Lab Updates

John has decided that he does not want to work in the lab he is currently working in.  While he says it's a good lab, and one that many of his classmates are interested in, it's not a good fit for him.

Besides the fact that the lab (or the building, we're not sure which) gives him headaches, he's decided he's not that interested in that field of research.  Apparently it is one of the most difficult specialties to actually receive funding for, so it really is a declining field.  If he went into this field of research, he'd constantly be struggling to get funding, and he'd constantly be worried about being "scooped" from other labs and researchers who are trying just as hard to get funding.

More and more, he is thinking that he'll end up in the first lab he rotated through.  Although he had a rough start, he truly liked it there by the end.  Once he left and saw other labs on campus, he's realized just how great that first lab was - and how those three weeks, even with the language barrier, left him better prepared and more knowledgeable about research techniques than his classmates.

Very few (if any) of his classmates are interested in that first lab.  All of them (John included) had heard negative things about the lab.  But John traced all those negative things back to one grad student in the lab, whose initial research didn't work out, and ended up in a position in the lab that she hates.  And the things in the lab that she hates, are things that John actually kinda likes.  She's been scaring grad students away from this lab - a lab with plenty of money, resources, and a willingness to teach a grad student - for the past 3-4 years.  The PI of the lab is beside himself; he can't understand why no one is going into his lab.

The PI met with John on the last day of his three-week rotation, and promised him three things: 

1. John will graduate in 4-5 years.
2. John will be researching something that matters, with great possibilities for getting published in high-profile journals.
3. John will not have to worry about money.  If John wants to research something that costs a million dollars, they can do that.

The neat thing about this lab is that it approaches research differently than most other labs on campus (Indeed, most of research nowadays).  Most scientists and researchers come up with a hypothesis, and then collect data to prove their hypothesis correct (or incorrect, as it sometimes happens).  This lab collects the data first, and then analyzes the data to come up with the hypothesis.  Which honestly makes much more sense than the normal method to me.

Another cool thing?  The primary language in the lab is Mandarin Chinese.  John and I have been interested in learning Chinese for the past two years - we've got the Rosetta Stone Mandarin software that we've been going through off and on for about a year now.  There is no better place in this country to learn Mandarin than in a lab populated primarily by native Mandarin speakers.  If John could leave grad school with a good degree and knowing Mandarin ... that would be so amazing, and would make him stand out to no end.

We also learned that two of the researchers in that lab live about two houses down from us.  We haven't actually met them yet, but if John does go in that lab, I'm sure we will at some point.

So ... now John's approaching his next few lab rotations as though they need to prove to him that they are better than that first lab.  Right now?  That seems a rather high goal to reach.

Normal again - and all it took was some caffeine

So, I've been caffeine-free for the past several years - ever since my sophomore year of college, actually.

It started completely by accident.  I don't drink coffee or tea, and the only soda's that I liked back then were sprite and root beer.  The cafeteria at college didn't offer root beer, so I just drank sprite whenever I got a soda.  Without my even realizing it, months passed with no caffeine being injected into my system.

I didn't realize what was going on until my sophomore year.  I had a big day, full of tests that I was dreading.  But the night before I was completely exhausted, and I went to bed about midnight, with the plan that I would get up early the next morning and get some more study time in.  So, 5 AM comes, I drag myself out of bed, go down to the vending machine, and buy a nice 20oz Code Red Mountain Dew.

And drink the whole thing.

Insert "Caffeine" in place of "Red Bull", and that about describes it.

By 6:30 AM, when my roommates started stirring, I was so worked up that I couldn't sit still.  I tried resting my eyes for a bit, but as soon as I did the world started spinning and I felt like I was falling.

Somehow I made it through my morning classes.

By lunchtime, I was still so jittery I was shaking.  I'm surprised that the essay test I had in History was readable!

By 4 PM I'd stopped shaking, but was still super jumpy.  Jumpy enough that my co-workers were commenting (and laughing).

I didn't fall asleep that night until 3 AM the next morning.

After all that?  I stopped drinking caffeine. 

Skip ahead a few years.  A few months ago, I started taking this medication that makes me tired.  No, tired is too casual a word ... exhausted.  We'd take Honey for a walk around the block, and I'd need a nap as soon as we got back.  It hasn't been fun.

This has been me.

So I've been slowly adding caffeine back into my diet.  A few weeks ago I started drinking a coca-cola everyday - and actually started feeling good again!  I could get things done!  I wasn't being a lazy bum and laying around the house all day!

Still, drinking that much coke isn't very healthy ...  so John and I started discussing options.  Coffee is out - although I'd love the energy boost that it would give me, I just cannot stand the taste.  As for tea - I'd never found a tea that I liked.  I like Chai Tea Lattes, but those aren't much healthier than Cokes!

This past weekend, I bought some Twinings of London Chai Tea bags, and started drinking that tea.  I'm not going to say that it's good - but it's drinkable.  (John says it's really good tea, though.)  I still need to add some cream and sugar to the tea, but I'm hoping over time to wean myself down.

The tea doesn't give me as much of a caffeine energy jolt as the Coke does, but it's more stable.  I can drink a cup of tea and get my work done.

I feel normal  again.  And it's wonderful!

In which a frustrating and embarrassing situation all works out in the end - kinda

My sister-in-law does amazing things with coupons.  She's constantly giving away stuff that she got free or freakishly inexpensive because she had a coupon. 

Me?  I can barely drag myself to the store to get food, let alone plan ahead enough to hunt down coupons!  I mean, I like saving money, but I just can't build up any enthusiasm about the whole process.

My version of coupon-searching is looking at the Kroger website prior to going shopping, and downloading some coupons onto my card.  If I'm feeling majorly ambitious, I'll head over to the Kroger (and maybe Publix) websites and look at their weekly ads.

Just so I'm buying seasonal stuff, of course.  After all, can't expect Easter Eggs when they're selling Halloween candy.

