Huckleberries

Retro.

2011-06-22T10:02:00.007-05:00

Have you seen our kitchen?

She is a gem. Seriously.

You walk into 1961 when you step onto her yellow linoleum tile squares.

We have seen the light fixture over our breakfast banquette (that's right) in multiple episodes of Mad Men.

What's a banquette, you ask?

Oh, friend. Enjoy this jewel of a breakfast room table.

This picture is from the day we bought the house. Don't worry, everything looks pretty much the same. We did paint the walls white and replace the valance. Wouldn't want to make any drastic changes, though.

Last fall, we won a Green Home Makeover from www.mygreenhomebirmingham.com. As part of the contest, the updated parts of the house were photographed for Birmingham Home & Garden magazine. Nothing about this area of the house was updated, but it makes people smile, so the photographer shot it. Of course, that photo ended up in the magazine. Here is the styled shot of this same exact place:

Amazing what photographer Jean Allsopp did with our house. If I get a better camera, will my pictures look like this?

Ok, I already know the answer to that question -- which is why I don't have a fancy-schmancy camera!

The point of this post is that I am listing our electric range on Craigslist today.

EXTRA! EXTRA! Antique Frigidaire Custom Imperial Electric Range circa 1960 on sale NOW!

Get it while it's hot, people.

Here is a picture (made with my beloved point and shoot that has recently stopped zooming out):

Everything works except the right oven. Are you doing a play or making a film set in the 50s or 60s? or maybe in the 21st century, but with people who have a retro kitchen?

This would be perfect for your set!

Do you own an antique store or a museum for vintage appliances? This is for you!

Act now!

This post is dedicated to Sara Smith and Scott Howell who actually asked about my blog! Do either of you need a new oven? Scott??? I hear you are building a house... don't be shy!

Hope everyone enjoyed the summer solstice and Prince William's 29th birthday.

Speaking of, I will leave you with this article about two of my favorite things: the Royals and Auburn University.

http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2011/06/14/prince-william-offered-football-scholarship-in-alabama-at-birth/

Good News

2011-05-09T15:27:00.005-05:00

I am no longer unemployed... technically!

The past 2 months have been filled with school days as I have been a long-term substitute at two schools. And I love it. The sub life rocks -- particularly long term subs.

Home today, subbing tomorrow -- I like it!

Spring has almost come and gone. Our new landscaping from winning the Green Home Giveaway (www.mygreenbirmingham.com) is thriving, miraculously.

Here are some spring pictures for your entertainment:

This is my Palmetto Bluff cooking show...

One of the first iris blossoms in the front yard

Ferrying across the Savannah River on St. Patrick's Day

Coming soon... May Weddings and our 6 Year Anniversary Celebration.

Unemployment

2011-02-07T18:21:00.010-06:00

In October I quit my job of three years to complete an internship and finish my master's program. I loved this job and since everything was so hectic when I left (already in the middle of the student teaching internship) I wasn't able to wrap things up with all of the people I had been working with. People I worked with in different states probably think I just dropped off the face of the earth -- well, I'm sure they know now since there is someone else in my old position! Anyway, the whole thing was a whirlwind. So, imagine the relief on December 8th when I finished everything! What in the world would I do with myself?

Week 1-2

Pre-Christmas festivities and fun. Plenty of time to decorate, cook, and celebrate! These first few weeks Tyler was in awe of me. I think he actually said, "Wow, those purple lines under your eyes are gone!" And it was true! I had been running too hard since May and this down time was much needed.

Week 3!

Snowy Christmas and travel to the O'Connors annual gathering of the extended family where many competitions and activities are carried out. For example, my father-in-law chooses a book for his children, nieces, and nephews to read each year by the next Christmas. When we gather, we have a test on the book! It may sound like a downer, but everyone loves it. Tyler wins the most. This year's test was on Lassie Come Home which is about the original Lassie in Scotland -- and there is no Timmy! European Lassie. We have also read The Jungle Book, To Kill a Mockingbird (I won that year), All Quiet on the Western Front, and next year we are reading Goodbye, Mr. Chips. I hear it is wonderfully sad.

Week 4 +-- After the holidays, I realized how much time I had. I applied to substitute at schools around town and have been tutoring some neighborhood kids.

