Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Maxon Update

Maxon is still hanging around, doing well. I swear he has grown 2 inches in the last week!



Camp: Tie Dye:)

My creation from earlier today:



Monday, June 28, 2010

Imagining the exterior

I don't consider myself an artist so please excuse the raunchy-ness of the drawing but in my antsyness as I wait for my kitchen renovation to start, I have been thinking about when we get to change the outside of the house. I drew this picture to try to imagine the change. Just as a reminder, here's what it looked like at the beginning:


We want to add columns instead of the wrought iron, take out the boxwoods, add shutters, and replace the front door. Here's a rendering of what it might look like:

                               
Good artist, yes? :)

Flooring... again?

So, here it is, late June and we still haven't received an estimate on the kitchen. Might be coming soon... which means we might start the kitchen before I go back to school. Awesome. I can't wait!! 


In the meantime, I've been fretting over numbers. Our appliances weren't cheap but I knew I wanted them and was ok paying for them. But what that means is the other areas of the kitchen need to be picked and chosen wisely. 


I've been lusting after cork flooring. The Kaiser rep is coming to our house to give us an estimate on it for our den and kitchen. It isn't too much sq. footage but I'm nervous. I really want it to look something like this, which I blogged about a while back here:




The above image from Country Living caught my eye as a good compromise between modern and country, which seems to be where I am in my style and design. 


But, realistically, I know it is good to have alternatives to price out. I just don't have any clue about prices of kitchen flooring. I have heard of stained and stamped concrete as an idea so I looked at some pictures of that. Here's a few I really liked:




All images are from google image search, saved to my computer over time... so I don't know whose they are but I like them! And I don't mean to steal them!


I like the look of stained concrete and wonder how expensive it is compared to the cork. I like cork better but this last picture is a bit of a compromise between the two ideas. 

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Camp: The Final Week

Well, I can't believe it is here: the final week of camp. It has FLOWN by. And I knew it would. This has been an amazing summer. Last summer was amazing too, but this summer has been amazing-er. Our staff has been a HUGE part of that difference. I just love the people I've been working with. How ideal. Here's a pic of three members of my ridiculously cool 11 person counselor team:



Tuesday, June 22, 2010

A note for my dad.

So I realized that while I did talk to my dad on Father's Day (and got him a sweet fishing themed t-shirt), I didn't share the blog wealth equally. If one was to write a blog for Mom for Mother's Day, a Father's Day blog post is only equitable. 

The truth is, I'm a Daddy's Girl. I always say I'm his "favorite daughter" (... and as the old joke goes, the only daughter), and he is definitely my favorite dad. I have so many great memories of going fishing with him, going on trips to DC with him, being in plays together, singing together, watching the Simpson's (even though Mom didnt like that). He has always been there for me and has been an excellent role model in my life. I truly believe that the fact that he is such a good father to me and husband to my mom is the reason that I was able to choose someone as wonderful as Jake to be my husband. He has shown me what love is. 

My dad is a great guy because he is smart, talented, and giving. Here we are at my college graduation:

And then this picture - I love it because it is of Jake and I at our wedding, cutting our cake, but if you look closely, my dad is standing behind us, smiling away. It makes me really happy:

 It is hard being away for Father's Day but I should try to make up for it by being a good, appreciative, loving daughter the rest of the year!

Homesick.

Who I miss...

I'm away from home. I should be used to this, as I chose to do this (and love being at camp) but sometimes it is hard to be away. 5 weeks is a long time. Today, a few campers asked how it was to be gone this long and I got sort of sad. But then someone did something funny and I was reminded why I'm here - the kids. 

I'm missing these guys:

And really missing this crew:
 But mostly, I'm just really missing this guy:
 

A letter from Maxon

An open letter to my new family:

 Hi, family! I'm loving Camp Gailor Maxon. Ever since these nice counselors picked me up on the side of the highway in the marsh, I've been living the big life. I'm constantly being held:

 I'm becoming very social. I love playing. Playing with the campers, playing in the grass, playing at all.

 Mostly, though, I love people. I follow everyone around like their little shadow. I sit at their feet:

 Today, I went to the vet. The vet thinks I'm 8-10 weeks old. He said I was in good health, except for a quick de-worm that needed to happen. For a mountain puppy, I escaped homelessness pretty well off! I got all my shots and a flea/tick treatment. 

 I know how to climb stairs now and have more energy with each day I'm here. I've also found my voice and have started talking to everyone through yips and grunts. It is pretty amusing. 

 Mostly though, I'm just being the cutest dog ever. 

