spoiled (and a birthday!)

Oh my. Things are getting bad around here. And by 'bad', I mean adorably a-ok. Someone's got a bad case of softy-ness.

This girl:

is getting spoiled real bad by this guy:

And I'm not sure what to do.

Example A: Last night, I wanted Lola to sleep in our room with us. Normally she sleeps in her kennel, out in the living room. She used to sleep on her pillow in our room, a few months ago. It worked for awhile, but then she started waking up in the middle of the night and whining and walking around...it was distracting. So it was back to the kennel for her. But oftentimes we start feeling guilty that she spends 16+ hours a day in her kennel (all day while we work, all night while we sleep)...what kind of life is that? So I'd like for her to be able to stay out at night. Since she currently has no pillow (she's eaten 2 this year so far), I just brought "her" blanket into our room, laid it on the floor next to my side of the bed (where she used to sleep), and she laid right down! A few minutes later she was up, wandering around, trying to hop in our bed. Clearly, the floor was not soft enough for her. So what does her daddy do? "Oh, I know!" he exclaims, as he hops out of bed and heads towards the living room. A moment later he walks back in carrying a COUCH CUSHION. Her favorite cushion, to be more specific. He lays it on the ground, covers it with the blanket, and what to you know...Lola lays down and falls asleep, happy as a clam. On a couch cushion on the ground. I don't know, it just sort of undid me. In a good way. :) Normally, I may have been opposed to this (what if she decides to chew up the couch cushion?)...but since we bought new couches...I don't really care. (And just because she's awesome, Lola was kind enough to not chew the couch cushion all night long. What a sweetie.)

Oh yeah, did you hear that? We bought the couches! Last Monday, actually. We were going to debate it for awhile (and I loved getting all yall's opinions on it!!) but we stopped back by the Big Lots and asked how many sets they had left, and they only had 1 complete set...so we bought it then and there. My parents were in town for a few hours with their truck, so we loaded them up and took them to my in-laws' house where they will remain until we have a house to put them in. Also waiting at the in-laws' home: a washer and dryer (very nice, donated by one of Matt's uncles), a lawn mower, and a gas grill (those 2 donated by another uncle!). So our house is coming together...or rather, the things that go in the house are. We are now scheduled to close on Wednesday, June 3, so perhaps we will have a place to put all this stuff very soon!

This should be a fun weekend. Matt's brothers are down visiting from Charlotte, so we're spending time with his family cooking out by the pool today...then tonight, I get to see my dear friend Jolene, her husband Tato, and their baby!! They took a spur-of-the-moment road trip east this week (they live on the Texas/Mexico border...a zillion miles away) and so I can't WAIT to see them and meet their 1-month-old, Anahi!

Finally, I would like to shout-out to my lovely friend and almost-life-partner (if marriage didn't happen for us both, I'm sure we would still be roommates. And happy about it) Kristina. It's her birthday! This calls for a photo tribute...which wasn't hard to come up with, since we've been friends since 11th grade, lived together for 3 years, and are somewhat camera-happy people.

Sophomore year of college...gameday! (L-R: Stine, me, Elizabeth)

Sophomore year, after Wesley one night

Junior or Senior year, Halloween. We were the Pillar of Fire and Pillar of Clouds...creative, yes?

One of our many (in)famous Mary Kate and Ashley-inspired photo shoots.

Intern appreciation, 2006

Kristina's wedding, March 2007 (L-R: Elizabeth, Stine, me, Catherine Corry)


at my wedding! Isn't she beautiful? June 2007

my wedding again

Anyway, I have lots more where those came from...and I had a lot of fun looking through all those old pictures! The things I will suffer for my friends...I tell ya. But Stine is as good as they come, and I've been very blessed to have her as a BFF all these years. I miss her so much, now that she lives far far away in Charlotte, but then it makes our time together even more fun! I still hold out hope that one of these days we will be next-door-neighbors for life...and we will both have cute little pygmy elephants tromping around our backyard (we'll share a backyard). Oh, and cute kids, too...and we'll have photo shoots with THEM...and then they'll get married to each other and the world will get a little more beautiful. :) Happy birthday, Stine! I love you!!

The Great Sofa Debate

Welcome to Athens, Ga, where the husband and I are currently involved in the Great Sofa Debate of 2009.

