ju-ju-just.dance.dance.

wow... so its been almost 2 weeks. my bad. so much for blogging more often...

okay, lets get to the recent events. well, as recent as the time table is from your perspective anyway.

[last.week]

not a whole lot happened to report about during the remainder of the week but there is a little.

im foggy on what day it was, but nearer the end of the week than the beginning, karen found a couch on craigslist that she just fell in love with. so far we've had kind of a love/hate relationship with the 3 piece set we got off craigslist some months ago - in that we love having furniture, but its huge, bulky, heavy, and not really in line with our style or the style we're going for in our rooms... at all. but it is comfortable, and it was affordable, and well, its furnishing - so the rooms arent exactly empty anymore. however, theyre a lot closer to overstuffed with these monstrous pieces... but i digress. so karen found this couch that she just fell in love with. it was waaay more in line [okay, ill say it, perfectly in line.] with our style and the feel we were going for in the parlor, and it was listed for super cheap, so karen talked me in to going and picking it up after work one day. well lucky for us no one grabbed it first and she struck a deal with the woman selling it [who was quite friendly by the way, we liked her.] and actually got it for 5 bucks cheaper than she was listing it. anyway, we got there to get this thing and it was even more perfect in person - its gorgeous. so anyway, we brought it home [so much lighter than the other ones!!!!!] and got it into the parlor and instantly, we loved it. it just works with the room. its kind of an orangey-salmon color and dont ask me why, but it really ties the colors in the room together a lot better than the cream [or dingy brown slip cover] color of the couch we have now.

so tied to that, i insisted that if she got a new couch she had to get rid of the old one - theres just not enough room for them to live in harmony. she agreed and posted it on craigslist. since then weve had a couple of people come by and look at it, but so far we still have it... the weather hasnt been helpful, i'll say that much. its been raining a lot lately and no one wants to move a couch in the rain [myself included.] but tomorrow [saturday] is supposed to be a beautiful day out and saturdays are the best day for craigslist, so hopefully we can get rid of it this weekend.

other than that... theres nothing too noteworthy about last week that i can remember.

[last.weekend]

well i believe ive posted at some point in the past that we had a few problems with our electrical when it came time to do the inspection. it wasnt that we did stuff wrong, just that there were more code requirements than we knew about that we were going to have to meet, and there was more wrong that the inspector discovered during his inspection. anyway, when it was all said and done we had a nice list of things we still needed to do and the more major of those things being that we needed to replace our main service line and meter - of which i am no where near qualified to take on with my fairly limited "expertise" [ha!]. so the bottom line was that we were going to have to hire an electrician for at least part of what we still had left to do and i was dreading having to do that.

from my limited understanding of the profession, electricians are expensive. and as i started to make phone calls to get estimates or quotes or someone to even come out to look at it, i found this limited understanding to be quite true indeed. i was getting numbers anywhere from 1000 to 2000 bucks to do the work, a lot of them didnt bother going out to look - they could handle it whatever it ended up being and if it was more than what i described on the phone they could give me a price once they were working on it [ha, right!] - or charged a fee to come out and look at stuff before theyd even give you a quote... all of these things were not making me very happy, or to be more honest were frastrating the hell out of me.

so last week i started asking around the office [after failing on my own accord] if anyone knew a good electrician or even a fair one that was affordable. luckily, i hit the jackpot. one of the architects at my office has a good friend thats an electrician and passed on my information to him. soon enough he called me and arranged to go out and have a look [for free, woohoo!] at the situation while karen was at home. he did so and she discussed with him to some degree the problem and the list of other things we had to do, and he went on his merry way. well we didnt hear anything back immediately, but on friday of last week the architect told me that the guy had lost my number and so i gave it to her and he called me pretty shortly after. so we discussed what he saw, and cleared up exactly what i wanted him to do, and he gave me a quote for the work... and it was WAY cheaper than any of the other idiots id talked to! well it turned out hed had a cancellation saturday morning and so we scheduled for that time - problem solved!