Yesterday evening I went to the store with a mission.  I had at least $10 worth of coupons, and between that plus what was on sale at Kroger, I was looking forward to spending and saving some money.  (That, and we had no food in the house.)

I spent about an hour and a half wandering Kroger, meticulously crossing things off my list, marking things that I'd have to go to Publix to get, and making triple sure that the items I was getting matched the coupons.  Finally, exhausted, I headed to the checkout.

The lady rang up my groceries.  I reached in my bag ...

to find no wallet.  No ID, no credit card, nothing.  I did have my checkbook, but without my ID, it would do me no good.

I was so utterly embarrassed.

The checkout lady (a very nice lady named Marie) kindly told me that she'd keep the cart in the cooler for me, so that I could go look for my ID.  I thanked her, and left the store, wondering frantically where my wallet was!

Well, it wasn't in the car.  And it wasn't at home.  John got home about an hour or so later, and we found it in his car, but by that point, it was so late that there was no point in going back to the store.

I almost forgot about it ... until I went looking for a bedtime snack, and remembered why I'd gone to the store in the first place.

The worse thing?  I lost all those coupons.

Little Bits of Drama

Here are some small dramas that are happening right now.
My Work:
I'm in the middle of a company merger/consolidation.  Thankfully I have a job afterwards, but that's not the case for everyone.  I'm working with various committees to make sure everything transitions smoothly; which I honestly enjoy since I like knowing the details behind things.  But that's not the drama.

The drama is that one side of the company (the one I'm on) backed out of a planned joint event at the last moment, and now the other side is offended.  The people on my side are frustrated and annoyed because the other side keeps harping on it, while the people on the other side hasn't been directly told why my side backed out.  I'm in the middle, attempting mediation.  I managed to get our side calm enough to agree to address the issue calmly at the next meeting.  Let's hope the other side can react in a similar fashion.  This particular drama has been going on too long.

UPDATE:  Another situation exactly like this has just landed on my desk.  Argh!  We haven't finished cleaning up the last one!

John's School:
Most of John's classmates are amazing.  Very intelligent people from all over the world, who have also been kind enough to "adopt" me into their group.  The fact that I make them cookies doesn't hurt!

But some of his classmates are causing trouble in the lectures.  Some don't show up to lecture at all, even though there is a strict attendance policy (3 absences = failure).  Others spend the lecture interrupting the professor with stupid questions.  For instance, the professor explains a picture on the powerpoint.  The student raises their hand and asks, "Can you explain that picture?"  Not even exaggerating.  That happened.

This seems apt.

Those questions mean that the professor can't cover everything the professor needs to cover for the test.  Those same students have been known to raise their hand and say, "Excuse me, professor, but class ends in 5 minutes.  Can you just tell us what will be on the test?"  AFTER they had spent the whole two hours interrupting with stupid questions so that the professor got behind.

John's Labs:
John is in his second lab rotation, and although he says it's a good lab, he doesn't think it's a good fit for him.  We've been having an on/off discussion over the past few days about what he wants and expects out of  a lab.  For some reason, even though we were talking, we weren't communicating, and both of us were getting frustrated with the other one. 

Thankfully, we finally had a breakthrough last night and were able to talk it out.  We're good now.


On a completely different note, John and I decided that I need to try various types of tea.  The only tea I've ever tried is the tea made in the south, and I do not like it at all.  It tastes and feels like flavored water, and often leaves a bitter aftertaste.

I do like Chai tea, but can't drink that all the time due to how many calories are in it.  (But if I could, I would.  So good!)

So, probably starting soon I'll be trying various types of tea to decide if there is a tea out there I can drink.  I wonder if there is a place nearby where I could get samples...

We Bought a House - Part Three

So, where were we?

We put an offer on the house the first week in May, with a closing date of May 24th - which just happened to be our 4th wedding anniversary!  Obviously it was meant to be!

Various drama abounded throughout the month ... after approving and entering into the contract, the seller became angry at her realtor for "letting her sell so low".  I worked on projects at work that required 60+ hours a week for two weeks, as well as tried to pack up the house and clean it and get ready to move!

John spent the month working his summer job, which changed from 20 hours a week afternoons to 50 hours a week days and weekends, as well as juggling finances to deal with the last minute costs of moving and the down payment.

But the biggest headache/project, was figuring out the flooring for the house.  Because they were not allowed to sell the house without flooring, the contract stipulated that we would receive $5000 to get flooring installed.  After much discussion with the banks, and countless hours at Lowes (we got to know the guys in the flooring department really  well.  They're awesome, by the way!), we decided to have laminate installed throughout the house, with carpet in the bedrooms.  There was a very cheap linoleum already in the bathrooms, so we'd leave that as is, and at a later date install tile.

The problem all came down to timing.  We couldn't get the money to pay for everything until the closing - but Lowe's couldn't order the laminate that we needed until they were paid.  The flooring had to be installed within a week of the closing, but Lowe's delivery time was about 2-3 weeks.  It wasn't happening.

John brought up the idea of Lumber Liquidators for the laminate; they had a store that he passed on the way to work.  We went over there, and they were happy to work with us.  We ended up putting all the laminate on a credit card, and then getting re-imbursed by the bank at the closing.  

We had also received permission to install the flooring ourselves - saving on the installation costs, and allowing us to get a higher quality flooring.  Between the carpet from Lowe's and the laminate from Lumber Liquidators, we spent the entire $5000.  

We closed late afternoon on Thursday, May 24th.  John wasn't able to get off work, so I went to the closing by myself, armed with my cell phone and my in-laws phone number.  (John's parents love working with real estate, and have bought and sold numerous houses.  They were super helpful giving advice throughout the whole process!).  I even called John's mom at one point during the closing because I got confused, and she was able to explain things to me much better than the lawyer.

So, we got the best anniversary gift ever!  A new house!

And immediately went to work.  We had a deadline to get the flooring in!

