Saturday Leaf Peeping

Fall in DC is almost as beautiful as Spring in DC.  The air is crisp. The grass is green, the trees are orange, red and yellow.  In a word, it's gorgeous.

Blake and I have been taking daily weekend walks and bike rides to enjoy the weather and the leaves.  It was especially picturesque on our leaf peeping walk this morning.  

Photo credit, of course, goes to Blake.

V to the Izzay

On Columbus Day weekend, Blake and I woke up on Sunday and decided to take an overnight adventure to Richmond.  I'd never been, and the hotel prices were so good, that we quickly booked a place, packed and jumped in the car (with treats in hand).

We listened to a session of General Conference on the way down (2 hour drive, 2 hour session. perfect!).  Thank goodness for iPhones and the ability to stream online content.  It was a grey day, but it was still pretty and we enjoyed the changing leaves while we listened to the session.

I will admit, though, that my favorite part of the trip down was stopping in Fredericksburg at Wegmans for lunch.  Man, I love that place (we also stopped there for lunch on the way back).  I'm like a kid in a candy store in there.  Blake and I both ended up getting two baked treats each for the rest of the drive - yes, yes, we are gluttons, but it was vacation!

I have a major design crush on the folks over at Young House Love, so we followed this list of their favorite "top fives" in Richmond while we were there.  It's a small enough city that we were able to check a lot more off the list than I thought we'd be able to. 

First up after checking into our swanky hotel (Blake's policy is to always ask first-thing for a free upgrade.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  This time it did. Awesome.) was to head over to the Virginia Museum of Fine Art.  It was free, and a surprisingly amazing museum.  The building has recently been redone - it's huge and beautiful. And, I saw a couple of Monets that I hadn't ever seen before - one of Poppies that I was absolutely in love with, as well as some modern art of dubious merit that made me question the sanity of the curators.  But then again, what do I know?  I'm not an art aficionado by any means.  I either like it or I don't.  And I just couldn't dredge up any appreciation for the gangster painted on red velvet pictured below.

After a jaunt by the Virginia State House and a ridiculously amazing dinner at Crab Louie (seriously, if you're ever in Richmond vicinity you have to eat here!) we lounged at the hotel while Blake watched baseball and I read. 

Monday brought an unexpectedly early wake-up call in the form of a loud metallic scraping noise as a maintenance crew removed the wallpaper in the hallway outside our room.  Not the perfect way to start the morning, but we found it slightly hilarious when we finally looked outside the room and saw that ours was the ONLY portion of the hallway being worked on.  Go figure.  Not to worry, Blake turned the situation into free parking and Starbucks (would you expect anything less?) so we were happy.

Much to Blake's chagrin, we spent the morning going to thrift stores.  They were great thrift stores with lots of furniture, but we left empty handed.  I had to memorialize my favorite with a photo - Love of Jesus Thrift.  Good stuff.

We'd unknowingly saved our favorite stop of Richmond for last - the Decorating Outlet.  It's the outlet store for Shades of Light which is one of my favorite places to browse online for lighting.  We ended up spending about an hour in the store and left with four lights!   Our biggest score being, of course, the long-lusted sconce for our hallway.

We left the city well-rested and will a trunk full of light fixtures.  I'd call that a success.  It was just the sort of trip we needed.  It's nice to be away from home (even if it's close to home) so that I'm not tempted to spend my time cleaning or doing laundry or filling my time with other necessary-but-not-fun things on a holiday.

Puppy Love

On our way to Home Depot on Saturday, Blake and I got an email about a dog adoption day at the local pound.  Although we weren't successful at finding any non-pit bulls at the pound, we did pass a puppy store afterwards and excitedly pulled over to spend the next hour playing with the puppies.

We were particularly taken with the three-month-old golden doodle.  All the other dogs were yipping and chasing each other around while he was asleep in his bed.  We asked if we could play with him in one of the "puppy play rooms" (yes, there truly is such a marvelous thing as a puppy play room!) and he was the sweetest thing.  He just wanted to put his head on our laps and be snuggled.  He was quiet and so docile. 