We went to Vegas and to Phoenix for the National Championship game. I believe this trip further indoctrinated me into the O'Connor family. My first true roadtrip with them. Driving from Vegas to Phoenix is a 5-hour drive for the non-adventure lover. That is why our bright blue mini van took the 8-hour option down Historic Route 66... where we took a lot of pictures:

I am on top of an Arizona boulder!

It was worth every minute: World Champs!

(accd to Tyler)

Pros of Unemployment:

1. Spontaneous travel

2. Reminding myself how to cook

3. The world is my oyster!

4. Re-organization of my life

5. Time to reflect on the whirlwind that was 2010 -- so I don't forget it!

6. I met my mailwoman and my garbage men!

7. I am here when people need to come by the house for various reasons.

Cons of Unemployment:

1. No tengo dinero!

That is the only one, but it is a biggie!

Actually, #2. is missing the day to day interaction with co-workers/students/etc.

So, 2 cons.

I am enjoying this time, but will have a refreshed mindset towards work when I am back in the "employed" category on the nightly news statistics.

____________________________

"Better watch out for those man-eating jackrabbits and that killer cacti..."

A Quick Visit

2011-02-04T11:24:00.006-06:00

Tyler took me to New York with him earlier this week. While he had a conference to attend, I had time to revisit some of my favorite places. I don't have any pictures from the trip, so I am inserting old NYC pics.

We arrived late Tuesday afternoon and headed straight to The Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien hotel. A perfect late afternoon snack!

with Cecil, Tricia, and Christine at The Burger Joint -- May 2005

On Tuesday night, Tyler and I went to see Memphis, the 2010 Tony-awarding winning show for Best Musical. The singing by the lead female, Felicia, was amazing. The man playing Felicia's brother was a graduate of Alabama State! I said hello to him after the show. It always blows my mind how the stars of these shows simply change into everyday clothes and walk out the stage door into the crowded streets where they blend right in! I think that must be the life. You are a huge star, but really not many people recognize you. Stardom + the freedom to go to the grocery in peace = a win-win!

I spent Wednesday morning visiting a friend and her new baby boy in Brooklyn: a new experience for me. Her neighborhood rocked and I know she must love it there.

Driving Miss Daisy is a play running on Broadway ("a strictly limited engagement"). On Wednesday morning, I may or may not have been watching Kathie Lee and Hoda while they interviewed James Earl Jones, who stars in the show with Vanessa Redgrave. That afternoon I stood in the TKTS line and landed 3 tickets to see it that night! Tricia joined us and we LOVED it. I usually don't see the plays on Broadway, and I never see shows with big name actors in them -- just because tickets are so hard to come by. This was in the top three shows I have seen. There were only 3 cast members (Daisy, Hoke, and Bully) and it ran an hour and a half with no intermission. It was wonderful.

If you are going to NY before April 9th - or you live there!- go see it! I waited 30 min. in the Times Square TKTS line anxiously wondering if I would be able to get tickets until I realized everyone around me was buying tickets to Phantom and Mamma Mia! Perfect.

So, anyway -- highly recommend. Late supper at Joe Allen's and then our trip was almost over.

I managed to get a bit of shopping in on Thursday morning: new gloves from Saks, a white shirt for spring, and a mug from the Met gift shop to replace the one I lost years ago!

A quick trip -- but always worth it. Arrived home to an ice storm that I was not expecting and am convinced that icy weather is following me!

Tyler's visit to NYC, December 2004

While I was away...

2010-12-28T12:46:00.015-06:00

These cute couples tied the knot:
I don't know how I don't have a picture of Thomas and Kelly at their wedding.

Both weddings were very special to us! We have since had our first holiday season with two new sisters-in-law which was great. I have been the only girl for so long, it is awesome to have someone who appreciates your Christmas presents aside from the person giving them to you! I really could have used Kelly last year when I received a vacuum cleaner (the best vacuum ever) and Tyler's brothers thought I was crazy to be so happy about it. At my parents house, the boys always laugh because if one opens something you can predict the other will have the same thing or a variation of it shortly. This year, I looked at John when Laura and I opened a few similar items... it's nice to have someone to be excited with. So, thanks to Laura and Kelly for making Christmas even more special!

