This was a productive weekend for us. On Saturday, we went to Lowe's to rent a flatbed pickup truck for 75 minutes for $19.99 (which is a fantastic deal). We then went to the apartment of one of Brian's former co-workers (who is picking up and moving to California on Monday) to get a TV and a queen size bed. We got the bed and TV back home and the truck back to Lowe's in 75 minutes (not a bad feat to go from Knightdale to Ebenezer Church Road in Raleigh and back to Knightdale and load/unload the bed).
Afterward, we hit up Bed, Bath, & Beyond to get some bedding for the new bed. We found a really cute striped pattern with browns and blues AND we found two nightstands that were on clearance, which is so super perfect because we were looking for some for our bedroom.
On Sunday, we made our debuts as Eucharistic Ministers (the people who distribute the bread and wine during communion) at church and that went really well. No dropped wafers or wine!
Afterward, we had a near crisis at the house as we borrowed Brian's parents lawnmower. The crisis being...
... we couldn't start the lawnmower.
After trying and failing for about 45 minutes, two calls to Brian's dad, and one call to my dad, Brian's dad graciously trekked over to our house, on foot up a hill both ways in the snow, and helped us get it figured out. We're still not sure what he did, but we're glad he did it :-) So, Brian got the lawn mowed and then we went to his parents' house for dinner.
All-in-all--a good weekend.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
My job totally rocks!
Like, I totally love it!
Today during our weekly staff meeting, we learned that starting the first week in August we can begin working one day a week from home. If all goes well during August and September, then we'll go to two days a week in October. This is very, very, very exciting! After the meeting, we all got together to pick our days (to minimize overlap) and I'm going to be working from home on Fridays (yippee!!!).
Although it only takes me 25-30 minutes to get to work, it's still about 35 miles one way. Saving at least 70 (and, eventually, 140) miles per week will be phenomenal! With my uber gas mileage, I can probably go back to gas every two weeks! Even better, Friday is the really bad afternoon-traffic day, so I'm really looking forward to avoiding all that garbage.
If any of y'all are qualified to be a content editor, we're hiring, so let me know and I'll send you the job posting.
In other exciting news, Brian (Raleigh Boychoir alumnus extraordinaire) was asked today to emcee the 40-Year Anniversary Raleigh Boychoir Gala Celebration in October. It should be great fun.
Additionally, our neighborhood got a shoutout in the News and Observer today:
http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/1149723.html.
(As an aside, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a great story!)
And, finally, I started reading Love in the Time of Cholera, but I'm not completely into it yet, so I'm putting that on hold for Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil, which I got from the library today.
Today during our weekly staff meeting, we learned that starting the first week in August we can begin working one day a week from home. If all goes well during August and September, then we'll go to two days a week in October. This is very, very, very exciting! After the meeting, we all got together to pick our days (to minimize overlap) and I'm going to be working from home on Fridays (yippee!!!).
Although it only takes me 25-30 minutes to get to work, it's still about 35 miles one way. Saving at least 70 (and, eventually, 140) miles per week will be phenomenal! With my uber gas mileage, I can probably go back to gas every two weeks! Even better, Friday is the really bad afternoon-traffic day, so I'm really looking forward to avoiding all that garbage.
If any of y'all are qualified to be a content editor, we're hiring, so let me know and I'll send you the job posting.
In other exciting news, Brian (Raleigh Boychoir alumnus extraordinaire) was asked today to emcee the 40-Year Anniversary Raleigh Boychoir Gala Celebration in October. It should be great fun.
Additionally, our neighborhood got a shoutout in the News and Observer today:
http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/1149723.html.
(As an aside, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a great story!)
And, finally, I started reading Love in the Time of Cholera, but I'm not completely into it yet, so I'm putting that on hold for Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil, which I got from the library today.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Ode to the Geeks
As I mentioned last week, Brian spent Saturday in Virginia looking at some road construction. He was in a group photo with the other guys that were with him, and, so now, I present y'all with
(If you click on the picture, you can get a much better image.)
So, there you have it.
After all that excitement on Saturday, it was hard for me to compete on Sunday. So, all I could offer was a trip to Lowe's to buy a weedwacker to knockdown the evil, Satan weeds that were attacking our yard. :-) We don't really have enough yard to mow yet, but we had lots of tall weeds that needed to be eliminated. Fortunately, my dear husband took no prisoners and made those weeds his bitch.
As your trusty Web reporter, I captured it on video (unbeknownst to him). He's rather intense, isn't he?