Love, Mountain Man Maxon

Monday, June 21, 2010

Picture of the Day

Taken during our trip to Sewanee last Wednesday. I love that place.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Sewanee Surprise

We were eating lunch today at Crust (an awesome pizza place in Sewanee) when we saw a momma dog walking down the street. She looked sad - she had been nursing a lot, we could tell, and she was very skinny and dirty. We mentioned that her pups must be near but didn't think much of it. Well, when we were walking to the car, we saw a black blur rustling through the tall marsh grasses. We walked over and this little guy was hanging out in the marshy area by the woods. He had ticks on him and was shaking. I picked him up, wrapped him in a dress from the back of my car, and we took him back to camp. I talked to the restaurant workers and they said the mom had been back there with the puppies for a few weeks and that they were giving the mom scraps. I just didn't think he'd survive on just his mom's milk for much longer and he was hidden back in the woods. 

Right now we've bathed him, given him milk, gotten him a dog bed, collar (with a bow tie!), and some puppy food. The vet comes to town on Tuesdays so I'll take him to see the vet then and we'll go from there.

I named him Maxon, because our camp is Camp Gailor Maxon. Here's Grace with him:


 Here he is hanging out, helping make nametags:
 

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Exterior Inspiration

A while back I blogged about plans for the exterior of our house (in this post). For those of you who don't recall, our funny little ranch on a street of historic bungalows looks a bit like this:
It is a cute little rancher, and it is our cute little rancher, but it sticks out in our 'hood. Well today on my google reader there was a blog that links but doesn't show the actual post (you have to click to see it). Well I never read that one because I'm too lazy (note to you blog people - if you do a post but I have to click to read the actual post outside my google reader, odds are I'm not going to read it). Today, for some reason, I actually clicked on the post. I don't know what compelled me to do so but I'm glad I did. 

The blog post was from a blog called "The Painted House" about her ranch and the job they did on its exterior. I was so inspired and now want to do something similar to our house... Here's her before and after:
 credit: Angela with The Painted House

The addition of the roof line break in the middle with the porch and the paint/landscaping made a HUGE difference. I really would love to emulate this when we do our house's exterior. How awesome does their house look?

Western Night

Hey guys! Still having fun at camp.. Our senior high camp is almost over. The week has flown by! Monday night we had a Barn Party in our Pavilion. We all dressed in Western gear, ate burgers in the "barn", learned line dances, and had a hay ride. It was a lot of fun. I'm missing home but having a good time here. 
 

Monday, June 14, 2010

A trip to Knoxville.


This past weekend, we had some time off before the senior group for camp showed up on Saturday so Gracie and I hit the road and went to Knoxville in search of some real food and real fun. 

We got to Knoxville Thursday night around 7 and immediately went to one of my favorite places to eat, Barley's. Their black bean hummus is amazing and after eating camp food for far too long to think about, a little healthy food was welcomed. Along with that we had a pizza - I recommend Barley's pizzas. 

Beth, Brad, and Eric met us at Barley's and afterwards I went back to married couple's apartment to stay the night. It was just really nice sitting around with them, enjoying their company, and catching up. Plus playing with this guy didn't hurt either:

 Beth and Brad got Toby last fall and he is my 3rd favorite basset in life (after Beamer and Sebastian of course). He is a lot of fun and I know they are loving having him). 

Friday we got up and went shopping. Knoxville has a Home Goods (and Memphis doesn't), so I wanted to go and check out what they had. I got some really cool knobs for a furniture project in my future as well as this awesome lamp on clearance for the living room:

We hit the road after eating at Sunspot (another Knoxville favorite). It was a great break from the camp life but I was ready to get back to the Mountain.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

New Appliances are In!

A whole 2 weeks early, our appliances we ordered online came in! We've got to wait to get them installed so currently they are in our garage until the renovations start. I took my camera to camp but Jake sent me iphone pics - so here you are, just a glimpse at the beauties that are our appliances.

Foster Falls

Here's where I hiked yesterday - it is beautiful!

 

Monday, June 7, 2010

This one's for Heather...

My friend Heather and I were talking over the weekend about the expense involved in buying throw pillows. I mean, a cute throw pillow can run you 40-60$ and that is at Pier One. Don't even get me started on other places! For example, I'm digging on this dog pillow but the dude runs about $110. No thanks..

 Well, so with my new best friend website Polyvore, I took some cute pillow options from Wal-Mart and Target and created a mood-board-thingy for you all to see that pillows CAN be cute and cheap!

Decorative Pillow : Target
$17 - target.com


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