And he makes it two for May!

Given the obscene amount of time I have not had for sitting at a computer, I'm proud that I am somehow managing to squeeze two blog posts into a single month.  Award, please.  In an effort to avoid a monthly "this is a list of what I've done since I last blogged" routine, I'm going to let you in on what I'm looking forward to this summer.

(1) Oliver eating solid(ish) food.  We tried that today and the results were...well...not for the faint of heart.

(2) Jordan and Alli getting married!  Memorial Day weekend was an awesome excuse for all 10 of us (+2 dogs) to collect in one place for 3 days.  From the hour long game of Signs to the cookout by committee, I enjoyed every minute. Naturally, we're excited to see everyone again in July--and to finally need one less air mattress!

At Logan & Emilie's Wedding

(3) Leaving behind the ridiculous end-of-days weather. The past 4 days notwithstanding, the latter half of May seems to have been one giant severe thunderstorm.  We lost power twice--always fun in a new place.  Monday, the power was out from 7pm to 3am.  Not too bad.  Go to bed early, walk around with flashlights/candles, hope you've shut off all the lights that were on before the power went out so they don't all come back on at 3 am., etc. Wednesday, however, the power went out at 11:59pm, not to be seen again until  2pm the next day. We realize this isn't especially terrible, but we did find it ironic that while we sat idle without power, the mailman delivered a box of 6 complimentary CFLs...from our power company. 

(4) Taming the outside.  The joys of home ownership are abundant. The joys of maintaining the home one owns, not so much.  Last Friday we finally got a fence installed on the side of the house.  Thinking this would now contain Toby, we let him out for some outside time.  One hour and a frantic hunt later, we found him wandering in the woods well down the road.  We have since wired in the bottom tier of the deck and done some other dog-proofing work around the house.  As you can see, we have not, however, deer proofed.  

Our next big task is to figure out why one portion of our yard continues to earn the nickname "The Slough".  Even recognizing that we've had two months of near record rainfall, we're still a bit baffled by the marshy conditions and persistent muck.  Fortunately, the best minds I know are mulling over potential solutions (thanks, Mom & Dad).  

(5) Summer tv.  We watch tv.  It's our outlet for decompressing after a long day and quite frankly, it's often entertaining.  With our fall/spring network standards on hiatus, it's back to cable with new seasons for Burn Notice, Leverage, and our new entry Franklin & Bash.  Of course, we'll miss favorites like Parks & Recreation...

Bye, Bye Li'l Sebastian indeed.  Hello summer.

late night rhymes

diddle diddle dumpling my son john

went to bed with his stockings on

one sock off and one sock on

diddle diddle dumpling my son john*

*apparently whoever first taught me this nursery rhyme was misinformed because it's actually about trousers and shoes not stockings and socks...thanks google but sometimes i'd prefer to stay blissfully unaware.

Seriously, April 12th?

You'll never guess whose turn it's been to blog...fail (apologies to those of you who find "fail" annoying and overused).  In keeping with my penchant for blogging in list format, allow me to share some of the hits of the last few weeks, in pictures!:

(1) A weekend visit to Indiana. We headed home for a wedding shower and get to enjoy some friends and family.

Pictures of Mark and Oliver seems to drive a lot of comments, so I'm hoping for some "oohs" and "aahs".
Can't remember what was on...

Oliver loves visiting because his grandpa tempts him with solid foods. He also gets to be fed and carried around by a different person every time, which has got to be better than always staring at my chin while eating.

Oliver was really much happier than he appears.

We also got to visit with our friends Steve & Jolie and Jason & Courtney, among others.  Steve, Jason, and I met up at Starbucks with Oliver during the wedding shower.  Helpful hint by the way, if you're starved for attention, throw a diaper bag over your shoulder and carry a baby into a coffee shop loaded with college students.  Everything you do for the next 25 minutes will be a combination of cute, adorable, and inspiring--as in random college students whispering: "I want a baby so bad."

(2) Gold Level Membership.  The personalized card is in the mail. The dossier that multiple "behavioral marketing" firms are keeping on me has probably been updated to include: gullible, status-conscious, addicted to coffee.

Yes, I'm proud to keep the engines of capitalism greased and running.

(3) Easter weekend in Pennsylvania.  When we have a long weekend, it's "Wagons East!" So last week we packed up the car and headed out to central PA for a 4 day weekend with Jath's family.  Wild swings in the weather kept us inside for much of the weekend, but we did manage to make it onto the back deck Easter Sunday for a family picture. Other events included Mystery of the Abbey, Stocks & Bonds, Things, Identity Crisis, and Tiger Woods Golf.


Toby spent most of the weekend realizing that even at the grandparents' house, he's no longer the most popular member of our family.  He was, however, grateful for the sun.

(4) Sleeping in the basement...an hour at a time.  Although nothing on the level of Tuscaloosa, we've had our fair share of severe whether around here in the last couple of weeks.  On one evening, we even had to get up at 1 a.m. to take Oliver and Toby down to the basement.  Jath had made up a nice rest area complete with flashlight, dog bed, laptop, and pillows.  We were only down there for an hour and half--the storms were moving fast--but Oliver seemed to enjoy himself; Toby, not so much.

At the front door!

