hooray!

My mom is coming to spend the night! She'll be working in Columbus tomorrow and is coming for tonight and tomorrow night - I love it when she comes over :)

In other news - my birthday was Sunday, J and I chilled out - we had been to a crayfish boil on Sat and need to recuperate, and eat ten tons of food! I'm getting an i-pod for my birthday, but I'm a bit worried about using it with our PC. Any thoughts?

Oh, one more hooray!, I'm going camping this weekend with Meris, Al and Adrienne. it's our annual A-Team Extravaganza. This year we are going to Pittsburgh, to camp at Ohiopyle, and visit Falling Water, the Frank Lloyd Wright house. I am too pumped!

emma

Emma is my buddy (she will tell you that I am her *best* friend). I babysat for her before we moved to Indy, and her mom, Holly, is my very best friend in the Fin. Emma is five and I took her to kindergarten evaluation - she thought this was extra special because I wrapped up a pair of froggy sunglasses for her to open - which she wouldn't take off for the rest of the day.

A few weeks ago she came to spend the evening with us, and she drew me this picture.
Emma is on the right, playing with Zippy - see Zippy's cage? The oval is Zippy's tube and the circle is her food bowl. I am on the left, and I'm cooking - you can tell because of the circles. And Jocko is watching ESPN, illustrated by a box with three happy faces (duh!).

Jocko loves this picture because Emma gave him hair :)

yee-haw

I woke up very early this morning (ok, so maybe it wasn't really early - but it was early for me) and I thought "Hmmmm, I am sick of bananas for breakfast. I'm hitting the drive-thru." I tried the cinnamon roll thing at McD's - yeah, not so good. And I tried the iced coffee - ok, but no 'bucks. But all was not lost, because I also ordered a hashbrown (I was thinking ahead), oh fried-potato-goodness, how I love you!

At any rate, the combination of the early morning, caffeine, and an enormous amount of refined carbohydrates has me more than a little giddy.

Hee, hee!

monday, monday

Let's see... today I have, cleaned, cleaned and cleaned. Why? Because we worked outside all weekend, so nothing was done inside, and we generated a metric ton of dirty laundry. The garden beds around the house are looking good, some of the plants needed to be cleaned up, and a nice layer of mulch was laid. Now it stinks like mulch (I find that it smells a bit vinegar-y), but it looks purtty!

We also picked a company to replace the roof, and I picked the roof color. We decided to replace and enlarge the skylight in the entryway, and to add a skylight to our bathroom. We also bought everything we need to replace the gutter behind our garage, as it is currently MIA. Unfortunately that project won't be completed until the roof is replaced, and right now it looks like the roof will be scheduled for August. Why can't they just squeeze us in this weekend? We have a ranch, they won't even need extension ladders.

Oh, my favorite part of the weekend - I bought some vegetables to plant in my "farm." A few tomato plants of varying sizes, sweet peppers, watermelon, and some seeds. And we bought manure and peat to help the soil :) The pants aren't in the ground yet, because we are still under frost-advisory until this coming weekend. So everyday I get to haul my little plants out to the deck and give them water and love. I promise to take pictures once the farm is set up.

Happy Monday!

erika = awesome

Erika has finally named my blog :)

I will be sending her good vibes all day long, in acknowledgement of her completion of the daunting-task-that-is-naming-the-blog. Hmm that just might be a run-on sentence. OH well.

Jubilation! The blog is named!

one year

Last year May 1 fell on a Monday, it was also the day of my first post; so today is my blogiversary. Hooray!

This is the first time I've ever successfully kept a record of my life for more than 3 weeks, and now I am addicted. So, just as a quick recap, here are the highlights of the past year:

* one house bought, one house sold
* 15 pounds lost and re-gained :(
* trips to Dallas, Muskegon, Zeeland, Houghton (yes, you are still waiting on pictures), Pittsburgh, Maine, Troy
* one visit from Mel
* five wedding receptions
* one list of 101 things-to-do that needs to be posted
* one million hours spent catching up with dear friends

I'm so glad we're all blogging - I love our virtual couch :)