Things I need to do

I often come to work and think of all the things that I want to get done around my house. Carl and I bought a beautiful rowhome in "move-in" condition last September. Our move in process was quite complicated with me being pregnant and then shortly after our move, on bedrest. Carl and his mother painted the main living spaces in the house but since we were expecting, we had to let some things go. Recently, we have been spending most of our energy on the front and backyards of our house. The previous owners planted some sort of strange grass and it sucks to work with. In the fall, Carl will have to rip it all out and replant seed. I have mostly been focusing on gardening. When we moved in, there was a trellis in the middle of our backyard with cucumbers growing from it. All around the trellis was broccoli growing. Along the edges of our yard there was LOTS of mint. None of these things were attractive. After Cliff and Carl ripped out the trellis and the fence, I created two small gardens on either side of the random cement. My next project will be to rip out the ugliness that is the garden between our house and our next door neighbors. It is entirely too overgrown and we just need to start from scratch. I need to talk to Mary about what plants are hers. I think this might be a job for fall or at least late August. I think next summer I will plant my flower garden there so that the other side of the yard can be all grass.
In the laundry room (which is huge), we are working on painting, organizing our storage, and creating a workout space. This is a large undertaking because not only do we have to paint a large area, but we need to figure out what to do with the things stored in that area while we paint. The old owners left a lot of their old paint down there, which is frustrating because now we have to get rid of it.
This summer sometime I think we will slowly start updating the bathroom, starting with new floor tiles. Eventually we will get to the kitchen. Perhaps by the time the girls move out for college we will be done making the house "ours". I guess we are just a little too particular.

strange emotions

I went to Andy and Pam's wedding this weekend. Pam was beautiful and they both looked so happy. It was an absolutely beautiful wedding. Strangely enough, as soon as I saw Andy at the front of the church, I started to cry. He looked so happy, and of course I was happy for him, but this was the end of an era. Andy is the first of my friends from college to get married. I met him at the end of freshman year sitting outside on Stine Lake, studying for finals. From the beginning Andy and I had a love hate relationship; although it started out with much more hate than love. Shortly after our first meeting, he started "dating" (and I use that term very loosely) Wendy. He was the worst boyfriend at the beginning and for some reason he and I did not get along. Slowly, through the years, Andy and I did develop a strong friendship. He and Wendy introduced Carl and I. As Andy and Wendy turned into a normal couple, Carl and I turned into a serious couple. Andy and Carl went from being fraternity brothers to being roommates and Andy and I strengthened our relationship as well. In my memory, when I think of college, it is always the four of us. My best memories generally include the four of us together. Fraternity parties, theta chi in general, video games, drinking, the football game from hell, and even trips for fast food. I even look back now and smile at how he used to have Carl pick Wen and I both up for date parties, even when we lived across the street from the house. I guess back then I always thought it would be Wendy and Andy, just like its always been Carl and I. I just need to sometimes remember those times when it was just Andy, like the weekend before he went to Vegas with Josh and we drank extensively...and Carl told Andy we had no blankets or the times when Andy and I met up in Allentown when I was in on business. Those memories make me smile too! I guess I'm ready to close the book college, and start to focus on making new memories.

I am thrilled that Pam and Andy are so happy. It has been Pam in my memories of more recent moments like the night we moved into the new house, the hospital baby shower, and the baptism weekend. I am so happy to have been included in their special day!

Office -Time

In the two and a half years I have worked in my current position, there has never been very much "hanging out" with my office-mates. Becky and I certainly had our exclusive "club", but that was the two of us building our friendship and rebelling as the "new girls" (eventhough I was not the new girl at that period in time). In the past three weeks or so, the under 30s in my office have started spending a lot of time together. It is not that we are trying to stay exclusively under 30, but our older co-workers don't generally seem interested in joining in. I must say that "fitting in" with this small group of co workers does really make my job much more enjoyable. I Yes, I come in in the morning to do work (right now the monotonous job of helping transfer admissions), but I enjoy lunchtime and the office dynamic much more now. Since Becky left last summer, I have not really had the fun of stealing away from the office for an afternoon mocha from starbucks, or kicking back and having some serious dirt dishing sessions. I certainly miss my once weekly lunches away from the office. Now with my new found small group of friends, I am able to enjoy these activities once again! Next week I am even venturing back to Chipotle...an old haunt for Becky and I!

