Thursday, May 31, 2007

Memorial Day Weekend 1

I'm sorry I haven't been online much lately. I just started a new job, which requires an hour and a half commute each way and it's such a heavy workload I barely have time to eat lunch everyday! But I like it. That's what's important. Once I get a routine down, though, it'll be much less hectic!

If you're wondering whose adorable face that is up there, it's
Bumper. We dog sat this last weekend and I FINALLY got a decent picture of him! This one's my favorite:
Isn't he cute???? This is his mommy, Angelina:
She was refusing to look at the camera for a picture. You can just see the diva attitude! Finally, I had my sister-in-law, Kristen, hold her in a "pose". :)
Speaking of Kristen, we invited her to stay with us while we house/dog sat. It was a lot of fun. We spent the entire weekend eating and........well, basically eating! It was great!! Here's Kristen climbing a tree:

That's about as far as she got! hahaha :) We had a good time. I'll post some pictures of the gardens soon. (I promise!)

Hope you all had a good time too. What did you do?

Sunday, May 20, 2007

MIA

Hello everyone,

Sorry to have been gone for so long! I just started a new job and I'm still getting set
tled in. We're also in the process of looking for a house, so any free time I do have is spent at open houses. Next weekend, however, I anticipate lots of things to blog about because we'll be dog-sitting for Bumper and his mommy, Angelina (whose picture I haven't been able to take since she always runs up to the camera to sniff it when she sees it!). It should be a lot of fun. I also have all the napkins now from my classmates to show you! I haven't had a chance to take a decent picture of them, but as soon as I do I'll post them. I can't wait until I have a nice routine down so I can get back to blogging without feeling so frazzled! Hope everyone is doing well!!

Talk to you soon,
Jen

Friday, May 11, 2007

Buzzer

When we moved into our apartment a couple of weeks ago, it had the cutest doorbell and buzzer. Unfortunately, my husband tried it out a couple times and the buzzer didn't seem to work well, so we called the landlord and asked him to repair it.
He did.

-sigh-

Only...well...words fail me, so I'll just let you see for yourself:Not quite the same, is it? It's missing...charm, character, EVERYTHING. Here's what we walk by at night:
My husband is so appalled at the choice for a replacement that he is thinking of buying another one just like it (since they still make them) and asking the landlord to please replace it.
What an eyesore. Or as my husband said, "It looks like a radioactive roach on the wall." Not the look we're going for, needless to say!

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Gilding

Yesterday, my husband and I went over to a friend's house to learn how to gild. It was a lot of fun. I got there a bit early and just relaxed in their yard and back porch. It was really nice.

After toughing it out on the back porch, my husband and I went in and started learning how to gild. First you brush the sizing on. Be careful not to get any on the wall. Use a piece of plastic to hold up against the wall and protect it. Then you put the gold sheets on and tap them down with a brush. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of that part! But the end result is this:

After you get to this stage, you go over it with a cotton ball to get rid of excess gold and then go over that with a bit of varnish, to take the edge off. Otherwise, it's too bright. And you're done!

I also took the opportunity to take pictures of Bumper, but both times he just shook his head at me. "Hell no, you're not taking a picture of me!" you can almost hear him say...

But that's okay because he's the cutest and sweetest bulldog I've ever met! :)

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Neighborhood yarn shop

Went to my neighborhood yarn shop today and it was super super cute!! Although it's in a strip mall (not cute) and they play terrible country music (the type where the guy just talks, not sings, in this monotone voice sort of on beat to the music? yeah.....), I liked it. They had really good sales, but of course, I went with no project in mind. I still picked up this Rowan magazine which has 49 designs for 50% off. WOO HOO! :) I also got these adorable owl knitting needles. I couldn't resist. Aren't they super cute????
Apparently, they're handmade by a retired couple in Vermont. I really have to get better and faster at knitting so I can zoom through all these great projects and use my cool needles!
On a completely separate note, there's this man in our neighborhood who, I kid you not, pulls boxes on a little palate on wheels up the hill multiple times a day. I saw him again today and scrambled to get my camera to prove it to you. Here's the shot I got:

You can sort of see the box he's pulling in the shadows. Very interesting. I think I'm going to strike up a conversation with this man soon. He seems to be the type that will either tell you to bugger off or become your best friend! Let's hope it's the latter!
Have a good night, guys.

