Marco's Work

So, Marco has done a lot of work for some friends of ours... he's painted what seems like every room in their house, put in new countertops in bathrooms, new light fixtures, drywalled and painted the garage, did some painting outside and most recently some concrete work. here are some pics of what he did.this is the little boy's bedroom.... yellow on top and blue on the bottom

here are the stairs with the living off to the left. i like the little plant shelf on the left side of the stairs

here is the little concrete pad for the garbage can.... i think it's so cute!!

and here is the nice big patio.... enough space for the furniture and the grill!!

tagged

so, Rach tagged me and now i get the pleasure of telling the world little known facts about me. Rach did 6, so I'll try and shoot for the same, but no promises!!

1. i have a mole on the bottom of my left foot. i feel like this is kind of a cop-out... but as far as physically interesting things go... that's basically it. I've got other moles (no gross one's with hair growing out of them.. shout out to all the witches out there) but they're mixed in with hoards of freckles.... but it's just a single mole in the middle of the bottom of my foot.

2. i have a hard time with left and right. i'm getting better when it comes to driving, but i still have to consciously think about it... a few times marco has told me to go left and i go right.... it's auctually pretty embarassing. when i was a little girl my mom and i were driving down the road and i asked what side of the road the train tracks were on.... she said the right. ok cool..... when we were going back home i said that the train tracks were on the right... she tried to correct me, but i'm stubborn and it didn't work. when i played soccer in maybe the 3rd grade i went to kick the ball, and the coach told me to kick it with my right foot... i asked which foot that was, he told me. so sometimes if i'm really having a difficult L/R day i have to look east (cause that was the direction that i was facing during soccer practice) and i'll totally know which is my right. it's all pretty embarassing.

3. i have multiple college degrees. but i kind of feel like i cheated getting them. i went to school for 4 years, and i got 4 degrees. 3 associates, and 1 bachelors. i didn't cheat. i kind of worked the system. i had a lot of interests, and i always only had to take a couple more classes to get another degree. when i graduated i only needed one more class to get another associates, call me lazy but it was going to be a hard class.... so i didn't do it. i don't really feel proud of my multiple degrees... i just think that it's cool i graduated.

4. i don't remember the last time i followed a recipe. i just use them as guidelines. if i don't have one ingredient, i'll omit it, or throw something else in... which means that i never cook the exact same thing twice. most of the time it turns out pretty good, i do have to admit that i have had some bad experiences and those nights it's time to pull out the PB&J.

5. i am never going to have chocolate again!! i know, it's a sad, sad thing. no more chocolate or avocado's for me. i started having migraines last year and have discovered that if i have either of those two things it is inevitable that i am going to be writhing in pain within the next hour, and up-chuck within 24. i have probably thrown up and had more headaches this past year than i have the rest of my entire life. even if i found a way that i could have chocolate or avocado's, i probably wouldn't... too many bad experiences. i know there's a psychological term for that, but i can't remember what it is.

6. i can't think of anything else at the moment.... if i do... i'll post an amendment, tagged 2.0 or something.

to keep the game going..... i tag Kelley & Lindsay!!

New Music Finds

There was an article that i read today about some of the top musicians to come from Canada.... and me being Canadian, it peaked my interest. I wrote down some of the names to check them out and I think that there are a few (unknown to me) potential winners. (There were also a few known winners... Sarah McLauglin, Diana Krall..... and a couple others (Feist).) The three that I chose are all kind of folk-ish music. Sarah Harmen... I'd like to listen to more of her music, I'm not sure I'm sold on it, but I need to listen to it more to form a more decisive opinion. The Be Good Tanyas are pretty cool... funky folk. But i have to say that my favorite is The Wailin' Jenny's the vocals are so pure. there were a couple of acapella parts/pieces where the voices just shone thru. "The Parting Glass" and "One Voice" were really great. so if you've got some time to spare, check em out... 30 second samples are on itunes.

... and the search goes on....

so, marco and i will not be moving to washington next week. the home sale fell thru. i don't really want to get into it cause it makes me angry. but on the upside the house has shown really well in the past and i see no reason for that to continue (although I'm thinking about prohibiting any single females under the age of 25 from looking at the house..... not to be agist or sexist or relationshipist, but the experience just wasn't good!!)

so here's to good home buyers.....

also... shout-out to chaddy.... good luck on the GMAT or LSAT or whatever that test is that you are taking... I'm so excited for you!!!