The Duel

Yesterday, en route to Einstein's and Target, Katie decided that we need to start a competition to help keep each other motivated in our "healthy" lifestyles. Katie made up the rule that each participant (meaning Katie and I) had to work out at least 180 minutes per week. Any workout time past that would help to win the competition. I am very excited that Katie had this plan as I have been trying to get my body into pre-pregnancy shape for five months now. I have a rapidly approaching vacation that I would love to feel decent in a bathing suit for.
After watching the comedian dance for six minutes in the email yesterday, I decided to step our competition up a notch and name it "The Duel". There is a chart hanging in each of our offices reminding us of our duel. I would like to proudly say that on day one, I am 60 minutes closer to achieving victory...hahahaha!

Wedding Gifts

This weekend, Delaney, Alison and I set out to buy a wedding present. As we walked through Hechts and then Crate and Barrel, I decided it is much easier to buy a wedding gift when you've been married for a while. Sure, buying off of the registry is always an option, but this wedding is next weekend and all of the good stuff from the registry is gone. While browsing through Crate and Barrel on the hunt for a small serving dish for my family, it dawned on me...I should get them something that I wish we would have thought to register for. Although I mostly registered for "everyday" items and avoided fancier things, somehow I ended up with tons of special occasion items (which is more or less why I was looking for the small serving dish in the first place). We have everything from a large crystal punch bowl (that I was able to pull out for the baptism actually) to a large crystal picture frame; neither of which are our style. Now that Carl and I have been married for almost 3 years and life has definitely calmed down, what we really enjoy now are quiet dinners with our girls. I decided to buy the materials we enjoy having for our family dinners; a present that I would love to receive (which could turn into another blog all together). I only hope that the recipients of our gift enjoy fish!

Behind the times

For my first mothers day Carl, Delaney, and Alison gave me an mp3 player. My husband, who recently had been a wonderful gift giver, knew that I wanted an ipod shuffle. I really do not know anything about mp3 players, but wanted since it seems to be the new accessory for runners in my neighborhood. Carl came home on mothers day very excited that he had bought me a samsung mp3 player that the man at Best Buy explained was a much better buy than the ipod that I had orginally requested. Carl stood in front of me as I opened the plastic reciting the features his gift boasted. Excited about my new toy I could not wait to start putting music on it. I could not wait to go running with the new workout mix that I had in my head. How hard could downloading music onto an mp3 player be? Everyone does it! Evidently much harder than I thought. Sure my mp3 player had directions explaining how to get the songs from the media player on to the mp3 player, but where was I supposed to download these songs from? I turned to my best friend Wendy and proud owner of an ipod nano. Wendy advised me to try itunes, which for the record you can only use if you have an ipod! As a leaned back in my chair I thought to myself...this can not be this hard. I used to download music from napster all the time back when it was free. Finally, I figured out how to use yahoo music and wouldn't you know, my good old computer from my freshman year of college does not have the data port that my mp3 needs to connect to the computer. AWESOME!!! When did technology become so technological and how did it pass me by? Finally, I was able to downlaod a song onto the mp3 player, and I look forward to completing some more downloads this evening so I too can be a "cool runner" in my neighborhood.

The problem with college

As I sit at my desk entering transcripts, my mind tends to wander. Dinner, or food in general is often my primary concern since I love eating and entertaining. Carl and I recently hosted two large parties celebrating the baptisms of our daughters. Both we successful and it was wonderful to have all of our friends come together. Then I thought, it would be so much fun to host a small dinner party, with maybe only one or two other couples. It occurs to me that most of our "couple" friends live out of town and that is the problem with college. You get very close to people, living with them, going to class with them, partying with them for four years and then everyone goes their own separate ways. Some of our friends don't live all that far away, but far enough away that a dinner party would be a little out of the question. I guess I never gave much thought to the fact that when college was over, so were the days of walking across campus to get to my friends apartments. Now I need to drive to Philly or North Carolina to see two of my best friends. So much for the dinner party idea. The upside though is always having a place to stay when we travel out of town... I guess I'm looking forward NC in July...here's to a weekend of being in close proximity again, and maybe we'll get that dinner party!

Introduction to a New Space

I have decided to move my blog to a new location. Blogging is my newest obsession as well as my newest procrastination device. A collegue of mine uses this particular site for her blogging, so I figured, why not do the same. This way I can add pictures to my blogs. I tend to talk about my daughters quite often, and pictures help to illustrate the stories a bit better.