And, yes, I realize now that I invented a word in my narration (adding a few extra syllables to the word momentous).
ROADGEEKS!
Helluva lively bunch there, eh?
He had a really fantastic time. They met with one of the site engineers and saw a PowerPoint about the project and then got explore it on foot. He had told me beforehand that after the meeting he was going to go explore some other areas (which I completely expected), so I wasn't surprised when he told me that he'd be home around 10:30 p.m. Truth-be-told, I love him to death, but Brian sucks at gauging time when it comes to roads he only knows by map. So, basically, when he tells you it will take 2 hours, you have to add an hour and a half to whatever he says. So, when he called me back later and told me that it was going to be like 11:30, I wasn't surprised. I was less surprised when he called me back a third time and told me that it was going to be about 12:30 a.m... So I pretty much chilled at home and did some organizing in the study and one of the upstairs rooms and watched Brokeback Mountain on BravoHD until he rolled in at 12:45 a.m. :-)You might be thinking--what all did he do for all that time? My response: Hell, if I know! I just know that he went from Richmond to Raleigh by way of the Chesapeake Bay and Elizabeth City. Why he did this, though, is an easy answer. He was collecting counties...
...really.He has a competition with all his friends about who can go to the most counties in the USA. He's been to 670 out of 3141. You might be asking yourself right now, what do 670 counties on a map look like? Well, how convenient: he has a map with them all colored in.
(If you click on the picture, you can get a much better image.)
So, there you have it.
After all that excitement on Saturday, it was hard for me to compete on Sunday. So, all I could offer was a trip to Lowe's to buy a weedwacker to knockdown the evil, Satan weeds that were attacking our yard. :-) We don't really have enough yard to mow yet, but we had lots of tall weeds that needed to be eliminated. Fortunately, my dear husband took no prisoners and made those weeds his bitch.
As your trusty Web reporter, I captured it on video (unbeknownst to him). He's rather intense, isn't he?
And, yes, I realize now that I invented a word in my narration (adding a few extra syllables to the word momentous).
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Les livres!
I forgot to mention earlier that I finished Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't the best. If you're looking for good books to read, these are really, really funny. I've found myself laughing out loud soooo many times. Because the protagonist is a chica, they're definitely more chick-ish than guy-oriented, but they're still hilarious.
I can't figure out what book I want to read next. I have three from the library--Nature Girl and Sick Puppy by Carl Hiaasen and Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez--plus The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, which is on the bookshelf upstairs. I think I'm just going to stare at the three library books until one jumps out at me first! I'll stop and read Fearless Fourteen once my queue comes up at the library (I'm currently like number 732--really!) or I swipe my mom's copy, which she hasn't even read yet.
For those of you who don't know, my mom is a crazy, psycho bibliophile. It's fantastic! She's currently on her third straight week at Oak Island and I can't imagine how many books she's finished. I know that on Monday two weeks ago she read two complete books in one day. I definitely don't blame her though--if I was down there for three weeks, I'd just rotate from the beach to the front porch. So, anyway, because she's such a voracious reader, she has the tendency to horde the books to which she's really looking forward, so she's had Fearless Fourteen down there with her but she's read her other 20 books before starting that one... She doesn't just read novels though--she also reads the paper and does the crossword puzzle everyday (she's a very smart woman!). She cracks my nanny up because she swears that my mom is the only person on earth who reads every single word in every single story in the paper. Gotta love her!
I can't figure out what book I want to read next. I have three from the library--Nature Girl and Sick Puppy by Carl Hiaasen and Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez--plus The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, which is on the bookshelf upstairs. I think I'm just going to stare at the three library books until one jumps out at me first! I'll stop and read Fearless Fourteen once my queue comes up at the library (I'm currently like number 732--really!) or I swipe my mom's copy, which she hasn't even read yet.
For those of you who don't know, my mom is a crazy, psycho bibliophile. It's fantastic! She's currently on her third straight week at Oak Island and I can't imagine how many books she's finished. I know that on Monday two weeks ago she read two complete books in one day. I definitely don't blame her though--if I was down there for three weeks, I'd just rotate from the beach to the front porch. So, anyway, because she's such a voracious reader, she has the tendency to horde the books to which she's really looking forward, so she's had Fearless Fourteen down there with her but she's read her other 20 books before starting that one... She doesn't just read novels though--she also reads the paper and does the crossword puzzle everyday (she's a very smart woman!). She cracks my nanny up because she swears that my mom is the only person on earth who reads every single word in every single story in the paper. Gotta love her!
