partner was going to be there too, haha, so the picnic basket was a little embarrassing but karen was tickled and we enjoyed a brief lunch before she got back to work.

then for the next few hours i decided to hangout and keep them company and lend a little muscle occasionally when they needed a little extra. by about 7 they were finished for the night and had made a lot of progress on their project.

so we went home and just settled in for a little relaxing and recovering from the weekend in preparation for the week ahead. watched a little tv, had dinner, and eventually turned in for the night.

and now its monday. and well, i dont really want to talk about today. it hasnt been the greatest morning, but im hoping the day gets better. who-knows. at any rate, theres definitely nothing exciting going on and im still pretty tired from the weekend. i think id be content to go home and veg for a little while before crashing early. we'll see how it goes, but i bet thats what happens, haha!

sorry i didnt take any pictures. i always forget to get the camera out at parties. i just get distracted and its the furthest thing from my mind. but we really did have a great time and everyone seemed to like the house, so... cool! =]

have a great week!

organizize

so i guess its been a little while.

well, last week karen went on hiatus for a few days. for those of you that didnt already know, my lovely wife went on vacation from wednesday through saturday leaving me all alone. sad day... anyhoo. she went to new orleans for a conference of some kind that had something to do with pop-culture phenomena. even after shes explained it to me [in her own special way...] half a dozen times, i am still not completely sure what the purpose of the conference was, but i suppose thats irrelevant. the basic gist of things is that last quarter karen wrote a paper for a class, somehow she became aware of a publication or competition or something of the like that she submitted the paper to. then after a process of entry elimination she was selected as one of 4 in her category [historical movie something or other??] to present her paper at this conference. so, she left wednesday morning and flew to new orleans and then from what i can tell had herself a great time without me soaking up the warmth of the u.s. southern costal region and enjoying plenty of delicious food. anyway, she came back saturday. i dont think she even missed me, which was apparent by her dodging my calls each night ;]

anyway, she had a good time, so im glad. while she was gone i didnt do a whole lot during the week. i worked out a little and vegged out infront of the tv a lot. friday night i did go and have some fun of my own though. my friend from work, amanda - but not the one ive mentioned before... this is a different amanda... which is going to lead to all kinds of confusion, so from hence forth she shall be known as umm... miami - had a little party at her new place. recently she moved into a loft right smack in the center of downtown cincy, and shes been discussing the move with me pretty regularly. anyway, i got to see pictures of the proposed loft pre-move in and i was really excited for. and since she got it, well... i was really wanting to see the place, it looked super cool from what little i saw. anyway, friday night she had people over to the new place and i was one of those in attendance. so right after work i went to the store to pic up a few items for her while she went to tidy up and get the place ready for the party, and maybe a half hour later i finally arrived. well ive gotta say, the place was gorgeous! i LOVE her loft! i wish id taken my camera and gotten pictures to put up, it was just soooo awesome! exposed brick all around, exposed structure, a very hip & modern loft layout, tons of natural light [well, excpet it was torrential-ly down pouring on this particular night, but ive got a great imagination] and to top it all off the place was totally immaculate and completely set-up. after only a month!! ugh!! it made me sick. shed lived there a MONTH and had already completely unpacked and turned the place into an ultra-hip party pad. she sickens me... miami, you sicken me. but your place is awesome!! =] anyway, we had a great time, although it was the weirdest party ive ever been to, lol. so when i got there 2 people had shown up before me. and as the night progressed, slowly 2 people would arrive, and two people would leave in this steady, slightly overlapping, rotation of new pairs of guests, haha. it was so bizarre. but sure enough, two more would arrive, and then the 2 before them would leave, lol! i was the only consistent party-er the entire night, mostly because i had nothing to do, hahaha! but yeah, great time and a GREAT place!

saturday, in preparation for karens return i decided to give my wife a big present. so i got up bright and early - 7:40-ish i think... thats REALLY early for a saturday, for me. and started cleaning. yep, thats right. the place was an absolute disaster... we'd been working on projects every weekend [as im sure you've already read] and only succeeded in creating more and more messes on top of previous messes and well, id had enough. and after miami's party, i was determined to get our place into a somewhat presentable situation. so in essence i started in our room upstairs and then made my way, room by room, through most of the house - cleaning and organizing. well, im pretty proud to say that by about 3pm i had severely impacted the status of our house. organizing is definitely one of my strengths and when i put my mind to it [and with the help of a little frustration and exasperation with my surroundings] i can accomplish pretty amazing transformations. so.. not only did i clean and organize the crap out of... well, everything, i also went about attempting to re-arrange furniture as karen and i had discussed previously, and even finally put together our "real" dining table and set it up. well, i didnt tell karen, obviously, that i was going to/do any of this, so when i picked her up at the airport @ 4pm i just pretended id slept in late and then been lazy all morning - give her a good surprise, heh. anyway, at that point we were both pretty hungry [i hadnt eaten all day i was so focused on my task] so we decided to hit one of our favorite places previously mentioned, cactus pear, which we hadnt been to in some time. it was delicious as always =] this time i actually got what my mom had gotten when we took them there, the nacho-salad, and it was really really good - definitely hit ALL the spots. ;]