so saturday morning came and he arrived right on time and got to work. before hed gotten there i had been working away myself for almost an hour. the stove[range] line that was in the house when we bought it was actually service cable, and during the inspection the inspector decided it was oversized and needed to be replaced with a smaller and different kind of wire but also informed me that the one there would be sufficient to replace the service line outside. so kind of bittersweet in that it would have to be replaced, but awesome that we already had the materials for the electrician. [which helped save me some money!] so anwyay, before they got there i was busy unhooking the line from the circuit breaker, the stove, and starting to pull it out of the floor joists. luckily when dad was here we'd disconnected the stove line that was going to the second floor [part of the old multi-family situation] and the wire going to that one was the right kind and there was enough of it to run as the replacement line. so anyway, the electrian and one of his guys got there while i was in the middle of pulling the service wire out of the joists and took over for me while i got started running the replacement line for the stove.

i wasnt entirely sure what all they did for the first couple of hours while i was busy down in the basment doing my own thing, but around noon i started checking up on things with them and theyd made huge progress! theyd already installed a new meter base and were prepping the replacement service line to go in. and well, before i knew it they were doing those things as well. at about 1:15 they were completely finished installing the new service line and we had power up and running with no problems!

and if that all wasnt enough, the guy was really nice and walked me through the entire list from the inspector and talked me through the ohio code stuff that my dad and i didnt know before, and showed me how i needed to complete everything to get approved in the final inspection. he gave me all kinds of tips and said that if i ever had any problems or questions or anything to feel free to give him a call and hed be glad to help. so yeah, thats a great contact if i ever have more electrical stuff going on, and in the end it only cost us $400! thats pretty drastically different from $2000 in my book! [checkbook that is...]

anyway, the rest of the day saturday we spent going to homedepot to get the supplies i was going to need to work on some of the other electrical stuff and then i actually did some of that as well. karen worked on school stuff trying to get ready for classes to start up on monday and grilled hamburgers for dinner. [yeah, they were the frozen kind this time so we had much less difficulty, haha, they tasted awesome though!]

sunday we went to church, the grocery store, and the gas station as usual and then it started raining again and the day got very grey and dreary and gross and... we basically said screw it, got in warm-comfies and snuggled up infront of the tv. =]

[this.week]

well nothing too exciting has gone on during the week. karen has been going to all her classes and started her new job on campus so shes getting adjusted to all of those. and then wednesday night i took off the door to the balcony on the second floor and replaced it with a sheet of plywood because karen needed the door for her studio project this semester and it was a piece of crap anyway. [and again, heavy!] we took that up to her studio along with a nice load of supplies and such.

ummm.... lets see... what else.....

haha, alright ive tortured amanda enough i guess. ;]

well over the weekend our dear friend amanda [whom ive mentioned on a few occasions past] moved back to cincinnati after being awol for the last few months. [well, really shed just moved to cleveland temporarily for an internship, but you say potato...] and on mondy night she decided to have people over to celebrate being back home in the nati - and we were invited. so after work we went to amandas and had a long night of friends, food, lots of laughter and stories and lively conversations about various topics. we had a great time, and a little wine, and by the time we ended up leaving it was damn near midnight, lol! [oh and did i mention there was a puppy? haha, that alone was tons of entertainment throughout the night! it was amanda's roommate - who is also very cool - caity's new puppy, a cocker spaniel mix - mom youd have loved it! - and it was pretty stinkin cute. "pay-trick" and i played with it for probably the first solid hour, haha!] anyway, we had a total blast [thanks manda!] and a rough morning the next day after not nearly enough beauty sleep ;]

and while we're on the subject of amanda, we're also going out with her and a group tonight for wine tasting again! i know i mentioned this sometime past, the wine tasting at whole-foods. anyway, its starting up again for the spring and tonight is the first night, so karen and i are pretty excited about that. im sure itll be as much fun as it was last time around. =]

alright... so... with that, i think youre pretty caught up on the past. as for the near future... ummm...

