SchnOctoberFest

Our friends Eric and Leandra invited us to come along with them to SchnOctoberFest, an awareness and fundraising event put on every year by the local miniature schnauzer rescue group. I have to say, now that I've been, there's something about the feeling of being surrounded by dozens of mini schnauzers that you just wouldn't get from being among an equal amount of dogs of different breeds. Maybe it's just the sudden awareness that there are a LOT of schnauzers in the Triangle area, or maybe it's just the fun of seeing how many different sizes, colors, and temperaments that you can find among even a single breed, but it was unquestionably a thoroughly unique and fascinating experience.

The event was spread out enough that I wasn't able to get any pictures that really captured the sheer schnauzerness of it all, but at least I got a few cute pictures of our own "Barky von Schnauzer".


Pasha being coaxed into the agility dog tunnel. Not pictured: her U-turn and exit, 0.5 seconds later.


Pasha is usually either completely wired or conked out and dead to the world. Here, a rare, calm middle state is seen.

If you want some more pictures, check out Leandra's post about the event. As usual their pictures are much better than mine (Experience and a fancy camera really does make a difference compared to my amateurish point-and-shoot technique...!) but I think our dog is cuter anyway. ;-)

Blowing Rock

We spent last weekend in Blowing Rock, NC for our 2.5 year anniversary. (a whole quarter of a decade!) Blowing Rock is a very cute town, right off the Blue Ridge Parkway. We spent Thursday afternoon after we arrived walking down the main street of town and looking in all the shops. That night we had dinner at Bistro Roca Antlers Bar, a restaurant in town that Glenn had heard a recommendation for. It was really great food and I would recommend to anyone heading out that way. I just wish we had made it back there again!

Friday we had a full day of exploring! We started out first thing in the morning to Crabtree Falls. It was about a hour and half drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway...through some really dense fog. It made for quite a mystic drive - except for all the turkeys on the side of the road. The falls were beautiful and worth the hike back up the mountain.


After the falls we decided to embrace our inner kid and go "Gem mining." Or otherwise known as "sifting through gravel on the flume to find all of the stones they've added." It was great fun though. We found a lot of garnets, rubies, and quartz though nothing of any significant value. :)

The tricky task of "flume mining"

After working up quite an appetite trying to find some precious gems we stopped at the Little Switzerland Cafe a couple miles north of Crabtree Falls off the Parkway. Cute little place that locals and us tourists alike seem to enjoy. Next we were off to Linville Caverns, the only caverns in NC open to the public. The limestone formations look like they are straight out a sci fi movie. I was fine until they took us down this tiny little tunnel and started talking about how deep the water was beneath the grate under our feet. Yikes!

And here is an example of the pretty views we had driving back the Parkway.

We had a great time. Thanks Glenn for the wonderful trip! :)

Onto the next great adventure..

So now that we've had the house warming party and the house is in a livable state I'm feeling like its time for the next big (or medium, or even small) thing. Done with the house, onto the next project/idea/object of focus! ....Like, traveling!

Our Fall season is starting to fill up with trips and I'm really looking forward to it. While we were looking, buying, moving into, and settling into the house we didn't really go anywhere (nevermind that we had just got back from Ireland and Vegas, that's beside the point) but now that it's all over with I'm ready to hit the road! Well that, and I can see the end of summer is so very close and I will get a reprieve from sweating like a pig* - and be able to enjoy the outdoors again! Oh how I love thee, Autumn! So far there are a couple camping trips in the works, a quarter-decade anniversary trip to the NC mountains**, a trip to Busch Gardens, and a weekend trip home to see family. YAY

Back later with more info.
Heather


*I broke my summer hibernation rule by going to the Lazy Daze art festival this past Saturday. It was an awesome festival with a lot of cool stuff that we drooled over, boggled at the prices of, and a few things that we happily carried home. Some of these included a jack-o-lantern made from a propane tank and a few cute hand sewn pumpkins. (Again, can you tell we are looking forward to Fall??) We went early in hopes of beating the summer heat with no luck there - I almost drowned in my skin at one point. I thought we were moving somewhere cooler than GA. How sadly we were mistaken.

** Glenn has planned our anniversary trip with little input from me. Its great to have a trip coming up that I don't have to worry about planning. I'm really looking forward to seeing whats in store! :-)

Catching up and settling in

Wow… it's been six weeks since my last post… how'd that happen? Clearly I've been slacking off on the blogging — time to fix that!

So, what's happened lately? Nothing much… and by nothing much, I mean a lot!

The biggest thing is that we're really, truly moved in and settled in now. Everything's unpacked except for stuff that's staying in storage, the furniture is arranged in pleasing and practical ways, pictures and artwork are all in place on the walls… it's a wonderful feeling! We put in a major push over the last couple weeks to get everything ready for the housewarming party and it was worth it. It's amazing how motivational a deadline can be, isn't it?