No Water

Orme, Tennessee has no water. I don't know if that, along with the California wild fires that can't seem to be quenched, added to the thing going on in my personal life is the "straw that broke the camel's back", but I'm a little distraught over it. The southeast has been in Stage 1 drought watch for some time. We, here in Raleigh, have had progressing restrictions placed on us all summer long. Currently we can not use sprinklers of any kind or wash our cars at any time. We can use a hand held hose 2 days a week between 6am-10am and 6pm to 1opm. We can also use a personal pressure washer on the weekends. We're supposed to be getting some rain today, which is wonderful, but the man on the news said we'd have to get 16" to make any difference. Orme has to have water trucked in every other day, and the Mayor of the city turns the water on for 3 hours every night. Can you imagine only 3 hours... to have to have water limited to you in such a fashion is so sad. I feel so small, the only thing that I can do to help is have faith and pray.

NC State Fair

Today Marco and I went to the NC State Fair here in Raleigh. It was a beautiful day, I think it got up to about 80 degrees. Nice and sunny, which is some great fair weather. We parked in the NC State Stadium parking across the street from the fairgrounds which was free, which was great.... there were tons of people there. it was a HUGE lot and i think it was pretty close to full. the Lynden Fair doesn't even come close to comparing!

Here is marco shooting a gun... 100 little bee-bee thingies... if he got all the red of the star gone then he'd win a prize... he didn't but he did get close.... he also tried to knock over 3 cups with a ping pong-ish ball... if he did that he would have won a bike.

Here is the pathway that we had to take when we were leaving the fair.... and this wasn't the worst of it. there were parts where you would stand there for what seemed like really long periods of time waiting for people to move... it was pretty frustrating!
Here is Marco shooting the REAL guns.... here if you won then you won a turkey!! He didn't win on his first try.....
but on his second try he did!!! we took the T-Shirt instead though.... I doubt that I'd have time to cook a turkey before we left here.
We also went to the demolition derby.... I swore that the silver car was going to win (it was a jetta!!) but it went caput very near the end.... about half way thru it took a pretty brutal hit to the front and leaked all the radiator fluid... it was intense!!

during the final heat at the demolition derby (there were 4 heats) the winner (the yellow car) won because the other 3 cars got stuck up on the wall.... here are two of the three that were stuck on the wall....

We had a fun time. I'm glad we went early during the day, cause when we were leaving there were definitely more people coming than going and it was already really crowded!! One more thing.... October 20th and I get a sunburn!!

Punkin' Carvin' Day

Here is a lovely pic of Marco and I as we begin our first annual Punkin' Carvin' Day.

My job was to draw the face on the pumpkin... i also got the lovely job of cleaning it out and roasting the seeds for a lovely snack!!

Marco's Job was to cut the wholes in the Pumpkin. Here he is taking the top off.

And here he is taking out the mouth.

And here we are with the finished product. I'm excited to put a candle in it tonight so it will glows all pretty!!

Color Me Happy!!

or a little de-stressed, whatever you want to all it, but color me good!!

Just got an email from the real estate agent and the inspection for the house is tomorrow morning... FINALLY!! We should know Monday how things went and hopefully I won't jinx it all by packing this weekend.... but things are looking good!!

And some other good news.... its raining!!

Too Blind to See

Marco and I got new front brakes put on the car, oh i'd say about 6 weeks ago. Marco noticed shortly there after that the people who had changed them had put some pretty deep gouges in the wheel near where the lug nuts are. So we called the guy and told him about it... not a problem we could just bring in the car and he'd take it to his body shop guy and they'd repair it for us. Sounds great, right.... but Marco and I only have one car and we can't exactlly go without it for a day... so I've been stressed out about getting this stupid wheel fixed, i didn't want to rent a car, and i hate asking for help... don't want to have people go out of their way for us... so anyway, marco talked to a friend yesterday and he said that we could borrow his truck today. Neat... Yipee! so i call the guy last night and ask him if this would work out. He called his guy and this morning i found out that the guy can't do it until next week... ug. the whole problem over again. BUT then the guy suggests that we come in and he'll put the spare on for us and then call us when the wheel is fixed. I felt like a total idot. this whole time i've been stressed out over this thing (among other things) and there was an obvious and simple solution right in front of us. arg....

