It was such a nice day today here. I think the temperature was in the 70's and it was so clear and sunny! Which was good since I spent alot of time on the road today. It most definitely looks like fall now, the trees were beautiful all the way to Camden. I don't have a whole lot to blog about, but since I haven't blogged in awhile, I figured I'd at least try.

We had a pretty busy weekend. Redoing the library is proving to be more difficult than I thought. Mark had a wallpaper border up in there and since we were going to take that down and paint, we had to remove all the glue residue. That was a messy and tedious job, but we got it done. Mark replaced the baseboard and I got 2 coats of paint on all the trim except for the windows. There are 2 windows in the room...one to the outside and one that is between the library and the enclosed back porch (the yellow room). Mark got one coat of paint on the sun room window, but the outside window has to be scraped and then sanded. I got to do lots of that when we redid the sun room. I don't like it. So I'm procrastinating. Mark also got a couple of coats of paint on the ceiling. All the trim and the ceiling is bright white (like the trim in the guest room and the sunroom). It's amazing how much brighter the room already looks with just the trim and ceiling repainted. And with the border down. In a house that is as dark as this one, that dark border just made the room seem smaller and darker. Not what we're going for. Mark painted a little on the wall color on last night so we could see what it looks like with the trim. I think it's actually a little darker than what is currently on the wall, but it has a much cooler tone to it, so I think it will still brighten the room up and make it look much cleaner. It's sort of a crisp khaki color. It's not exactly what I remember picking out, but I think I like it better. It should look really good.

It would appear we're taking the night off from painting, though. Mark seems really tired. I think the time change is not agreeing with him. I'm not a big fan either. I hate it being dark when we leave work. It doesn't exactly motivate me to want to work on anything when I get home. Although, other than the library project, there isn't much I want to work on, there isn't much point. We have all the furniture out of the library, so it's cluttering up every other available space in the house. So I don't see any point in cleaning any other rooms since they all seem filled with miscellaneous clutter and furniture from the library. It's driving me nuts! Hmm...maybe I should find something to paint so I can get this project over with. It may even be motivation enough to sand something.

One of my friends at work is redoing her kitchen. She was asking my opinion on it last week and they started on it this past weekend. She is repainting her cabinets, and after that whole LONG project with Mommy's kitchen I felt I had a little experience to speak from. She is doing a similar thing with her kitchen. Kind of an Italian/Mediterranean feel. The walls will be a sagey green and the cabinets are going to have a crackle finish...I wish we had thought of that when we did Mommy's...what Jimmie's doing sounds pretty cool, AND it was my suggestion, which makes it that much cooler, right? Her base color will be the same as the walls, then you paint on a crackle glaze. Then you paint on the second color (cream in this case), then you seal the whole thing. So it'll be cream with little veins of green...I think it'll look pretty neat. Four coats don't sound like fun, but I think it'll look good. She seems excited about it.

That's about all I can come up with for now. You people need to blog, so get on it! I have nothing to read! Except for you Daddy, I read yours.

Another yucky, rainy day. Blah. Yesterday I was out in it all day long...driving. My morning started off with a drug test, always my favorite way to start the morning. The company has decided (after I've been here 2 years) that everyone that drives a company vehicle ever has to have one. I've been doing quite a bit of driving for work lately, so I qualified, lucky me. So me and the new tech drove to Union City first thing yesterday morning for that. Both of us passed (for all you interested parties). Then I took him with me to hook up a color machine at a church. This guy used to work for Geek Squad, so hooking up a networked printer is no big deal to him. This is a great help to me. Before Mark and I were the only ones who could do it, so when we went on vacation...bad things happened. Now we have back up, I LOVE IT!! I won't bore you with anymore work details. Most of the rest of my day was spent driving to Reelfoot (about an hour) spending 3 hours at the customers' office there and driving an hour back. All in the rain. The best part of my day was still ahead...little did I know. So, I get back to the office and Nan asked me to go with her to deliver a typewriter across town. So, I get in the van and we drive across town. We have to make a left turn. It was all nasty and rainy. Next thing I know....WHAM...someone hit us from behind really, really hard. So, we get out, I run across the street to call Mark and the police. Then we stand in the drizzle for another 45 minutes filling out paperwork, etc. Everyone is alright, Nan and I both have sore necks, but neither of us thought it warranted going to the hospital. The van's bumper was mangled and some of the metal of the van itself is a little crumpled, but not too bad. Mark got there about the same time the police did and stayed with us. I've never seen him walk so fast! He had to park about a 1/4 mile away, but he got to us pretty quickly. Poor thing, he looked SO worried.
After all that, it was time to go home, so we did. Mark helped me make dinner...we had Italian sausage tortellini, peas and cheesy garlic bread. Everything we cooked took about 10 minutes tops. I was SO glad I thought to buy something quick, but good at the store last weekend. We ate, I had a glass of wine and spent the rest of the night laying on Mark. He was a good sport. I swear I'm such a baby when I don't feel good.
So, I haven't gotten hardly anything done on the library this week. We got all the books off the shelves (which was the hard part), so now I'm hoping this weekend we can replace the baseboard that needs replaced and start painting. Woohoo! I'm also hoping to make a trip to Paducah to look for fabric for the curtains Laura is making for me for Christmas. I've got to find some tennis shoes too.
That's about all I've got for now...hope everyone has a good weekend!