(5) Our biggest news of all: We Bought a House!!!  I know we've already announced our escrowing on a place a month or so ago, but as of Friday at 1 pm, we were officially in debt up to our eyeballs homeowners!  We spent Friday afternoon, all day Saturday, and this afternoon at the house painting.  Thanks to babysitting and trimming services from our intrepid friend Robin, we were able to finish Oliver's bedroom and the hall bathroom.  We also managed to get fencing estimates from three fence contractors and discover that our garage door opens really...really...slowly.  Our mission for the days before we move is to paint a couple more rooms, have a few things fixed, hopefully get a fence in place for Toby, and maybe install a ceiling fan.  Overall, we're just excited to do all those things without having to consider whether they will come out of our security deposit.

Anyway, the guest bath is painted and ready to go, so come visit!

my little music man

i love this picture and thought it was worthy of its own post.

uncle mark will teach him the piano, uncle jordan the drums, uncle scott the guitar and aaron an assortment of brass and woodwinds with a little help from uncle steve...

He blogs!

Or at least I aspire to.  More often I'm reading other peoples' blogging handywork as I scroll through my Google Reader feed (highly recommended for those of you who enjoy information overload).  So where do I go for updates on the world when work affords a window of opportunity?  Some favorites and recommendations:


(1) Above the Law - awesome if you're a lawyer, law student, or know someone who is and can't quite make sense of why they are the way they are.  Essentially, ATL is a legal tabloid and go-to source for hilarious anecdotes about life as lawyer


(2) Tuned In - Time magazine's James Poniewozik represents a classier take on entertainment (mainly TV) news.  I enjoy the occasional "Morning After" reviews as well as his take on current events in the media





(3) Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball - less of a blog and more of a weekly commentary for us proud political junkies.  As the title would suggest, Sabato, a political science professor at UVa, has a penchant for accurately forecasting the outcomes of elections.  The site also offers the occasional regression analysis of voting behavior, for those so inclined.  I also enjoy the "Tweets of the Week"--it's rare to get pithy political insight from a PhD. 


On the lighter side...


(4) Pearls Before Swine - a somewhat irreverent comic strip that frequently "out funnys" Dilbert, Non Sequitur and the like.  



Of course, you have to be able to handle absurd characterizations (a gun-toting sea anemone) and outrageously horrible puns.

(5) Today's Big Thing - never at work, always at home.  Sometimes hilarious (see: icy hill in San Francisco), other times best left unwatched.  Still, worth a look every so often.  Case in point? These guys:


Tack on a mass of news feeds (CNN, NPR, WSJ, etc) and blogs from friends and family, and I'd say my online diversions pretty well sum me up.  Strange how that happens.

healthy by accident

Not too long ago I signed up for something called Green B.E.A.N delivery. Available to Northern Kentucky, Cincinnati, Dayton, and Columbus Green B.E.A.N delivers organic produce from local farmers right to your door. Every other Wednesday I find $35 worth of fresh organic fruits and vegetables waiting for me on my front porch and I love it.

I particularly like the vegetables. When I'm in the grocery store I frequently become frustrated with the desire to eat healthier greener things but hardly ever buying any because of how it looks or feeling lost as to how to incorporate it into dinner. But for some reason when all those beautiful vegetables show up at my door I have no trouble not only adding them to our diet but structuring our meals around them. 


It's also a great way to try new things. Every week a couple of days before delivery my order is put together and made available on line for me to see, then if I choose I can sub out things for produce that better suits our family (read "it's harder for some of us to eat vegetables than others..."). Well last week I forgot to check and edit so when we opened our box we found this:

It's red chard though it looks a lot like rhubarb and we had no idea what to do with it. So what do we do when we don't know? We google! It turns out that the green leaves are the part you eat and they taste like a more delicate spinach. We did some more googling and found a recipe that was surprisingly delicious. It was accidentally the healthiest, and the yummiest, meal we had all week.

What the What!? We bought a house...

Well we've almost bought a house anyway, just hanging out in a little place we like to call escrow. To some of you it's already old news, but to others it might come as a surprise. Surprising still when I tell you that this is actually the second house we've "bought" in the last two weeks. It's true. Two weeks, two different houses, two inspections, one canceled contract and one good contract equals one really great house.


We started this process in the beginning of March when we realized it might actually be possible to have a lower mortgage payment than our current rent, I know that's some crazy rent. So some encouragement from Aaron's dad, a few phone calls and one tax return (to put towards a downpayment) later we were on the hunt. 


We walked through 52 houses, not including the many "virtual tours" we took online, and our kind and patient Realtor was happy to oblige. Within the first week we found house #1. It was nice, with a huge yard and just enough space inside. It was the best one we'd seen and in an area we loved so we offered and the sellers accepted. A few days later the inspection revealed more hidden issues than we realistically would have been able to deal with so we walked away confident that this wasn't the house for us after all.

we don't really like ranches anyway

A week later we were deep into another round of house hunting. In the opposite direction of house #1 we found house #2 coming in at double the square feet and a lower price. The inspection went significantly better this time and we're looking forward to officially buying the house (closing) at the end of April.

much to my mother's chagrin the awnings are NOT staying

A lot's happened in the past few months and between becoming parents and becoming homeowners I'm not sure how much more "adult" we can get. Unless of course we buy a minivan...


P.S. Steve this one's for you:

so handy!