We spent Thursday and Friday evenings cleaning and sealing the floors throughout the house.  John's dad came to visit for a few hours on Saturday, and he showed us how to install the laminate.  My brother came for a few days to help us, and we spent the next 5 days working like crazy to get the laminate installed.  Lowe's came and installed the carpeting about half-way through the process.  

Ready for some pictures? 

Doesn't the laminate look nice?  Throughout most of the house, John did all the cutting with the saw, and I did most all the actual placement and installation.  My brother helped for a few days, and John did some installation in the trickiest parts.

We chose "Blacksburg Barn Board" as our laminate.  It's gorgeous!

The hardest part, I think was getting started.  We didn't really know what we were doing at first, and the fireplace tiles were interesting to work around.

Looking into the dining room.

We set up the table saw in the front bedroom instead of the garage to save the air conditioner.  It was already 90+ degrees outside - we saw no reason to air condition the garage!

We still had a long way to go.  You can see my brother in the top left.

Here is a shot after about the third night of hard work.  It's a bit hard to see, but the corner on the left goes into the Master Bedroom, and is a triangular shaped nook.  That plus the doorway made cutting the pieces to size a bit tricky.  I was so proud of John when he figured it out!

We're making progress!

Most evenings we brought Honey with us.  Since we were working like crazy, we hated the thought of her being home alone in the evenings as well as the days.  Plus, this gave her a chance to get used to the new house.  Of course, she wasn't too sure about the whole thing.

With no furniture, there's no place for me to hide from the loud table saw.
Except outside, but I don't want to go there in case you leave me.

She wasn't quite sure what to make of all this.  Whenever we stayed late working and she got tired (SHE got tired, lol), she'd go hide in a closet where it was dark and take a nap.  Several nights I had to go find her so we could go home.

Can we go home now?  It's bedtime.

It took John forever to figure out the closets.  I'm still not sure why, but for some reason it was complicated.  The fact that this was our 4th night of hard work and we were exhausted didn't help, I'm sure.

Almost there!  You can see the carpet has been installed by now, too!

With the carpet, we also purchased a new fridge and dishwasher at Lowe's.  John wanted to buy me a new stove instead of a new dishwasher, but I refused.  I can learn how to cook on an old stove as long as it works.  But I want a good dishwasher - the one in the other house had been annoying me since we got it.

Thankfully, he agreed.  And after a great deal of bleach and elbow grease, the old stove works just fine.

We left the linoleum by the garage door and laundry room, and will tile that later.  

I had to include this shot.  This was just after we'd put the last piece of laminate in.  It was 1 am, and we were so exhausted we could hardly drive home.  We still needed to do all the thresholds and put the baseboards back up.  And clean and actually move.  But the floor was in!

Hooray!!  I think we went to Sonic on the way home to get some celebratory milkshakes!

And finally:  some finished shots:

Looking toward the front door, with Honey

The front door, all finished

Looking toward the kitchen and eating area.

Even with just the floors done, the house was so much nicer!  Next up:  We're finally moving in!!

In which I have to choose between posting something mediocre or not posting anything. Guess which one I choose.

I have nothing really to say today.

John is starting his new lab today ... he was a bit concerned this weekend because he hadn't heard from the PI in the lab, and thought that maybe the PI had double-booked students.  I haven't heard from John today except for a brief email saying he didn't know when he'd be done.  So, he's in lab somewhere!

I spent the weekend baking and baking and walking and baking.  Silly me couldn't for the life of me remember whether I normally follow the recipe for sugar cookies and use powdered sugar, or regular sugar.  So I used regular sugar.  Mistake.  They still taste good, but they aren't amazing.  I'm still a bit upset about it.

Not enough to remake the 60 cookies sitting in my freezer, though.

Saturday we went to the local park and took Honey for a walk - we walked about four miles.  Then Sunday evening we met up with one of John's classmates and his girlfriend and their dog, and all went for another walk for about 2 miles.  It was one of those situations where we really shouldn't have gone because both John and I had stuff to get done before Monday ... but we didn't want to push off the relationship that we're trying to build.

Of course, they might completely shun us after John brought up politics.  But, probably not.  Hopefully not.

I am thinking and writing in very choppy, incomplete sentences today.  I think it's because today's Monday.  Or the fact that I'm only now getting caffeine into my system.

Oops

Just a quick note to say that John came home and announced that he'd read the calendar wrong.  The GSO needs all those cookies next weekend, not tomorrow.

Sigh.

I just packaged all the cookie dough up and stuck it in the freezer.  Guess what we're doing next Friday?

Rambling at the end of the week

We made 60 sugar cookies last night ... well, we almost made 60 cookies.  They are currently chilling in the fridge, and still need to be baked in the oven.  Besides my brief panic attack that the recipe called for powdered sugar instead of regular sugar like I had thought ... it went well.  I'll make another few batches tonight while baking.  I did take some pictures - but my camera battery died before I could finish.  It's charging now.

Today is John's last day in his first lab rotation, and they're taking him out to some Italian place downtown for lunch.  Neither one of us have been there before, so he'll have to scout it out and see if we should go there together sometime.  We were talking about the lab and his experiences in the lab.  Yes, it was a good lab, and he could work in that lab.  But, rules or no, English is not the main language in that lab.  Even in the three weeks he was there, he'd come home frustrated because he'd made a mistake because he didn't understand what someone told him.  He doesn't need that additional barrier for the next 4-5 years.

He's super excited about his next lab - I think it's diabetes research - and from what he's heard, this lab will work him a lot harder than the first one.  On the one hand, this is good; he's been a bit bored lately.  On the other, he probably won't be able to get as much studying done during the afternoon, and will have to study more in the evenings.

I've been trying to find a good podcast to listen to while at work.  For some reason, I haven't really wanted to listen to music lately.  Let me just say ... Itunes is not user friendly at all when it comes to podcasts.  It's impossible to peruse or find ratings easily.

Either that, or I'm completely useless when it comes to Itunes.

I'm looking forward to the weekend.  Baking makes me happy.  Happier than cooking, anyway.  It's nice to have something really good as a result of your efforts.