well after lunch i took her home and she walked in the door and into the dining room heading to the kitchen for something and halfway through the dining room she stopped. haha, it always takes her a second to actually see her surroundings, lol! personally, im an extremely observant person and i notice even the slightest changes in my surroundings pretty instantaneously, but this girl - god, i love her - it always takes her a few minutes, lol! anyway, halfway through the dining room she turns around "did you organize?" lol, duh! so she walked through all the different rooms and was quite pleased with her surprise. she was just beaming with excitement at all the newly "cleaned" space and our ability to actually walk through all of our rooms, haha. so yeah, i did pretty good. i made the wife happy.

sooooo... this week has been a lot of the norm. nothing very spectacular [or even vaguely interesting for that matter] has happened to either of us from my recollection. however, after the party last weekend i was truly inspired. and after cleaning up the place and discussing it with the wife, karen and i decided it was finally time to have people over to the new house [and we wish all of you could come too!!!] =]

we've been delaying time and time again because this thing or that project wasnt finished yet, and then another one pops up and then another and then... well we finally decided it was never going to be ready, so we might as well just get over it. so we've been doing a pretty good job of keeping the place in order this week and tomorrow morning we'll do a really good last minute touch-up, but then tomorrow evening we're really excited to have a bunch of people over. we sent out facebook invites last sunday and we've gotten various responses, but it appears that we'll have a handful of people for sure coming over and then another handful who may or may not stop by depending on how their other plans work out for the night. either way, we're really excited to finally entertain and get some feedback on the place from all our friends!

haha, hopefully its the good kind, we've really busted our asses to transform the place from the way it was when we got it. i just dont know how much anyone could tell having not seen the before... oh-well, if everyone just has a mildly enjoyable time, i'll be more than satisfied.

so... thats about it. youre updated on last week, last weekend, and this week. hopefully the "party" will be a success and ill try to remember to take some pictures and update you on that afterwards. but for now, my lunch break is nearing its end, and im out of things to really talk about anyway.

oh, and for those of you that didnt take an interest in my email or didnt get it, you should really check out this site: http://www.fairtax.org its a pretty interesting idea on a new tax system and the deeper into it i read, the more convinced i am that it might be a pretty good solution to our current economic crisis. but im no expert on the subject, by any means, so make your own judgement. =]

oh, and lastly, for those of you that are always wanting pictures, heres a few. =]

[and as usual, also on my photo site.]

the "real" dining table and our new chairs.

and a little closer.

the new "salmony-orange" couch in its new home.

the old couch... yes, its still around... and some book shelf progress - we're so close, but still have plenty to do...

hope you like! =]

welcome.to.the.working.week[end]

hello, hello there. seems like its been a while since i updated you, so i thought id take my lunch break to do just that. although... [if youve guessed anything from the title of this post] theres not as much to report as usual. 

[02.07.09|saturday]

well i woke up bright and early at 7:30 on saturday morning and hopped in the shower. why would i be up at such an un-godly hour on a saturday? glad you asked. because i had the pleasure of having to go in to work on saturday. i found out friday afternoon that i was going to be working this weekend, and although i wasnt thrilled about the prospect, i made my peace with it. so saturday morning i got up and got to it. well by the time i got out of the shower karen informed me that id missed a call, and as i checked my voicemail i discovered that the window guys had called about installing the new [and final!] window in the "project room." well i called back a few times, but to no avail, theyd skipped us and gone on to the next house. bummer. oh-well, i had to get to work. so karen and i discussed our days, made coffee and then i was out the door with one last kiss. 

