October 29, 2009

I'm a lazy blogger.

We haven't disappeared off the face of the earth. I promise.

We've been moderately busy during October. October is one of my favorite months. The first weekend in October I played for a wedding in Fuquay-Varina. It was an interesting experience between a pianist who really didn't have much classical music training and no legible road signs for getting around town. Jamie and I took off to Raleigh on the morning before the wedding to see the museums. YAY for FREE stuff to do! We visited the NC Museum of Natrual Science and the NC Museum of History. I took some pictures and they're uploaded to the Flickr album.

I entered five of my photographs in the Dixie Classic Fair's Amateur Adult Photography Contest. I didn't win any ribbons, but my photos looked just as good as the other non-ribboned photos I saw.

Keeping with fall tradition in my family, we went to an October race. But we didn't go to Charlotte. We checked out the short-track action at Martinsville last weekend. Getting there and back were the most interesting part of the day since our Mapquest directions got us lost in the middle of nowhere, rural NC. The trees and vistas were very lovely, though we did drive probably half an hour more than we had to. I took more pictures and they're uploaded to the Flickr album too.

Our little house was about to burst at the seams. We had six people stuffed in it. Mom came up with Mema, Grandpa, and Aunt Gloria for the race, though we left Grandpa at home on Sunday, which was A-ok by him. Mom and Aunt Gloria will be back in a couple of weeks after a Camp weekend. Then Mom, Mema, and Grandpa will be back for Thanksgiving. I'm soooo excited! Food and family and shopping and CHRISTMAS decorating!!!

As much as I complain about stores setting out Christmas stuff before Halloween, I do secretly LOVE seeing all the Christmas stuff. Like tonight, I was drooling over some very adorable holiday plates at Target. As I get older, I love Christmas time more and more and I'm very disappointed when it ends. I love the lights and decorations!

September 9, 2009

We had a moderately lazy Labor Day weekend. Last Friday we checked out another new (to us) Mexican restaurant. We've been to 9 in town so far in the search for excellent Mexican food. This last one was the best so far, since it's menu was TOTALLY different from every other restaurant. Plus it has the word "Taqueria" in its name, unlike any of the other Mexican places. We didn't get any tacos like the name suggested, but we did very much enjoy what we got.

After stuffing down some enchiladas and a chimichanga we headed to the movie theater to catch an afternoon showing of Inglorious Basterds. Good movie. Not for everybody though. I loved Brad Pitt's twangy southern accent, especially when he pretended to be Eye-talian.

We didn't do anything Saturday or Sunday except watch the races in Atlanta (woohoo for Kevin Harvick and Kasey Kahne!).

On Monday I worked HARD. For the past few weeks (months maybe...) I've felt like the apartment was sooooo dirty. Of course, things are always neat and orderly around here, but underneath all the neat and orderly just felt grimy. The kitchen and bathrooms got a thorough scrubbing, which meant I was on the floor A LOT. Toilet paper seems to leave a fluffy film on everything in the bathroom that is hard to clean without elbow grease. Dust in the kitchen area mixes with general cooking grease and splatter and just makes a greasy mess on surfaces. I am happy to say that we have lovely clean baseboards now! Who knew they were actually white! All the floors got vacuumed, and it is now safe to walk around barefooted without worrying about stepping on something. YAY!

In the midst of cleaning, I went into the kitchen closet for something and saw a huge puddle of water on the floor. OH CRAP! What has exploded?! The AC unit and the water heater are both in the kitchen closet (which is also under the stairs). I was worried that the entire closet was flooded, but it was just one spot. The AC drain had gotten clogged. Funny how the SAME thing happened in the previous townhouse too. Plus, one of the hoses connected to the unit was leaking. Luckily, it was just two little drips that had dripped a LONG time, since the AC had been running all day. After mopping up the mess with some towels, I put a bucket under one drip and a rubber bin under the other. Crisis averted until the maintenance guy could come fix it.

Once I put away all the cleaning stuff and had steamed the flood in the closet I asked Jamie if the house felt cleaner. He said yes. All of my hard work was worth the effort! Hurrah!

Keep an eye out on the Jewelry page in Stylishly Crafty. I plan to take pictures of the many necklaces and bracelets I've been working on for the past few weeks.

Oh...and I might be in a new Irish band. More on that later!

August 20, 2009

Our annual employee picnic was today at Tanglewood. I took my fiddle and my camera! The bad thing about playing an instrument is that it's very hard to get a picture of yourself playing. Oh well. Our school's marketing director went around snapping photos. Maybe she'll forward me some. I played with our Dean of Learning Resources who is a Renaissance Guy when it comes to playing instruments. I thought I played a bunch, but he plays even more than I do!