[this.weekend]

well as i said its going to be gorgeous outside tomorrow so im sure we'll try and get some house work done if we can.

i know karen has lots of homework to work on this weekend and shes planning on doing a lot of that, so it might throw a wrench in our house stuff.

i am definitely hoping we get rid of that stupid couch this weekend.

theres still bookshelf stuff left to be completed, so i might work on that some.

the electrical is still around, so i might work on that some more.

we need to replace the door out to the balcony at some point, we might attempt that this weekend.

church on sunday and the normal sunday routine.

oh, and a new development -

yesterday i got a flyer [flier?] at work about an architecture competition in cincinnati through the usgbc [http://www.usgbc.org]. well, actually its national, but starts at a local level and cincinnati is one of the locations. anwyay, after reading all the information about this competition i started to think it was pretty cool and i might actually want to do it. i talked to karen about it, but she is too busy with school stuff to work on it at all... but its a pretty big competition project and i kind of wanted to team up with someone. so i emailed my buddy mike from grad school who just happens to live here in cincy as well [see the post about the new years eve wedding for more on mike...] to see if he was interested. well as it turns out, he got pretty excited about the competition and thought we could come up with a pretty cool entry so we decided to do it! so yeah, thats pretty cool. that will definitely take up some of my spare time over the next 14 weeks [the deadline] but hopefully we'll have a cool entry to show for it. [i know we'll have fun, haha!] so anwyay, this weekend at some point we're planning to meet about that and start brainstorming, visit the site, etc. so... eventually i may have another update on that, stay tuned.

um, i think thats about it that i know of. hope youve all been well and have plans of your own for the upcoming weekend! miss and love you all!

the.chronicles.of.decembria[4.of.x]

well i didnt finish, but i did make a little progress last night on catching everyone up with all the events and projects of our busy holiday season. hope you all are enjoying this so far, and hopefully i can make a little more progress today over lunch. lets see how far i get, haha...

christmas

moving

kitchen

new years

craigslist

electrical

roof

new years.

well new years was pretty awesome. i think it was probably my favorite of all time. [although i did have some fun with matt & tina a few times over new years, haha!] but before we get into the end of 08 and the start of 09 and all the excitement surrounding it, lets take a quick step back to the 30th. 

on the day before new years eve karen had gotten us tickets to go to a musical at one of the local cultural arts centers. shes a member of all these different email lists for all kinds of art related groups, clubs, what have you, and on one of them the week before christmas there was the mention of a new show coming to town and karen thought i might like it and got us tickets. well it ended up being a lot of fun for both of us. the show was part of a young professionals club thing in town and our tickets included a catered pre-party with other young professionals that were also attending the show. it was a chance to mingle and meet people and socialize a little before the show [which we really didnt take advantage of seeing as how the "young professionals" were all in their late 30's to early 50's... anyone else find that a bit odd??] and get to enjoy some really awesome food as it turned out that was catered by a local restaurant/culinary arts school. 

well as i mentioned we didnt really socialize much but we did  have a good time and really enjoyed the food. and all this was a nice precursor to the nights festivities. so enough suspense aside, the show we got to see was monty pythons spamalot! i dont know how many of you are familiar with monty python, ive only actually seen the holy grail as far as the movies go, but i loved it and i was really excited to see this show. karen had seen parts of one of the movies she thinks and wasnt sure how well she liked it, but we both ended up loving the show! it was hilarious! and they tied in all kinds of humor tied to the cincinnati area and even the current media cycle, it was pretty awesome. if you ever have the chance to see spamalot and youre into the monty python humor at all, id really recommend this show - if nothing else it makes for a nice out on the town for a quazi-cultural event. [because really, how cultured can it be if its monty python, lol!]

so now we can get to the new years festivities hm? i just had to mention the show because we had so much fun! so new years eve karen and i both had to work, but immediately following we went home and got showered and dressed for the nights exciting events. i wont bother trying to make this one overly dramatic and suspenseful, haha, we were attending my buddy mike and his fiance's wedding downtown at a fancy hotel. we were actually really excited about it and had made sure to get some good presents the weekend before, get them wrapped and ready to go. the wedding/new years party was a black tie affair and karen had picked up a sexy new dress [and i didnt look too shabby either, lol] so leaving not a moment too soon we arrived and got seated about 5 minutes before the wedding started. 

the ceremony was beautiful to say the least and i certainly dont want to see the price tag for it. first of all we were in a gorgeous art deco ball room at a very nice hotel in one of the oldest buildings in downtown cincinnati. the detailing and decor were awesome, very much in tune with karen and my love of art deco style [it definitely brought memories of our art deco decor at our wedding, haha!]. other than the ball room, the ceremony itself was just very very nice [and i couldnt possibly do it justice with words]. there was a violinist, a classical guitarist, a soloist, mike even brought in a bag-pipist! [that irish blood runs deep, lol, and i cant imagine bag-pipers are easy to find...] the decorations were beautiful, the dresses, you name it. it was pretty much the event of the year and definitely lived up to it. 

