I've been feeling thoughtful lately, but with no time to indulge in quiet contemplation. With Paul in class on Monday and Wednesday nights, and choir practice for me on Thursdays, we only have Tuesday evenings to ourselves at home. To avoid being lonely on Wednesdays I joined bell choir for the fall, and on Mondays the wives have been getting together while the husbands watch football (Paul joins them after class), so the upshot is a very busy schedule every single week. I love every activity, but it means that I don't do laundry, dishes, cleaning, or organizing that really needs to be done.
This weekend is the first in a long time with no big plans, so whether or not we get our new furry family member, I'm looking forward to spending it at home getting caught up. There's loads of cleaning, tidying, and organizing to do just upstairs, and even more to get the finished room in the basement cleared out. I feel stressed out just thinking about it, but luckily it's the kind of stressed out that makes me want to FIX IT. Unfortunately, that means I'm having a hard time thinking about anything else this week, wishing I could just go home and get started.
Last Saturday was a pretty huge stress-fest going to get the piano. Nothing went as planned, with traffic being the main stressor, but I'm happy that the piano is now living in its official spot in our living room. It's not very play-able right now, with two keys broken and the lower half of the keyboard not damping, but it still felt wonderful to re-introduce myself to Chopin's Raindrop Prelude, still my favorite piece. I was so happy when it came right back to me, and I felt like I could have sat there playing it over and over all night and not gotten tired of it. That made the stressful Saturday all worth it. I got the name of the guy who tunes and maintains Trinity's pianos, and he's coming to tune and fix my new pride & joy on October 13. I will be so happy that I will probably spend the rest of that evening playing the piano. Even not working properly, it feels SO WONDERFUL to own a piano again!
This week feels even more crazy, with not a single night at home, but it's all been fun so I can't complain. Monday night ALL the wives were free (usually only about half of us get together), and we were all at our house, which felt wonderful. Our living room feels lovely now that it has all the furniture we bought, floor lights, a colorful area rug, TV, curtains and blinds hung, everything painted, the piano, and even a painting propped up; but it felt like home with four friends, two babies, and a dog all hanging out and enjoying themselves. My mom even got to meet Ella and Andrew (the babies) for the first time! I had a great evening.
This post is getting extremely long, so I'll save the rest for tomorrow...
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Home update
We got the carpet! It's brighter than in the pic in the previous post; in-our-living-room pic coming soon.
The TV stand is scheduled to be delivered on Wednesday, no word yet on the painting, but that's OK because I can't hang it until we also have...
this piano that we're getting on Saturday from friends near Philly!
In other exciting house-related news, today we officially applied for a
specific Italian Greyhound (as opposed to just applying to an agency for one in the future):
She's 5 years old and has lived in a kennel at a breeder thus far, having puppies. She sounds great for us because 5 years is about when IGs mellow out, she's used to sleeping in her kennel, she's healthy (which is why they used her to breed) so no expensive health problems, and she's already micro-chipped which means we don't have to worry about re-licensing her every year. In addition, of course, to all the other reasons we want an IG in the first place. Oh, also, I love the grey and white coloring. So, yay!!
Pictures soon, I swear.
UPDATE: We're officially approved to adopt the Italian Greyhound from Petfinder! She's getting spayed today (or maybe next Tuesday), and we will go pick her up as soon as she's recovered from the surgery! SO EXCITING!! I have to finish Ella's sweater before I can start knitting one for the new dog, but that's definitely next. Also, possible name (since we're re-naming her): Juno. As the Roman goddess of marriage and pregnancy, it fits with her first 5 years spent breeding. Also, it fits my criteria of not being a common human name (despite the recent movie). Thoughts?
The TV stand is scheduled to be delivered on Wednesday, no word yet on the painting, but that's OK because I can't hang it until we also have...
this piano that we're getting on Saturday from friends near Philly!
In other exciting house-related news, today we officially applied for a
specific Italian Greyhound (as opposed to just applying to an agency for one in the future):
She's 5 years old and has lived in a kennel at a breeder thus far, having puppies. She sounds great for us because 5 years is about when IGs mellow out, she's used to sleeping in her kennel, she's healthy (which is why they used her to breed) so no expensive health problems, and she's already micro-chipped which means we don't have to worry about re-licensing her every year. In addition, of course, to all the other reasons we want an IG in the first place. Oh, also, I love the grey and white coloring. So, yay!!
Pictures soon, I swear.