Let's get ready to .... bake!

It's Cookie Time!!!

Actually, John and I are going to be spending the next few days baking as many cookies as we can.  John volunteered me to bake 4 dozen cookies for a GSO event on Saturday (the Graduate Student Organization Fall Festival), and then signed me up to bring something to a luncheon at church on Sunday.  Monday, we're having a lunch party at work to celebrate Boss's day and two office birthdays for the month of October.

So ... Cookies for everyone!

Yesterday I picked up some ingredients and handy tools to help us make a bunch of cookies - like a cookie cooling rack.  I'd been using the rack from my toaster oven, but that's not really ideal.  I also tried to find some cookie cutters, but either Publix doesn't stock cookie cutters or I was looking in all the wrong places.  Maybe I can get John to run to the drugstore to pick some up.

Since John is the one that volunteered me - I've roped him into helping me bake.  Tonight we're going to make up a whole bunch of cookie batter to chill overnight.  Friday night we're going to actually bake everything, and possibly create more batter.

Thankfully we don't have to decorate the cookies - the whole point is to have cookies for people to decorate at the fair.

I'm super excited.  I will try to remember to take pictures so that I can post pictures with the recipe.

A Dog Bed for Honey

Ever since she was a puppy, Honey has loved anything soft.  From the moment we brought her home, if there was any type of pillow or soft blanket around, it was hers to curl up with.   

Honey quickly decided that our pillows were much nicer than her mere blankets.

I think it might have something to do with her mixed heritage - that perhaps her joints aren't all that comfortable at times.  Considering she limped and messed up both her hind legs just running around the back yard when she was 6 months to a year old ... I'm going with that theory.  It gives me an excuse to pamper her with soft things!

For the most part, Honey is fine wandering the house, sleeping on the couch or our bed.  But she's grown into a fairly good-sized dog - 61 lbs when I took her to the vet this summer.  Sometimes we like to sleep at night without her lying on top of us or having to kick her to let us get some blankets (yes, she hogs the blankets).  We also like to sleep through the night, without her waking us up to go outside at 3:30 am.  And sometimes she just misbehaves and needs a time-out.

That's what her bed is for.  She is crate trained - and honestly doesn't mind being in there at all.  The only times she gets upset when I put her in her bed is when she thinks she's missing out on something, or if she's in trouble.  I had made a pillow for her bed a few years ago when I first got my sewing machine.  It was my very first project, and a little bit sad.  It looked fine at first, but then all the stuffing got stomped down and now it's hardly a pillow at all. 

So, I finally worked up the energy to make her another pillow.  (Please be nice - I'm totally self-trained on the sewing machine, and am very slowly learning!)

First off, I found two pieces of fabric in my stash - whenever I go to a craft store I check out their clearance fabric section to see what I can find.  Those two pieces of fabric probably cost me less than $5.  The only problem was that they were both super thin - and that worried me.  I didn't want Honey's nails to ruin the fabric just through normal use!

So, I got out some batting, and sewed a piece of batting to each piece of fabric, creating a quilted design on each side.  The batting became thoroughly attached to the fabric, and made the overall piece much sturdier.  I think the batting was about $10, but I've still got most of the package left.

Side One - with diamonds

Side Two - it's hard to see, but each square is quilted.

After that I sewed the two pieces together, leaving a space for the stuffing to go in.  Having learned from the last pillow that the stuffing will most likely get matted down and flatten the pillow out, I wanted to create a way to re-stuff the pillow at a later time.  Solution:  velcro!

I left a tab on each side of the open seam, and sewed the velcro pieces to the respective fabric pieces.  I then used some iron-on stitches to clean it up a bit.  It looks a bit rough, and I didn't take any pictures of it, but honestly, I was just winging it.  All the messiness is inside the pillow, so as long as it looks good from the outside, that's fine.  Right?

I didn't have any stuffing immediately on hand, but was so excited to have a (nearly) finished project that I called Honey over for a photo shoot!

You want me to do what again?

I'm only here because I love you.  In two seconds, I'm going to go see if there's a squirrel outside.

Rather than pay a bunch of money for bags of stuffing, John and I went to Fred's and bought 4 pillows for $10 and ripped them open.  We then stuffed the pillow (the Velcro works wonderfully) and surprised Honey with it!

She wasn't really interested.

Notice:  the lack of a dog in this picture.

Although, to be fair, we'd left her home alone most of the day, and this was only about 5 minutes after we got home.  She was too excited to see us to sit still for the camera or check out something new.  All she wanted to do was get some love and attention.  And maybe play.  And take a walk.  And cuddle.  All at once.

So, we moved the pillow into her bed - considering my lack of measurements (I just picked two pieces of cloth that were relatively the same size and cut them to match each other), I'm thrilled to say that the pillow fits her bed perfectly!

Perfection!

Once it was in her bed, Honey finally took interest and started checking the pillow out.  She seemed pleased.

Actually, we bribed her by putting a treat in her bed.  She was still too excited to be still.

Since then, I've noticed Honey going "missing" at random times, and found her curled up on her pillow in her bed.  She always gets up quickly when I walk in - so as not to let me think that she likes being in her bed, but over the past 4 days I've walked in on her a good 6-7 times. 

I think she likes it!

We Bought A House - Part Two

AKA - I had a headache when we toured this house and don't remember taking these pictures!


Picking up where we left off ....

John spent the winter months applying and interviewing at graduate schools.  In March, he got accepted, and we decided that we could no longer live in the rental.  As much as we loved it, and as much as we put into it, we couldn't change the neighborhood.  It was getting worse.  The drug dealers moving in two doors down may have had something to do with that.

So, I still did not think that we would be able to buy a house, and started looking at rentals in the area.  John, however, had a different idea.  He said, "Let's just check and make sure that we can't buy a house before we take that idea off the table."  So, we contacted two different banks in the area to see what they could do.

Within a week, we were told we were pre-qualified for a mortgage; a higher mortgage than we had even dreamed of expecting.  Of course, since we weren't expecting anything, that was even easier to get!

