Wheel

Near our neighborhood there is this house that has a giant wagon wheel in front of it leaning on a tree. A couple of months ago I drove by and saw that they had placed a sign on the wheel. It took a couple of trips by but I finally was able to read all of the sign... it said something along the lines of

"For Sale, $50"

I couldn't believe it... who would want to buy a wagon wheel for $50?? Maybe it's some super cool wagon wheel that's really old and worth more than $50 and therefore it's a good deal? But how would you know this by this sign? This house it's on a main road... so not many different people would drive by on a day-to-day basis... So I'm not exactly sure they would catch people in the wagon wheel market... It just all seems sorta strange.

Well a couple of days ago I noticed that a new sign was on the wheel, "For Sale, $50 $40"

If my old school wagon is ever missing a wheel it might be worth it.

Happy (belated) Birthday Bro

I'm a day late in writing this blog... but I wanted to wish a very happy birthday to my brother, Keith. Keith is a truly awesome person. I am very lucky to be his sister. Keith and I have always been very close... it's so nice to have such an awesome brother.

I dote on him a lot... I'm a very proud sister... I always say Keith would be my "phone a friend" if I was ever on a game show (Chad agrees)... he knows so many weird different facts... He is very intelligent, but doesn't act cocky b/c of it. He is a very different person, with a different kind of style. And I love him.

Keith... I hope that you have (had) a very happy birthday!! You are one cool dude. And like I said earlier, I'm very lucky to be his sister.

Who dun it?

A few hours ago Chad burst into the the living room from the backyard fuming mad... This is possibly the maddest I've seen Chad. I asked what was wrong... and he explained to me that he just pulled a pellet out of Rowdy. Someone shot a pellet gun at our dog. He decided to go talk to the neighbors he thinks may be responsible for it. They admitted to having a BB gun, but not a pellet gun. Chad thinks it's them b/c their youngest son has taunted (and other things) our dogs in the past. Rowdy is just fine... still wanting to play fetch and he's acting completely normal, but he does have a spot on his chest where he got shot...

We decided to call the cops just to document the incident, in case something else happens in the future. Someone came out and took the account of events. Hopefully this is just a fluke accident... I don't want to believe that someone is harming our dog on purpose. But if someone is hurting our dog, I hope we find out about it and justice can be done...

Here are some pictures...
Here's Chad laying on our couch with Rowdy... this was taken earlier this week.

Here's his wound
Another picture of it
Here you can see the location of the wound
He's such a good dog... so sweet and kind... wouldn't hurt a fly
Another picture b/c well... he's freaking adorableHe looks silly here...

Here's the pellet Chad pulled out of him
A close up
And this is just a random picture... we had chili earlier this week... and how delicious does this look... mmm... I want it again!!

Elephant Rocks

Last Sunday Chad and I took a day trip to Elephant Rocks State Park. Neither of us had been in forever... and I really wanted to do something different over the weekend. So we packed up the cooler and headed down south. The drive out there was nice, and we went on a pretty nice day... it wasn't hotter than balls which is always nice. We climbed around on the rocks... well Chad did more climbing than I did... but we both had a great time. There was plenty of energetic kids running around, which only reminded me how much fun it was being a kid... It was really nice to take a day trip.

Onto the pictures (and FYI with how blogger loads pictures it's backwards so the pictures earlier in the day are on bottom, since these pictures really don't tell a story line I didn't bother switching them around)

I like this picture of me and Chad... other than my arm is cut off...
I thought this picture looked really good
Chad on his favorite rock in the park.
Looking up through the rocks
Chad wouldn't do any silly poses... but this picture is kinda cool with the sunlight
Me looking out over the quarry... Oh... here's a story from the day... Chad and I watch this show on Animal Planet called Whale Wars... in a nutshell it's these crazy people floating (Sea Shepherds) around the Antarctic battling Japanese whalers... the problem is they don't really have authority... it's a crazy show, but anyway they the Sea Shepherds throw bottles of smelly crap onto the Japanese whaler boats, and Chad totally proved at the park he could be a bottle tosser... I guess this is an inside joke between us, but if you've seen the show you know what I'm talking about.
Here's the cliche Elephant Rocks pose... Chad wouldn't do it for me
Chad climbing...
kissy
That girl behind us kinda ruined the picture... Chad thinks he could photoshop her out... we'll see about that one.
Classic picture of Chad

WALL-E

Was anyone else just completed touched by this movie? For some reason it makes my heart sing and just really touches my soul for some reason. I can't even really describe what I feel when I watch... it's a very different feeling.