i made a quick detour through wendy's to pick up a little breakfast and made it to work at about 9:15 sharp, and got right to it. around 11 the window guys called back to make sure someone would be there, and then went and did their thing - we now have all our windows! woohoo!! and yet... i remained.. at work. around 1:30 the bossman ordered lunch and i grabbed a quick bite before getting back into my work. all in all i worked about 6 and a half hours on saturday [this after id already pulled a 14.5 hour day on thursday....] and by the time i left for home, i was drained. there was no way i was getting much accomplished that evening. well i got home and found that my lovely wife had done some cleaning throughout the day [while she was hopelessly depressed missing me, im sure] and had also started prepping the rest of the dining room - good girl. but i wasnt going to be doing a ton of painting, not in my current condition. so we discussed the rest of the evening and she told me about a craigslist item we were picking up later and then started baking dinner while i did just a little painting and had a nice adult beverage to unwind from a long start to the weekend. 

soon enough we went to pick up the new craigslist item - any guesses? haha, i know its impossible, we got a grill! karen has been wanting a grill since... well, before we even got married, lol! and saturday she found one for 20bucks - only 2 years old, in working order, one mostly full propane tank, and one spare tank [empty], only a little rust - overall a hell of a buy! oh and did i mention it came with a bearcats grill cover as well? [i think on some level she was more excited about the cover than the grill, lol!] well it was fun to go pickup the grill - and im shocked at how light it was! on the way we had a long drawn out discussion about karen's thesis and what direction shes taking, topic, etc. [i wont go into the details, you'll just have to bug her if you want to know] and then on the way home we had a spirited debate on doing a thesis project and if it should be required, and what requirements we thought were appropriate to be a professor... and apparently what the definition of a professor even was. shes a fun one, my wife. =]

anyway, the rest of the evening we relaxed, ate some delicious dinner prepare by chef karen - her own little gourmet creation: mexican cornbread casserole - ole! [heh, just had to throw that in there] it was awesome, she did a great job! and we also watched life as a house. a+ movie, one of my favorites, if you havent seen it, you should consider it. i swear, i almost cry every freaking time at the end - almost.

[02.08.09|sunday]

well i woke up bright and early at 7:30 on sunday morning and hopped in the shower. wait... deja-vu? yes... sadly... i was going to work, yet again on sunday morning. ugh. [karen wasnt exactly delighted by my absence this weekend] well she dropped me off this time, and then went to run some errands [mostly grocery shopping and filling the truck up with gas - for 44 cents a gallon baby! woo-effing-hoo! thats right! 44cents! eat that big oil! - how, you ask? have i mentioned the bigg's pump perks program before? well if no,t google it, its pretty self explanitory] i ended up working for 4 hours on sunday before id had enough and called it quits for the day.

karen picked me up at 1:30 and we decided that it was a beautiful day [low 50's, sunny, just gorgeous!] and that it was perfect weather for margaritas - haha! so we decided to hit a local "mexican-food" place on the river [don pablos - not real mexican, but itll do. they do have pretty good margaritas!] for a nice relaxing lunch. so while we over-indulged on our "mexican-food" we also started a list of projects that we could possibly attempt when the entire family shows up next week [list to follow at the end of the blog...]. after lunch we headed home and were so full we didnt want to do much of anything - so we started to watch a netflix: righteous kill. about halfway through it karen really wanted to take a walk [i think she was feeling like a fatty, haha!] so she made me get off my lazy arse and go walking with her. it was actually a really nice walk, the weather was still great, and we had fun sliding on the remaining patches of ice, haha! not to mention, it was just nice to get out of the house and stroll around our awesome little neighborhood. we lazily looked in all the windows of the different buisnesses, and i woke up a sleeping cat in the local art gallery, haha! he seemed a little pissed that i woke him up and wasnt able to scratch his back as he so clearly wanted me too - sorry! anyway, it was a nice sunday afternoon stroll through the park [literally at one point] and then we went home to finish the movie. 

i dont know if ive just seen too many movies or if the "plot twists" really were that predictable, but i figured it all out halfway through the movie. overall it was okay - i give it a solid b i suppose. it was a little slow going, and i was thoroughly unimpressed with robert deniro, carla gugino, & john leguizamo's performaces - ive come to expect more from them. donnie whalburg was at about par id say, the true godfather [al pacino] was great as always, and 50-cent was... actually a little better than i expected - kudos. but again, it was pretty slow - even the intense parts. see it if you want to, you'll probably enjoy it. anyway, after the movie i was feeling super-lazy so we retired to the bed to watch some tv on my laptop before turning in for the night...