Also, while I was away... I finally finished the Master's program in Secondary Education. It took quite a while, so I am glad to have that behind me. To complete the degree, I had to survive 15 weeks with 110 6th graders - a challenging, but rewarding, adventure!

Here is a very abbreviated year-in-review. Our camera's screen gave out on us around May and is currently being repaired, so photos are few and far between for 2010:

January Trip to Savannah-

February snow before the green house was painted-

March -- Hank, who doesn't make the blog much.

April engagement festivities

5 year anniversary in May

June - Kelly & Thomas's wedding

August - Laura & John's wedding

September - October football-

November - Hey, I went hunting!

December - SEC Championship game

2010: A good year!

2010

2010-07-25T16:20:00.002-05:00

Hello from Tyler's office!

Hey, first blog post of 2010.

Since the last post, we have one brother married and another waiting in the wings (13 days).
I sat down to relax yesterday and realized we have been going so fast that our dog is huge, we have only double stuf oreos in our kitchen and the heat is drying up my plants... oh, and the laundry.

Instead of working on all of that, we have been running errands: dog food (still only oreos for us) and 3 new books - Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil, Loving Frank... and one by Lisa See - can't remember title.

August is just around the corner and I will be finishing up my master's degree this fall. The 5th YEAR program that took me 5 years to complete...

Maybe the new schedule will lend itself to blogging more frequently.

We'll see!

Love is in the Air!

2009-12-24T09:54:00.006-06:00

Here is a post I started before Christmas, but never had the pictures!

Christmas came early this year with two engagements! My brother and brother-in-law are both getting married this coming summer to two wonderful girls. Merry Christmas to me!

John & Laura:

I still don't have a picture of Thomas & Kelly, but they are also precious! When I figure out how to work the new camera I will be able to add much more current pictures.

Last week I went to New York with Tyler to see friends and check out the old neighborhood.

We saw Jersey Boys, which we have been trying to see since 2006, and loved it!

Here are some happy thoughts to fight today's bitter cold:

1. LOST Returned! Hurrah. For any fans of this show, I highly recommend the commentary on www.ew.com to help unravel the mysteries.

2. I stumbled across some old tapes from jr. high/high school and then had the awesome realization that... I have a tape player in my car! Mariah Carey's Musicbox and I have recently become reacquainted. Amazing.

3. The Olympics! Ha. Is anyone excited about the Vancouver games? NBC is really forcing it on the Today Show right now. Maybe once they get started... I do usually like the figure skating.

4. All of this cold may lead to snow on Friday -- so that would be nice. If it's going to be this cold, I like to have something exciting happen weather-wise to justify it.

Happy early Valentine's Day!

Good Things

2009-11-17T21:30:00.002-06:00

Here is a list of good things that have happened since the last post, May 8th -- oops!
(in no particular order)

1. The Return of the Web.
Our internet connection is back up at home which means more frequent posts to follow.

2. HANK.
In October we welcomed a precious German shorthaired pointer into our home! Today Hank is about 10 weeks old and a little more than 15 lbs. He is crazy and we love him. Even though he sleeps at my feet as I type, just an hour ago I thought he would never settle down.

3. Nan.
My grandmother moved to Birmingham in August. Having her around more often is the best. We are fortunate to have both of our grandmothers here now. Very happy about that!

4. Castle.
Woo! I love this show with Nathan Fillion (the dr. from the movie Waitress with Keri Russell). In the show he is a murder mystery writer who bases a character around a female who he has to hang around constantly to "research." It is highly entertaining to me. They drop a lot of one line quips and multiple literary, grammatical, and writing jokes. Silly.

5. Christmas music.
It is delightful to get in the car and hear "songs of the season." If you have XM or sirius radio you can listen to the Holly or Holiday Traditions channel... plus, Magic 96 on the regular radio. Perfect!

I am sleepy so this is the last thing for now:
6. Cooler weather brings fires to our den and hot chocolate after work! Coming home and fixing a warm mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream on the top makes a perfect segway from the workday into the nighttime.

There are many more good things that have happened and this exercise was perfect for this pre-Thanksgiving week. We have had a lot of not so great things from Auburn football to illness, but how encouraging it is to think that I could make this list go on and on of all the blessings, big & small, that we have had since May.

Good night!

Surprise!

2009-05-08T14:12:00.003-05:00

I posted!

Ha!

