Football, hair dryers, and sea lions: A random post

Hello! I am not sure what I have been doing, so no lame excuses for no posts! Two pics from our fall are attached. We have been in Savannah visiting, doing our best to help pack, and, most importantly, watching Tate play football (much more fun than watching our choice college football team play at the moment!). The last game we went to was more like a mud bath for the players, but it was great to watch even in the rain!

A few weeks ago my hair dryer gave out on me mid-session. Unfortunately, I was running late. I drove quickly to my parents, grabbed my old dryer, finished the process and took her with me for good. For the next few days, something was different about my hair -- better different! For months I had been thinking my hair looked funny and what do you know, it did!

My stupid hair dryer was burning my head and my hair! I cannot believe that it took me until the thing just overheated and burned out to realize this issue.

So, ladies, check your hairdryers because if you are able to turn her loose and have your hair dry in under two minutes, you could be falling prey to the same hair dryer terror as I was. Crazy how they sneak up on you like that.

Also, in the news here, I am in love with Arbonne 5-step facial cleanser. I will never relinquish my Dove soap bar and Aveeno daily scrub, but this 5 step deal is amazing. The process takes a day or two to get used to, but once you get the hang of it, you are in and out clean as a whistle in no time. I have had it since last Christmas and refused to use it until I got desperate... Why did I not try this before?

And, I decided to read the Twilight books. I last set it down with about 70 pages to go in the first book, and am fairly engrossed in it. Everyone loves it so much and I want to go to the movie next week having finished the book -- so I dove in -- even though I have too much reading for school to be exerting leisure reading time. More thoughts on this read after I finish!

Speaking of school... I finally sat down to blog again since I am supposed to be finishing two papers before the weekend. Worst. Procrastinator. Ever. It is sad.

Anybody been watching Kath & Kim on NBC? Tyler thinks it is a spoof on the Gilmore Girls, which it is not. It is funny though. Love some Thursday night TV. The Office seems to be getting better each week. I thought they might crash when they lost Holly, but this week's trip to Canada and drunk dial to Angela made me cry. That Andy Bernard... remember when he was the big jerk in the other office? His character has been much more entertaining since he & Angela were engaged.

Alright... I really have to go write these papers. Bottom picture is of Tyler on Election Day 2K8. Someone please tell me is it ironic or just plain funny that he was hanging out with sea lions on 11/4 after the past 2 years of focusing on that one very day? At least we have a picture to remember it with. There is, however, no picture of me, at home, a slave to my TV and radio waiting to hear the state-by-state results. Silly me. Here he is:

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

Our New Alarm & Updated Pictures

Every morning by 6:30 this bright red cardinal comes a'knocking at our den window! I hope you can see him in this picture. He is in the bottom right corner of the window pane. His tapping wakes me up everyday. It is too funny, but also kind of pitiful. He really wants to get into our den and will stay at the window all day. He will be around when we come back for lunch and when we get home in the evenings. I am not sure if he wants to build a nest in the rafters or if he wants food, but this weekend we put up a little bird feeder that Tyler and I picked out at Lowes. I have seen one bird eating out of it, but not him -- I hope he finds it! This afternoon he was back rattatattapping on my window! He smashes red berries up there and it looks gross. Sweet Tyler climbed up to clean the windows last weekend, but now we realize there is not much good to that since he just messes them up immediately afterwards. So now, here are the long awaited pictures of the house (with furniture!) for Carol, the most patient mother in law in the world. Tyler and I love working in the house, but he has tackled the yard like crazy! Pictures of the house and the yard are below - she is still a work in progress, but looking much better & definitely feeling like home -- Enjoy!

Cozy Den

Living room -- hung some sconces & the curtains to the right - behind the sofa is our work station for hanging pictures and such.

Guest room got a bedside table and some wall decor.

This officially became our bathroom the other day. Today I cleaned the shelves, so all of the toiletries are in the cabinets now - a miracle!

The backyard looks amazing. Tyler's work literally makes the yard double in size. We are going to move these boxwoods to the front and re-sod back here, eventually. Also, we are trying to nurse some baby crape myrtles to plant. Will keep you updated on their progress! I promise to not wait another month before I post again -- oops!

New and Improved!

Almost everything is moved in now, but yet to be unpacked!

Here are a few pictures to compare and contrast the new digs... Nothing new to the kitchen except a thorough deep cleaning by me and Kelly.

For those who may be wondering, the banquette is still in place and still red. I am trying to work that color in with the butter yellow, sky blue and light green.... we'll see how convincing I can make it.

I didn't have a very good "before" picture of the dining room (which is now brown), but you can probably imagine its baby blue walls, carpet, and draperies. Go figure.

We conquered the dining room table Sunday night. She was a bear, but we finally got her inside. Basically it is an octagonal table base with a 300 lb. slab of glass for the top. Tyler pushed it up through the yard. Then we slid it across the living room floor on a blanket.

Here are some before and after pictures. The first set is of the living room. We used this same
color in the den and front bedroom too.

Next is our room which is set up for real life now.
Still need to do something with that light fixture
though...

And here is the den. The ceilings look amazing, crisp, and smooth! The room lit up once we painted over the yellow and trimmed the windows and doors in a brighter white. We are really looking forward to this room!

Here is the team that made it all happen! A huge thanks to the O'Connor's for making the trek over to help us on the holiday weekend and to my family for helping us situate things here!

On the Move

Spent the weekend with Savannah friends at the Biltmore Estate ("America's largest home") for John & Jessica's wedding. That Friday we closed on the house and jumped in the car to Asheville. Oops, I ran over a piece of wood on the road and popped our back tire! AND we didn't have a jack in the car to put the spare on! Ugh.