[02.09.09|monday]

...until 6am this morning, when we had a little scare. at 6:03am our alarm system went off and in full force. i hadnt heard anything before it went off, like glass breaking or pounding, etc. but none-the-less it was blaring and i was a little caught off guard. i slowly put on some pants and grabbed the flashlight as karen and i discussed what i should do - we decided shortly that i was going to go check it out while we waited for the alarm company to call me. well, ive got to say, im not entirely impressed with their response time, it was probably a solid 2 minutes before my phone finally rang, at which point id turned on half the lights in the house and was finally arriving at the first floor. i told the girl on the phone i wasnt sure what was going on and she told me it was the dining room sensor that had triggered, so i de-activated the alarm and checked things out while she was on the phone ready to call 911 if necessary. well, after thoroughly checking out everything - i couldnt find anything out of place. all the windows and doors were in their normal condition, nothing obvious had fallen over, there were no signs of someone in the house, nothing. so i thanked her and said goodbye before turning the alarm back on and going back upstairs. the woman said that sometimes it could just be a large particle of dust that sets it off, so i really dont know. maybe some of the tape on the walls fell loose and caused enough movement to trigger it. or maybe it did its job and whoever it was was on the front porch or side of the house and was scared off by the alarm picking them up. either way, im glad it worked, but it was an unsettling morning getting ready for and going to work, lol. but we're fine and the house is fine and our alarm system is obviously fully functional. =]

anyway, im at work now and thats about all there is to report for recent events. i ended up working half the weekend and we didnt get too much accomplished because of it. a little disappointing, but im sure we'll survive. hey, we did get a pretty good list going for next week!

and here it is[for those of you that are excited about what you'll be getting to do soon!] ;]

general house stuff:

electrical 

exterior doors [replacing, repairing, & weather-sealing]

caulking any remaining windows

paint various furniture

basement:

clean floors, walls, & rafters

board up walk-out & weather-seal

mortar walls

paint & weather seal walls

insulating foam @ exterior walls?

patch & seal hole @ north end

entry:

put up crown

touchup paint on baseboards

parlor:

thoroghly clean fireplace

clean, patch, & prep walls & ceiling

paint walls & ceiling

window treatments

bookshelves

dining room:

powder-room entry

powder room:

i dont even know... it needs help - tiling?

kitchen:

halfwall

dishwasher & garbage disposal installation

2nd floor general:

strip any wall paper

clean, patch, & prep walls & ceilings

paint walls & ceilings

unpacking and organizing [at the appropriate time]

2nd floor bedroom:

clean & strip fireplace [then figure out what to do from there]

run electrical for and install light

window treatments

2nd floor closet:

repair heating duct

acquire & install closet systems

window treatments

2nd floor office:

assemble and install shelves or bookcase [if acquired by then]

assemble and install desk [ditto]

put up artwork?

2nd floor bathroom:

acquire & install new faucet for tub

install new faucet for sink

remove shelves

re-finish tub?

new cabinets?

new tile?

2nd floor project room:

remove wall board

other...?

2nd floor hall:

pull up carpet & refinish floors

stairs...

3rd floor closet/bathroom

install towel rack

install closet hardware

patch walls...

um, thats all we've thought up so far. i doubt we'll actually get to all [or most even] of it. and depending on the electrical situation... well, that might be all we end up working on, who knows. 

either way, its sure to be a busy & fun-filled family time, haha! cant wait!

hope you all have a great week! talk to you again soon! =]

little.victories

1.30.09|friday

well when last we spoke of current events it was friday afternoon and if memory serves, we were discussing the new windows, the inspections|permits situation, and my parents had just informed us of their impending visit. for those of you who actively read the comments as well, you already know that i mentioned in one that amanda was coming to town friday night, that was the basis of our evening's activities.

so after work karen and i called up amanda and we arranged our schedules for the evening and planned what we were going to do. amanda had some meeting to attend when she first arrived in cincy and we werent going to meet|eat till after 8pm, so karen and i decided to make our first stop dinner [seeing as we were famished post-travieller] and after a short debate on what sounded good we ended up at deweys for a nice big salad and a nice big pizza. it was delish as always and after dinner we headed home for a little hard work. 