True story: I cut off my internet at home... very sad day. So, as much as I didn't update this blog before, now I will probably be even worse! However, I do love this little web world for keeping up with everyone else and for a quick outlet to share pictures/info. with my out-of-town family! So I am keeping the blog, but don't harass me for not posting because I can't post at home now and I should not post while I am at work - yikes.

Since the last blog... I had a birthday (27!) - loads of fun surrounded by much celebration, by me.
Tyler went out of town on several fun trips and I worked on finishing up my last grad school class! I have many book recommendations if anyone is interested in reading "Young Adult" Literature. I loved my class, but really wanted to do well, so I had to work hard and that was not so much fun.

Spent one weekend writing 14 pages and taking a standardized test. YUCK.

Afterwards, I let Tyler proofread the paper while I took a breather outside. Suddenly, a flush from the bushes behind me released a throng of little birds flying for their lives and followed by the shadow of a huge hawk. Two poor birds crashed right into our den windows - BAM! BAM!
It was terrible!

THEN, the hawk came back to take his prey. Very sad, but at least nature ran it's course and I did not have to pick up the dead little birdies. Discovery channel in my own backyard.

That hawk was intense and I recommend that you take cover if you ever see one because he will hunt you down and find you with his beady supersonic sight eyeballs.

The week after that the O'Connors came back in town! We had a fun and busy weekend running around and catching up. They left, I took my final - got my paper back (yeah!) and finished class!

Here are some pop culture shout outs for any of you readers of this not-so-frequently updated blog:

1. Did you cry over Allison being kicked off of American Idol this week? Surprisingly, yes, I did. I don't know what it was - that final performance just got to me... Cr-ri-iiii -y Baaaaaaaaby.
That is me, I guess.

2. LOST fans... How is Sawyer going to get off of that sub?! Serious tension going on in there... Here are some guesses - not even theories: a) White time travel shriek occurs and pops the 3 of them 5 min. into the future where Jack and Sayiid await, b) Squabble in the sub - Kate busts Sawyer out of hand cuffs - Leaves Juliet to return to US circa 1977 (yikes), or c) Sub starts to leave, but gets called back because "LaFleur" is the only one who can fix something with the security system ... and so they are all there and that is why Alpert claims to have seen them all die. Probably none of these are right.

3. Twilight people: Have you seen the new journals they are coming out with? Seriously. I enjoyed the adventure into vampire world in these books, but I think it's overkill now. What girl needs to be doodling in her vampire journal? I don't know. Too much for me. Each one represents a different book of the series and boasts "famous" quotes from the particular installment. Cheese central.

4. I know I had some other thoughts, but I am not able to recall them at the present time.

5. Oh! I remembered one: I took a gamble on a Snuggie purchase as a thank you gift and it seems to be a hit! I recommend and I think Marg. and A would agree! Random, yes. But I do think that we will all look back at 2009 one day and call it the "Year of the Snuggie (invasion)"

Back to work! Until we meet again...

2009-03-15T15:59:00.008-05:00

Since I just told Liles about my blog, I promised I would showcase him in a post -- I know he is thrilled. Liles, if you are reading this.... Hi! This pic is actually from last August on his 20th Birthday with friends and family. That Happy Birthday sign is actually a table runner my mother likes to use as a banner. I have a feeling I will be seeing it again soon... 15 days until I turn 27. Yikes!

March brings a smile to my heart. It is the greatest month -- goodbye, February!!! Dreary days are behind us. Even if it gets cold again the promise of spring is lurking close behind. In memory of the cold, I uploaded some of the customary Alabama snow day pics. I woke up at 8:30 and saw the snow, but my front yard had already been sled-upon by the neighborhood. I had not noticed that we had the biggest hill until then! So, no pretty snow yard pics...

But these will do! If I only had a picture of John Carter when he walked in our door that morning in full ski gear including goggles. Priceless.

We spent some time in the snow earlier in February with Marg & A who took us out to Deer Valley for a long weekend. Gray and Sarah joined us as well and we had an awesome time! It snowed hard most of the time we were there too, but you can see how beautiful the view was!