That may be overstating it a bit. It just sounded more exciting that way. Also, it sounds even more exciting if you pronounce the word 'sofa' like this: 'sofer.' I love mispronouncing words that end in -a and making it an -er. It's so much fun. That's why you'll hear Matt and I call our daughter 'Loler' instead of her given name, Lola. I wonder if there's a part of the country where people really do pronounce words that way? I should move there...I'd be constantly entertained. Anyway, I'm off on a tangent. Let's get back to the topic at hand here: The Sofa.

We have a couch. (Note: I use the words 'sofa' and 'couch' interchangeably. In my opinion they are the same thing. You can correct me if I'm wrong.) We got it off Craigslist right before we got married. Actually, we got it off Facebook Marketplace, which is highly underrated. We also found our Civic there. Kudos to Facebook. At any rate, our sofa was several years old and used when we got it (and the previous owner had a dog), but in pretty good shape. I like the color (lightish green) and style, and it's served us well. However, we're not overly finicky about it...since we only invested $100 in it, we don't exactly treat it like a priceless antique or something. It's well-loved and well-used. Lola (Loler) particularly enjoys leaping onto it immediately after coming inside from the mudhole backyard. It's seen a looottttt of spot-cleaning this year. Anyway, it seats 3 (4 if you're close) and is our only sit-able furniture in the living room. If we have more than 4 people over, folks get to sit on the floor or on a dining room chair (not comfy). So we tend to not have many people over, which makes me sad. But our living room now just isn't big enough for more furniture.

However, we are buying a house (have I mentioned that before?). The future homestead has a much much larger living room. Actually, it looks like this:

Not that you can actually see anything in this picture except the fireplace (and my purse on top)...I was standing probably 2/3 of the way into the room (that's the back of the living room you're seeing) with my back to the front door and front of the house. It's a big ol' empty room with white walls and no floors. And big windows. Anyway, in a few weeks it will have lovely laminate floors and nicely painted walls and be all ready for...furniture. Which brings us back to the topic at hand: the sofa. We like our sofa, but it's seen better days. And we would really like a bit more furniture to a) fill up the space in the new living room and b) sit on (crazy, right?). So purchasing a new sofa, or sofa and loveseat or chair seems like a good move. However, we have a lot of things to be spending our money on...things that are really necessary, like flooring, a water heater, and a stove. Replacing stuff that works isn't really at the top of my list of priorities. With this in mind, I spent Saturday morning doing a thorough sofa-cleaning...I took off all the cushion covers and machine washed them, and while they were washing/ air drying I scrubbed down the rest of the sofa (the fabric that wouldn't come off) with a mixture of hot water and upholstry cleaner...and a lot of elbow grease. It look like a tornado hit my house:

That top picture has one of the cushions tastefully draped over the vacuum cleaner as the fan blows it dry...classy, right? Then I got the brilliant idea to move them all to the front porch for some sunlight and wind (between rainstorms). It worked for awhile but then I noticed like a million flies landing on them...sick. So they came back in. Anyway, it took all day for them to dry (and the final product is actually pretty great)...but in the meantime, we had nowhere to SIT, so Matt and I had to get out of the house for the day. We passed the time by doing a little shopping...and we stopped by our local Big Lots.

Big Lots is pretty amazing. I never actually went to one until well into my college years, and I'm sad about all the quality shopping I missed out on in my first 20 years. Oh, what could have been. Anyway, our BL here in Athens has a sizeable furniture section, and as fate would have it, they had quite a few living room sets for some pretty decent prices. They had one set, though, for a freakin steal. Check it out, comrades:

Nice, right? Nice dark brown color (the better to hide Lola's dirty pawprints), comfy corderoy-ish fabric, cushions that aren't all squished down and lumpy (I appreciate the small things)...and better yet, we can get both the sofa and the loveseat (6 people could sit!!!!) for around $550!!! The sofa is normally $400 and the loveseat $350, but through May 30 if you buy both of them they take $200 off! So the questions is...should we get them?

Interesting, potentially significant fact: Because our closing got moved to June (which was very depressing initially), we will not have to make our first mortgage payment until August. Previously we had planned on making our first payment in July, along with our last rent payment in July...so we knew we'd have overlapping payments that month. So we budgeted accordingly and have that money saved up. But now we won't have overlapping payments that month...so I'm thinkin...sofa?? Or should we save the money and be content with what we have? Or buy Lola a brother or sister? Or buy something else? Have a huge party? Go on vacation?