It absolutely broke our hearts to leave without him, but because he was only an F1 doodle, he was more golden retriever than poodle, and was shedding like crazy.  That's a no go for a girl with allergies like mine.  It was worth an afternoon of sneezing to play with him for an hour, but it wouldn't have worked out in the long run. 

After talking about getting a dog for the past four years, we're finally getting close to pulling the trigger.  There's just no reason why we shouldn't be living each day greeted by a face as cute as this one:

And then I redeemed my week...

Last week was a week of mishaps, but all-in-all it wasn't so bad.  In between the madness, I got to see a lot of friends (these ones, these ones, these ones and more), ate a lot of really great food, went out for a night-on-the-town with my brother, and caught up on some much-needed housework. 

By the time it got to the weekend, the only plans Blake and I had made was to go to the pool and relax all day.  Well, it rained steadily all day, so that plan was a bust. 

It's a rare day that we don't have anything planned, so we took advantage and puttered around all over town cutting our perpetual, mile-long to-do list down to size.  We got our break lights replaced, went to a farmers market, went to a garden center to look for a lemon tree (I really want one for our dining room, but no dice!  They're surprisingly hard to find.), ate a leisurely lunch, went to Lowes to look at lighting options, went to IKEA to find inspiration for a side table and to give ourselves a headache, and then went to a really fun birthday get-together with friends.  It was a full day, but even with the rain it somehow felt relaxed and chill.

It's pretty slow-going furnishing a house.  It's takes a lot of money (which we usually don't have) and time (which we almost never have), so it's a continual work in progress.

We picked up a lamp on clearance from my favorite store (Arhaus) a couple weeks ago and it has been looking pretty forlorn on the floor next to the couch.  So when we were out in the IKEA direction on Saturday, it sparked my memory of an IKEA-hackers post about combining two Lack side tables to make a faux Parsons table. 

It was such a simple Sunday morning project, but for $25.00 I don't think it looks half-bad.  It's probably a little more modern than what we usually go with, but I'm really happy with how it turned out and love the way it looks with the navy blue couch. 

I want to get a large basket to put in it to hide games (yep, we're finally stepping up to our Mormon heritage and collecting some board games...I never though I'd see the day!).  But, design friends, is it blasphemous to ruin the clean lines with a basket?  What do you think?

the Pink House Ladies do DC (more photos)

Rachel kindly circulated her photos from last weekend and I had to share those, too.

Here we are after having dinner at my house on Friday night.  We missed Allie (who was on her way down from New York) and Ashton (who was holding down the fort in Utah), but had a grand time together doing what we do best: eating and talking a-mile-a-minute.

The next morning we met up at the Capitol for a tour.  Due to our baby-friends, we got elevator passes for our group, which was pretty amazing.

Rachel and I got there early (and I even parallel parked successfully for the first time! Fist pump!) and walked around the Capitol grounds playing tourist.

What touristing would be complete without the arm-extension shot?  Two Rachel's are better than one!

After our tour we walked in the sweltering heat over to Good Stuff Eatery for hamburgers and the best shakes known to mankind (the Milky Way Malt rocks my world).

Lucky for us, we got the only seats on the main floor and set up camp by barricading ourselves in with strollers.  Best lunch fort ever.

Roommate Reunion

It's hard to believe that it's been five years since I graduated from college.  It's even harder to believe that it's been almost five years since all of the Pink House ladies have been together in the same room.  All this, combined with the fact that I've recently noticed that I'm starting to get really old really fast (ex: I can't stand loud restaurants anymore.  Can't those young hooligans and their music leave me to eat in peace?), prompted me to schedule a much-needed girls weekend with my college roommates.  We were missing a couple folks here and there (Ashton, I hope you can make it next time!), but it was pretty great that six of us could make it to hang out together for the weekend.

Alpha came down from New York and was our resident baby-whisperer: 

Jenny and Meg are both in the DC area for the summer while their husbands do internships.  They brough their darling little tykes, Jackson (7 months) and Ivy (4 months).  Both babies are an absolute delight (just like their mamas).  My apologies for blurry Ivy.  Blake let me use his camera for the weekend, but, as I quickly discovered, a nice camera doesn't automatically mean nice photos.  It turns out that I'm more than a little photographically challenged.