we got back at the house around 6:30 and the place was a disaster so we spent the next hour and 45 minutes cleaning any and every-thing from one room to the next. just general tidying up, straightening, putting things away, organizing, and where necessary some good old fashioned cleaning of floors, surfaces, etc. at 8 amanda notified us that she and pay-trick [thats patrick in "amanda speak" - her boy... well, im really not sure what they are technically...] were at hideaway [another local northside restaurant that has some pretty delicious food and a funky-eclectic atmosphere that karen and i find pleasing and humorous. they also have the most awesome appetizer called creamer potatoes with special hideaway sauce - if you ever venture to hideaway you HAVE to try them... mm-mmm, delectable!] and were ready for our arrival. so we finished what we were doing, bundled up for the cold [high teens to low twenties i believe] and drove the 4 blocks to meet them, lol! [it was cooold!] soon after we arrived a few more of amanda's friends from cincy joined us as well and the 6 of us waited for a table and had a few laughs. eventually we were seated and had more robust conversation and some of the fore-mentioned creamer-potatoes, and eventually main courses [i was still full from deweys so i abstained from a main course, haha]. we had a good time hanging out and having dinner and eventually it was time to hit the road so we said our goodbyes and then amanda and pay-trick followed us over to the house so that they could be the first of our friends to see the new place! how exciting!

well for the next couple of hours we gave them the tour and then enjoyed more conversation and laughs [not to mention a little wine and some of my mother-in-law's AWESOME fudge! which we all thoroughly enjoyed! thanks mom!] before they ultimately said their goodbyes and headed home for the night. it was a ton of fun getting to have a social life for a night and we loved being able to finally entertain at the house - even if it was only for a short while and the place was a disaster, lol!

1.31.09|saturday

saturday morning we slept in a little, but eventually were pulled from our warm cozy bedding by our desire for sustenance. i was the first down and got coffe started and then decided to make some of my famous breakfast burrito concoction that i can only refer to as "breakfast mix-up." i wont divulge my secret recipe, but i will say its always a pleasing meal for karen and i and will surely fill you up! for us it made a quite satisfying brunch [as it was nearly noon by the time we finished] after which we decided to relax on the dining room sofa for a while and watch some west wing. [i LOVE west wing!]

i honestly cant say how long we vegged out, but at some point we decided it was time to get something accomplished for the day and the first thing we did was unpack and put away a bunch of boxes that were still in the dining room. satisfied with that project and ready for the next, we decided to move all the furniture away from the walls and get started prepping the dining room for painting. it was the next room in line and we were anxious to get the ghastly sponge-painted catastrophy that was our dining room out of sight and out of mind. so for the next few hours we cleaned, taped, and plastered the walls on 2/3rds of the room. [we've decided that the only way we can really do these rooms and live in the house at the same time is to do half a room at a time until completion and move all the furniture from one side to the other, but still have it in somewhat of a useable arrangement. such was the case with the dining room as well.]

eventually karen decided to call it a night [without telling me, lol, i thought she'd just gone upstairs to use the restroom or something] and i did a second run-through of plastering before assisting a neighbor in freeing her car from the snow and then eventually a nice-hot-shower and bed. [karen had passed out pretty quickly, so she didnt even notice my absence until i made my way upstairs and woke her, lol!]

2.1.09|super-bowl.sunday

haha, super-bowl sunday indeed... 

karen and i had decided the night before that we were going to get up early sunday morning and get one coat of paint on the dining room before church so that by the time we returned it would be ready for the second coat. well as arranged, we got up early and did some painting and were really excited about the new color. its kind of a sagey-olive-green [although it reminds me more of what i consider to be army green than anything else] and after the first coat we were quite pleased as we headed upstairs to get ready for church. the paint went on very well and thr room looked a trillion times better after one-wet-coat. [that sponge paint was horrific!!]

well, as it often seems to happen, we finished getting ready for church at about 10:05. church usually starts at 10am [although this weekend for super-bowl sunday they were starting at 10:15am. regardless...] it was obvious we werent going to make it to the 10am service, so we resigned ourselves to doing a once over of all the shopping lists before treating ourselves to a breakfast at ihop before attempting the later service. 

well i dont mind telling you we were very pleased to discover that ihop had all you could eat pancakes! hahaha! i enjoyed the hell out of some pancakes and was quite proud of myself for putting away 3 plates of them =] however, in light of the all-you-can-eat situation, the plates they brought you were about 2/3rds the norm. at any rate, we were nicely filled to the gills by the time we waddled out of ihop, however it was only 11:30 and the next service wasnt starting for another 45 minutes. at this point we decided to make the quickest shopping trip on our list, a quick run to walmart for some lightbulbs and license plate covers [we finally got our license plates for the new truck last week!]