So many choices, so little time. We must decide before the sale ends May 30...so leave a comment with your opinion!

PS. Just now when I was looking for a picture of the set online, I found the same sofa for sale (just the sofa, not the set) at some online store for a little over $1000!!! Are you KIDDING me??!! I really don't think this is an issue so much of it being that great of a deal at Big Lots...I think this other store is just realllllly overpriced! But still!

friday five

In honor of cheesy radio stations everywhere, I figured I'd do a "Friday Five" today. Only there's no particular theme...there's just...five things. And it's Friday. So...there you have it. Deep, I know...so let's just dive on in.

1. Ticks. I mean, seriously. Those icky creatures. Watch out for them indeed. In the past few weeks we've had more than a few encounters with these unwelcome guests. We've found a few crawling on (or attached to) Lola, and a few weeks ago I even found one on ME, which was unacceptable. The oral flea preventative we have Lola on doesn't have any tick repellant/killer to it, so I decided that when this prescription ran out I'd switch her to something with a tick component. This afternoon after I got off work was when I planned to take her to the vet to get the new stuff. I get home from work, let Lola out, and am getting things together to go to the vet, when what do I find? Another tick on my stomach. SUCKING MY BLOOD. Oh. My. Gosh. I was so freaked out and hyperventilating it took me MUCH too long to remove that little vampire. It was SO stuck in my skin. I actually ran outside, looking for a neighbor (or anyone walking/driving by) to help me because I was so freaked out I couldn't do it myself. Luckily for everyone involved, I couldn't find anyone. (Would you be freaked out if a strange woman in her late 20s with her shirt pulled up knocked on your door and wanted assistance removing a tick?) Needless to say, we got to the vet in a timely manner...I gave the poor girl at the desk my dead tick in a sandwich baggie and begged her to tell me it wasn't the kind of tick that carries Lyme disease. Her response? "Ummm...I think pretty much all ticks carry Lyme Disease." You liar, I know for a fact that most do not. You are no help to me. Just sell me the Frontline and let's be done with it. UGH. Anyway...hopefully we will have less encounters of the Tick kind in the near future.

2. Snakes. While we're on the topic of Unwanted Visitors in My Backyard, let's re-visit an event that happened 2 weekends ago, while Chris and Katy were visiting. As we're all hanging out inside, chatting and what not, Matt absentmindedly gazes out the sliding glass door and comments "hey, there's a snake in the backyard." This was said in the same tone of voice you might use to announce "pardon me, I'm going to go get a glass of water" or something equally inconsequential. So we look out the window, expecting to see something slightly larger than a worm. Instead, we find Snakezilla:

Pictures are worth thousands of my words, so I'll keep this short. The snake was making serious headway towards getting into our shed (catching flies with his snakey little tongue as he slithered), and we had not only Lola but also tiny little Eva with us that weekend. The 3 animals just could not co-exist, so somebody had to go, and unfortunately for the reptile kingdom, the snake got voted off the island. Chris and Matt did a very manly job of defending the house, as Katy and I jumped and squealed like 4 year old girls inside. We never were able to identify what kind of snake it was...obviously some mutant, since I don't think 3 inch-thick snakes are supposed to be living in suburban Georgia.

3. On a much lighter note, I've really been enjoying playing around with my Amish Friendship bread recipe lately. If you're unfamiliar with the Amish Friendship bread and it's offspring (infinite bags of 'starter' that bubble and smell funny for 10 days before you make MORE bread), you should Google it or something. But we've (and by 'we' I mean lots of my friends in Athens, and now Greenville too) been doing it pretty consistently since last summer, and it's only this last batch that I've started getting creative with-- and what fun!! And what yummy results! On Monday I made banana pecan Amish bread, and it was WONDERFUL- and easier than making regular banana bread. I'm still debating what kind to make next time.

4. School's out-- for the kids, that is. Until June 1st, when some of them get to come back for our seven week Summer Splash program where they'll catch up on the things they're behind on and get themselves all ready for kindergarten. Poor things. Anyway, I don't get any time off (well, I'm taking a personal day on Monday so that I can celebrate Memorial Day like the rest of civilized humanity), but it's a nice break from the kids for the next week. And it's really boring. But quiet.