Meatloaf
Brian and I have a meatloaf recipe that we found online that is DELICIOUS and not too terribly bad for us. :-) The funny thing about it is that it's a recipe that's designed for Alzheimer's patients. On the side of the Web page there's a note that it's "Easy to Chew!" And it is! It's also really good: http://www.theribbon.com/recipes/recipe.asp?id=52.
We've also been pretty active this week. On Monday and Wednesday we went on a walk around the neighborhood after we both got home from work. It was pretty toasty Wednesday night, but it's still been pretty nice. On Tuesday and today we went swimming at our neighborhood pool, which we love! There's ton of room to swim around and you don't have to stay in the same place. It was pretty funny, though, because tonight there was some type of kid's group and there were (literally) fifty 8-10 year olds all over the place. It made swimming laps a bit difficult, but it was still a lot of fun.
They've also started building the two houses at the end of our cul-de-sac, so we're really starting to see some action on our street (especially when I leave for work at 7:15--there are workers everywhere!). We also noticed today that there's a house in the neighborhood that is for rent. We're not real excited about that, but I guess there's nothing we can do about it. Whenever I see that stuff, I always wonder if it's due to the mortgage meltdown. The house that is across the street from us was built for a specific family; however, after it was finished, Centex put a FOR SALE sign out front. It didn't take long though and the house was marked SOLD again. We're interested to see who will move in and when!
This weekend I am looking forward to being at home! Brian is going to go to Richmond on Saturday with his fellow roadgeeks to see some new ramp at the I-64/I-295 junction. He gets to wear a hardhat and everything and someone from VDOT will be there to lead them around. Excitement! I, however, will remain home and do some cleaning and organizing. :-)
Also, we're getting a TV and queen size mattress and box springs from one of Brian's coworkers who is picking up and moving to California. We're paying $75 and getting both! The mattress is only 8 months old!! I'm sure mom and dad will appreciate having a bed for football season.
Speaking of which--
In 37 days we'll be in Baton Rouge for the App's season opener!! I am getting soooo pumped. App put out their media guide this week and is really cool looking. My dad also found LSU's game day shirt for our game: http://tygergifts.com/830081.html. It's pretty cool that they actually made a game day shirt for us--Michigan didn't bother! :-) I guess they're taking us seriously!! Have I mentioned how much I love football season?!
We've also been pretty active this week. On Monday and Wednesday we went on a walk around the neighborhood after we both got home from work. It was pretty toasty Wednesday night, but it's still been pretty nice. On Tuesday and today we went swimming at our neighborhood pool, which we love! There's ton of room to swim around and you don't have to stay in the same place. It was pretty funny, though, because tonight there was some type of kid's group and there were (literally) fifty 8-10 year olds all over the place. It made swimming laps a bit difficult, but it was still a lot of fun.
They've also started building the two houses at the end of our cul-de-sac, so we're really starting to see some action on our street (especially when I leave for work at 7:15--there are workers everywhere!). We also noticed today that there's a house in the neighborhood that is for rent. We're not real excited about that, but I guess there's nothing we can do about it. Whenever I see that stuff, I always wonder if it's due to the mortgage meltdown. The house that is across the street from us was built for a specific family; however, after it was finished, Centex put a FOR SALE sign out front. It didn't take long though and the house was marked SOLD again. We're interested to see who will move in and when!
This weekend I am looking forward to being at home! Brian is going to go to Richmond on Saturday with his fellow roadgeeks to see some new ramp at the I-64/I-295 junction. He gets to wear a hardhat and everything and someone from VDOT will be there to lead them around. Excitement! I, however, will remain home and do some cleaning and organizing. :-)
Also, we're getting a TV and queen size mattress and box springs from one of Brian's coworkers who is picking up and moving to California. We're paying $75 and getting both! The mattress is only 8 months old!! I'm sure mom and dad will appreciate having a bed for football season.
Speaking of which--
In 37 days we'll be in Baton Rouge for the App's season opener!! I am getting soooo pumped. App put out their media guide this week and is really cool looking. My dad also found LSU's game day shirt for our game: http://tygergifts.com/830081.html. It's pretty cool that they actually made a game day shirt for us--Michigan didn't bother! :-) I guess they're taking us seriously!! Have I mentioned how much I love football season?!
Sunday, July 13, 2008
YBPC Picture
We had one of the waiters take a group picture of us at dinner:
Unfortunately we didn't get to sit by the waterside, but that was actually a good thing because we weren't in the sun during dinner.