Monday, May 7, 2007

Plants and projects

My plants seem to like it out on the sun porch. They're doing very well. I may have to re-pot a couple which are growing like crazy, but for right now, they're very happy!
On the project front, I'm binding a book for my husband. A book I started a while back, but hadn't had the chance to actually bind it until now. I have this week off before starting my new job on Monday, so I thought I'd get some half finished projects done.
The book has a graphite gray cover and dark gray paper. I chose a gray, white, and green endpaper to keep the neutral theme going. I think it'll be a handsome book.

Friday, May 4, 2007

I'm back!

Well, it's been a looooooong several days, but it's finally over. Sort of. We moved from DC to just outside the Boston area this past weekend and it was very tiring! I packed like a maniac and then my husband packed like a maniac until we had it mostly done by Friday night (hence the dark photo).
Our friend threw us a farewell party on Saturday night and it was absolutely wonderful! We are very lucky to have such great friends. As the evening came to an end, we saw our friends grow a bit sad to have to let us go. :( I'll really miss them.
On Sunday, we went to see Bodies: The Exhibition with some friends. It was absolutely fascinating! We went out to have some Thai with them afterwards and then said our last farewells. *sniff*

You know, it hadn't quite hit me until that day. Until I realized that it would be awhile before I saw these people again. That I wouldn't be going out to Karma's happy hour that Friday for mojitos, that I wouldn't be joining our friends for Saturday night Ethiopian food, that I wouldn't have a nice long lunch in the sun with my freelancing friends, that I wouldn't drive out to the horse barn with my friend to see her horse, or hold great conversations with my book club girls for a long time. It was when we were in the car, driving back home from the exhibition that it dawned on me. As we passed all the wonderful monuments on Constitution Avenue, I just started crying (as I find myself now just writing
this). This is much harder than I anticipated. Much harder than any other move I've made. I've gone from Wisconsin to Japan, from Japan to California, from California to DC, and never have I felt this intense sadness...

We went to bed that night feeling quite melancholy.


On Monday, we went to pick up the rental truck and a friend came over (the same awesome friend who threw us that farewell party) to help us move our stuff into the truck. It took us about 5 hours or so and there were three of us. Not too bad. We left the last few boxes and the bed for my husband and I to pack the next day. We took our friend out for some jerk chicken sandwiches and homemade fruit punch at
Negril and drove him home. That night, we cleaned the entire apartment and then went over to a good friend's house for dessert. It was nice to just relax for a bit!

On Tuesday, Kurt and I get up early to pack up the rest of the stuff into the truck. We were hoping to be on the road by 10am. Noon rolls around and we're still at it!!! My gosh, what a difference one extra person makes!! We finally hit the road around 1:00pm to drive all the way to Boston. We got to our new apartment at around 11:00pm or so. We got the bed and suitcases out of the truck and crashed.


On Wednesday morning, Kurt's friends here in Boston helped us with the move. We had 3, count them 3 extra men and it took us only an hour and a half!!!!!! Unbelievable! If only they had driven down to help us in DC! :) We are very grateful for their help.


So here we are. We arranged the apartment as best we could to make it livable until we find a house to purchase. Here's the living room and the sun room so far. It's nice because we eat our meals out in the sun room and there's always a really nice breeze coming in through the windows.
And then....then there's the "other room". Technically the dining room, which we've turned into a storage room...The boxes are piled up to the ceiling, but I'll be damned if I'm going to unpack all that only to repack it a few months later when we find a house!! I'd rather live with one "storage" room, thank you very much! :P
I'll keep you posted on our house hunt! :) I'm dying for a craft room!!