5. Finally, a more sobering story. A 3-year old at my church was diagnosed with leukemia this week and my heart is really broken for him and his family. This is the second child of friends in the past 18 months that has been diagnosed with leukemia and it's such a hard thing. But as sad as I have been about this, I also have this strange feeling of excitement and joy deep in my heart. I am pretty close to Brian and Nolia, the parents of a (then) 6-year old boy who was diagnosed in November of 2007. They were devastated, as you would expect...but as I've watched them deal with Evan's disease for the past year and a half, I have seen God do so much in and through them. Evan's doing very well, now. I mean, there will always be health implications of his disease, but in many ways he lives a normal life now...and yet there's nothing normal about it. God did so much in his life and in his family's life and they will never be the same. They have an incredibly real and deep awareness of God as their strength, their provider, their Healer...their faith in His goodness is astonishing to me. Not only that, but I saw a whole community of friends, neighbors, believers, and strangers pull together to support them and Evan. The kindness so many people showed them regularly brought them (and me) to tears. It was a "restore your faith in humanity" kind of thing. And so I look back on that, and although I hate that Griffin has been diagnosed with such a horrible cancer, and I hate what Mollie and Josh, his parents, are facing right now...I can't wait to see God show His glory. I can't wait to see miracles, and for little Griffin's life to be a story of love, grace, and healing. I fully believe that the God I serve is a God who is consumed with love for his creation and is fully capable of restoring health and life in any situation. Please join me in praying for Griffin and his family...and pray knowing that God loves to do the impossible.

I think that's all I've got for now. We don't have much on the slate for this weekend...since we were supposed to have closed on the house today, we had planned on painting and such this weekend. But since we didn't, we can't. Boo. So we have some free time, which we will also hopefully keep tick and snake free. :) Hopefully there will be some nice weather and we can play outside this weekend!

Happy Friday!

weekend away

We had such a fun weekend in Greenville! In honor of Liz and Scott's impending parenthood and Brooke and Patrick's upcoming cross-country move, we had a weekend of festivities in G-vegas (as the natives call it). There was lots of food (including some mind-blowing desserts), laughing, catching up, and picture-taking. There was also an unplanned flat tire on our Civic, which led to a multi-hour new-tire-buying experience. Surprisingly, that was not the high point of the weekend. But back to the good stuff-- let's review the weekend with photos, shall we?

The couple of honor (Scott and Liz) and the lovely hostess, Katy (and her dog Eva)

Jessica! It had been way too long since I've seen this girl. Apparently not much has changed-- she either has to make a silly face for the camera, or her eyes are closed.We played a fun baby trivia game which I sadly did not win (I like winning). But I still learned some things, and we all had fun. The "art" you may notice is my rendition of an octopus. It was in honor of the Octo-mom (the question was something like "how many is the most surviving children from a single birth?")

The strawberries-n-cream cake from Strossners. This was worth the drive to Greenville all by itself.

Liz and the guys. Or, as someone said that day, "The results of the paternity test are almost in. The daddy is........" :)

Me with the mama-to-be (and hostess to me, Matt, and Lola for the weekend)

The ladies! Katy, Liz, me, Brooke, and Jess

Matt is serious about that fruit, and Dustin is seriously cracking up about something.

Matt and I downtown at the Blue Ridge Brewery-- yum!

On Sunday, we went to Chris & Katy's (HUGE!) church and enjoyed time with them and the Boxes. Afterwards, we had a poolside cookout to celebrate/mourn Patrick and Brooke's upcoming move to Iowa. Lots of jokes about corn were made...I didn't even know there could be so many corn-themed jokes! I forgot to take pictures then, so I'm just planning on stealing the ones on Katy's blog. After that (and some amazing key lime pie) we made the trek back to Athens. Or rather, Matt did. I fell asleep before we got on I-85 in Greenville and woke up just as we turned into our neighborhood in Athens. It was pretty much the best road trip ever!

Only 2 more days of seeing my all-grown-up pre-k-ers at school, and only maybe 4 days til we're homeowners! We're supposed to close on Friday, but (there's always a 'but', isn't there) due to some oversight on behalf of the mortgage people, it may be delayed. Boo hiss on them. Maybe it will all work out, or we may have to file an extension until next week. Either way, the end is near!