Unfortunately we didn't get to sit by the waterside, but that was actually a good thing because we weren't in the sun during dinner.
We are home.
*sigh*
We spent most of the day sitting on rocking chairs on the porch reading. So I finished Eleven on Top and I read the whole thing not sure if I had previously read it or not. It seemed really familiar, but it's also possible that mom had told me about it and that was why... I'm still not really sure, but it was good!
Afterward, I started Twelve Sharp, which I also may have previously read (see why I needed to start this whole list thing!!). I was pretty into it when we left the beach so I read the whole way home and I had three pages left when we were pulling in the driveway (talk about good timing!).
So now I'm starting Lean Mean Thirteen. My mother-in-law says that it's not as good as the others, so I'm not sure what it will be like...
Other than that, we're ordering pizza delivery from Papa John's and we're going to spend the evening watching Design Star and The Next Food Network Star, both of which I enjoy very much!
Oh, I almost forgot! Our trip to OKI was very profitable because my dad gave us his old cordless drill. He had forewarned us that the battery didn't work and that it might be cheaper just to buy a new drill rather than replace the battery; however, when he charged it up, it worked like a charm, so now we're ready for any drilling project ever...
In fact, Brian is in the backyard drilling for oil right now!
We spent most of the day sitting on rocking chairs on the porch reading. So I finished Eleven on Top and I read the whole thing not sure if I had previously read it or not. It seemed really familiar, but it's also possible that mom had told me about it and that was why... I'm still not really sure, but it was good!
Afterward, I started Twelve Sharp, which I also may have previously read (see why I needed to start this whole list thing!!). I was pretty into it when we left the beach so I read the whole way home and I had three pages left when we were pulling in the driveway (talk about good timing!).
So now I'm starting Lean Mean Thirteen. My mother-in-law says that it's not as good as the others, so I'm not sure what it will be like...
Other than that, we're ordering pizza delivery from Papa John's and we're going to spend the evening watching Design Star and The Next Food Network Star, both of which I enjoy very much!
Oh, I almost forgot! Our trip to OKI was very profitable because my dad gave us his old cordless drill. He had forewarned us that the battery didn't work and that it might be cheaper just to buy a new drill rather than replace the battery; however, when he charged it up, it worked like a charm, so now we're ready for any drilling project ever...
In fact, Brian is in the backyard drilling for oil right now!
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Happy Weekend!
Brian and I are back down here at Oak Island! Mom and nanny were down here all week and Dad, Callison, and Clayton came down for the weekend. Today was absolutely fantastic weather! When we first went down on the beach, there was very little wind and the ocean looked very calm (out at sea), but the waves breaking near the shore were pretty big. After we were down there for about an hour, the wind really picked up and the waves completely changed. They got really big and started rolling in at an angle (as opposed to parallel to the beach). It was hot, but the wind made it quite pleasant. We think the change in beach weather may have been due to Hurricane Bertha out at sea.
I finished off the book I was reading (Tourist Season) and started Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich. Tourist Season was pretty good, but it ended up being pretty serious and not too terribly funny. I still enjoyed it and would recommend it to someone looking for something good to read.
After the beach, we headed out to Southport and ate dinner at the Yacht Basin Provision Company, which is probably the most fantastic place on earth, ever. You eat outside on the waterfront under this big tent and their specialty is peel-and-eat-shrimp. The 5 of us eating shrimp chowed down on 4 lbs. of the little guys. Soooo yummy!!! Eating outside was so nice because they have these great ceiling fans under the tent and it wasn't hot or humid. I think my dad said (at least twice) "this is heaven!"
YBPC is a very important landmark for Family Samuels because four years ago my parents were eating down there and talking about how much they loved the beach. They talked about how great it was to live on the coast and how they were going to do anything in their power to move east. Right after they got home, my dad started looking for jobs and found the one at Big Rock to get them to the coast! And the rest is history.
We definitely do NOT want to come home tomorrow!
I finished off the book I was reading (Tourist Season) and started Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich. Tourist Season was pretty good, but it ended up being pretty serious and not too terribly funny. I still enjoyed it and would recommend it to someone looking for something good to read.
After the beach, we headed out to Southport and ate dinner at the Yacht Basin Provision Company, which is probably the most fantastic place on earth, ever. You eat outside on the waterfront under this big tent and their specialty is peel-and-eat-shrimp. The 5 of us eating shrimp chowed down on 4 lbs. of the little guys. Soooo yummy!!! Eating outside was so nice because they have these great ceiling fans under the tent and it wasn't hot or humid. I think my dad said (at least twice) "this is heaven!"