Baby Ivy did not enjoy the Capitol tour. 

Everyone was a good sport walking around downtown in the heat with two strollers and lots of camera bags.

We all had tons of fun at dinner on Friday night. Rachel flew in from Illinois for the weekend and Erin came down from Baltimore (at 9 months pregnant!) and provided us with heaps of treats for girl talk...which we consumed until the wee hours.




Jackson graced us with smiles (not pictured here...too much sun I guess) all weekend.

With Jenny for a mom, you can see where he gets his smiles. 

And Rachel was such a trooper in the heat (while pregnant with her third!).  Explain to me how someone can look so good after so many hours in 95 degree weather?

What a wonderful weekend it was!  Let's not let another five years go by before we do this again, ok? 

Picnic perfection

We had a picnic on the Mall on Sunday during what was probably the most beautiful Sunday on record in the District.  Mid 70's, breezy, puffy white clouds.  Add to that some old friends, croissant sandwiches and way-too-many Oreos, and you've got yourself a perfect afternoon.

See, Meg and Ivy are pretty happy about it:

P.S. Meg, why are you always so cute?  You're making life kinda tough for the rest of us.

Nats, Hats and Friends

Oh what a blissfully wonderful weekend!

After dealing with the heat and humidty over Memorial Day, I thought summer was here to stay.  But, thankfully I was wrong.  This past weekend temperatures reverted back to the spring - low 70's, clear skies and a breeze.  We took advantage of the weather and spent as much time as possible outside.

Meg and Stephen are living here for the summer while Stephen does an internship. They arrived Friday night amidst thundering skies and tornado warnings (so, I retract my previous statement...the weather was awful on Friday, but made up for it on Saturday and Sunday).  We celebrated the beginning of their DC adventure by introducing them to our favorite Italian joint - Pacci's and by cuddling Ivy and laughing at the extreme 90's-ness of Jeff Bridges in Arlington Road.

Saturday morning we perused a rather sad neighborhood yard sale (where my neighbors tried, forcefully and unsuccessfully, to persuade Stephen and Meg to buy all manner of used baby items) and drove five minutes with Meg and Stephen to their new place.

Blake and I spent the rest of the afternoon gardening, grocery shopping, and going to the National's game with Tiffany and Ryan.  Tiffany's company gave us each a ticket, a National's hat and $15.00 to spend on food.  In a word, it was amazing.  The weather was perfect, the company was fabulous, the Nat's won, and Shake Shack was as delicious as always.  (I love that there is a Shake Shack at National's Stadium!)

Here we are.  I'm looking a little worse for wear in the sun and wind.  Oh well. 

I will say this: after discovering the incredible comfort of Haines men's undershirts, I may never sport a real shirt in the summer again.  Those things are amazing.  Go out and buy some right now.

Braving the Memorial Heat

It's hard to believe it's already Wednesday.

I love starting the work week a day late.  I keep surprising myself thinking it's Tuesday when it's actually Wednesday.  And nothing is more satisfying than waking up on what you think is Monday morning only to discover that you get to skip Monday and head straight into Tuesday.

Our weekend was jam packed with great food, fabulous restaurants, fun friends, copious treats, and the rather unwelcome hot hot heat.

Friday brought an early-out work day, a delicious Mexican dinner with friends (these ones, these ones and these ones) at our favorite place and a party until the wee hours of the night/morning.

Saturday brought yard work, the vengeful return of the bugs and, consequently, the return of my swollen bug bites, birthday shopping and dinner at Seasons 52 with Blake's family.

Sunday rolled around with a late morning, laundry, painting, church, a longer-than-expected nap, and some truly painful, wilting heat.  The heat was so intense, in fact, that we wimped out and didn't go to the Memorial Day concert at the Capitol like we'd planned.  We felt guilty about that decision until we were watching the concert on TV in the comfort of our own air conditioning and about half an hour in they cancelled the program due to vicious weather.  So, we then enjoyed the rain and sounds of booming thunder on the couch while we congratulated each other on making such a fine decision.  The moral of this story is that sometimes being lazy really pays off.