well... haha... things never quite go as planned. we got to walmart after 15 minutes of traffic [which was pathetic because it was only across the freakin bridge from ihop! where did all these people come from?? and where were they going??] but were sure we could get our few items and still make it on time. so we went in and found the lightbulb section just where we'd left it the last time we'd been there, however this is where we ran into a slight problem. we were getting lightbulbs because we had some cupons from our energy company that were going to expire soon and we wanted to take advantage of them before that happened. however the cupons were very specific about which lightbulbs [all cfl's of course! woohoo!] each cupon was for. well you wouldnt think that would be too much of a problem except that the specific packaging was shown on the cupon and the packaging of the lightbulbs in the store had changed since the things were issued. i wasnt sure if it was going to be a problem or not, but looked for the ones pictured for a while. 

to make matters worse, haha, while i was being anal retentive, karen got distracted by the adjacent fabric section and wandered off. it was an awesome find though, all the walmarts in denver, and im pretty sure texas as well, have stopped selling fabric and i assumed that it was a nationwide thing. recently karen and i have been looking for fabric to redo the new couches and chairs with, and joanns was a disappointment to say the least... whooo-expensive!

well we found all kinds of cool fabric and eventually i even found a sales associate [who was totally clueless about the lightbulbs anyway, so i just said screw it...] and got the closest thing i could find - oh and we also found some license plate covers, haha. anyway, by the time we checked out we looked at the clock and it was 12:30pm... so much for church. meh, they were doing some super-bowl sunday special thing anyway, and i was hardly interested in what that would turn out to be. i didnt mind missing it and we got to continue our sunday shopping anyway. 

after walmart we went next door to the depot [february had finally arrived!] to get a few things on our list - it was actually quite short considering how long it had been, 4 or 5 items total i think? followed by a quick trip to home emporium to pick up one specific item [more to come on that at a later date however], then next door to lowes for an additional supporting item to the one at home emporium, then finally next door again to bigg's to do our grocery shopping for the week. [whew!] after all of that we finally got home just before 4pm and were pretty tired, lol! well after unloading and putting away everything we decided to get to work, and jumped right in to the second coat of paint. it went on very smooth and we were really loving the color - it had only gotten better as it had greated us when we got home - fully dried and to its real color!

well after that coat of paint we were hungry again [although i dont know how!] and had a snack|supper and watched some more west wing [yeah!] and just relaxed for a while. however, around 6:30pm i was motivated again and we decided to tackle another project - re-covering the dining room sofa. 

well, after discussing our approach and testing some fabric and batting options, we searched the house for karens staple gun only to discover that it was pretty dinky and was NOT going to get the job done. we were both pretty revved up at this point so we made the decision to make a trip back to the depot to get a real staple gun and various staples and brads and such, and then continue the project. it was a very quick trip - we stayed focused: get in. get out. get home. - and before long we were stretching fabric and experimenting with the sofa. im not sure how long we played with that but we got half the sofa re-covered and so far we're really happy with it! i dont have pictures yet, im going to wait till we're finished with the transformation, but im really hoping it turns out well! =] after that i talked to my mom and brother for a little bit before bed and then karen and i passed out exhausted from our weekend.

yeah, we totally forgot about the super-bowl in the midst of all the projects, but then again neither of us were all that interested in it anyway - i didnt even know who was playing - nor did we have tv to watch anyhow. oh-well. 

2.2.09|monday

well, thats today. and youd think that it being only lunch time i wouldnt have much to report, however i do have two victories to add to this update! this morning on the way in to work we stopped off at the city building & inspections office and officially obtained our permit for the wall! woohoo!! so now that we have all our permits in order, i just need to schedule a couple of inspections and hopefully we can get the certificate of occupancy soon !

secondly, about 2 hours ago i got a phone call, and i was shocked to find that it was the window people calling. theyd already ordered the correct sized remaining window, it was being fabricated this week, and would be ready for installation this weekend! so we're getting the last window installed saturday morning! woohoo again!!!

i love little victories! =]

this week is starting off pretty good so far, but now, ive got to get back to work. hope you all have a great week too! ill try to keep you updated on any more progress we make on the house this week - although i certainly cant promise anything, lol!

cheers! [and go... steelers?? where my cowboys at??]

post.project.progress.past

sorry to those of you that were expecting this last week[or even early in this week...], work has been keeping me pretty busy lately and now once or twice a week im meeting with some co-workers during lunch to study for the leed certification exam. so yeah... lunch is getting tighter and tighter it seems. then there was the winter storm and the windows and such and well... time gets away from me... at times... anyway, lets get to the good stuff.

so not this last weekend but the weekend before, my mother-in-law came into town to visit us and help with whatever she could at the house. well... the week before she came we had to start getting ready for her arrival and figure out what projects we wanted to tackle while she was here. the most obvious projects involved painting but we werent sure which rooms, and we still needed to finish the ones we'd already started. not to mention we were still appalled with the paint in the entry way and there was no way we were letting anyone else see it like that... 