What universe do I live in?

What a strange day. I actually got some things done, which is nice. Mostly laundry & dishes...that seems to be my life, doesn't it? But those are the 2 things that constantly need done. I had to go to Union City to try to find some new tennis shoes (unsuccessful) and get some groceries. I don't go to Union City all that often...I'm really not a big fan, but...there's a shoe store there and a Goody's, so I thought I could check both places, which I did...unsuccessfully. Just before I left, however, Daddy called. Which really is ironic...I'll get to that in a minute.
It turns out that Lee and Mykaela are moving to Union City (or already have?). I didn't really catch the whole story about why because I was rather shocked. And admittedly, I freaked out probably a little more than necessary. Ugh...it's just that now we could run into them at any time and I'm afraid it will be all kinds of uncomfortable. I'll get over it, I'm mostly over it now. The ironic part is this...When I have to go to Union City for something, I try to stop by the house just to check on it, make sure the grass is getting cut, etc. and I was planning to do that today before Daddy called. So, in light of the news, I thought I'd go by and leave my key and garage door opener. It didn't occur to me until later that I couldn't leave both because I'd have no way to lock the house if I did. Anywho...I went by there. I didn't go in...mainly because it appeared that someone might be there. There were new mums planted in the flower bed that weren't there before and there was a lamp on inside...so apparently their stuff has already been moved. So, wow, that would've been bad if I'd just opened up the garage door! Lee was in Kansas City, because he had talked to Daddy about meeting for dinner or something. So, I'm assuming Mykaela's there. Me being me, I contemplated knocking on the door, introducing myself and giving her the keys and stuff. Then I thought better of it. I don't have anything against her but you never can tell how someone will respond to something like that. I really want everything to be friendly, I really, really do. I'd love for them to be able to come over for parties, that would be perfectly fine with us, really. Not so much for them I think. That's just how I operate. I see no reason why we can't all be friends. I know there are several of you rolling your eyes about now...but that's just how I feel about it. I really wished Lee would have let me know himself, but after our last conversation, I'm not surprised.
Moving on! I went to TWO places to look for shoes and neither had anything in my size! I was pretty unhappy about that! I looked around at Goody's for work clothes, but overall the quality kind of sucks, so I didn't get anything. I found a cute suit that had a jacket, pants and a skirt, but when I went to try it on it was all so ill-fitting I just gave up. It was cut so weird!
After that I went to Wal-Mart and spent about 30 minutes shopping and about 45 minutes in line. It's Saturday people, schedule some more cashiers, for the love of God! I think they had 4 lanes open...I mean really, what were they thinking? I finally got home and got all the groceries unloaded. This was a particularly large shopping trip because it seemed like we were one ingredient short for everything. I had to restock alot of staples. While I was gone, Mark finished up some laundry and cleaned up the kitchen. When I got back I was not in the best of moods, so he made me some tomato soup and a grilled cheese. I think that may be one of my favorite comfort meals. Then we watched the first game of the World Series. Do I care about it? No. Does Mark care about it? Not really. It was an ok game...more background noise than anything. I was reading a Glamour I bought. I quickly remembered why I quit buying magazines like that. I think it was 3/4 ads and the other 1/4 was nothing special. I was highly disappointed. The interview with Faith Hill was not even particulary impressive. So, that brings us up to now. The cats are all napping and Mark poured me a glass of wine, so I'm going to wind down a bit and then get some good weekend rest! I'm hoping to tackle the library tomorrow.

Has it already been a week?

I can't believe it's been so long since I last blogged! Sorry about that, I know y'all were missing me! LOL I've been fairly busy with work and all that. I won't bore you with the details, except to tell you that today we hired a new technician...which is GREAT for Mark.