After we sweated off our lunch (it was hooooot even in the air conditioned barn), I scoped out the gardens and arboretum at Tanglewood. There is a very nice rose garden on the front lawn of the Bed and Breakfast on the park grounds, and some meandering gardens behind it. I snapped a few shots, but didn't stay out long because of looming thunder clouds (which never produced any rain) and the 150% humidity. Ugh..it was thick outside.

Enjoy the pictures!

Oh, and this Sunday I play at the church I was supposed to play at last month. Pray that I don't forget my bow again!

August 10, 2009

First of all, an apology to all of the NASCAR fans who had to miss the past two races because of rain and being rescheduled on Mondays. I'm sure it's all my fault because at the end of July I decided to take vacation time on August 3 and 10, which meant I got to actually watch the races! HA!

But on to my latest project...

Before:

After:

After-after:

Mom had some red paint leftover from one of her painting projects and gave it to me to repaint my cabinet. She and I painted it together back in July. Then, this past weekend I stained it and attached the green woven placemats I found at the Dollar Tree for $1 each. I stained the placemats so they weren't quite so garishly apple-green. The stain didn't take so well because the grass mats had been finished with something shiny. But the fact that the stain didn't take uniformly over the mats is kinda cool. Looks pretty nifty, yeah? I think it looks modern (the colors) with a twist of country/traditional (the hardware, the woven mats, and the design).

July 27, 2009

My dearest mama came to see us! She stayed with us for 10 whole days. We had lots of fun, though we really didn't do much but loaf around house for most of the time. We did go to the zoo last Monday. I think Jamie might be zoo'ed out for the year, so we might not go back until sometime next year. The weather was pleasant and the crowds were sparse. As far as I can remember, we saw every animal, even though some of them were in the far reaches of their habitats. We shopped. We ate. We played games. It was a fun week!

Mema sent tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, and string beans from her own garden. Mom brought Bum's bbq, collards, slaw, and corn bread. And Mema even sent pieces of her and Grandpa's birthday cakes. They were very tasty!

Congrats to Mom on her one year anniversary! On July 18, 2008 she had her lumpectomy and she's been cancer free ever since. I hope we celebrate many many more anniversaries!

July 6, 2009

Happy Belated Birthday, USA!!

Jamie didn't have to work on the 4th, but we didn't do anything at all. We just stayed home and watched the race at Daytona. Whew! What an ending! Congrats to Tony Stewart and horray for pushing Kyle Busch out of the way.

Several weeks ago a friend from college sent me an email asking if I'd like to play at her church on July 5th. She said her choir and handbells took the summer months off and she was lining up special music for the season. I love to play! For anybody! Anywhere! So, of course, I said yes. I picked out my pieces to play and diligently practiced them. I'm a lazy violinist and sometimes won't practice for weeks on end, especially if I don't have an upcoming gig.

The morning of July 5th came. I remembered to set my alarm the day before. I had packed my violin the day before. I got up. I got dressed. I put on MAKEUP (yes, MAKEUP). I kissed Jamie goodbye and waved to him as I set off on my merry way.

In 30 minutes I was in High Point, NC, a place I'd only been once before, but never to this particular part of town. I arrived at the church with plenty of time to spare. The pianist and I introduced ourselves and I proceeded to open my violin case. Where I discovered that I was missing BOTH of my bows. About that time, my friend came into the sanctuary carrying a music stand for me. "Shelley! I left my bows at home!!" I exclaimed. She laughed at me and I had to laugh at myself. That was the dumbest thing I'd ever done. There was no way I could head allllllll the way back home and then alllllll the way back to the church before the service started, much less in time to practice the pieces beforehand. The pianist called someone to see if they could bring a bow, but they'd already left their house for the morning. Shelley said not to worry and I could redeem myself later in the summer. Good to her word, she sent me an email asking if I could play August 2nd and I quickly replied that I would and that one bow would be forever GLUED to my violin case.

Needless to say, I came right home and put both bows back in my violin case. Earlier in the week I had messed around with both bows and instead of laying them in the open case with my violin (I usually leave the case open if I'm going to practice a lot) I put both bows on the music stand. When I packed up my violin, I completely forgot about the bows on the stand. Ironically, I had gone in that room that morning to get a safety pin from the closet and didn't even notice the bows laying on the music stand. I am a dingleberry.

Also, we apparently had a shrew pay us a visit. Jamie said he'd been hearing things on and off in the main living area of our apartment (the open kitchen/dining room) and last night finally found the source of the noise. A shrew poked his head out from under the dryer. This afternoon Jamie managed to see how the critter was coming in and out. There was a gap at the bottom of the molding that goes around our sliding door. After he was sure the shrew got back out, he sealed the gap with some caulk. Maybe that'll keep out the spiders and other multi-legged things.