YBPC is a very important landmark for Family Samuels because four years ago my parents were eating down there and talking about how much they loved the beach. They talked about how great it was to live on the coast and how they were going to do anything in their power to move east. Right after they got home, my dad started looking for jobs and found the one at Big Rock to get them to the coast! And the rest is history.
We definitely do NOT want to come home tomorrow!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
POWER to the people...
As most of y'all know, I'm pretty ridiculously OCD about all things financial and any other thing that I can force into a list or spreadsheet.
Our current Finances spreadsheet has 11 tabs: Monthly Expenses, Checking Balance, Debt Payoff Schedule, Assets, Retirement Contributions, Retirement Balances, Net Worth, Escrows, List of Credit Accounts, Credit Reports & Scores, and Income Taxes.
And that's just for our current stuff.
I also have an archived spreadsheet (dating back to July 2006) that has another Debt Payoff Schedule [all of which are paid off] and our savings plan for our down payment and closing costs.
Yes. I'm serious.
I'm so serious that I have a program running in the background of my laptop that backs up our current Finances workbook every night at 11 p.m. to one of our desktop computers that we use for extra storage space.
I'm totally fascinated by this stuff--to the point where I might seriously consider being a personal financial planner.
So once we were seriously considering buying a house, I got pretty psycho about making sure that we could afford everything about it. I extrapolated our power bill at our apartment and budgeted $200/month total for our Progress Energy and PSNC bills. I know that there will probably be months when it's lower than that amount and the occasional amounts where it's higher.
We received a bill from Progress Energy right after we moved in but it was only for a partial month and during that time we had quite a few days where the thermostat was set in the high 60s or low 70s with the door wide open because of movers, service repair people, deliveries, etc. Plus, we didn't have our fan up in our living room. So, I couldn't really figure out too much from our first bill.
Well, imagine my surprise today when we got our first full bill: it was $113.31 for 30 days (some of which were 100+ degree days!). I was pretty pleased because our PSNC bill has been the standard $10 for a service connection. We haven't really used any gas because we only have it for our fireplace and our heat, neither of which we've used. I figure $123.31 isn't too bad, considering I had budgeted for much more!
We actually used fewer kwh in June of this year at our house than we did last year in our apartment--even though our house is more than twice as big as our apartment and the average daily temperature was 2 degrees higher this year!
Yay for new-construction efficiency!
Now, on the flip side, I have no idea what is going to happen in the winter when we switch over to gas heat (esp. considering PSNC was just granted two rate hikes). Fortunately, Brian and I both like the house to be pretty cool, so we can set our thermostat pretty low and be OK.
Question, though, for any of you who have a natural gas logs fireplace. In the winter, is it better to set your thermostat temperature lower than normal and then use your fireplace more often or is it better to set the temperature higher and use the fireplace more sparingly? I don't know what uses less gas...
Because our fireplace is in our main "living" area, I think we could set the temperature pretty low downstairs and then run the fireplace when we're watching TV. (We have a separate thermostat upstairs, so we could set the temperature a bit warmer up there.)
Also, just because I'm curious, I put a poll up on the left side of the blog about the temperature at which you keep your thermostat set during the summer months. If you don't mind, please answer it so that I can see what the general consensus is. We currently set ours at 78.
We're planning to put in programmable thermostats pretty soon, but for right now we have the nonprogrammable kind.
Our current Finances spreadsheet has 11 tabs: Monthly Expenses, Checking Balance, Debt Payoff Schedule, Assets, Retirement Contributions, Retirement Balances, Net Worth, Escrows, List of Credit Accounts, Credit Reports & Scores, and Income Taxes.
And that's just for our current stuff.
I also have an archived spreadsheet (dating back to July 2006) that has another Debt Payoff Schedule [all of which are paid off] and our savings plan for our down payment and closing costs.
Yes. I'm serious.
I'm so serious that I have a program running in the background of my laptop that backs up our current Finances workbook every night at 11 p.m. to one of our desktop computers that we use for extra storage space.
I'm totally fascinated by this stuff--to the point where I might seriously consider being a personal financial planner.
So once we were seriously considering buying a house, I got pretty psycho about making sure that we could afford everything about it. I extrapolated our power bill at our apartment and budgeted $200/month total for our Progress Energy and PSNC bills. I know that there will probably be months when it's lower than that amount and the occasional amounts where it's higher.