Zucchini Bread

About a couple of weeks ago my good friend Liz came over to visit. When she came she brought us a cucumber and a zucchini from her (or maybe her mom's garden.) We don't normally eat cucumbers or zucchini but when I saw that big beautiful zucchini one thought popped into my head... zucchini bread!! I haven't had that stuff in forever, and what a perfect opportunity to try out a new recipe.

So I googled zucchini bread and came across this recipe. I had all the ingredients except baking soda... so I picked that up from the store and borrowed bread pans from my mom (thanks mom!!) and got to baking.

Mixed all the dry ingredients together... the flour, salt, baking powder and soda, and cinnamon together
And I beat all the wet ingredients together... eggs, sugar, oil, and vanilla
Then I mixed the two together...

Meanwhile Chad helped me grate the zucchini and measured out the right amount ~ speaking of, I read that you shouldn't drain your zucchini b/c it adds moisture to the bread.
Then I (by I, I mean Chad) mixed in the grated zucchini and some walnuts

Chad also helped me pour batter in pans... he's always much better at doing that than I am.
I baked for about 60 minutes...

It's delicious bread... mmm... very tasty... Chad says he's never had zucchini bread before... I think he wasn't sure what to expect... but he ended up liking it a lot.

I'm very happy with how it turned out... this recipe is a keeper.

boo-who

Vent time!!

Have I told you about this guy from work? I've probably made alluded to him in past posts, but now his nickname will be power trip guy (PTG for short)

Well PTG is at the big conference this week with my friend. (the conference I should be at, but moving on...)

She texts me yesterday asking me "Did PTG ever make you cry?"

I responded with no, why?

Friend: "hm, he might have led us to believe that he did"

I respond with no, PTG has never made me cry, when did he say this happened?

She says, when you accidentally sent out that reminder with the wrong time on it... I remember this... what happened was I sent out a Outlook calendar invite and I converted eastern time to central wrong... oops, shit happens... easy fix... was I a bit fluttered by this, yes, was I pissed off at how PTG brought this error to my attention... hell yes... did he make me cry... hell no.

Today I was able to talk to her a little more, and she clarified this event... saying that PTG totally told everyone he made me cry... He said that my eyes welled up and everything.

I am LIVID about this... I did NOT cry (sorry PTG you don't have that effect on me)... he was no where near making me cry... and even if I did cry (or was on the verge of tears) why would you be spreading that around to our co-workers?

health care

I'm listening to the president's press conference on reforming the health care system.

I don't really know what the best plan is for reforming the health care system... and that's not what I'm going to say in the blog entry.

Just a couple of things came to mind while President Obama was talking...

(1) Pre-existing conditions... all I can say is thank the lord that my government insurance covers pre-existing conditions... one of the first thoughts that ran through my mind after they discovered Chad's brain tumor was oh crap... now it's a pre-existing condition... and then it would have been soo much freaking money... which brings me to point number 2

(2) Chad's surgery alone was in the neighborhood of $50,000... and that's not including the other stuff* I just cannot possibly imagine not having insurance to help cover these costs... We are lucky

*one of my BIGGEST peeves about medical bills is their confusing nature... we get so many different bills all for Chad's surgery and stay at the hospital... I mean we thought we got them all and then a straggler comes in... they are all coming from the same hospital... would it be so hard to be able to put them all on one bill? Talk about confusing!!

Anyway... hopefully we get some type of reform... and hopefully it helps... that's all for now.

:(

I don't normally write sad posts... and yesterday I did... it was something on my mind and I just had to write it...

Well... I'm sorry to say that this is going to be another sad(ish) post as well.

Today I have felt... off... It happened sometime in the afternoon today and I just can't shake the feeling... the only time I was able to was the (short) time I spent Chad...

I'm just feeling sad and not myself... I do not get this way very often, so it's very strange... I am a very happy person... I can usually be positive when no one else can... but today I've just been sad... and I just cannot figure out why.

I'm hoping that I wake up tomorrow in a better mood, but now my sadness is mixed with guiltiness... I was suppose to go to softball tonight and at the very end of the day I canceled, I just did not want to go... I didn't really want to do anything...

Even tonight I walked around the house with nothing to do... I felt almost lost... I ended up cleaning the kitchen counters and sink (the last two things on the cleaning schedule today)

These words are probably making it seem a lot worse than it actually was... I mean there was a bright side to the day, the time I spent with Chad... he even made one of my favorite meals... grilled cheese and tomato soup... but after he left for work the sadness came back.