This past weekend I was busy working around the house. Mark and I just now got around to taking out our window air conditioners (since we got central h&a). After we got those out we put up new storm windows. Woohoo! Then we cleared a few trees out of what will be our cow pasture (don't ask!) and chopped them up to use in the chimnea(sp?). It felt good to get so much done. Next we're going to start on the library. We're painting all the trim white and the walls a soft tan color. At some point I'm either going to make or buy some curtains, probably dark red or burgundy. The biggest problem with getting started is going to be taking all the books off the shelves...that's going to be a big dusty mess! Then we've got to replace a baseboard that is basically disintegrating. That'll be fun too. Oh, and Laura asked...the library is the room between the kitchen and the bathroom. You know, where all the bookshelves are?

That's all I've got for now. I'll try to be a little better about blogging regularly.

I had a pretty uneventful day. A little tense at work, but not bad. I've managed to catch up on some little projects that I've been putting off because I haven't been out at customers' offices too much this week.

It was pretty cool outside today! We knew it was coming, though. As soon as we got home we brought in all our water plants from the pergola pond as well as the banana plants. Mark seems to think the ferns will ok as long as it doesn't stay cold. I hope he's right!

Mark's second cousin (same age as his mother) owns the land across the road from us. I don't know if anyone remembers seeing it, but there was an old dilapidated house over there. They started tearing it down this past weekend. Mark saw Gerald (the cousin) over there and went over to talk to him. The house was sitting on brick pillars (instead of a foundation) and had a brick chimney. Mark asked if we could have the bricks and Gerald said sure. Our pergola floor is brick that Mark got from the old Martin Manufacturing plant that used to stand in downtown Martin. So these bricks are probably pretty close to the age of the pergola bricks. We plan to redo the pergola pond in the spring. So we'll rebrick where part of the current pond is to give us more seating area in the pergola. So these bricks will be used for that and to build walkways around the new pond, which is going to be much larger. We went over this afternoon after work (and after moving the plants) and picked up about 300 bricks. Some of them are the larger, heavier fire bricks. There are still lots over there, but they were buried under the roof of the old house, so we're going to have to wait until we can get to them.

I updated my Amazon list today. It is listed under the email address srgarrity@yahoo.com. Most of the new stuff I put on there are sweaters, etc. Nothing terribly fun, but things that I need and that I like. I'm trying to pin Mark down to write a list for him, but I haven't been terribly successful yet. I know he can always use shirts for work. He likes solid colors the best, he's not much on plaid or other patterns. I'll have to find the size later. He prefers to buy pants himself, but he isn't really short on pants now anyway. Sweaters would also be good. Lowes or Books-a-Million gift certificates are good. That's about all I have for him at the moment.

Jennifer asked about the shelf I requested. After I listed that, I thought better of it. I think that may be something I'll have to get myself after we get the library redone. Because I'm not even sure what color I'll want to go with the new paint color. So, mark that off my list. Concentrate on sheets and clothing! I'll keep adding to my list to give you more to choose from!

I need lists on everyone too!

I don't have much to blog about, but it's been a few days since I blogged, so I'm blogging just to say I did.

My house is a disaster area. It was all neat and clean before we left, but since we got back we haven't really done much in the way of housework except for laundry and dishes. The pest control guy came this afternoon and I was ashamed to let him see it like that! He called me at work to say he'd be there in 30 minutes, so I rushed home to get the dirty clothes off the bedroom floor (Mark!) and get some dishes washed, make the bed. It's amazing how much you can get done in 20 minutes when you need to. I picked up and straightened up and then started a load of laundry. Discovered there were still clothes sitting in the dryer (whoops!) so I turned them back on for a couple minutes to knock the wrinkles out. Filled up the kitchen sink and started washing dishes. Got all the dishes done. Wiped down the stove and counters. Started Elwood (Mark named our Roomba...robot vacuum) in the living room. Fed the chickens some leftover rice. Folded the clothes I had in the dryer. Got another load started in the washer by the time the pest control guy left. Woohoo...I was on a roll. Unfortunately I had to come back to work for a little while, so my momentum is now broken. But I did get alot done. Or at least I felt like I did. The floors all need swept really badly.

I the first of the 3 Tumble Towers I ordered. It is in as good of shape as the one at Mammaw's, so I was pleased. I have all that stuff sent to work because it's just easier since I'm there during the day. No one at work was nearly as excited about it as I was. They don't know what they're missing! No one has kids that were born in the early 70's nor were any of them kids themselves in the early 70's (except Mark), so none of them even remember such a toy. Maybe I'm just easily amused, but I really like it! I've played a couple times today already! And I must say, I'm pretty good at it. Of course, I guess I should be since it's designed for toddlers!! LOL!

