Monthly Archives: August 2007

The Rules:
1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog (about their 8 things) and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

1. I cut my meat up in little pieces before I eat it. I never thought anything about this until I met Cliff who found it weird. Like if I am having chicken fried steak, I cut up about half of it into squares before I start eating. He has noticed that my dad does the same thing so he thinks this is where I got it. It makes sense to me because a) it cools it faster, b) you don’t have to get too big of a bite, and c) you get all the cutting done and then you can just eat instead of having to cut, eat, cut, eat..etc. Does anyone else do this?
2. I read blogs a lot. And I look at blogs of friends of people I know. And I occasionally use the “next blog” feature at the top of the blogger pages to see what kind of blogs come up. I use google reader so all I have to do is click on this button on my toolbar that says “next” and it goes to the next post that I haven’t read. I am in general really nosy and like to know what is going on with people. Once in middle school, my four friends and I talked about each other’s strengths. One person’s was fashion, one person’s was movies, I don’t remember the other one, but mine was news. They said I always knew the latest news. Now this can be dangerous. I have to make sure this propensity to like information means that I don’t spread information around or gossip. But overall, I just like knowing things that are going on. Maybe that is why I did Current Events UIL in high school.
3. I like symmetry. I can’t think of an example, but I like things to be even.
4. I am very ticklish. Sometimes you don’t even have to be tickling me but threatening to, and I will start to laugh uncontrollably.
5. I can type really fast. Not that its always perfect, but I definitely use my home row keys that I learned in keyboarding class.
6. There are two types of drivers: 1) those who get in the lane they have to be in eventually and stay there, and 2) those who move around lanes as fast as they can and only get in the appropriate lane at the last minute. I am #1. What are you? (Note: If you are married, you and your spouse will probably be opposite, as Cliff and I are and Jon and Lydia are.)
7. I just finished reading all of the Sisters of the Traveling Pants series. They were good At first I thought it might be silly since it is a young adult series. But Michelle liked it, and she is awesome so that is a high recommendation, and maybe there was someone else too that I heard recommend it. And I do like to reread the Anne of Green Gables series which is young adult, so I gave it a try. And it was a fun and quick read so I liked it!
8. I called my grandmother “mammaw” and one of my supervisors at my new school has the last name “mamaux” which is pronounced the same way. That will be weird to call her that. Maybe I will just stick to her first name. (I thought of this because I made what I call “Mammaw Soup” yesterday, which is just a soup of potatoes, rice, and tomatoes that she made.)

Okay my turn to tag people:
Lydia, Lindsey, Karen, and Kasey! You are it! (And mab better hurry up and post hers because she has already been tagged by someone else! ok, ok maybe we will give you some time since you have to take care of bean and all…)

She doesn’t seem to mind sharing.

At last some pictures of what we have been doing around here. You can click the pictures to see it better.

Today we went to petsmart and petco to try to find Gracie a bed. She is a pretty big dog. Not that she is fat, but she is long when she stretches out. So we wanted a big bed, which means a very expensive bed. After not finding anything, we remembered an old egg crate that we had. I realized I could just buy a sheet or some fabric and make a removeable cover for it. So we went to Joann’s Fabric which is right near our house and got fabric for a bed, and also some fabric to cover our throw pillows on the couch. It was interesting trying to plan out how to make it. It is a little large for the egg crate. And it was really hard to sew the corners. And I forgot to cut off the selvages (raw wierd edges) before starting so you can see part of it on one end. But it turned out pretty well and the fabric cost about $14 which is way cheaper than any dog bed we saw at the stores. Sewing fun! Here is Gracie on her new bed! Isn’t she adorable!?

Here is our kitchen, which mom and I painted. Buddy says hi. He really likes sitting in the window seat and looking out.I want to make a long cushion and some throw pillows for the window seat so I have a nice cozy spot. I also want a bistro table to put in front of the window for a breakfast table. This kitchen has so many cabinets!

I really like the arrangement I came up with for the mantle. You can’t see it, but our old entertainment center is sitting on the floor in front of it and there are various boxes around, so it doesn’t look as pretty in the actual room as it does in this shot where you don’t see the mess. This is the second move where we have tried to get rid of our old entertainment center. Last year we wanted to buy a new one but it didn’t work out so we used it anyway and it was just fine. This time didn’t fit into the plan so well. You’ll see in the next picture.

Here is our sitting area. The fireplace is to the left, I am standing in the kitchen taking the picture. Cliff came up with this seating arrangement which I really like because it is more conversation-oriented and we aren’t getting cable so we won’t be watching tv as much. Notice our bunny ears on top. We actually get 8 good channels. The light blue pillow is one of two blue ones that is finished and the red fabric near it will be another two pillows. I thought I killed my sewing machine trying to make a buttonhole for the blue pillow. I got a giganto knot around the needle and it made an awful noise. Luckily I was testing it on a scrap so it didn’t ruin the whole pillow. I haven’t been brave enough to try it again, but I will eventually.

Here is our bedroom which is mostly done except for hanging a mirror on the wall. I am standing in the doorway to the bathroom.

Here is our awesome walk in closet. I can’t really get a good shot but it is really big! All our luggage is in there and there is space for linen and my shoes get shelves!

The guest room is all ready for you to come visit. I would like to show you a picture of our lavender guest bathroom (I did not make it that color, it is a bit bright but not awful) but it has a wierd layout so its hard to take a picture of it.

And now…I’ll be totally honest about how this process is going. Here are the rooms that still need a little something…

The “formal” living room is currently our storage for books which have no bookshelves to live on. We don’t have furniture for in there, so the current thought is to make it a library. We only have one bookshelf because at our old apt. there were built in bookshelves. We have mentioned the idea that Cliff could build us some but I doubt that will happen.

Here is the mess that came from my dog bed and pillow making process. The dining room was fairly clean before that.

And here is the office which is still pretty messy, but a lovely shade of light green. I want to get a desk at ikea that is just a plain top and legs, and then I will have a big workspace for sewing or scrapbooking or whatever. So all my stuff is still in boxes. And I left Cliff’s stuff in boxes because I figured if I put it all away in his desk, he wouldn’t know where anything was.

So there it is, my pictoral update on our house, the good and the bad. We really like it!

This post will be short because I am supposed to be taking stuff up to my classroom. But I just want to say that….. We finally have internet at home! We came home Tuesday night to find the box of stuff on our doorstep. Cliff tried to set it up but it didn’t work so we thought it probably just wasn’t going to be turned on until Wednesday. So Wednesday morning, Cliff left for work and I tried to set it up but it wouldn’t work. It gave me the screen that says “make sure you have it plugged into a working phone outlet”. Normally I would have ignored that, of course its working, right?, but I decided to check it out. And good thing too because it in fact wasn’t working. So I plugged into the outlet in our bedroom and voila! Internet! Last night Cliff fixed the office outlet. All that “telephone wire systems and maintence” training in the Army actually came into use last night! He had to work with the wires in the outlet and the wires in the box out side and we realized that jack was set up for a second phone line so he had to rewire it for the only phone line in the house. So now we are good to go. I moved all the empty boxes into the garage, hung up some pictures, set up the guest room, and took half of my stuff to school yesterday. Today I am taking the other half, I have to sign my contract, and then later Cliff and I are going to the mall so I can get a baby shower present. You can read Cliff’s blog for our latest battle with insects at our house…