Finally an Update

Apparently I'm a horrible blogger. I guess I don't feel that I have anything interesting to write about! So here's a quick update of the summer thus far:

First, I got to be a part of Heather and Chris' wedding and spend some time with my favorite girls. It was a wonderful day, and I enjoyed having Brittany and Deena stay here at the house.

In June, we hosted our first party at the house. Sadly, I forgot to take pictures. But we had a great turnout and I think everyone had a nice time. We also learned that our oversized fridge can hold a LOT of beer cans! =)

June has also been filled was Eric's baseball season. The Buckhead Cardinals are having an awesome season thus far, and I hope they go far in the tournament in August. I've enjoyed watching a few games, even in the 95 degree plus heat!

We also did a charity bowling even with the Falcons and United Healthcare. If you want a more detailed overview, visit Eric's blog.

John Park Wilson (from Alabama), me, Eric, and Robert Shiver (from Auburn)

The last weekend of June was our annual trek to the Duncan family reunion in Russellville, AL. This year was exciting because it was Eric's very first "farm" experience! Eric got to experience all things redneck, including...people driving tractors and lawn mowers on the highway, the roach motel, Jack's sausage biscuits, the local movie theater, the local Wal-mart, the Frosty Inn (yum!!), a trip to the lake, and of course, the farm house. Just don't give Eric a quiz on the family tree just yet!

Check out this vehicle!

I've also started training to run my first 5K in September. Eric found me a podcast that is supposed to teach you to run a 5K. I've completed my first week. Honestly, running is SO hard and I have a long way to go. But I'm going to stick with it so I can hopefully keep up with my co-workers in the Corporate Challenge 5k.

This week I got the black stuff from the car accident cut out of my hand with a punch biopsy. Normally gross stuff does not bother me, but when I saw the doc take a chunk of my hand out, I nearly fainted. Once I layed down and got some juice I felt much better. It was worth is because the black junk and bump of scar tissue is GONE!! I just have to go back in 2 weeks to get my stitches taken out. Apparently she is sending the skin to the lab for analysis, although I'm not quite sure why. I'm highly certain that it's going to come back with only one result...asphalt!

For the 4th of July weekend, we went to Home Depot and purchased patio furniture. I really like what we picked out. I had to beg Eric to let me exceed the budget by a few hundred bucks, and I succeeded. So now we just need a grill and out patio will be completed. Come over and hang out!



We also went to the Chamblee fireworks at Keswick Park. They were great! I think that may be a new tradition for me. Also, we went and saw the Hangover. It was very, very funny!

In 2 weeks, I'm going to Jacksonville to stay with Suzie. I am pumped to visit Jax again, and finally get a beach vacation in this summer.

How I Know I'm "old"

This weekend made me realize how I am starting to act "old"...and I'm loving it!

Friday I came home from work early (since I had been up at 4:30 for open enrollment meetings) and took a nice long nap. Then I made breakfast for dinner, and then did my P90X workout. Then Eric put on my NetFlix movie (Secret Life of Bees), and I slept through 70% of it. Good thing I already read the book! Eric actually kept watching it...

Then Saturday we went to see Angels and Demons at the Fork and Screen movie theater in Buckhead. We were hungry and bored, so the restaurant combo movie theater was the perfect choice. After some really pricey quesadillas, we proceeded to Publix to buy food for the Braves game. Since it was pouring and I'm lazy, I insisted on the parking deck Publix in Buckhead so we wouldn't get wet. Then we came home and made kabobs, and cooked them on our indoor grill. We still haven't figured out how to do that without setting off the smoke detector, so we dined with the siren blaring. Then we cleaned up, and I worked out. And then I think I fell asleep early, but honestly, I can't really remember.

Sunday we went to the Braves game with Chad. We set up a nice little tailgate before the game. I forgot my sunglasses, so I purchased a new hat at the game. I'll probably never wear it again, but Eric thought it was cute, so he insisted that I buy it. Then I begged for Rainbow Ice Dippin' Dots. Of course, I won that argument, but compromised for the $5 regular size instead of the helmet size. And then after the game, we cooked out own dinner and rented Australia from Blockbuster. of course, we also enjoyed the Blockbuster movie style popcorn. The amazing news is that I stayed awake for the whole movie!

And finally our glorious day off...also "boring!" After my power breakfast of egg whites and turkey bacon, I did P90X Arms and Ab Ripper. Lord I HATE the Ab Ripper. It's torture. And then we cleaned...Eric did the floors and I did the bathroom. After showering, we headed to our weekend hangout...Lowes! We got lawn supplies (fertilizer, hose reel, grass patch, etc) and looked for Tiki torches for our party. I also tried to talk Eric into new patio furniture...maybe next trip. After that, Eric planted some grass 'patch' and I trimmed kudzu/ivy off the fence. Then we treked to Lilburn for dinner with George, Lynda, Lawson, and puddy (the dog). And now...home to finish my cleaning and laundry.

Did I mention I feel old and boring? I feel like everyone else was at the beach, pool, or getting drunk. But you know what, it was a wonderful perfect relaxing weekend. I'm totally cool with acting old...I like it!

Car!