Well, that's about all I've got for now. I am working on Christmas/Birthday lists for Mark and myself. Well, more for myself ;-)

I'll list a couple of things here while I'm thinking about it...Flannel sheets (all of our beds are full size), pajama pants (mine are beyond ragged), a shelf for above the computer (for CD's and office supplies)...Can't think of anything else at the moment, but I'll try to get a formal list together. Hope everyone is having a fabulous week. Happy Birthday to my younger sister Katie who is 24 today!! Hope you're having a great Birthday Katie, hopefully you'll get your gift by tomorrow if you didn't get it today.

Back to reality...

I can't believe how fast our vacation flew by! I'm almost ready to get back into the swing of things though. I haven't felt all that great today, so I hope I'm feeling better by tomorrow morning. Just sinusy I think. It's just that time of year. The weather has been beautiful for the past week, everywhere we went it was nice. And it's been nice here, mid-70s during the day and just cool enough at night to warrant turning on the heat just a little. Our heater works great too! Ah...I love central heat and air!

I've gotten a few things accomplished since we got back on Thursday morning. I've done lots of laundry, bought groceries, etc. Today we went to Union City to eat lunch and go to Lowe's. I bought lots of bulbs...I love bulbs, so low maintenance! I got lots of crocus and tulips, Mark bought some Muscari and I got a few very pale purplish/blue iris. Nothing out of the ordinary really, we just wanted more of what we already have. I'm going to do a tulip border on either side of our front walk. You know, the sidewalk that goes nowhere? That never did make sense to me why you would have a sidewalk that just goes out a little ways and then ends in the middle of the yard. Anyway, back to the bulbs...I'm hoping to get those in the ground before too much longer. We have stuff we have to dig up for the winter too, but I'm really hoping Mark will handle that part.

After Lowe's we went to Tractor Supply to get birdseed, not for the chickens, that would be chicken feed. This is for the wild birds. The cashier even commented that it looked like we were feeding everything. We had 3 different kinds of birdseed. Mark mixes 2 kinds together for the big feeders and we bought thistle for the finch feeder. Then we had huge bags of cat and dog food. Thankfully the chickens were already well-stocked!

I am now the proud owner of 2 Fisher-Price Tumble Towers (ca. 1971). One goes to Mommy. For those of you who don't know what this is:

I love it!

That's about all I've got for now. I am WORN OUT!!! And I haven't gotten ANY scrapping done at all. :(

I've got to work on that! Have a good week everyone! And for those who haven't blogged in forever (and you know who you are!)...you need to get on that!

Home again

We got back home about 9:30 this morning. What a long trip back! We stopped in to see Jennifer and family yesterday afternoon. We'd already been on the road about 6 hours at that point. Then we ran into some traffic issues on the way to Jennifer's. So I think we spent more time in traffic on the way than on our actual visit! Mark was very anxious to get home, which is generally the case once we start heading that way. So we didn't get to stay very long at Jennifer's and Dan had gone to the office, so we didn't get to see him at all. Sorry we missed you Dan! We had a nice visit, though, even if it was short. I hadn't been to Jennifer's in a LONG time and Mark's never been, so we got the tour (lead by Madeline and Caleb). They done a lot to the house since I was there last. Jennifer, I meant to tell you, I LOVE the roman shades in the living room/kitchen! Those are roman shades, right? I think that might be the way to go for our bedroom windows (Laura, are you interested in making them...'cause I'm not! LOL). Anyway, like I said, Mark was anxious to get home. He wanted to drive the rest of the way last night...and we didn't leave Jennifer's until 5ish. I didn't think we'd even make it to Nashville. We ended up stopping in Dickson. So it was only 2 1/2 hours away from home. That made for a pretty easy drive after the drive yesterday. Ok...enough of that! Here's some pictures. I'm going to try to scrap this weekend, so I'll post the pages when I'm done.

This first one I like. This is one I took with the tripod at Greenbrier on "our" rock. The second isn't a terribly good picture, but it's the only one I have of both of us at Folly Beach. That's all for now, I'll post more later. Happy Thursday!

Soooo relaxed!

