School's out for...about two more days

Commencement was tonight. I get to spend the day decorating our division's room at the coliseum. We do an awesome job, if I do say so myself. My college commencement was outside and it had rained earlier in the day, so there was a lot of mud. The best part of my commencement was throwing tissue paper butterflies in a rainbow of colors instead of our mortar boards. I think Mom still has a little bag of those butterflies tucked away somewhere.

Speaking of Mom: I got to spend Mother's Day with my mommie for the first time in several years. I bought her a pretty yellow orchid corsage to wear to church, and I went with her to church! Afterward, Jamie and I took her out to eat. I'm going to treat her to a movie (Robin Hood...) sometime soon.

Jamie had chemo on Monday. His platelet count went from 84 two weeks ago to 130 this past Friday. Hopefully we can stay on schedule for the next 4 treatments, even though he does feel really bad. The fatigue and general blerg feeling are only getting worse, but that is to be expected. The doctor might stop the chemo drug that cause the uncomfortable tingling in his fingers and toes before the 12 treatments are up. Most people aren't able to get the full 12 treatments of that particular drug because of the side effects.

This past semester I taught my first college course. It was soooo cool! Though, I don't really feel that it's fair to call me a "teacher" or an "instructor". The course is online and was already set up, for the most part, before I took over. I have added some assignments and deleted ones that I didn't like. Hopefully, I'll get to teach the course for a while. It's a really good side gig. Summer semester starts up on Tuesday. I hope everybody does well in my class!

My violin isn't being too neglected (though I'm not practicing nearly as much as I should). I've played two weddings recently and I have a concert with the new orchestra at the end of the month. I really need to practice for that concert! I've been "promoted" to 2nd stand in the 2nd violin section. I need to sound like I know what I'm doing.

Oh! Right. My biggest accomplishment lately has been all the jewelry I've been making. Mom says I should be taking pictures of everything I make, but I keep forgetting. I've made over 100 individual pieces and sold quite a few of them. Most of the ladies at work are sporting handmade, one-of-a-kind necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. Several of my pieces have been given as gifts. Everybody who gives one of my designs as a gift always tells me how much the receiver liked the piece. And, everybody who buys something usually always stops by my office to show me their jewelry when they wear it. I love making jewelry! I really do need to post some pictures sometime.

Googlesites Sucks

Excuse the strong terminology, but it's true.

Googlepages died and Googlesites has taken its place. Googlepages was good. Googlesites -- not so much. Googlepages didn't translate directly over into Googlesites; so, now all of my layouts are funky and I can't get them to look like they used to. Well fine. I'll take my ball and go home; or take my blogging elsewhere.

From now on I'll blog directly into our Blogger blog.

Unfortunately, all of the pictures in this here blog were linked to the pictures uploaded to Googlepages, which meant their address was for somewhere within Googlepages. Now all of those pictures are in Googlesites. So Blogger can't find those pictures anymore because their address changed and they didn't leave a forwarding address. Bah. Oh well. Don't worry. Those pictures aren't gone forever. They're in one of the two Flickr albums or safely saved on the computer.

I've uploaded the latest updates in the Story of Us Saga. Parts II, III, and IV are basically in the form of emails that I've sent out to update family and friends on Jamie's emergency hospital stay (Part II), his surgery (Part III), and his adventures in chemo (Part IV). Links to these are located on the right-hand side of the blog.

Now I need to go pay some attention to the hubby because he is feeling neglected. :)

February 8, 2010

Hmmm...where to begin. We (ok..mostly Jamie) have been through quite a lot since I last posted on this blog, as evidenced by the new additions to our Important Dates column.

Our grand adventure started with Dominoes pizza and wings one night for dinner, which led to a trip to the ER for massive dehydration due to throwing up for 36 hours straight, which led to a colonoscopy, which led to a diagnosis of Colon Cancer, which led to a total Colectomy and Chemotherapy.

I plan to put the whole story here, but first I have to organize it! It's mostly in emails that anybody who might read this blog has already received, but I want the story all together in one place.

Check back later for how the story begins.

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).