UPDATE: We're officially approved to adopt the Italian Greyhound from Petfinder! She's getting spayed today (or maybe next Tuesday), and we will go pick her up as soon as she's recovered from the surgery! SO EXCITING!! I have to finish Ella's sweater before I can start knitting one for the new dog, but that's definitely next. Also, possible name (since we're re-naming her): Juno. As the Roman goddess of marriage and pregnancy, it fits with her first 5 years spent breeding. Also, it fits my criteria of not being a common human name (despite the recent movie). Thoughts?
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Home! It's almost here.
On Monday, Paul and I finished the hardest parts of finishing the living room. The painting is done, the blinds are hung, and the curtain rod is still empty but ready to receive the curtains. The furniture is arranged. In a few days, I'm going to buy this 5'x8' rug to ground the sitting area:
and this TV stand:
so that our new TV can stop living on our coffee table:
(Side note: doesn't President Obama look great on our new TV? I thought so.)
and we can start LIVING in our living room!
Paul needs to hang our clock above the fireplace, and I need to hang photos (LOTS of photos) to warm up those white walls, but that will be a fun process. I have a great idea for a big, asymmetric photo collage on the wall inside the front door. Also might get this 23"x35" Klimt stretched canvas, "The Tree of Life," which also ties right in with the whole color scheme:
On Saturday, we're heading down to Virginia for our friends Sarah and Ginny's wedding shower, and on the way we're going to stop at the Woodbridge Ikea to get another floor lamp to match the one in the picture above. If we see a pair of end tables we like, we might get those too, if the price is right! The shower is at 3:00, somewhere down Rt. 95 below Woodbridge, but we're leaving in the morning so we have time to stop at Lebanese Taverna for lunch before heading to Ikea. Should be a really fun Saturday!
Also, I posted pics of my various favorite babies:
and this TV stand:
so that our new TV can stop living on our coffee table:
(Side note: doesn't President Obama look great on our new TV? I thought so.)
and we can start LIVING in our living room!
Paul needs to hang our clock above the fireplace, and I need to hang photos (LOTS of photos) to warm up those white walls, but that will be a fun process. I have a great idea for a big, asymmetric photo collage on the wall inside the front door. Also might get this 23"x35" Klimt stretched canvas, "The Tree of Life," which also ties right in with the whole color scheme:
On Saturday, we're heading down to Virginia for our friends Sarah and Ginny's wedding shower, and on the way we're going to stop at the Woodbridge Ikea to get another floor lamp to match the one in the picture above. If we see a pair of end tables we like, we might get those too, if the price is right! The shower is at 3:00, somewhere down Rt. 95 below Woodbridge, but we're leaving in the morning so we have time to stop at Lebanese Taverna for lunch before heading to Ikea. Should be a really fun Saturday!
Also, I posted pics of my various favorite babies:
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| Babies! |
Monday, August 24, 2009
Babies
You may have gathered from Facebook and Twitter, but I know a lot of people who just had babies. My cousin had a baby about 6 weeks ago, and then this past week the deluge: Kelly and Luke had a girl early Tuesday morning, Rachel and Shawn had a boy on Thursday night, and other Kelly's brother and sister-in-law had a son on Friday morning. What a week! I have never been so glued to my cell phone. And these people all know each other! Luke works for Kelly's brother Jim, so they both became daddy's (Jim for the second time) within 5 days of each other. I am definitely envisioning triple birthday parties in coming years.
On Saturday, Kelly, Reed, and I headed down to Gettysburg to meet the first PREP baby, Ella Jo. She was born at 4:35 AM Tuesday morning August 18th, so she was 4 days old on Saturday. She weighed 6'5" when she was born, but on Saturday was a little below 6', making her the most amazingly tiny person I have ever met. She slept for almost the entire two hours we were there, and barely even stirred when we'd pick her up and pass her around. She was so comfy and cozy in anyone's arms, why should she wake up? It was amazing.
The last time I held an infant was at my high school graduation party. That was awesome, but this was transcendant. I could have stared at Ella all day. This is the first baby that I will watch grow up, and I'll be there and know her for her entire life. I'm so overwhelmed by this, so I can hardly imagine what her mommy and daddy, my good friends, must be feeling! I'm tearing up again, as usual, just from writing this down.
I haven't seen any pictures of Rachel and Shawn's son yet, so I'm excitedly waiting for that! Next Saturday I'll finally get to meet Miles, my cousin's son, and the following Saturday we'll have our first all-PREP gathering with Ella. I am positive that I haven't experienced anything this amazing before in my life, and nothing will top it until I'm holding my own baby in my arms. What an amazing week. I am so happy and thankful.