We braved the heat on Monday with Tiffany and Ryan to explore Annapolis.  It was beautiful, but swelteringly, drippingly hot and humid.  We roamed downtown by spending a few moments outside and then popping into the nearest air-conditioned store to browse.  I'm not sure how much Blake and Ryan enjoyed this (it's sort of a lose-lose situation for a man: be extremely hot, or spend time in women's clothing and accessory stores), but it was a fun afternoon for Tiffany and me.

You know you've got good friends when they don't judge you for being a sweaty mess all day.

We saved our appetites (aside from devouring heaps of ice cream at the Annapolis Ice Cream Company) and used my birthday gift card to eat lunch at Copper Canyon Grill back in Silver Spring (thank you Grandma and Grandpa for paying for our lovely lunch!). 

I wish we had another three-day weekend in our immediate future.  I need another one just like this one. 

Above: The Annapolis Navy band playing the Marine's Hymn on the pier in the heat.

Anticipation

Sigh.  Nothing beats a weekend. 

Blake and I spent Saturday evening at our favorite pizza joint with Blake's parents and enjoyed our fourth Nutelloco in a week's time.  The staff there is starting to recognize us.  I'm not sure whether to be proud of this fact or embarrassed.

We also watched an edited copy of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  I guess because I've read the books and knew what was coming, it was even harder to watch.  I had so much anxiety that I couldn't stop fidgeting - which drove Blake absolutely crazy.  It was a good movie, but probably not one I'll be watching again soon.  Violence against women (even implied/edited out) is just so hard to stomach.

I'm really hating the fact that my body gets used to waking up early every day and then I'm unable to sleep in much on Saturdays.  Both of us were wide awake and ready to go at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday.  So unfair. 

The Weather Channel had been confirming for us all week that Saturday was going to be miserable weather-wise and that we should plan on rain all weekend.  Much to our surprise, it was 80 degrees and sunny all day on Saturday.  We took advantage by spending a large portion of the day outside in the yard.  We mowed, we edged, we mulched, we weeded, we de-vined, we pruned, we swept, we conquered.  

I realized that I may have overdone it with the yard work on Saturday when I woke up Sunday morning with a completely stuffy nose, scratchy throat and puffy eyes and swollen eyelids.  Combine that with an extremely grey, rainy day and you've got the perfect excuse to stay inside all day napping and watching movies and re-runs of Celebrity House Hunters. 

Thankfully, I'm feeling loads better today and my eyelids have returned to a normal size.  And even though it's Monday, I'm still in a great mood because come Friday I'll be heading here: 

photo via 

Philadelphia

We had a wonderful Easter weekend.  One of the benefits of working for a Catholic school is that I'm given Good Friday off.  So, while the rest of the work force continues to slave away, I get to enjoy the beautiful spring weather and reap the benefits of errand-running without the long lines typical of other government-given holidays.

Blake got to flex on Friday, so we took advantage of the glorious weather, cheap hotel prices, and collective wanderlust and drove the 2.5 hours up to Philadelphia. 

We snagged a great deal on the waterfront Hyatt and had a great view of the water and the city.  It was my first time in Philadelphia and it did not disappoint.

I guess I'm just used to weekend trips up to New York.  And, no matter how much fun New York is, we're always a little stressed, a little tired, and a little grungy the whole time.  Philadelphia, on the other hand, was easy-going, low-stress, easy to navigate, clean...the list goes on and on.  We have a few friends who've lived there that always refer to it as  "Filth-adelphia," so maybe I wasn't expecting much, but I am now a Philly convert.

We had a wonderful time seeing the sites, walking around the old city, eating Philly cheese steaks (whiz wit, thank you very much), running the rocky steps at the museum of art, and stuffing ourselves with food from fun cafes and ice cream shops.

Thank you, Philadelphia, for a perfect weekend.  We didn't want to come home.

 Our hotel had a great view of the water and the city.  It was also only about a 10 minute walk from Independence Hall and the Old City.