February equals craziness at work and I had a Fri/Sat. class every weekend in January -which was awesome - so I am just glad to be settling in to 2009 these days. Now I'm in a Young Adult Lit class and we read wonderful books -- books you read from 7th-12th grade or maybe earlier for some of you advanced readers - The Outsiders, The Whale Rider, Number the Stars- and more current releases, most of which are being/have been made into movies -- Inkheart, Artemis Fowl, Coraline... I love having a reading list to give me some direction with what to read -- this list could take me years to finish. I will probably need to take a breather from YAL for a while after this class is over though.

I picked up Alabama Moon, written by Alabama native, Watt Key, when I went to buy my books for class. Last year I heard Key speak at a conference for English teachers and had been meaning to read this. Listening to him describe the long path to Moon's publishing was enthralling and inspiring. If you are working on having your work published -- hang in there! I think your day will come.

This book would be a perfect fit for young boys who love the outdoors, but I think girls would like it too -- I did! It tells the story of Moon Blake and his life growing up in the forests of West Alabama. If you are familiar with West Alabama at all, you will immensely enjoy the characters and settings found in the novel. Also, I am happy to report that this book, like so many others listed above, will be coming to a theater near you allegedly in 2009. I don't believe most of the release dates!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1300155/

Football, hair dryers, and sea lions: A random post

2008-11-14T20:27:00.002-06:00

Hello! I am not sure what I have been doing, so no lame excuses for no posts! Two pics from our fall are attached. We have been in Savannah visiting, doing our best to help pack, and, most importantly, watching Tate play football (much more fun than watching our choice college football team play at the moment!). The last game we went to was more like a mud bath for the players, but it was great to watch even in the rain!

A few weeks ago my hair dryer gave out on me mid-session. Unfortunately, I was running late. I drove quickly to my parents, grabbed my old dryer, finished the process and took her with me for good. For the next few days, something was different about my hair -- better different! For months I had been thinking my hair looked funny and what do you know, it did!

My stupid hair dryer was burning my head and my hair! I cannot believe that it took me until the thing just overheated and burned out to realize this issue.

So, ladies, check your hairdryers because if you are able to turn her loose and have your hair dry in under two minutes, you could be falling prey to the same hair dryer terror as I was. Crazy how they sneak up on you like that.

Also, in the news here, I am in love with Arbonne 5-step facial cleanser. I will never relinquish my Dove soap bar and Aveeno daily scrub, but this 5 step deal is amazing. The process takes a day or two to get used to, but once you get the hang of it, you are in and out clean as a whistle in no time. I have had it since last Christmas and refused to use it until I got desperate... Why did I not try this before?

And, I decided to read the Twilight books. I last set it down with about 70 pages to go in the first book, and am fairly engrossed in it. Everyone loves it so much and I want to go to the movie next week having finished the book -- so I dove in -- even though I have too much reading for school to be exerting leisure reading time. More thoughts on this read after I finish!

Speaking of school... I finally sat down to blog again since I am supposed to be finishing two papers before the weekend. Worst. Procrastinator. Ever. It is sad.

Anybody been watching Kath & Kim on NBC? Tyler thinks it is a spoof on the Gilmore Girls, which it is not. It is funny though. Love some Thursday night TV. The Office seems to be getting better each week. I thought they might crash when they lost Holly, but this week's trip to Canada and drunk dial to Angela made me cry. That Andy Bernard... remember when he was the big jerk in the other office? His character has been much more entertaining since he & Angela were engaged.

Alright... I really have to go write these papers. Bottom picture is of Tyler on Election Day 2K8. Someone please tell me is it ironic or just plain funny that he was hanging out with sea lions on 11/4 after the past 2 years of focusing on that one very day? At least we have a picture to remember it with. There is, however, no picture of me, at home, a slave to my TV and radio waiting to hear the state-by-state results. Silly me. Here he is:

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

Our New Alarm & Updated Pictures

2008-10-05T22:09:00.007-05:00

Every morning by 6:30 this bright red cardinal comes a'knocking at our den window! I hope you can see him in this picture. He is in the bottom right corner of the window pane. His tapping wakes me up everyday. It is too funny, but also kind of pitiful. He really wants to get into our den and will stay at the window all day. He will be around when we come back for lunch and when we get home in the evenings. I am not sure if he wants to build a nest in the rafters or if he wants food, but this weekend we put up a little bird feeder that Tyler and I picked out at Lowes. I have seen one bird eating out of it, but not him -- I hope he finds it! This afternoon he was back rattatattapping on my window! He smashes red berries up there and it looks gross. Sweet Tyler climbed up to clean the windows last weekend, but now we realize there is not much good to that since he just messes them up immediately afterwards. So now, here are the long awaited pictures of the house (with furniture!) for Carol, the most patient mother in law in the world. Tyler and I love working in the house, but he has tackled the yard like crazy! Pictures of the house and the yard are below - she is still a work in progress, but looking much better & definitely feeling like home -- Enjoy!