After recovering from our astonishment, we contacted a realtor and began looking at houses online.  By now it was the end of March, and we knew that with John starting grad school in August, we wanted to buy a house and be moved in before he started.  The clock was ticking!

I'm still not completely sure about our realtor.  Perhaps she was a really good realtor, but John and I were so on the ball, that we never gave her a chance.  We scoured the internet, and send her the links to the houses we wanted to see.  She would then try to set up times to go see the houses, and we'd go out and see them.

We went with her to look at houses three times, and visited about 20 different houses in the area.  Here were our *must have* criteria:

1. Must be in a nice neighborhood
2. Must be close to the grad school
3. Must be move-in ready (or close to move-in ready)
4. Must have a backyard for Honey
5. Must have at least 2 bathrooms

The last week of April, we went out to look at houses for the third time.  We had about 8 houses to visit that evening, so we were rushing through before we ran out of light.  One of the houses we saw early in the evening had some really bad mold problems, so I developed a rather nasty headache.  We decided right after viewing the next house, we'd stop and get something to drink so I could take some ibuprofen.

We went into that house, and I just blindly took pictures.  It was a good thing, too.  Without those pictures I would never have remembered the house that we were about to buy; my head hurt too badly!

We toured 2-3 more houses that night, and then John and I returned home to our rental, and stayed up far to late that night talking through everything.  We uploaded all the house pictures onto the computer, and used the pictures as a reference for each house as we discussed them.  Between all our house-hunting trips, we ended up having four houses we liked.

Option 1:  Large 2 bedroom, 2 bath in fancy neighborhood.  We loved the layout and location (right across the street from the country club!), and the view from the back looked like it belonged in the mountains.  Downsides?  Just a bit too expensive, no real backyard, and no place for Honey.

Option 2:  Super cute 3 bedroom, 2 bath house.  I adored the layout, it had both stairs and a fireplace, and a very large fenced back yard with a patio and hot tub.  Downsides?  Would need totally new carpeting and paint, and the lack of gutters on the extremely slanted roof  was causing serious problems in the back.

Option 3:  Very well kept-up older 3 bedroom2 bath house.  This was one of the only houses we saw that people were actually currently living in, and it was in perfect shape.  Move in ready - gorgeously large kitchen, and a good-sized fenced back yard.  Downsides?  A bit too far from school and work, and a worrisome neighborhood a block or so away.

Option 4:  The newest house we looked at with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths.  Located close to a school, this house had a uniquely open layout, and was the absolute perfect distance from work and school.  It also had the fenced back yard for Honey.  Downsides?  No flooring in the house, appliances from about 30 years ago (even though the house was only 10 years old), and the entire house needed to be painted.

Guess which one we picked?

OPTION #4!!

The main impression we got:  there were no floors throughout the house.  All the carpet had been ripped up, and it was just bare cement.

Looking into the Living Room from the Front Door.

One nice thing:  a gas fireplace.  Not on our Must-Have list, but certainly an unexpected bonus!

Yay for fireplaces that you don't have to buy or chop wood for!

The kitchen was really nasty - I think the fridge was from the 1960s (and looked like it hadn't been cleaned since then, either).  But it was a good layout, and good counterspace.

Not pictured:  Nasty old fridge.

It was a three bedroom, two bath.

Bedroom #2 - no carpet and strangely spaced shelving.

And here's a quick peek into the master bedroom, looking through to the master bath and closet.

Again, no carpet.  But the room was larger than the other two bedrooms combined.

We emailed our realtor that night, and told her we wanted to put an offer on the house.  She was surprised, to say the least.  Although whether that was because of the house we chose, or because or how quickly we came to a decision, I don't know.

She agreed to draw up the paperwork, and the following day we submitted an offer.


Next Up:  The Real Work Begins!

Epic long post detailing the best weekend ever!

What is it, Monday already?

So, this weekend was probably one of the best weekends we've had in a long time!  For me, it kinda started on Thursday.

For some reason known only to her, Honey decided to stay up all night on Wednesday barking.  John slept through it, thankfully, but she kept me up far too late.  So ... I called in to work the next morning and took Thursday off.  I spent the morning in my pajamas and did laundry and finished sewing Honey a pillow for her bed.  (Why?  I don't know.  She certainly didn't deserve it after keeping me up all night!  Still, it's soooo nice to have one more project checked off the list!)

I'll post pictures soon - Right now is an overall summary of the weekend.

So ... Friday came, and John had another test.  I went back to work, and spent the entire day working on a project that I've only just now mostly finished.  I made enough project on Friday to be almost giddy by the time 5 pm came around.  John was pleased with how his test went, and did not want to have a quiet evening at home.  So, we decided on a fun evening out.

First we drove over to Fred's to pick up some cheap pillows.  Pillow stuffing is expensive, but we bought four good-sized pillows at Fred's for $10.  Perfect for ripping apart and re-using the stuffing in a dog bed.

After that we made our way over to Chick-fil-A for dinner, and went to the movies!  We hadn't been to see a movie in months and months - I think the last one we saw was "Up" ... or maybe "Star Trek".  Whichever one came out more recently. (Edit:  Apparently they both came out in 2009.)

Even though I would have happily seen "Hotel Transylvania", John talked me into seeing the new movie "Argo".  Neither one of us knew much about it, but we'd seen the advertisement on tv about it, and read a few reviews about how good it was supposed to be.

It. Was. Amazing.  For the first time in my life I went to a movie where people actually applauded when it was over.  I will say that it's rated "R" for a reason - it's not a movie for kids.  But it's rated that way primarily for language and some violence - no gore or sex.  The acting was very well done, and the editing kept things interesting.  Definitely an amazing thriller, and worth the price of the tickets!

After the movie, we went to Target and bought a new tablecloth for the Dining Room (is it sad that that makes me super excited?) and then went to Cold Stone and got ice cream before heading home.