 Seeing the Liberty Bell has been on my "must see" list for far too many years now.  I love being reminded of the history of our country.  I don't know if I should admit this, but I was moved to tears more than a few times listening to the guides talk about our founding fathers as we toured Independence Hall and the West Hall. 

 The Old City was so beautiful.  We spent a large portion of our time wandering around the cobblestoned streets and taking pictures of the beautiful landscaping and quaint architecture.  I can never get enough of arbours, climbing vines and red brick.

Blake conquered the "Rocky Steps" at the Museum of Art.  Not only that, but he also was quite a champ for navigating throughout the trip and doing all the driving.  All-in-all it was a pretty easy city to navigate, but with my lack of parallel parking skills, I never could have survived it.

It's Friday, I'm in Love

Wow.  This week has worn me out.  It's Friday and I'm just happy I made it this far.

Work's been crazy.  We did some babysitting - where I quickly learned that I know absolutely NOTHING about babies or taking care of them (and that the best way to get a baby fed is to give the baby to Blake, who does a much better job of mushed-pea-feeding than I do).  And some meal-bringing - where I continued my trend of over-estimating the amount of food I'll need and ended up with 10 pounds of pasta salad.  And found out some bad news - that Amazon Student is no longer going to provide me with free shipping.  Grr.

And in between those things we also watched some Alcatraz, suffered through a recent episode of 30 Rock (that show is getting worse and worse...and may even be demoted off our DVR schedule in the near future), and went to bed at times too-early-to-mention on a daily basis.  I blame the fatigue on my supposedly non-drowsy Claratin. 

Blake's been a trouper all week.  Even with a migraine headache and allergies, he still puts up with me when I do things like spending the morning griping about the weeds in our yard and cursing our lawn company.  In fact, because he knows how bothered I am by it, he not only put up with me, he puts in long calls to said yard company and got them to do what we want. 

That, my friends, is true love.

This photo has nothing to do with anything above...it's just that this nook in our bedroom makes me smile.  And I'm tired enough right now that I welcome any excuse to smile.

The first time Saturday is the worst day of the week.

Saturday is usually my favorite day of the week: sleep in, putter around the house in pajamas for a while, eat a big breakfast/brunch, relax...but this past Saturday was the anti-Saturday Saturday.  Let me give you a breakdown:

-Wake up at 8:00 a.m. to a pounding on the door.  Jump out of bed thinking it's the contractor arriving early.  Repeatedly and unsuccessful try to stuff my dead/asleep arm into my sweatshirt while answering Blake's groggy "whhaaaat?" with "he's here...he's here...the guy...the guy..."

-Race down to the door and discover that it was not the contractor.

- Lay back down in bed, flustered, confused and unable to get back to sleep.

- Wake up to 8:30 Marimba alarm to get ready for the waterproofing contractor scheduled to come between 9:00 - 10:00.

-Wait for four hours while contractor doesn't show up.

- Paint basement puppet theater and get intoxicated with fumes from the decidedly high-VOC magnetic primer.

- Shower quickly, but forgo washing hair for the fourth day in a row due to perpetual lateness.

- Drive carefully to Mr. Tire on gimpy spare and almost-flat front passenger side tire for 2:30 appointment.

- Listen as the assistant manager declares that they will not honor warranty or road hazard insurance because the cause of two flats on relatively new tires is unknown.

- Listen to Blake and said assistant manager argue about warranty and other issues.

- Sit for 4.5 hours in Mr. Tire with Blake and nothing to do. 

- Get stomach-ache and headache from smelling horrible rubber smell for 4.5 hours.

- Get stressed enough to declare that any more time in Mr. Tire would result in a self-indulging J.Crew and Dunkin' Donut shopping spree.

- Pay a fortune for two new tires and a re-alignment. 

- Think about how many nice things could be bought at J.Crew with this fortune.

- Drive home too tired and upset to do anything except pick up a pizza, put on pajamas, and veg in front of the TV for the rest of the evening.

Weekend Tamalada

Until last week I never knew there was whole word devoted just to describing a tamale-making party: tamalada.  Thanks to my friend, Anna, I am now enlightened.  I am also now the proud owner of a freezer full of hand-made tamales. 