Well, our trip started off a bit rushed. We had several things we wanted to do in Gatlinburg (mostly in the National Park), but we only had one full day there...which was our anniversary. We got to our hotel on Friday at about 4pm, thanks to a pretty early start. From there we went directly to our favorite pottery store in the Arts & Crafts community. It's a pottery store, but he also has lots of fossils and things. Mark likes his fossils, so that was our first stop. Mark had seen one there last year he really liked and he couldn't wait to get back there to get one. So, we did that and picked up a couple other things. Then we walked downtown (from the hotel) to eat. When we got back to the hotel, we went ahead and gave eachother our anniversary presents. We couldn't wait until Saturday...and as I remember we did the same thing last year. Mark got me a ruby necklace. Very pretty and dainty. I got him some stone bookends. Yeah, I know that doesn't sound exciting, but as I said, the man likes his rocks. He was a geology major. And, well, I like rocks too...so we're dorks and we like it that way. Saturday we got up and had the obligatory Gatlinburg pancake breakfast then drove over to Greenbrier. That's the area of the National Park where we got married. I wanted to take a few pictures (which I would share, but someone left the cable for the camera at home). When we got there, there were people on our rock getting married. I mean, can you believe the nerve!! LOL So we explored a little bit further down the river and then came back when they were gone to take some pictures. Let me tell you, it's way easier to climb around on those rocks when you don't have heels on! We took lots of pictures there and had a good time climbing around on the rocks. Then we drove over to the Arts & Crafts Community again and went through several of the stores. We bought a couple more things, but I can't remember exactly what off the top of my head. I know we got a vase for the dining room table. I'm going to put some bittersweet in it (from our yard) and use it as the centerpiece when we have Thanksgiving dinner at our house with Mark's mother. After lunch we hiked up to Grotto Falls. I was very proud of myself. I wasn't nearly as whiny about hiking 2.6 miles as I was last year. In fact, I really didn't whine at all. After the first 1/4 mile it wasn't bad at all. It was a really pretty waterfall and the trail actually went behind it, which was cool. We got lots of pictures of that too. After that Mark kicked my butt at skeeball. I was not pleased. We had dinner at Cherokee Grill, which had excellent food, but really crappy atmosphere. They had people crammed in there like sardines. It was bad I tell you. Right after our food came they seated a group of 6 or so people next to us. This would've been fine, BUT...they had a very sleepy baby with them. Which was also fine. They weren't just letting the child scream or anything. BUT when the hostess set these people down, she moved their table even closer to ours, so close, that we really couldn't get out without making some move. AND they had the high chair at the end closest to us, which was fine, but the baby was really more at our table than at theirs. We certainly weren't upset with the people, but the restaurant was really trying to cram too many people in, so while the food was good...we paid way too much for it considering the atmosphere. It was so loud our server couldn't even hear us when we were ordering. Ok...rant over. Sunday we slept in a little, then got up, checked out and got the heck out of the tourist hell they call Gatlinburg.
We got to Folly Beach around 5pm or so and went pretty much STRAIGHT to the beach. After we had walked up and down the beach for awhile we got some dinner at the hotel (we were TIRED) and then I hung out in the room while Mark explored some more. I was soooo completely exhausted when we got here. Yesterday we spent the whole day here. I slept alot and we went to the beach a couple times...got in the water and played in the waves a little. I managed to get sunburned in record time. Not too bad though. Then we walked a block or so to a great tapas restaurant. I was introduced to this kind of restaurant in Columbia and I really, really like it. Tapas means "small plates" I think. It's a cool concept. You order small portions of as many different menu items as you want. The presentations were really nice and the food was great. Mark really liked it too. I had sesame crusted seared tuna and asian pork ravioli, Mark had quail wrapped in Italian bacon and scallops wrapped in bacon with truffle oil (that's lots of bacon!). So I got to try all 4 dishes and so did Mark. Even the quail was good and I didn't think I would like that.
Today we went to the SC Aquarium, then did some shopping in downtown Charleston at an open-air market. Had lunch downtown too. I got some moonstone earrings and we bought a few gifts for Beth and Talley (who are taking care of the house and animals while we're away)...Thanks guys!!! Mark bought a shirt that would make Daddy proud (his words)...it's very LOUD and flowery!!! He's really getting into the Hawaiian shirt thing. I'll post pictures later, you know, when I have a cable! When we finished shopping, we went to the beach again...with some sunscreen this time...and got in the water some more. Mark's really loving the beach. He's not been to the beach nearly as much as I have, and he's really enjoying it alot. Today when we were swimming there were dolphins not 10 yards away! It was SO cool! They were almost scary close! Mark had never seen dolphins and we've seen them several times a day since we've been here. It's really been nice. We've slept with our balcony door open so we can hear the ocean and feel the breeze. I really don't want to leave, but we're leaving tomorrow. I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed and I'm missing all my critters, so it's time to go I guess. We plan to stop in and see Jennifer on our way back. Hopefully Mark isn't going to want to drive all 12 hours tomorrow. I had thought we might stay in Atlanta, but Mark wants to make it farther than that tomorrow, so I imagine we'll make it to Chattanooga or so, MAYBE Nashville, but I doubt it. This has gotten rather long, hasn't it? I'll wrap it up now and post again when we get back and I can post some pictures.