Ended up in Athens for the night instead of Asheville, but then we had the chance to play Wii with Lea and Bonnie -- so, all was well after all!

Here we all are at the reception!

In homeowner news, the floor men came today and now all of the baby blue carpet is up and here is what the floors look like. It all just looks so much better without the drapes!

Moving in this weekend!

Home is Where the Heart is!

At least, that is the greeting on the worn-out, heart-shaped mat welcoming friends into our soon to be new home!

We had our eye on this "diamond in the rough" if you will, for several months and now suddenly we are closing on it this Friday.

I could not be more excited, and I think Tyler will join in after he gets over the closing costs, etc. Last weekend we started packing up ole' Apt. E and she is in total disarray at this point. Moving is much more fun when you are not packing and leaving in 24 hours!

For example, when we left Missouri (in a tizzy) all of our friends aka everyone we worked, came by to help. SO NICE - we would not have gotten out of there without them. We packed all through the night and into the morning. After everything was loaded up we realized the one thing we had left out was... the old fashioned snow sled my brother, John, had given us for Christmas before we moved out to MO (of course it didn't snow until the blizzard that hit right after we left). We roped that baby on top of the Tahoe and headed for home (then went to DC).

So, it is really nice to have a few weeks to contemplate packing and how to best move everything.

Another happy note is that we get to have a storage unit shower! I have been trying to force myself to stop thinking about what all treasures hide within those storage unit walls so that I will be 100% surprised when I unpack the boxes!

This house is going to be a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. Some of the rooms have already won names for themselves. Tyler named the kitchen "Davenports". Some of you might find this strange, others may understand when you see the red vinyl "banquette" in the breakfast room. The den has a flagstone floor and is quite different -- when I say "den" I think about lions. I don't know about the rest of you. Thus, the den has been christened "Pride Rock" by me. No buy in from the husband as of yet. Finally, our guest room will be "Swan Lake". Yes, there are swan faucets and knobs everywhere you turn. (My mother says these are "fine").

In closing, I would just like to echo the sentiment on the weathered doormat. Home has been where the heart is for Tyler and me throughout these past few years. No matter where we moved it always felt like home and I know this new house will too in time.

I will be sure to post some before and after shots in a few weeks... Hopefully they will show signs of improvement!

Here she is! This is a rather wintry looking picture, but don't be deceived, the exterior is mint green!

Reflection

Sorry for the last post - I wrote so much and then tried to highlight some of it and it all started to delete itself! Bizarro.

To recap our past several months (since I first posted!), I wrote a quick overview of the summer so far...

1. We celebrated our 3rd anniversary on May 28th - watched our wedding video for the second time ever, which I thought was a lot of fun!

2. In June we went to NY two weekends in a row. First with the O'Connor's (a surprise trip!)

Here we all are in Brooklyn before eating dinner at the River Cafe ... they had chocolate desserts with miniature Brooklyn Bridges drizzled and hardened on them -- I saw that on the Food Network one day and was really excited to get that dessert!

Then we went with the Carter family for our cousin Robert's wedding to my friend from high school, Courtney. The after rehersal dinner was at the NY Yacht Club and they got married at the Harvard Club. This was our first family trip together that we have had in a while and we had so much fun. We took this picture at the wedding -- loved every minute of this trip too!

When we came home, Tyler was getting ready to start a new job and I spent most of my time trying to catch up at work from the New York tour.

Shortly afterwards, we found ourselves with the O'Connors again due to the sudden loss of Tyler's great uncle, L. J. "Pop" Bridges. Pop's funeral was held Friday, June 20th. The very next day his maternal grandmother, Betty Darby, aka "Granny" passed away after a 10 year battle with cancer. Fortunately we visited with Granny the day before she died. She couldn't respond verbally, but we knew that she heard us there.

Tyler and I came home and he was finally able to start that job! What a blessing it is to have him home and working in the same town again. The first few mornings that we woke up and got ready for the day together made me laugh so hard -- it was such a difference from this time last year when he was home every few weekends.

But more sad news came quickly. Tyler's paternal grandmother, Janie O'Connor, who had spent the last several months in Birmingham receiving chemotheraphy, died Monday, July 14th from lung cancer and its complications. We drove back to Georgia with Thomas for the visitation and funeral.

Although this summer has brought many sad surprises to our family, it is hard not to be thankful for our loved ones who are no longer in pain and have been lifted up. Each of these three people were kind, loving, and welcoming to all and especially to me as I became a new member of the family. I have so many precious memories of them and I know Tyler has many more. They will be missed dearly.

Here is a picture from 1982 of Pop holding Tyler!

"Grandma" (Mrs. O'Connor) with Tyler at one of our wedding showers in Bham:

Here we are with Granny (Mrs. Darby) who is 3rd from the left, and Pop on the far right -- Thanksgiving 2005:

More posts to follow again soon!

-Maggie

Those Lazy, Crazy, Hazy Days of Summer...

Has anyone ever seen the episode of the Gilmore Girls where they sing this song? This is the only line and they sing it over and over again. It gets stuck in my head so often and today is one of those lucky days. Outside it is gray and dreary, (reminiscent of the Missouri weather we used to live in) the tornado sirens just started going off, and I am longing for those lazy, crazy, hazy days of summer! I think I'm going to have a lot more crazy than lazy and hazy this summer,but I will take what I can get! Here is a picture from that episode where they sing the song -- I think it is actually a Nat King Cole song...

Moving on.. this is my first actual blog post so here's a shout out to my first favorite blog ever: http://grayfiser.blogspot.com/
Gray doesn't post much anymore, but back in the day his blog provided some much need entertainment for anyone having a slow day at the office. Good times.