thursday|1.15.09

so thursday night, we put on our painting gear after work and got to it. we started by working on the second coat of the kitchen so that we could get it at least halfway done and push all the appliances back out to the walls where they belonged and out of the middle of the kitchen. [which alleviated a lot of tripping over each other in the kitchen, lol] that coat got started pretty quickly after we got everything prepped and as karen worked on the kitchen, i got down to business. it was time to fix that damned entry. 

so i got started taping and prepping and before i knew it karen was done with the kitchen and not really in the mood to do the entry, so i told her to take a break and id finish prepping and get started on it, she could join me when [if?] she felt like it. well i was able to get about 75% of the new paint on the walls when karen joined in [my memory eludes me at this point as to what she was doing in the other rooms of the house, but im sure it was something productive that wasnt painting] and she picked up the last bit of entry painting. we were really happy with the way the new paint was going on and it was already looking a million times better, even wet! we decided that was it for the night as far as painting goes, but we still had much to do in preparation - besides that coat needed to dry for the remainder of the night anyway. so we spent the remainder of the evening searching for our extra set of bed linens, unpacking the rest of the stuff in the attic and general cleaning organizing and such. i think we even got around to moving the mattresses upstairs and putting the bedding we finally found on the bed that night as well. needless to say we got a LOT accomplished - we didnt want to do much more than a second coat of paint in the entry if we had to the next day - she was coming in friday evening after all.

friday|1.16.09

so friday morning we woke up to a very pleasant surprise - the entry looks fantastic!! it was about freaking time! just one coat of the new paint was like magic so we said to heck with another coat we were done and cleaned all the plastic and tape up before work - the transformation was really just unreal to us. so anyway, the day went by fairly quickly as i remember and by the time we were home anne's flight had either arrived on time or a little late, but either way she was just getting on the road and wasnt due at the house for another half hour or more. so we busied ourselves tidying up a few last minute things cleaning up all the tape and plastic in the kitchen and putting the furniture in a much more pleasing arrangement, having a beer, chillin. soon enough she arrived and we began her arrival with hugs and... presents! presents? you got it! karens parents had just returned from a little holiday in new zealand and karen and i both got gifts! well turned out to be socks! awesome! haha, mine were possum fur - i kid you not - apparently its quite warm stuff down under. haha! after the presents we gave anne the grand tour of the place and she was a bit overwhelmed with it all. apparently the pictures we post here just dont do it any justice, the house is so much bigger and looks much better in person! [well thats great news!] after the tour we were just about time for dinner so we headed in the direction of the restaurant for the evening. karen and i have been wanting to try this place for some time but never got around to it, so we decided this was the perfect opportunity. we took anne to a local place in our northside neighborhood that always gets raving reviews - honey. 

well dinner was pretty good in my opinion. i cant remember now exactly what each person got, i remember i had the fish & chips and we shared some "honey fries" and that everything i ate was quite good. the atmosphere was fairly laid back, but refined and sheik. if i had any complaints about the place, its that we somehow got the table directly in front of the door, so we were greeted with many an icey-blast throughout the night as people came and went. overall id say it was a good experience though, and we'd have no problem going back again. 

after dinner we went back to the house for a little night-cap and to go through all of the pictures from the trip - wow were they gorgeous. i want to go to new zealand really bad... its just beautiful! other than that whatever else we did escapes me at the moment, but i remember it being a nice night, and a good preface to saturday.

saturday|1.17.09

well saturday morning we were up and going by about 9am, karen and i started off by getting coffee and breakfast together while anne went about getting ready. we had fresh fruit with our coffee and i made pigs-in-blankets for the main course. they were quite scrumptious, i must say. [although, not the most challenging thing to prepare, haha, i guess i shouldnt pat my back too hard] after breakfast and conversation then a quick rundown of the days objectives, we got gussied up to brave the bitter cold and walked a few blocks to the local hardware store. karen and i had made a vow the weekend before that we werent going to go to lowes or the depot until february came [we'd been spending 200+ a weekend for a few weeks now on project stuff and we wanted to stop ourselves - not to mention force ourselves to finish all the projects we already bought supplies for!] but luckily we only needed a few items. well by the time we got there we discovered that they didnt open till noon [it was around 10:30] - bummer. so we walked back and discussed what we'd do in the mean time before we could get the few things we needed to get started on the bigger projects for the day. well in the mean time we decided to finally install the toilet in the upstairs bathroom. woohoo!