Anyway I debated all night to put my feelings into words and as I lay here in bed with Rowdy sleeping at my feet and Bozley under the bed (silly dog could sleep up here but she prefers down there)

Hopefully tomorrow will be a productive guilt free day... I just really don't want to hear crap about not going to softball... and maybe they will actually move me tomorrow... that would be cool

Thank you all for reading my blog and for caring about me!!

ICUP

(okay... that was a lame title, but whatever!!)

I've had this project in mind for probably close to a year now. The bathroom needed something for the walls, and I just wasn't sure what I wanted.

My mom has this awesome picture in the bathroom in the basement... it's an astronaut peeing on the moon... so cool...

Anyway... I needed something for our bathroom. The bathroom was the first room we painted when we moved into the house. We painted it a bright green. I love the brightness of the room. So one day (close to a year ago) that I should paint some very simplistic pictures of toilets. And frame them.

A few weeks ago I was out shopping with my mom and picked up some box frames. These are really cheap frames, but give a nice look... IMO.

I grabbed some stock paper today and started painting away tonight... I hated nearly everything I painted, but ended up having a few to select from (I should have taken a picture of that... oops)

I put the pictures into the frames, nailed a nail in the wall, and viola... cheap wall decorations for the room... onto the pictures

Here's a quick picture of the bathroom
Here's the two pictures I ended up picking.
And on the walls...


I'm happy with how easy-peesey it was... plus if I end up deciding I don't like the pictures that are currently framed, it's easy enough to like take them off the walls and put in new pictures. I'm no artist I know, but I think it adds just what I was hoping to add.

Petty

Do you ever feel like you're being really petty about something... but you just don't care? I've been feeling that way a lot lately... I have a feeling it's something that's going to continue for the next month.

Whenever the story comes out of my mouth I feel like people are probably judging me... thinking I'm being stupid and petty... but I can't help myself, I'm upset. It still gets under my skin and just crawls...

I really try to get myself to not care... to remind myself that they get to make their own decisions in life... that's not something can control... nor should I be able to... yet that doesn't stop me from being hurt.

The next month is just going to be a constant reminder of that and I knew it was going to be this way... I knew that the closer it got the more hurt I would end up feeling.

I know that people say they understand what I'm feeling but I sometimes wonder if they just say that or they really mean that... I know that Chad understands what I'm feeling... and a few others, but the other people that ask, I just don't know if they understand.

I'm dreading that trip... it's sad that I have to dread spending time with my family that I love and are a lot of fun, but I am... I know that weekend will be a hard one for me...

People have said well... you're the bigger person... but that really doesn't make me feel any better... that actually makes me question why I ALWAYS feel like I'm "being the better person" Why doesn't that ever pay off... like being rewarded for being the better person.

So I know I'm being petty... I know that I'm feeling hurt... I know that I will survive... I know there's nothing I can do about it... and that I'm the only person who can make myself feel better

But sadly her decision is one that can never ever be taken back... and it's something that will follow my opinion of her for the rest of our lives...

Drove it home

Last night was really awesome. We had a happy hour at a co-worker's house... just the PSAs. It was a lot of fun, and I'm so happy we were finally able to pull something together. I even convinced Chad to go with me. This is the first time I've hung out with this entire group outside of work.

Anyway... it just made me realize what an awesome group I work with... how much fun and how truly amazing they all are. I'm really happy to be at the place I am, and Chad was finally able to see just how freaking cool they all are.

I'm a very lucky gal.

Lacking a Creative Title

Three things:

(1) Look at this crazy bug we found in our garage... I'm pretty sure it is dead, since it didn't move for hours... but I've never seen one quite like it... so I thought I'd share.
(2) I made cupcakes... they were yellow with chocolate frosting... they are delicious!! I even made mini-cupcakes... those are the bomb, and if I had more mini muffin pans I would have made more, but I was a inpatient. Oh, also this was the first time that I was able to use these silicon cupcake paper things... they are reusable... it's strange, I'm not exactly sure how to clean them, but they were still pretty neat.
(3) I have developed a cleaning schedule. This way Chad and I can spread out the chores throughout the week instead of all on the weekends. I hope this will help keep us on track. Not to mention it's a list, and one of the best things in life is checking things off a list. I'll try to be honest with how well it works, and if we keep it going... I'll make a post on what we're doing. I put it on the fridge...