Cozy Den

Living room -- hung some sconces & the curtains to the right - behind the sofa is our work station for hanging pictures and such.

Guest room got a bedside table and some wall decor.

This officially became our bathroom the other day. Today I cleaned the shelves, so all of the toiletries are in the cabinets now - a miracle!

The backyard looks amazing. Tyler's work literally makes the yard double in size. We are going to move these boxwoods to the front and re-sod back here, eventually. Also, we are trying to nurse some baby crape myrtles to plant. Will keep you updated on their progress! I promise to not wait another month before I post again -- oops!

New and Improved!

2008-09-08T23:43:00.000-05:00

Almost everything is moved in now, but yet to be unpacked!

Here are a few pictures to compare and contrast the new digs... Nothing new to the kitchen except a thorough deep cleaning by me and Kelly.

For those who may be wondering, the banquette is still in place and still red. I am trying to work that color in with the butter yellow, sky blue and light green.... we'll see how convincing I can make it.

I didn't have a very good "before" picture of the dining room (which is now brown), but you can probably imagine its baby blue walls, carpet, and draperies. Go figure.

We conquered the dining room table Sunday night. She was a bear, but we finally got her inside. Basically it is an octagonal table base with a 300 lb. slab of glass for the top. Tyler pushed it up through the yard. Then we slid it across the living room floor on a blanket.

Here are some before and after pictures. The first set is of the living room. We used this same
color in the den and front bedroom too.

Next is our room which is set up for real life now.
Still need to do something with that light fixture
though...

And here is the den. The ceilings look amazing, crisp, and smooth! The room lit up once we painted over the yellow and trimmed the windows and doors in a brighter white. We are really looking forward to this room!

Here is the team that made it all happen! A huge thanks to the O'Connor's for making the trek over to help us on the holiday weekend and to my family for helping us situate things here!

On the Move

2008-08-26T21:46:00.000-05:00

Spent the weekend with Savannah friends at the Biltmore Estate ("America's largest home") for John & Jessica's wedding. That Friday we closed on the house and jumped in the car to Asheville. Oops, I ran over a piece of wood on the road and popped our back tire! AND we didn't have a jack in the car to put the spare on! Ugh.

Ended up in Athens for the night instead of Asheville, but then we had the chance to play Wii with Lea and Bonnie -- so, all was well after all!

Here we all are at the reception!

In homeowner news, the floor men came today and now all of the baby blue carpet is up and here is what the floors look like. It all just looks so much better without the drapes!

Moving in this weekend!

Home is Where the Heart is!

2008-08-21T14:37:00.000-05:00

At least, that is the greeting on the worn-out, heart-shaped mat welcoming friends into our soon to be new home!

We had our eye on this "diamond in the rough" if you will, for several months and now suddenly we are closing on it this Friday.

I could not be more excited, and I think Tyler will join in after he gets over the closing costs, etc. Last weekend we started packing up ole' Apt. E and she is in total disarray at this point. Moving is much more fun when you are not packing and leaving in 24 hours!

For example, when we left Missouri (in a tizzy) all of our friends aka everyone we worked, came by to help. SO NICE - we would not have gotten out of there without them. We packed all through the night and into the morning. After everything was loaded up we realized the one thing we had left out was... the old fashioned snow sled my brother, John, had given us for Christmas before we moved out to MO (of course it didn't snow until the blizzard that hit right after we left). We roped that baby on top of the Tahoe and headed for home (then went to DC).

So, it is really nice to have a few weeks to contemplate packing and how to best move everything.

Another happy note is that we get to have a storage unit shower! I have been trying to force myself to stop thinking about what all treasures hide within those storage unit walls so that I will be 100% surprised when I unpack the boxes!