We received a bill from Progress Energy right after we moved in but it was only for a partial month and during that time we had quite a few days where the thermostat was set in the high 60s or low 70s with the door wide open because of movers, service repair people, deliveries, etc. Plus, we didn't have our fan up in our living room. So, I couldn't really figure out too much from our first bill.
Well, imagine my surprise today when we got our first full bill: it was $113.31 for 30 days (some of which were 100+ degree days!). I was pretty pleased because our PSNC bill has been the standard $10 for a service connection. We haven't really used any gas because we only have it for our fireplace and our heat, neither of which we've used. I figure $123.31 isn't too bad, considering I had budgeted for much more!
We actually used fewer kwh in June of this year at our house than we did last year in our apartment--even though our house is more than twice as big as our apartment and the average daily temperature was 2 degrees higher this year!
Yay for new-construction efficiency!
Now, on the flip side, I have no idea what is going to happen in the winter when we switch over to gas heat (esp. considering PSNC was just granted two rate hikes). Fortunately, Brian and I both like the house to be pretty cool, so we can set our thermostat pretty low and be OK.
Question, though, for any of you who have a natural gas logs fireplace. In the winter, is it better to set your thermostat temperature lower than normal and then use your fireplace more often or is it better to set the temperature higher and use the fireplace more sparingly? I don't know what uses less gas...
Because our fireplace is in our main "living" area, I think we could set the temperature pretty low downstairs and then run the fireplace when we're watching TV. (We have a separate thermostat upstairs, so we could set the temperature a bit warmer up there.)
Also, just because I'm curious, I put a poll up on the left side of the blog about the temperature at which you keep your thermostat set during the summer months. If you don't mind, please answer it so that I can see what the general consensus is. We currently set ours at 78.
We're planning to put in programmable thermostats pretty soon, but for right now we have the nonprogrammable kind.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Back in the 'hood
Tonight has been a pretty chill night. After we both got home from work, Brian and I went up to the pool and swam for a bit. The pool is really nice. It's set up like an L with with the short side being a kid's area with a sweet water playland (truth-be-told, after everyone else left, I did go down the water slide when I went swimming last week--it was fun!). The long length of the pool has swimming lanes. We had a good time splashing around. Afterward, we sat in the sun for a bit and read our books. Brian is currently enriching his mind with Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders and I'm cruising through Carl Hiaasen's Tourist Season.
We also have this really cool-looking yellow bird that is frequenting our bird feeder. We have no idea what type of bird it is. It's very pretty!
Any ideas?
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Weather
Bertha appears to be a nonissue.
It has been raining cats and dogs all evening, which is fantastic for our backyard and all our little trees and bushes! Yay liquid manna from heaven.
We've also had quite a few birds at our bird feeder (lots of birdseed is missing!). I hope we can get some good pictures of them at some point!
It has been raining cats and dogs all evening, which is fantastic for our backyard and all our little trees and bushes! Yay liquid manna from heaven.
We've also had quite a few birds at our bird feeder (lots of birdseed is missing!). I hope we can get some good pictures of them at some point!
Bertha!
The National Hurricane Center isn't quite sure what she's going to do yet, but the current track pretty much takes her barreling toward North Carolina. However, the discussion seems to be indicating that she'll curve northward once the ridge out in the Atlantic weakens...
Only time will tell. If she does anything, it will be about a week from now.
I added a link to WRAL's forecast track on the the left side of the blog.
Only time will tell. If she does anything, it will be about a week from now.
I added a link to WRAL's forecast track on the the left side of the blog.
R.E.A.D.: Read Everything And Discover!
Whenever I am at Oak Island, it always brings back a flood of memories about things that I've done down here throughout the years. Today as I was reading on the beach, I started thinking about how many summer days I spent reading on the beach and the front porch, which reminded me to pull up two lists that I made a long time ago of books that I had read. One of the lists was in a spreadsheet and the other was a Web page that I had created on my personal Web space at NCSU, back in 2001.
I combined the two lists and added some other books that I could remember from my undergrad and graduate days and updated everything in a Google doc:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pTkSOoa8zZA3FtaYSm7wmMA
I'm going to try to keep this up to date because it's really pretty funny to go back and see what stuff I've read. I'm actually pretty impressed with myself because I can remember the years for the majority of the books that I've read...the furthest back I can remember is 1989, which is when I read The Castle in the Attic. The only reason I can remember that far back is because that was the first CHAPTER BOOK that I ever read, and, better yet, I actually read it outside of school. Even more memorable--I was in second grade and it was the middle of the coldest winter ever because we were living in Gettysburg, PA for 8 months.