well it proved to be a little bit of a task between removing the old toilet, cleaning up the aftermath of the removal and getting it prepped, then following all the directions and installing the new toilet... but we got it done! somewhere a little after noon we'd successfully installed the new toilet and we were mighty pleased with ourselves. the only thing we needed was a new water line hook up [the old one was too short for the new toilet] and we'd be ready to test it out. well the next thing on our list was to go back to the hardware store, and karen needed to go return some library books, so we let her go run that errand while anne and i walked back to the hardware store to get our few items. we were able to find everything we needed after a little help from the guys that run the store and we got home at the exact same time karen did, great timing! so the next thing on the list was actually a few projects. 

anne wanted to start prepping the rest of the kitchen to paint, and while she did so karen and i got to work in the project room sanding and painting some trim for one of the doors and our coffee table for the parlor. while we were at it anne asked if we'd cut a piece of scrap wood to act as a brace for the kitchen counter top that was caving in behind the sink, so we got that done as well - and it looks much better now! after we finished our first coat of paint, anne was making progress in the kitchen and i started plastering the walls while she finished up cleaning and taping. at this point we needed to let the plaster dry for a while so we decided it was time to work on the base boards for the entryway and really make that room start to come together. 

well it was definitely a pain in the ass but eventually we started making a little progress with the trim although it was a major fight. at some point i was nailing in a board and it bounced, knocked another board over that was leaning against the wall and hit me square in the face. at that point i was done fighting with the stupid baseboard and returned to the kitchen to finish the last fo the taping while the girls kept trying to work on the baseboard. before long they managed to get the rest nailed in and started going around with caulk to seal em up and make em look prettier. well it wasnt long before i had a nice black eye thanks to that stupid board, grr.... at some point wetook a break for lunch, although i cant remember when now, and again at some point we decided to get thai food for dinner. well, while i went to pick that up the girls finally got around to getting a first coat on the remaining kitchen walls and before long the kitchen was drying and our stomachs were happy... mmm thai food... well after dinner i worked some more on the kitchen while the girls started to hang some of karens art work in the entryway and other than that the nights a bit of a blur. i dont think we got much more than that done but the place was really looking amazing - not to mention we got a ton of work done with annes help, thanks mom!!

sunday|1.18.09

well sunday morning anne left to go see her family in indiana and i vaguely remember that karen and i put a second coat of paint on the kitchen and also installed a molding type thing to the entryway light. it was kind of a pain in the ass and we had to mess with it a lot to get it in there [jury-rigged for the time being at that] but we were pretty happy with the way it looked. other than that, time has gotten away from me and i cant remember what else, if anything else we got accomplished, but the weekend was definitely a successful one. the entry was looks great now and the kitchen does too, just awesome! so now i guess you all want to see pictures again, eh? well dont you worry, ive got you covered [although i seem to have misplaced them for the moment, i will get them up tonight as soon as i get home, i promise!]. and as seems to be the trend lately, ill put a few highlights here, and then you guys can check out the full set at the photo site. 

thanks for sticking with me through this one, i know it got a bit long - but hey, its for your benefit and entertainment anyway! stop complaining, lol!

[1.31.09|additions...]

so here they are, as promised. sorry it took so long to get them up, but as it turns out i had to do quite a lot of searching to find the pictures i took a few weeks ago of all the progress we made that weekend, and then once i did find them, i wasnt happy with the turn-out [they were a bit blurry and grainy to say the least]. so... i had to retake them. however, i assure you the only change since then is the new windows - which you can hardly tell in these pictures. 

and now, as promised...

as i mentioned before the rest of this series showing the updates of the kitchen can be found at the my.pix link. 

and while im here i may as well answer a few questions... yes, that is a hole in the wall. yes, we put it there. yes, it was intentional. its a kind of "art installation" of mine and karen's. originally we were going to put a door in the door frame and the idea was that youd open the door to a brick wall. karen really loves the idea of this, we [karen, anne, & i] decided ultimately that it was much nicer with out the crappy door however, so for the time being this is the finished product [minus some possible additional door molding]

secondly, the 6 white squarish shaped things on the wall there are some of karen's art. i wont go into too much detail on the specifics of the artwork - its certainly not my place, but i have always enjoyed this series. additionally, the bench is a re-purposed piece of trash that karen and i discovered in over the rhine and karen just had to have and has since painted. we thought it worked well in the room. its a great place to put your shoes on! =]

okay i think thats all i'll cover for now, hope you enjoy the rest of the pictures! have a great weekend!!