following the wedding we all went to the pre-reception in the lobby of what would be one of the nicest reception halls i think ive ever been in. this part was pretty awesome all in itself. there was a lot of seating or standing tables to choose from and in the center of the place was an hors derves table piled high with goodies while wait staff circulated the room with even more trays of goodies. and the food... wow. i cant even tell you. there were tons grilled veggies and jumbo cocktail shrimp with a variety of sauces [karen and i loved the portobelo and the shrimp!] on the main table, and circulating there were little bruschetta type pieces and im not entirely sure what was in them [we think olive was definitely part of it, but other than that i couldnt tell, they were awesome though!] and also [what we did find out was in them] duck spring rolls that were just mouth watering. i dont think id ever had duck before, but these spring rolls were very delicious. and accompanying all that there were three open bars with your choice of drink, wait-staff circulating with pink champagne of some kind, and an ice sculpture that was chilling another special drink. i dont know that im an expert on classy, but i do recognize pricey, haha!

after the newly married couple had finished their pictures and were ready to start the next phase of the evening, we were all ushered into the banquet hall [wow!!] and directed to our assigned seats where we introduced ourselves to our table-mates and enjoyed more drinks and some really scrumptious chocolate covered strawberries [dressed as bride and groom, lol!] that were waiting for us. before long the happy couple made and the entourage made their grande entrance [and boy was it, lol, every person made a hollywood entrance with announcers, their own song, and a lot of hoopla, lol!] to a chorus of applause and exaltation. after cutting the cake and getting some introductions and pleasantries taken care of, we all got yet another amazing treat - dinner! dinner was phenomenal... again i dont want to see the price tag on this thing, it must have been upwards of 100 bucks a plate - easy. the first course was various types of bread with a main crab bisque and a small plate of something with an asian salad thats escaping my memory at the moment. but i do remember it was all very delicious and we were having nice conversation with all of our table mates and sharing humorous memories and stories about the couple. it was really a lot of fun! now the main course, that was really something! there was a gorgeous piece of fillet minion on a bed of mashed potatoes all wrapped in bacon and topped with more shrimp! wowee! it was delectable - i cant even relate it to you... the fillet was perfect. and i do mean perfect! ive never had a steak this good! for desert we had wedding cake served to us, and more drinks and great conversation [im sure ive forgotten something, but the food was all just so amazing and there was so much going on that night, i do appologize.] at some point in the night there were a series of toasts and traditional dances, mixed with all the traditional festivities surrounding the bouquet and the garter, and plenty of dancing - tons of good times. 

but we're not finished yet, oh no. as midnight approached, we were all given glasses of champagne, party hats, beaded necklaces, and party horns to really bring in the new year the right way. there was more dancing, more partying and of course the traditional kiss at midnight with your special someone. karen danced her little heart out [as she always does, lol] and eventually we even got our turn to talk to the happy groom, lol! by around 1am i was exhausted and we were ready to make our exit, so we gathered our things said some good byes and headed to the door for one last attempt to say our thanks and dote the bride with her much deserved praise. [mike is a lucky lucky man, she looked amazing all night, and she was just glowing! well done sir, well done.] we finally did get the chance to give her a hug and our thanks for a wonderful evening before heading home to crash. now at this point i would absolutely love to show you all some extraordinary pictures of the epic event, however im afraid karen and i both managed to forget our cameras in the rush to get ready and arrive on time after work... bummer, i know. it really was one of the most beautiful weddings ive ever been to. either way, karen and i are really just elated for the new couple and we wish them a world of happiness in the new year and the rest of their lives together! congratulations buddy!

well, that was new years eve... [and happy birthday to mom by the way! dont worry, i didnt forget to call her, haha] and new years day was another story all in itself. however, im afraid i dont have the time to tell it now... my time is up. so i guess we'll have to just keep this going tomorrow, lol! hope youre all having a great day and a fantastic week to come!

cheers!