I think we actually surprised people with how settled in we are now — we got more than one comment about how “it looks like you've been living here for years.” (I think they meant that positively — “you've got it all figured out and made comfortable” — rather than the opposite — “jeez, you've been here for two months and already trashed the place!”…)

Anyway, I've really been struck lately by how everything in this house already has meaning for us and memories associated with it. It's a really good feeling. I'm going to post some examples now — please bear with my ramblings, or ignore them and just see some of the house pictures you've been asking for (though now that we've had the open house, a lot of you have already seen this stuff by now!):

Of course the pictures on the wall themselves have a lot of meaning — our wedding, the places we've traveled together — but the stairway itself also makes me think of how Heather spotted the opportunity that this big blank wall presented, and how we worked together to get the pictures arranged and hung aesthetically. A real team effort!

Our office/guest room/craft room is full of thoughts and memories. The bookcases from our eight-hour IKEA shopping spree. My D&D books and miniatures, both old and new. Even the successful room layout itself, which came from Heather saying thoughtfully, about a week after we moved in, “This room just isn't working! What if we switched all of the furniture around the opposite of how we have it right now?” This is a really cozy, comfortable room, exactly as it should be.

Our “Mickey's Shadow” walls make the bedroom a wonderfully tranquil place. The bed frame was a spontaneous purchase when we found a deal too good to refuse, a pleasant change from our usual modus operandi (see also, 8 hours at IKEA). The comforter on the bed was made for us by my mother from the tablecloths at our wedding rehearsal dinner.

See what I mean? Memories and good feelings everywhere I look!

House Pictures

Oh yeah, people keep requesting pictures of the house. I'm not sure how to give you any more pictures of the house. Do you know how hard it is take pictures of the inside of a house? Very tricky indeed. I end up with furniture pictures mostly and that's not very exciting. So until you let me know what it is you want to see (or come visit!) here is the front again:

Huh, yeah this is when we first bought it.. now imagine crazy overgrown hedges with weeds around them. We haven't quite made it to the outside of the house yet. We are in serious need of some hedge trimmers and a weed whacker.* Glenn at least keeps the grass at a reasonable height thanks to a cool push reel mower I found on Craig's list. (No really, he wanted a push reel mower, I didn't surprise [punish] him with it.)

The inside consists of 2 upstairs bedrooms and a bathroom. The bottom floor is the living room, kitchen, dining nook, craft/office/misc/guestroom room. All with new floors that I think we mentioned before. :) So there, now you've seen everything.

*Well that, and some motivation to get out in the July sun to do anything with them.

Home Sweet Home

Oh look it's been 3 weeks since we posted anything on here. How did that happen? I'm so in awe of people that can consistently update their blog in a witty, informative, and entertaining way. Obviously that's not us. :)

So I'm finally feeling more settled into the house. We finished putting together all of the IKEA bookshelves* and have pretty much unpacked everything as well.** We even have the massive quantity of cardboard produced from the IKEA trip out of the house and innocently placed in our ex-apartment's recycling bin. Glenn and I did a pretty good job of dividing the labor. ...He did it all and I supervised. It requires a lot of work to find the perfect place for everything, you know? :) And much rearranging of things later, I think we've done a pretty good job of making it feel like home and seem more like us than the apartment ever did. We're even eating dinner at the table instead of on the couch in front of the TV...which is a shocker.

Pasha's getting a little better about the house now. Especially since all of the evil cardboard is gone. She is still insanely afraid of the storm drains in the neighborhood but as one friend suggested, maybe she knows something we don't.

We're having an open house in a couple weeks and I'm looking forward to showing the place to friends and family. Several members of both of our family's are coming up to NC, many for the first time since we've moved to NC.

Exciting times!


*We spent 8 hours two weekends ago in IKEA. Yeah, you read that right, 8 HOURS. I'm uncertain whether to be proud of that fact or highly embarrassed. I love IKEA because of all the options and customizability of it all but at the same time I'm somewhat debilitated by it too. Ask Glenn about the time we stood in the linen dept of IKEA for 2 hours. Yeah, and he still married me.

**Except for the craft closet, its a giant mess, full of boxes and anything else we don't know where to put. But that's what the craft closet is supposed to look like right??

P.S Comments are turned on now, finally. In case anyone is interested in leaving any bits of wisdom or thoughts for us. Thank you.

Hardwood floors are hard

Weew its been a crazy couple of weeks! Glenn and I enjoyed our long 3 day weekend just catching our breath after the whirlwind of activity since we closed on the house. Even though we're both still having trouble remembering to drive to the house and NOT the apartment, it's already feeling more like home than our previous apartments :-)

So since the last post.. after we had the carpets removed we began the leveling process. That was tricky involving lots of roofing felt and "high-tech" analysis with a long straight edge. Luckily, I had my husband, the expert leveler around to do the job.

Humm this is definitely taking longer than the ripping-out-carpet part...

Then we brought in friends to help with putting down the bamboo. This went pretty well and only took the majority of 2 days...

Looking good!

Awww so pretty! (Other 2 rooms not shown but just as pretty)

So that was that. Well not really. We ended up taking half the boards back up the following weekend to recut them around the door molding (with help from my parents who came into town to help us settle thinking that we had already completed the floors. Ha, tricked um!) due to some oversight on our part the first time around. And we've had to redo the quarter round twice, redo the caulking job, and repaint the molding. But you know, it was all part of the plan! Here we are 3 weekends later and we're almost done (with that).

Thanks everyone for all of your help with this. We'd have many many many more weeks left of working to get this done otherwise!