I'm also keeping a list at the bottom of the blog of books that I want to read, because I always forget book names when I am actually at the library! If you know of others that are really good, please let me know. I'm open to about anything and everything.
It's really, really kinda nice to have other things to think about other than what's going on with the house! I apologize to all y'all if my posts aren't nearly as exciting or interesting as they were back in the day. Truth-be-told, we're pretty boring people, but you probably already figured that out! :-)
I combined the two lists and added some other books that I could remember from my undergrad and graduate days and updated everything in a Google doc:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pTkSOoa8zZA3FtaYSm7wmMA
I'm going to try to keep this up to date because it's really pretty funny to go back and see what stuff I've read. I'm actually pretty impressed with myself because I can remember the years for the majority of the books that I've read...the furthest back I can remember is 1989, which is when I read The Castle in the Attic. The only reason I can remember that far back is because that was the first CHAPTER BOOK that I ever read, and, better yet, I actually read it outside of school. Even more memorable--I was in second grade and it was the middle of the coldest winter ever because we were living in Gettysburg, PA for 8 months.
I'm also keeping a list at the bottom of the blog of books that I want to read, because I always forget book names when I am actually at the library! If you know of others that are really good, please let me know. I'm open to about anything and everything.
It's really, really kinda nice to have other things to think about other than what's going on with the house! I apologize to all y'all if my posts aren't nearly as exciting or interesting as they were back in the day. Truth-be-told, we're pretty boring people, but you probably already figured that out! :-)
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Seagulls!
Right after dinner we had some extra bread that was getting old, so mom, Callie, and I went out on the back porch to feed the seagulls:
Don't they sound so cool?
Fireworks!
Yesterday we went to the fireworks show in Southport. I did this a couple times growing up, but there were always SO MANY people in Southport (with only one main road heading out of town) that my family always thought it was more trouble than it was worth. In their defense, it would often take about 1.5 hours to get to Southport (from OKI--a normal 25 min. drive) and then about 3 hours to get home. So when I told them all yesterday that Brian and I were going to go this year, they all kinda just laughed....
The show was scheduled to start at 9 p.m., so we left the house at 7:30 (after a super awesome homecooked supper [my nanny made some awesome homecooked ranch dressing and my dad grilled our filets PERFECTLY]). We had very little traffic until we got into Southport and then it was just "slow, but moving" until we got into downtown. There weren't many parking spaces, but fortunately we have a Honda, so we were able to wedge my car between a power pole and its support guidewire. :-)
We found some open grass space right on the waterfront. It was absolutely beautiful weather. Low 80s with the wind blowing 15-20 mph, which was perfect to keep the mosquitoes away.
The show started right on time and the fireworks were awesome! We were able to get some good pictures during the show:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/FourthOfJuly2008
Afterward, we hightailed it outta there and made it to our car in record time! Brian was able to navigate through a lot of the side streets quickly and were able to make it home in about 45 minutes--not bad at all!
Overall, a very lovely evening!
Today is pretty cloudy and cool, so it may not be a good beach day. Currently we're watching the first stage of Le Tour de France! Oui!
The show was scheduled to start at 9 p.m., so we left the house at 7:30 (after a super awesome homecooked supper [my nanny made some awesome homecooked ranch dressing and my dad grilled our filets PERFECTLY]). We had very little traffic until we got into Southport and then it was just "slow, but moving" until we got into downtown. There weren't many parking spaces, but fortunately we have a Honda, so we were able to wedge my car between a power pole and its support guidewire. :-)
We found some open grass space right on the waterfront. It was absolutely beautiful weather. Low 80s with the wind blowing 15-20 mph, which was perfect to keep the mosquitoes away.
The show started right on time and the fireworks were awesome! We were able to get some good pictures during the show:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/FourthOfJuly2008
Afterward, we hightailed it outta there and made it to our car in record time! Brian was able to navigate through a lot of the side streets quickly and were able to make it home in about 45 minutes--not bad at all!
Overall, a very lovely evening!
Today is pretty cloudy and cool, so it may not be a good beach day. Currently we're watching the first stage of Le Tour de France! Oui!
Friday, July 4, 2008
Happy Fourth!
We're chil-laxin in Oak Island with my family and grandmother, getting ready for the Hot Dog Eating Contest. We had the best lunch ever from the Oak Island Sub Shop (sorry, Kev!).