Nearly 4.5 months after the accident, we finally purchased a new car. We bought a 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee. We are just finally happy to be making strides to getting the accident behind us and have our own vehicle. Thanks to George and Judy for the loaner cars! Once we finalize our settlements and get my hand fixed, this whole thing will finally be wrapped up.


Let's hope we never end up with a car looking like this again...

House Pictures

Today I officially turned in the keys to the apartment, so it feels quite nice to only live in one place. No more rent and morgage and no more double bills! I've been horrible about updating the blog, so here are some pictures of the house now that we are actually living here.

Here is an updated picture of the front. I've done some planting and we've added the Georgia flag. Our challenge now is maintaining the professional landscaping and keeping the stuff I planted alive. It's been fun to see things sprout up out of the ground this spring. We never knew these plants were here when we bought the house. Oh neighbors, please don't tattle on me for violating the watering bans in the broad daylight! =) Clearly, I'm not an environmentalist!

Here is the living room with our new TV, which he purchased as our "pain and suffering" reward from the accident (which we haven't even received yet...but we couldn't wait any longer!). Eric is amazed at the awesome picture it gets with the Blu-Ray player. Lost looks pretty darn good on this screen!

The kitchen still continues to be the highlight of the house for me. I didn't know I could LOVE a refrigerator so much. The express defrost drawer seriously has the the best invention ever. Throw frozen meat on the cold plate, set the draw on express defrost...and defrosted meat is ready in a few hours. Ok, I just got way too excited about defrosted meat. No fridge will ever compare to this again! Hope it doesn't die...I'm not sure we could afford a replacement! The fridge is actually built into the cabinents, so I'm not sure how we'd ever replace it with something else. Oh well, not going to worry about that for now!

Also in the kitchen we have used our new indoor grill on the stove. It was fun to grill inside, however, we quickly learned that our smoke detector works just fine and is very sensitive! Apparently we can bake brownies and cook casserole in our convection microwave, but I haven't ventured to try either of those yet.

This is the dining room with the cute table that my parents donated to us.

Our bedroom

And a view into our huge cloest. And of course, my famed "wall of shoes!" I told Eric that I wanted all of my shoes to be "happy" in the new house. I was nice enough to give Eric 2 shelves for shoes. I've got the other 7 of them...and then there is still some flip flop overflow.

Here is the guest room. I am hoping to update it with new bedding and paint next year. The other bedroom is the office, but it's not quite set up enough to post pictures.

And the hall bathroom

Projects for the near future include...buy new end/coffee tables and a rug for the living room, hang up some pictures on the walls, but patio furniture and set up our outdoor fireplace, refinish some spots on the hardwoods, replace some dead plants...and for me to figure out how to back out of the driveway without running over the drain spout on the gutter. Hey, I only crumbled it three times. It's metal...it bends back together! =)

WE MOVED!

The End!

Ok, just kidding. But we did finally move this weekend. It really was such a sense of accomplishment to the whole entire process. Now we are figuring out the quirks to the house, such as the hot water heater. We got our cable and internet set up today, and it took Comcast about 5 hours to install our cable outlets.

More updates and pictures to come soon. Oh, by the way...I forgot how much moving sucks. I plan to not do that again for at least another 5-7 years. Since college, it'll be the longest I've lived in once place!

Making some progress

It's been quite awhile since I've updated. We've been very busy with the house, work, and little league. We are planning to move in next weekend, since our cable is set to switch over to the 30th. Lords know we could not live anywhere without cable and internet!

One of our biggest project to was to install a closet organization in the master bedroom. Here's Eric hard at work. It looks awesome now, so I'll have to post another picture later. I'm pumped about my new shoe wall!

We've also been ordering our new faux wood blinds and scheduling a time for them to be installed. This has been quite a frustrating process with Home Depot, but I don't have the engery to complain about it now.

The biggest project was picking up our furniture from my client, getting it into the house, and assembling it. We survived the 50 mile round trip U-Haul ride and managed to make it home with everything. We got the furniture out of the truck onto the grass in the front year ourselves, but then we had to call a friend for further assistance. It was all VERY heavy! As you can see from the pictures, we accumulated quite a bit of trash from this process! Thank goodness we still have access to the apartment dumpster. But I love everything we ordered, which is good considered that I ordered it all from a catalog picture.

And on an unrelated note, I think I want to steal my nephew because he's too cute! He's the first little baby I've held and he was just so cute and sweet. I know I don't want one now myself, but it's hard to resist a cuddly baby. Hopefully I'll just get a cuddly puppy instead!

First Weekend

Our first couple days in the house have been quite eventful. We had several family and friend visitors (shout outs to Mom, Dad, Beaird, Judy, Robert, Lawson, and Brandy!) over for a quick tour, and we did some work getting a few things set up. Let me re-phrase, Eric did some work and I sort of stood around and watched. I'm not very handy!

Once it started snowing on Sunday I drove over to the house to snap a quick photo as a memory of our first weekend in the house. I love snow.

And on Sunday we welcomed a new family member! In the middle of the snow 'storm' Eric's sister had her baby, Will. We spent a good part of the afternoon at the hospital waiting for him to be born and watching him in the nursery. I took a few pics, but this is the only one where he has clothes on...and I'd feel bad for posting a naked picture! =)