Oh, PS. earlier when i went out it was 82 degrees and sunny, not a cloud in the sky. I'm ready for summer to end!!

Could it be... is fall finally here?

i am really really hoping this time that fall is beginning here in raleigh. this is the first day (so far, cause it is only noon) that it hasn't gotten into the 80's. plus the air has got that crisp clean feel to it as opposed to the hot, moisture filled air that has plagued us for the past few months. i don't know if there are any benefits to humidity, but i can't think of any... or rather i don't want even try to think of any. i hate not being able to drive down the road with my window open cause my skin feels all icky afterwards... and not being able to sleep with the windows open during the summer casue it doesn't get below 80 at night!! I guess washington will be a system shocker. anyway... back to fall... the trees are just beginning to change... there is one that i can see from my office window that is pretty. there are some things that i'm going to miss from raleigh. the fall colors being one of them, and maybe one day i'll miss the long hot summers.

"Best Days".... love it!

I have a new favorite song.... "Best Days" by Matt White! SO GOOD!! it's one of those up-beat happy songs that make you want to dance and sing in the wooden spoon or hairbrush microphone. I haven't really listened to the lyrics yet, but I'm not a lyrics person.... but that's a whole-nother topic of discussion.


I should probably also give a shout-out to Natasha Beddingfield and Sean Kingston... their new one is pretty cool too!

Charleston, South Carolina

Marco and I headed down to Charleston Saturday Morning... he'll be down there all this week working, so we though that we'd see the sights while we were at it. We'd never been to Charleston before so it was a cool adventure!! Depending on when he gets done this week we might spend next weekend there too!!

We went over to the beach on Sullivan's Island, and me being corny me wrote our names in the sand. There was this cool square lighthouse near the beach access that we parked by, but of course I didn't think to take a picture of that until I got back to Raleigh... maybe next weekend.


This is the bridge that you have to cross to get over to Sullivan's Island. The people that we stayed with said that this is the biggest cable bridge in the US... They also talked about the loggerhead turtles that come to lay their eggs on the coast of the rivers.... well apparently they get disoriented with lights, so, during the loggerhead egg-laying-season they dim the lights on the bridge so that the turtles lay their eggs and keep the loggerhead species intact... i don't know if it's all that dramatic, but there you go.

We hung out at the Battery (a park on the tip of the peninsula of Charleston) a bunch while we were there. Apparently it is the number one place in Charleston to get married (there were two weddings while we were there), but back in the olden days it was used as the location that they hung the pirates.... they kept their bodies there swingin' in the wind for a couple of days as a warning to all the other pirates that passed by. It's also the place that Charleston got "battered" the most with cannon fire and stuff during some war (I'm not very good with history). Thus the name the Battery


Here are some pics of Marco hangin' out at the Battery. They had a cool sea-wall walk-way thingy.

Here is a pic of me (all gross cause of the HOTness and the ucky humidity) pinchin' the naked statue's wee-wee.

Here are a couple of pics of houses that were along the Battery. All the houses South of Broad are Historic and worth over a million. The most recent one that sold was for 7.7Million. One of the ones that was turned into an Inn is really cool (2 Market Street Inn). The father of the lady that built it gave her a load of money and told her to build her dream house (apparently she modeled it after her wedding cake.. and there are a few stained glass Tiffany windows) Her in-laws gave her and her husband a 2-year Honeymoon in Europe and a ridiculous amount of money to buy furniture. Today all the original furniture is still in the house, and no one under 12 years old is allowed inside. The pics I have below are just private residences.

Here's Marco ridin' the cannon, and me just hangin' out in the park... nothin' too exciting.

Here is a truck that Marco liked..... 8 wheels. BIG TRUCK!!

And here's the sun going down behind the palms.

It was a fun trip. Other than hanging out at the Battery, we went on a Carriage Tour and saw some pretty cool stuff. We had some wings at a place called "Sticky Fingers" and shrimp at "Bubba Gumps" We walked around the open air market, saw people making roses out of palm fronds, and baskets out of sugar grass. Next time I think I'd like to do a little shopping, get some souvenir's, and maybe take another tour... maybe the Gullah Tour.

Comin' Along

So we worked out a price with the peeps who put an offer on the house.... and things are going well. The inspection should take place sometime this week. We're tentatively set to close October 30th at 11am.... Here's to moving out west!!