Miles at 5 weeks old:
Ella Jo on Saturday, with her mom plus 2 out of 3 PREP aunties:
On Saturday, Kelly, Reed, and I headed down to Gettysburg to meet the first PREP baby, Ella Jo. She was born at 4:35 AM Tuesday morning August 18th, so she was 4 days old on Saturday. She weighed 6'5" when she was born, but on Saturday was a little below 6', making her the most amazingly tiny person I have ever met. She slept for almost the entire two hours we were there, and barely even stirred when we'd pick her up and pass her around. She was so comfy and cozy in anyone's arms, why should she wake up? It was amazing.
The last time I held an infant was at my high school graduation party. That was awesome, but this was transcendant. I could have stared at Ella all day. This is the first baby that I will watch grow up, and I'll be there and know her for her entire life. I'm so overwhelmed by this, so I can hardly imagine what her mommy and daddy, my good friends, must be feeling! I'm tearing up again, as usual, just from writing this down.
I haven't seen any pictures of Rachel and Shawn's son yet, so I'm excitedly waiting for that! Next Saturday I'll finally get to meet Miles, my cousin's son, and the following Saturday we'll have our first all-PREP gathering with Ella. I am positive that I haven't experienced anything this amazing before in my life, and nothing will top it until I'm holding my own baby in my arms. What an amazing week. I am so happy and thankful.
Miles at 5 weeks old:
Ella Jo on Saturday, with her mom plus 2 out of 3 PREP aunties:
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Dining Room Before & After
I can't believe it's taken me four days to post this, since I'm so excited about it!
Dining room in March before we moved in:
Dining room during wallpaper peeling, shortly after moving in at the end of May:
Dining room during painting in early and mid June:
Taking up the carpet after painting all trim but the baseboard, early August:
All finished!
Still to do in the dining room: Install the new white switch plate and outlet covers; put stuff into the curio cabinet (starting with the nice china I got from my Gommy); get a new chandelier; and hang some art on those walls! Today I got stuff at Michael's to help me do two out of four: the outlet covers are Paul's job, but I got some stands for the plates (instead of just stacking them all - I want to see them they're very simple and pretty!) and some poster mounting glue to fix the big Van Gogh that's all wrinkly in its cheapo frame--I think this will let me use the same cheapo frame but get the picture to stay all flat and nice permanently. Still haven't decided where to hang it, but I'm hoping once I can hold it up to a few places, there will be something obvious. Best guess right now is the wall between the kitchen entry and the pantry door, so I'll still need ideas for the wall to the left of the curio! Maybe some of my many unused landscape and nature photos. And no budget right now for a chandelier, but I think I know about what I want.
Also, thankfully you can't tell in the picture how badly the curtains need to be ironed. I'll do that soon...
We're planning to take up the carpet in the living room this Sunday!! Once that's done and I paint the trim in there, we'll officially be finished with the really big, necessary stuff. OMG.
I didn't continue cleaning the fridge tonight, and I'm OK with that.
Dining room in March before we moved in:
Dining room during wallpaper peeling, shortly after moving in at the end of May:
Dining room during painting in early and mid June:
Taking up the carpet after painting all trim but the baseboard, early August:
All finished!
Still to do in the dining room: Install the new white switch plate and outlet covers; put stuff into the curio cabinet (starting with the nice china I got from my Gommy); get a new chandelier; and hang some art on those walls! Today I got stuff at Michael's to help me do two out of four: the outlet covers are Paul's job, but I got some stands for the plates (instead of just stacking them all - I want to see them they're very simple and pretty!) and some poster mounting glue to fix the big Van Gogh that's all wrinkly in its cheapo frame--I think this will let me use the same cheapo frame but get the picture to stay all flat and nice permanently. Still haven't decided where to hang it, but I'm hoping once I can hold it up to a few places, there will be something obvious. Best guess right now is the wall between the kitchen entry and the pantry door, so I'll still need ideas for the wall to the left of the curio! Maybe some of my many unused landscape and nature photos. And no budget right now for a chandelier, but I think I know about what I want.
Also, thankfully you can't tell in the picture how badly the curtains need to be ironed. I'll do that soon...
We're planning to take up the carpet in the living room this Sunday!! Once that's done and I paint the trim in there, we'll officially be finished with the really big, necessary stuff. OMG.
I didn't continue cleaning the fridge tonight, and I'm OK with that.
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