The weather down here is absolutely beautiful--it's warm with an awesome sea breeze! I think I'll be beachin' it this afternoon before we grill out on steaks for dinner.
Tonight, Brian and I are going to the fireworks show in Southport, which is North Carolina's OFFICIAL Fourth of July Festival Capital.
Life is good! Happy America Day to all!
The weather down here is absolutely beautiful--it's warm with an awesome sea breeze! I think I'll be beachin' it this afternoon before we grill out on steaks for dinner.
Tonight, Brian and I are going to the fireworks show in Southport, which is North Carolina's OFFICIAL Fourth of July Festival Capital.
Life is good! Happy America Day to all!
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Excitement! A Double Post!
I'm on a roll now! I forgot to mention--yesterday was very monumental as it was the day that we made our first mortgage payment ever. Only 359 more to go!!
The bad news is that 15.4% of it went to the principal, 70.8% went to interest, and 13.8% went to escrow.
Equity here we come...
... or not!
The bad news is that 15.4% of it went to the principal, 70.8% went to interest, and 13.8% went to escrow.
Equity here we come...
... or not!
FINE--Y'ALL WIN!
OK, so today I went to visit my absolute favorite people on the planet--my dear, dear friends (who I miss very dearly) at former-employer-to-not-be-named-in-Cary.
Oh sure, they were delighted to see me...but within like 15 seconds of talking everyone, I started catching hell about my sucktitude at blog updating. Yes, I'm referring to you:
Kara...
Laura...
Katie...
Lana...
Sarah...
Hell, I'm pretty sure I even heard Libby complaining and she hasn't worked there for more than a year and a half...
THANKS, LADIES!
So...I've succumbed and here y'all go:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/HouseWithFurniture
We've also just recently learned that not only was Bri interviewed for the TBJ article, but, also, some photographer is coming out to the house Tuesday night to take our picture. I'm quite certain that we'll look extremely loserly standing in front of our house in some pseudo-American Dream styled photo. Feel free to laugh at us....
We've also had an epic MAN VS. BEAST battle brewing here. Last weekend we baked cookies and gave some to the neighbors who recently moved in down the street. Evidently, in the process, we must have dropped a bit of sugar because the next morning we were under attack by evil-satan-beasts, occasionally referred to as ANTS.
I'm positive that there were 600,000 of them...
Brian thinks it's more like 20.
Whatever--the number is of no consequence--we were under attack! After eliminating the sugar source, we were feeling all green (aka cheap) and tried some home remedies to cut the little bastards off (vinegar, black pepper, etc.).
Which don't work....
We then decided it was better to go full force and murder them all with Raid.
Which definitely works--on contact (I think I can still hear the distant sounds of screaming, dying ants)
So, we appear to be ant-free now, although we've probably put poisonous evil bug stuff in the air in the house and we'll likely develop weird deformities...but at least there won't be any ants!
HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!! We're going to Oak Island!
Oh sure, they were delighted to see me...but within like 15 seconds of talking everyone, I started catching hell about my sucktitude at blog updating. Yes, I'm referring to you:
Kara...
Laura...
Katie...
Lana...
Sarah...
Hell, I'm pretty sure I even heard Libby complaining and she hasn't worked there for more than a year and a half...
THANKS, LADIES!
So...I've succumbed and here y'all go:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/HouseWithFurniture
We've also just recently learned that not only was Bri interviewed for the TBJ article, but, also, some photographer is coming out to the house Tuesday night to take our picture. I'm quite certain that we'll look extremely loserly standing in front of our house in some pseudo-American Dream styled photo. Feel free to laugh at us....
We've also had an epic MAN VS. BEAST battle brewing here. Last weekend we baked cookies and gave some to the neighbors who recently moved in down the street. Evidently, in the process, we must have dropped a bit of sugar because the next morning we were under attack by evil-satan-beasts, occasionally referred to as ANTS.
I'm positive that there were 600,000 of them...
Brian thinks it's more like 20.
Whatever--the number is of no consequence--we were under attack! After eliminating the sugar source, we were feeling all green (aka cheap) and tried some home remedies to cut the little bastards off (vinegar, black pepper, etc.).
Which don't work....
We then decided it was better to go full force and murder them all with Raid.
Which definitely works--on contact (I think I can still hear the distant sounds of screaming, dying ants)
So, we appear to be ant-free now, although we've probably put poisonous evil bug stuff in the air in the house and we'll likely develop weird deformities...but at least there won't be any ants!
HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!! We're going to Oak Island!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)