We got together a group of adventurous and epicurious souls at Anna's house on Saturday and set about making 350 (!) pork and chicken tamales.  None of us had attempted tamales before, but we came armed with spatulas, mixing bowls, and pre-assigned portions of the tamale.  Mine was a tomatillo sauce (which, incidentally, ended up taking me 3 hours to make...yikes!). 

We took over the kitchen and dining room at Anna's, banished her husband and boys outside to jump in the leaves, and organized an assembly line of sorts: unfold husks, mash masa onto husks, spread sauce onto masa, put mean over sauce, fold, tie, put in pile according to spiciness.  It was quite the process. 

It took us 4 hours to put together 350-ish tamales.  That meant I'd been on my feet cooking/preparing for seven hours that day and my back was completely spent. 

I didn't know cooking could be so painful.  When I got home, I took two Advil and complained the rest of the evening about my aches and pains (poor Blake!). 

53 tamales in my freezer = a lot of easy meals for the next couple months.  Not too shabby for a Saturday: a freezer full of dinners and a sore back.

At long last.

I've been looking for a hard-bound copy of My Name is Asher Lev - my favorite book - for over 10 years now.  I've searched high and low for a copy.  When I did actually find copies they were way out of my price range (being that it hasn't been printed in hard copy for a really long time).

I almost cried for joy when I struck literature gold on Saturday at the book sale at our local library.  We had wandered in to the basement of the library on my way up to find a copy of this month's book club book - The Alchemist.  And it was there, in the depths of library basement, after looking at every book on the fiction aisle for an hour, that I found it.  High on a shelf in the top corner.  At last.  My Name is Asher Lev.  And the price?  $1.00. 

It was serendipity!  I snatched it up and protectively (greedily even?) carried it around with me while Blake and I each collected a rather embarrassingly high stack of books. 

Over the next hour we filled an entire moving box with beautiful books for just $29.00 (!).  We picked up beautiful leather-bound copies of Virgil, Frost, Anderson and Hemingway along with newer (almost untouched) copies of Dan Brown, Michael Lewis and Cormac McCarthy.  The pretty books complete our living room bookshelves where we can enjoy their beauty and the recent best-sellers reside in the library where they'll become tomorrow's metro/commute entertainment. 

But my favorite?  It's up in the top corner of the shelf: a reminder of where I found it.  And though the spine is rather plain, I think it's the most beautiful of all.

At the week's end.

It's been a really long week. In fact, it's been a really long month. The good news is that I only have 2 weeks left of working 2 jobs.  Dominique brought her baby (Dominic) in to the office yesterday to show him off.  He is darling.  So darling, in fact, that it almost makes me want to tell Dominique that she should take more time to be at home with him.  I said almost.  I'm not a masochist.  So, I'm counting down the days and hours until she returns and I'm back to one boss and one list of things to do.

I posted the below photo on instagram earlier this week with the caption "My office - a great physical representation of my current mental state."  And it truly is.  I've never felt so jumbled.

Not even chocolate cake for breakfast, pizza for lunch and a diet coke all day in between are doing it for me anymore. I'm in sore need of a relaxing weekend away from this place.

Thank goodness we get to have a weekend play date with Lucy while Rob and Whitney are out of town.  We are looking forward to walks in the park and pretending that we have our very own doodle.  You can't tell me that her face doesn't make all your stress melt away:

(Photo from Whitney's lovely blog.)

A Golden Throne

Our neighborhood listserv is a wealth of information and furniture cast-offs.  Want to find an honest plumber or a dog sitter?  E-mail the list serv.  Want to get rid of a cat-pee stained wingback chair?  E-mail the list serv.

As I've mentioned before, I like to troll the listserv and our neighborhood streets for free finds.  I'd wanted to learn how to re-uphoster a chair for a while, but didn't want to spend much money acquiring the chair (seeing as I'd have to fork it over for fabric and other supplies).

A couple of months ago I hit the jackpot.  A neighbor a couple of streets over posted that they'd left a free wingback chair in their front yard for any takers.  I took it.  