Saturday, we slept in, and then headed out for brunch at a new local restaurant.  It's only about two blocks from our house, and they opened close to three months ago.  John ordered their Shrimp & Grits, while I ordered a salad - not a very good "brunch" dish, but it was what I was feeling like.  The food was perfect - John's grits definitely tasted home-made, not processed; while my salad was the freshest I've had in forever.  John told me yesterday that that's his new favorite restaurant!

Since the weather was positively perfect (70-75 degrees F), we decided to spend the day working outside.  The flower bed in teh front of the house needed some love, and since neither one of us had any experience whatsoever with gardening, we decided to visit a few gardening shops and get some advice.

The first place we went had only herbs, veggies, and mums, and the workers there were distinctly unhelpful.  The second place ended up being a planter store, not a gardening store at all!  We finally gave up on the local business aspect and just went to Lowes.  After all, we only had the one day to get the flower bed taken care of!  We couldn't spend it all visiting shops!

After about an hour wandering the Lowes garden session, and a (very) brief consultation with one of the workers there, we bought some flowers, plants, garden soil, and tools, and headed home.  We started working in the 11x4 flower bed about 2:30 pm - and finished about 5:30 pm.  Not bad!  I then trimmed some bushes while John mowed the grass.  We were going to clean the house later that evening, but by the time 7:30 came around we were so sore we could hardly move!  I think we were in bed by 8:30 pm!

I have pictures of the gardening project too - that'll receive it's own post soon!

We spent Sunday recovering from Saturday - we didn't think we'd worked that hard, but both John and I are still so sore we can hardly move!  Still, we went to both the morning and the evening service at church, and after church last night went over to a building/business dedication.  The man that John has worked with for the past 2 years before he started school in August wanted to dedicate his building to the Lord, so most of the church went over there after the evening service to fellowship, eat, and pray.  It was fun - and we didn't get home until about 10:30 pm.

John's Bible study is at our house tonight - so we ended up frantically cleaning house until about 11:30 pm last night to make it presentable.  It still needs a little bit of work, but hopefully John can do some of that while I cook dinner.

And now ... life back to normal!  Only with a really cute front flower bed!  Yay!!

We Bought A House - Part One

AKA - this is the house we left

So, about a year ago, John and I started talking about possibly looking to buy a house.  And by talking, I mean "Wouldn't it be nice if we could buy a house?" said in wistful tones every couple of weeks.  Neither one of us thought we would be even close to being able to actually buy a house.

At the time we were renting a house from John's parents - a very old, small 2 bedroom one bath.  The house was built between 1900-1910, and had not been well cared for before John's parents bought the place.  After they bought it (in 2005) they replaced the flooring, replaced the kitchen, re-plumbed the house, and replaced the roof.  John and I moved in two weeks after we got married in 2008, and while we were there, we replaced the bathroom, painted all the rooms, paved the backyard patio, replaced the kitchen floor, cleaned the fireplace, tore out a retaining wall, and replaced the carpeting.

We put a lot of work and a lot of love into that little house.

Ready for some pictures?

Our little home.  When we moved in, there was a brick retaining wall along the front of the house.  John happily rented a jack-hammer for a day, and tore it out.  Apparently that's where all the roaches were living - he said there were so many of them that it was like being in an Indiana Jones movie.  I wouldn't know.  I refused to go outside and look.

Probably one of the biggest changes we made to the house was painting the kitchen.  Here's why:

BEFORE:

Sorry I don't have a picture of the not in the process of painting everything.  Check out the Coral Orange! 

and ... AFTER!

Rather nice, I think.

Although the green curtains (not pictured) and green tablecloth on the other side really tie it all together.  And yes, that is bags of dog food on the kitchen chairs.  Why do you ask?

One of the bedrooms had some water damage on the ceiling from before the roof was replaced.  No one really wanted to deal with it (did I mention this house had 10 foot ceilings?), so I found an alternative to completely replacing the ceiling.  

John and I spent a day putting that ceiling up.  Despite not having any square corners on the room and uneven surfaces, this project was surprisingly easy.  The tile designs go with the age of the house, and the high ceilings hide any imperfections of our install.  Win!

Next up ... the bathroom.  I can't find any before pictures of it ... but let's just say it was fairly grim.  Due to some water leakage, we had to tear the room up down to the dirt underneath the house and re-build it.  Here is the finished product - all clean and ready to start moving our stuff back into it!

When John and his dad were installing the linoleum, John did the classic "I didn't realize there was glue there" and got stuck in the glue on the floor.  Those were old shoes anyway.

And here's the Dining Room.  This was actually the first room that we "renovated" when we moved in.  

I loved this room.  It felt homey and comfortable and classic.  I especially like the molding across the top of the room, and the fact that you couldn't really tell that the walls weren't white until you saw the molding, which was.

That's about it for our first house.  I can't seem to find any of the other pictures that are any good (and I know I took some). 

Next up:  Part Two ... looking at houses!

Waiting Waiting Waiting

I've spent all day today calling people and emailing people trying to get them to get back with me so that I can get some work done!

Now I'm having to stay late because someone never got back with me - and they're on their way over here now.  I'm just marking time until they get here and I can go home.

It's more than a little frustrating when your (large) projects get stuck in limbo because people aren't doing what they're supposed to do.

Okay, vent over.

John is studying, waiting for me to get off work.  Then we're going to go eat (depending on when we get out of here I'll either go home and cook or just pick something up) and then take Honey for a nice walk.  It's gorgeous outside!  And considering there are less than 6 weeks a year with beautiful weather here, we must take advantage of it!

After that we'll have a quiet evening of studying and crocheting.  I'm working on a queen/king sized blanket.  I'm hoping to complete it in time for my brother's wedding to give it to them as a wedding gift.  They're not even engaged yet, so I still have time!  I've only been working on it for, oh, five years now?

I am so tired of working on the thing!  I'll be glad to give it away.

It really is beautiful (before you start thinking that I'm giving something horrible to my brother and (future) sister-in-law)!  Various shades of blue in a variety of stitches that I may or may not have made up myself. 