This house is going to be a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. Some of the rooms have already won names for themselves. Tyler named the kitchen "Davenports". Some of you might find this strange, others may understand when you see the red vinyl "banquette" in the breakfast room. The den has a flagstone floor and is quite different -- when I say "den" I think about lions. I don't know about the rest of you. Thus, the den has been christened "Pride Rock" by me. No buy in from the husband as of yet. Finally, our guest room will be "Swan Lake". Yes, there are swan faucets and knobs everywhere you turn. (My mother says these are "fine").

In closing, I would just like to echo the sentiment on the weathered doormat. Home has been where the heart is for Tyler and me throughout these past few years. No matter where we moved it always felt like home and I know this new house will too in time.

I will be sure to post some before and after shots in a few weeks... Hopefully they will show signs of improvement!

Here she is! This is a rather wintry looking picture, but don't be deceived, the exterior is mint green!

Reflection

2008-07-24T22:10:00.001-05:00

Sorry for the last post - I wrote so much and then tried to highlight some of it and it all started to delete itself! Bizarro.

To recap our past several months (since I first posted!), I wrote a quick overview of the summer so far...

1. We celebrated our 3rd anniversary on May 28th - watched our wedding video for the second time ever, which I thought was a lot of fun!

2. In June we went to NY two weekends in a row. First with the O'Connor's (a surprise trip!)

Here we all are in Brooklyn before eating dinner at the River Cafe ... they had chocolate desserts with miniature Brooklyn Bridges drizzled and hardened on them -- I saw that on the Food Network one day and was really excited to get that dessert!

Then we went with the Carter family for our cousin Robert's wedding to my friend from high school, Courtney. The after rehersal dinner was at the NY Yacht Club and they got married at the Harvard Club. This was our first family trip together that we have had in a while and we had so much fun. We took this picture at the wedding -- loved every minute of this trip too!

When we came home, Tyler was getting ready to start a new job and I spent most of my time trying to catch up at work from the New York tour.

Shortly afterwards, we found ourselves with the O'Connors again due to the sudden loss of Tyler's great uncle, L. J. "Pop" Bridges. Pop's funeral was held Friday, June 20th. The very next day his maternal grandmother, Betty Darby, aka "Granny" passed away after a 10 year battle with cancer. Fortunately we visited with Granny the day before she died. She couldn't respond verbally, but we knew that she heard us there.

Tyler and I came home and he was finally able to start that job! What a blessing it is to have him home and working in the same town again. The first few mornings that we woke up and got ready for the day together made me laugh so hard -- it was such a difference from this time last year when he was home every few weekends.

But more sad news came quickly. Tyler's paternal grandmother, Janie O'Connor, who had spent the last several months in Birmingham receiving chemotheraphy, died Monday, July 14th from lung cancer and its complications. We drove back to Georgia with Thomas for the visitation and funeral.

Although this summer has brought many sad surprises to our family, it is hard not to be thankful for our loved ones who are no longer in pain and have been lifted up. Each of these three people were kind, loving, and welcoming to all and especially to me as I became a new member of the family. I have so many precious memories of them and I know Tyler has many more. They will be missed dearly.

Here is a picture from 1982 of Pop holding Tyler!

"Grandma" (Mrs. O'Connor) with Tyler at one of our wedding showers in Bham:

Here we are with Granny (Mrs. Darby) who is 3rd from the left, and Pop on the far right -- Thanksgiving 2005:

Those Lazy, Crazy, Hazy Days of Summer...

2008-05-08T13:24:00.000-05:00

Has anyone ever seen the episode of the Gilmore Girls where they sing this song? This is the only line and they sing it over and over again. It gets stuck in my head so often and today is one of those lucky days. Outside it is gray and dreary, (reminiscent of the Missouri weather we used to live in) the tornado sirens just started going off, and I am longing for those lazy, crazy, hazy days of summer! I think I'm going to have a lot more crazy than lazy and hazy this summer,but I will take what I can get! Here is a picture from that episode where they sing the song -- I think it is actually a Nat King Cole song...

Moving on.. this is my first actual blog post so here's a shout out to my first favorite blog ever: http://grayfiser.blogspot.com/
Gray doesn't post much anymore, but back in the day his blog provided some much need entertainment for anyone having a slow day at the office. Good times.

2008-03-20T12:55:00.000-05:00