We got it home and looked it over.  It was slip covered in a frilly yellow with blue piping.  Ugly.  And underneath was a thick creamy fabric stained with cat pee and who-knows-what-else.  Uglier.  In fact, the cushion was so gross that I threw it out alltoghter rather than keeping it to use as a pattern.

I should have taken pictures, but for some reason I never got around to it, so you'll have to take my word for it. 

When my mom came to visit we tackled the beast, or as I like to call it, the Throne.

We stripped away all of the old, disgusting, cat-dander infested fabric and batting.

And got it down to the bare bones:

 Then we used the old fabric as a template to cut out fabric from the new yellow and grey suzani Blake picked (he has really great taste!).  My mom is an engineer and is absolutely meticulous about having things line up exactly right.  This is great for me because I'm more of a "we'll see how it goes" sort of crafter.  So we agonized over every centimeter of the fabric to make it line up correctly through all of the seems. 

With our pieces cut, we began stapling and nailing the fabric to the hardwood frame.  My parents got me a staple gun for Christmas last year.  It's been invaluable and I consider it to be my version of Blake's power drill.  Who says women can't love power tools as much as the next guy?

As we neared completion we were both exhausted (and Blake, too, who we'd enlisted to help with our particularly difficult stapling needs). I now know why people pay hundreds of dollars to have someone else recover their furniture. It's backbreaking and tedious work. But it is so worth it. I've never done a project where I was more suprised at the results. The before and after were shockingliy different.

I am so happy with the way it turned out.  But you'll have to wait to see the finished product until I can get Blake to take a photo of it with his fancy camera.  The iPhone photo I took doesn't do it justice.   

Great Falls

My Mom was here visiting over the weekend.  It had been 9 months since we'd last seen here and it was wonderful to be able to spend time with her (even if it was only 4 short days!).

Our main project was recovering a Queen Anne Wingback chair that I'd snagged from one of our neighbors discard (read: trash) pile a while ago.  My Mom is nothing if not industrious and is brilliant at figuring things out - even how to correctly situate patterned fabric on a curved chair so that it all comes out right.  In a word, she's amazing. 

I'll post pictures of that transformation later.  But for now, here's a couple of photos from our visit to Great Falls on Sunday.  The weather was unseasonably hot and humid and you can tell from the pictures below that I was also unseasonably hot and humid as a result.

Speaking of Great Falls.  I saw one of the best I've ever seen last week.  I still get a giggle fit now and again thinking about it.  But before I tell you, please make an effort not to judge me.  Yes, I'm mean.  But it was so funny.

I walked out of the metro last week and saw a girl get ot her vespa and begin to pull away from the bike racks.  As she started slowly riding off, I noticed that her sweater was still caught in the bike rack and was unraveling as she went. 

Unravelling, unravelling, unravelling, until it hit a snag (or maybe a knot in the fabric).  And - I swear this was in slow motion- the snag snagged the girl and pulled her to the ground with her vespa on top of her.  It was a situation straight out of the Three Stooges.  And here I was thinking that that type of slap-stick situational comedy didn't actually happen in real life.

I wanted to burst out laughing on the spot.

But before you think me totally depraved and indecent, I can assure you that I held my giggle and ran up to her to make sure she was ok.  She was fine.  Not a scratch on her even.  She was, however, extremely embarrassed and a little huffy that I'd asked her if she wanted help in righting her scooter.

Everybody's Workin' for the Weekend

I enjoy rewards.  Like a big milkshake on a Friday if I've eaten healthily all week, or a sprite zero break after mowing the front lawn. 

But I especially love rewards when they come in the form of a weekend at the lake.  The only thing standing between me and Winni is this horrendous first week of classes.

I think I can, I think I can....

Home Sweet Office

The long weekend was nice.  I celebrated birthdays with family, got creamed at bowling with friends, did six loads of laundry, watched some good movies, and slept in a lot. 

But nothing chases away those good holiday memories quite like coming into work, discovering a pint of drippy, rancid milk in the office fridge and spending the next hour scrubbing it out.