Since it's so large, each row takes me anywhere from 25-75 minutes to complete depending on the stitch.  Thankfully, I've finished the most time consuming stitches, so now I'm down to about 25-35 minutes per row.  Still ... that's a lot of rows and a lot of time!

But I'm determined that I'm going to finish this blanket before I start any other projects.  Period.  Done.

Cooler Weather and Test Days

One test down ... one to go!

John seemed exceptionally pleased with how the test went.  He could hardly keep the grin off his face when I saw him after the test.  Although that could be because I was offering him some of the cookies that I made this weekend.  Gingerbread Orange Cookies.

I meant to make them for his classmates, but John and I ate so many this weekend that we didn't have enough for his classmates this morning!  So, I brought them into work for my co-workers ... and all the cookies were gone by 10:30.  And I'm still having people poking their heads in my office asking if there are any more cookies left.

I think I may make another batch.  And now not just because I have to take pictures!

We've been leaving the bathroom window open at night the past week or so - it's an easy way to cool the house down and air out the house.  But last night we had the first cold front of the season come through, and we woke up this morning shivering!  I'm totally loving the cooler weather!  I've made chili that is currently home cooking in the crock pot - Yum!!

Perhaps I'll be able to talk John into lighting the fire sometime this week!  

Weekend Summary - kind of

Yesterday I made gingerbread cookies with an orange glaze.  And completely forgot to get my camera out and take pictures. 

This just means I need to make another batch of cookies.  Probably tomorrow.  Unless we're hosting John's Bible Study.

Today has been rather relaxing.  After church we went to Sams to pick up a few things, and then stopped at Tractor Supply to pick up some dog food for Honey.  We made lunch at home, then took a nap.

Is there anything better than Sunday afternoon naps?

Now John is studying for his test tomorrow, I'm making dinner and doing laundry.  I'm looking forward to watching Revenge tonight.

This story is totally lame - even if it does involve bloodshed

John is currently rotating through a Chinese lab ... in that everyone in the lab speaks Chinese, with very little English.  Does this make it difficult to learn anything?  Yes.  Does this open the possibilities for humor?  Only on our part.

**Warning - don't read further if you're super sqeam-ish.  Some bloodshed may be involved.**

Apparently, yesterday John was working in the lab (or more accurately, trying to talk to one of the Chinese ladies in there), and he managed to scratch off a scab on his arm.  The cut on his arm began "spurting" blood all over the place. 

While John, mildly annoyed, began looking around for a paper towel or something to stop the blood, the Chinese lady freaked out, shouting "First Aid! First Aid!" and ran for the first aid box.  John tried to calm her down and say that he only needed at most a band-aid, but she paid him no attention.  Before he could do or say anything, she had three bandages in her hands and five more waiting to be used, along with sanitizer and disinfectant. 

John ended up needing one band-aid.  Not even a normal sized one, either.  One of the little circular ones that only cover about half an inch of skin.

Okay ... that story seems a bit lame, now.  But it's Friday and nothing happened at all last night except that we went out to eat and then worked out and then got ice cream and basically ignored Honey at home all day.  I felt guilty enough to let her sleep with us, until she started barking at something and woke me up.  Then I sent her back to her bed.

I am so ready for the weekend.

Shopping and Baking planned!

This time, it's different

I am feeling exceptionally optimistic today.  I'm sure part of it is just feeling well again, and part of it is the huge coke that I drank at lunch.  But another part is that it's Thursday, which means the weekend is almost here!  The weather is cooling off from the normal 90+ degree weather!  My job is more relaxed than it's been in over a year!  And now that both John and I are bringing in a paycheck, finances are not as pressing!

John is so happy in his program right now - even with the lab rotation not being quite to his liking.  He remarked at lunch today that he's been getting a lot of excellent study time in lately, and he's a bit concerned about not being able to sustain it and getting burnt out.  I told him I didn't think it was a problem.

He got burnt out in medical school.  In medical school he was told that he absolutely had to study every day all day - if he wasn't he was doing something wrong.  He had no control over his own schedule - it was always "study, study, study or fail."

Now, the only point is to get through the classes.  The classes are the basics before the labs, which are really important.  He study's for the classes, not for the purpose of studying.  He's in charge of his schedule.  He sets aside good chunks of time to get some studying done.

Yes, he's studying a lot.  But because he's keeping up with his schedule, he was not overwhelmed when he got sick last week and did nothing (school-wise) for three days.  He was able to go to church, to go to Bible Study, to play some computer games, to do extracurricular things.  Grad school is not ruling his life right now. 

There will be times when his blocks of study time are more or less effective than others.  That's normal.  But do I think his current schedule is unsustainable?  No.  Not as long as he continues to schedule the breaks and can get up and walk away from everything; to give himself a true mental and physical break from school; and come back refreshed.

That's what is different this time. 

I am so incredibly happy to see him succeeding, and being happy where he is.

Sleepy Day

I finally feel somewhat normal!  Yay for feeling better after colds!

For some reason Honey has decided that 2:30 am is the perfect time to get me out of bed so she can go outside.  She never bothers John about it ... no, she comes up to me and starts licking my arm until I wake up and let her outside.  After three nights of this, I'm all for putting her in her own bed (crate) for the next week at night instead of letting her wander the house.

Yesterday morning, we were running super late in the morning; I got up on time, but John ended up sleeping in.  While he was running around frantically I made him some coffee - which doesn't sound like a big deal, except that I've only made coffee maybe twice in the four years we've been married.  I don't drink coffee, and never really learned how (the first two times I made coffee, he had to explain how!).

Well, he sent me a very sweet note later that morning, thanking me for the coffee (something he rarely ever does).  So, this morning I took a few minutes and made him coffee again.  When he went into the kitchen, he expressed surprise that I'd made him coffee, and I told him that it was because I liked his note yesterday so much.  Today he sent me a nicer one.  It's so nice to feel appreciated!