Delivery!!

Remember when I told you about our new furniture? Well it was finally delivered this weekend. We were so excited b/c I don't think our old couches could have held out much longer. We ordered the furniture from American. We ordered back in May and didn't get it until just now. We ordered a sectional, entertainment center, and a couple of lamps. When we ordered and when we called to schedule a delivery they NEVER told us that they would not deliver our lamps. Shoot, even the postcard they sent in the mail told us to schedule a delivery for our lamps... So we still have to go pick them up from the store...

Either way... we are happy with the furniture we do have!! The room is not complete yet... let me repeat... NOT complete. But here is the progress.

The super awesome entertainment center... we LOVE it... we were sure on the height in the store, but the color and the height is awesome!! And yes... you do see a Super Nintendo there... we totally have it hooked up... that's right, it's awesome to play SNES on 42 inches of gloriousness.

Here's the corner, that office chair will be going bye-bye... as will that rug... eventually...
The super comfy chaise... we'll finally get more on the wall than that cartoon... and that awful coffee table :)
And the couch... OMG we are in love!! Doesn't it look great against the yellow walls??
The cats are in love...
As are the dogs
What a happy family


More to come on the transformation of our living room

Fourth of July Weekend

For the Fourth of July weekend we went out to Virginia to visit Chad's family. I was really excited about taking a weekend trip out East.

We got there on Friday afternoon... we had a nice flight out... I even got a Cinnabon at the airport (those things are DELICIOUS!!) When we got there we went swimming and had yummy dinner. Then we played some cards and went to bed somewhat early. Chad had only gotten about 2 hours of sleep that day...

On Saturday we lounged around the house... Chad helped cut the grass (doesn't do it at home, but while on vacation... what the heck ;) While doing that he nearly drove the mower into the pond... which was just funny (would have been bad, but funny!!) After that we went swimming and hung out around the pool. After that we went up to town to buy some fireworks. Turns out in VA you can't buy anything that shoots... that means mortars, bottlerockets, firecrackers, etc... So they had to settle for fountains. (and sparklers!!!!)

Interjecting with a delightful antidote... fireworks scare me... I hate when I'm around people shoot them off... they are just so unpredictable... I mean years ago my cousin actually shot one into his eye... no lie!! But past that, you never know for sure what direction they are going to go... and if they are truly out...

Later that night... Chris made super awesome ribs, beans and potatoes. We played cards (casino, a pretty fun game) and then it was time for the firework display. Chad and Ryan did a great job, however they were overshadowed by the neighbors who must have spent quite a pretty penny on their display. Another funny thing that happened was Bell (their pup) chased after the fountain fireworks... biting at sparks... I've never seen a dog react to fireworks quite that way... it was pretty funny. After the finally of the Unicorn firework fountain we played with sparklers which was a lot of fun!!

After that we smoked hookah. This was my first time and I was surprised by how good it tasted. I thought it was taste like cigarettes, but it didn't, that was really cool. Chad, Me, Ryan, and his g/f played Uno and then we headed to bed.

Sunday, Chad and Ryan went and played paintball while Chris and I went shopping at the outlet mall. It was a really nice day to be outside, sadly everyone else thought the same thing b/c toward the end of our shopping spree it was starting to get crowded and frustrating. Luckily the day wasn't a total bust, Chris and I got to spend some time together and I got a super adorable nice jacket... bright pink (I'll post a picture soon) The day was finished off with a tasty dinner and cards.

Monday we had to come back home... we had a nice breakfast together and then headed to the airport. Overall we had a really nice relaxing trip. It's nice to have a low key weekend away... we did miss our pups!!

Onto pictures!!

Here's a picture of the pool area

Chad riding the mower... this is the only picture I actually got of anyone... I meant to get a cute picture of Chad and I together, but well, that didn't happen, instead I got this dorky picture of Chad.


I like the 'S' shape in this picture
Lily pads... I really like some of the nature pictures I took
The water garden... there's actually fish in there

The barn
This is a beautiful country shot... especially with that fence

I helped hang up that hammock

Bell, the pup loves to swim, it's so fun to watch
Here I was just experimenting with taking pictures

And again with the flowers

And the dragonfly
Oh... they have two chickens as well... I managed to get a picture of one of them before my camera died
And here's Chad with the pups and kitties we missed (given this picture was taken before the trip it's still a good picture of him with the pups... they missed us bunches