This whole thing has me thinking .... perhaps there are other things I can do that he would appreciate - things that I just normally don't think of.  Perhaps some research is in order.

 

In which I think about baking and John gets a computer

John got his computer in the mail yesterday!  He'd been using a Kindle Fire that I won this past summer in a contest.  Even though we both love the Kindle Fire, it's not a replacement for a computer.  So, after some research, he bought a refurbished laptop from eBay.  Getting that in the mail was a definite highlight for his day yesterday!

So, John is fairly sure that this lab is not the one he wants to stay in.  I'm hoping today goes better (since I'd hate for him to suffer through three weeks of lab if he's miserable the whole time!), but apparently the lady in charge of his training hardly speaks any English.  Which makes things a bit frustrating.

Oh well ... at least it's just the three week rotation instead of the seven week rotation!

As for me, I've offered to bake some goodies for the GSO's bake sale.  The GSO is the Graduate Student Organization for all the grad students, and they've been kind enough to adopt me.  Probably because I can bake better than John.  I don't have any problem bribing people with my cooking!

Their bake sale is next week; and John has two tests next week.  I'll spend some time this weekend baking up a storm, both for the bake sale and for John's classmates for one of their test days.

I'll post one of my tried and true cookie recipes in the next day or so.  With pictures once I actually make them!

How to Cut a Dog's Nails without Tears, Bloodshed, and Panic Attacks

Weekend Update:

Despite both John and I being sick and spending the vast majority of the weekend in bed watching Youtube videos and sleeping, we had a good weekend.

John was able to complete his 3 papers, poster project, and take-home quiz and have them all ready to turn in today.  I was able to do a few loads of laundry and pick up the house a bit.  We also cut Honey's toenails and watched the season premiere of Revenge.  (If you haven't watched that show yet ... go watch it now!  The entire first season is on Netflix.)

How to Cut Dog Toenails

Honey is not a small dog.  She weighs about 55 pounds, and is all muscle.  She does not like having her toenails trimmed, and is strong enough to really hurt us (well, me anyway) trying to get away from the evil nail clipper.  When she was still a puppy (about 9 months old), and I tried to hold her while we cut her nails, she gave me bruises that lasted for 2 weeks all over my body.⁽¹⁾   After only finishing one and a half paws, she went into a full-blown panic attack, and we had to stop.  I held her quietly for over an hour before she began to relax.  It was not good.

Obviously, we couldn't continue like that.  We tried taking her to Petsmart to get her nails trimmed, and that kinda worked for a few months.  While it wasn't extremely expensive, it was still an (unnecessary) expense, and neither John nor I were happy with how they cut her nails - sometimes we couldn't even tell they had been cut.  So, I came up with a plan.

Plan:  Prove to Honey that there is nothing scary about getting her nails cut.

I am just pretending to guard the house until you leave and I can take another nap.

Tools:

Nail File (Link is to a file similar to what we own and use)
Dog Blanket
Benedryl  (Link includes information on effects benedryl has on dogs)
Bowl
Milk

Process:

To do this, I started giving Honey about half of a benedryl every morning and evening for several days.⁽²⁾  After 3-4 days, she became very dopey and sleepy all the time.  We then took her for a long walk to further tire her out.  By the time we returned to the house, all she wanted to do was sleep.

Next, John sat and made himself comfortable in a chair, and then we put Honey belly-up in his lap.  We stretched the blanket over her belly, and tucked the ends beneath John's legs, effectively trapping her in his arms.  He held her firmly while I started trimming her nails with the nail file.

She fought for about 3 nails, and then just gave up.  She didn't have the energy or the strength to keep fighting us, and so she submitted and let us do with her as we wanted.  I was extremely careful not to cut her nails back too far (the last thing we wanted was for this to be painful for her), and we kept a close eye on her to make sure she didn't panic.

She didn't - in fact she almost fell asleep.

When I finished trimming all four paws, we did not immediately release her.  Instead, John held her while I went to the kitchen, got her blue puppy bowl, poured about half a cup of milk into it, and returned.  While she was still being held, I let her drink about half of the bowl of milk.  Then John released her, and I moved the bowl to the floor.  She happily finished the bowl of milk, came over to us to be petted, and then went to take a nap.

No fighting, no panicking, no bruising.  And the actual process took less than 15 minutes.⁽³⁾

Since then, we've been reducing the amount of benedryl given to her beforehand.  She still needs a little bit to calm her nerves, but a single benedryl the day of works fine. Hopefully as she gets older we can take her off the benedryl completely.

We only use her blue puppy bowl for milk, and she only gets milk after her toenails are cut.  Now she gets excited when her blue bowl comes out, because she knows that even though her nails are getting trimmed, she's getting milk before it's all over.  She only fights now when she's uncomfortable (for instance last month she decided that she didn't like to be held belly-up.  Once we figured that out, she stopped fighting), and it's never bad enough to give us bruises.

A few notes:

1.  In all the times that Honey fought with us and struggled against us during this process, she never once tried to bite us.  She would scratch (not on purpose, but because she had long nails!) and throw her weight around and merely do her best to escape.  Trying to restrain her at those points became difficult and dangerous for everyone involved: John, Me, and Honey.

2.  I'm not advocating drugging animals, except for extreme situations and under the approval of a veterinarian.  The dosage and use of benedryl were all approved by our family veterinarian, and the purpose was to prevent further harm to both John and I as well as Honey.  The point is we are working with Honey to make her comfortable with this process, and as she becomes more accustomed to it we will be weaning her off the benedryl.

3.  John's parents used this technique (sans benedryl) when they got their new puppy, a purebred bassett hound.  Without the traumatic experiences that we had with Honey, the immediate reward after cutting nails worked like a charm from the beginning.  Due to a sensitive stomach, the bassett cannot have milk, but can have cheese.  So, my Mom in Law feeds the bassett cheese after every paw, and everyone is happy and relaxed through the whole process.  The trick is tying the nail cutting experience to something happy - like a rare treat.