Work Work Work

Aside from work, we helped some friends paint an apartment in one night on Monday.  There were enough of us there that the work went fast and finished by the time everyone left.  Initially they had planned to be painting all week.  

I also had another dentist appointment on Tuesday.  When I arrived a few minutes late, they had given my appointment to another person.  Well I asked how long of a wait and she said not long and I said if it was like an hour we'd go grab dinner for Peter who was starving and come back.  Being told "no definitely not that long" we waited.  Well it was an hour.  I was mad because of my stressful day at work prior to my arrival, the dense traffic which caused me to be late (by less than 10 mins).  Plus I'm at the dentist ALL THE TIME!  I have never just not showed up and that's what our receptionist claimed she thought would happen?   I was like whaaaaat?   I pieced it together later though that they had a cancellation right before my appointment and so they were hoping I came earlier.  When I didn't, the person that arrived early for their appointment after mine was ushered in causing me to wait.  This ultimately meant I  missed Young Adults as I didn't even leave the dentist until after 7 PM.  And to top it off they had to send my crown back to the lab to be altered so it's still not finished.  They're supposed to call me because it was only supposed to take 2-3 days.  I'm going to call them tomorrow though because sometimes I think their receptionist isn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier, if you know what I mean.

It was nice to leave early on Friday though.  I have some PTO hours I had to use because of year end and didn't want to lose them.  With the licensing visit tomorrow, I couldn't use them.  So I did on Friday.  Peter and I drove to Arlington VA for the annual RESNA conference which is where we've been since.  His company is here presenting, etc.  It's been cool to see some of their product users and get to know them; as well as learn more about the field of alternative augmentative communication.  

Traffic down here is nuts though.  We were going to go to Richmond to visit Emily but the traffic was insane.  Bumper to stickin' bumper with no end in sight.  We had an interesting experience with the HOV lanes as well and saw a cop pull over 4 cars simultaneously.  We cancelled our meeting with Emily and got back to the hotel 4 hours later.  Whew.  Kind of a wasted afternoon haha.  Oh well.

Now Peter is finishing up a presentation with Bruce and we'll be heading home.  The lobby here at the Hyatt is pretty nice with 3 floors plus two floors below with meeting rooms and chairs/couches all over.  

It will be nice to get back to Pittsburgh though.  At least we know how to deal with that traffic haha.

Beautiful Sunday

Today Peter and I officially joined Hebron Church.  It's the church we've been going to for about a year now and have become involved in.  David Shrader spoke today too so it was a double good service.  After church, we went out to eat at Max & Erma's.  We actually still had a $25 gift card from Christmas so only paid $14 for the rest and tip.  We had a very delicious meal.  We shared a nacho appetizer with cheese, seasoned beef and sour cream topping.  I had the hula bowl which is a salad with baby greens, grilled chicken, grilled pineapple, mandarin oranges and honey mustard dressing (yum!) and Peter had a corned beef sandwich of some sort with fries and a baby green side salad.  Then we got chocolate chip cookies for dessert because they are a must!  

After lunch, we stopped into Lowe's because I'm still looking for handles for my dining room buffet piece I put in the kitchen.  The center to center holes is 2.5" and most come standard at 3" so I'm having a bit of trouble finding something.  I want them to match what we already have which are fifty years old haha.  I know I won't find exact, but similar.  I did find something that matched in style that were chrome that I could easily paint black but they were 3" too.   Bummer.  I also picked up a new paint pad because we are going to help the Shrader's paint their apartment since they are all moved out now in preparation for their big move.  I also have some painting to do at home and will need a new pad so I figured I'd get it to use it for both occasions.  

We came home in the afternoon to just relax.  Peter even took a nap to catch up on some rest.  After he woke up, we did a few random things around the house.  The first of which was hanging the shelf in the kitchen.  The brackets have been up forever and we just haven't had time and a chance to get the shelf cut and put up.  It was relatively easy and I am so glad to have it.  More counter space!  

This is the most recent picture I had before the shelf went up.  It was from about a year ago though haha.  But it gives you a good enough idea.

And here is my new shelf!  The wood was actually left here by the old owners who had some shelves all around the kitchen that we took down.  I was able to move my canisters off the counter to free up some space and get my cookbooks off the top of the fridge and move my recipe box from the windowsill.  I also put the fruit bowl there to fill the space at the end and free up the countertop beside the stove.

We also changed the a/c filter, cleaned Cadi's litter, got the trash and recyclables ready for tomorrow's pick up, and just tidied the place up a bit.  

I was looking around the kitchen and how different and how much better it looks than from when we first moved in.  It hasn't even been 2 years but geeze have we been busy!  My husband is awesome because he has helped soooo much!  His muscles sure come in handy and he's learning to use power tools from Jeff which is great!  

Now it's storming again and we're just winding down to get ready for bed.  I love these evening thunderstorms.  It's been beautiful during the days and then storming at night.  My flowers are getting watered too which saves me time and money from the water bill haha.  The only bad thing about the storms are that Cadi gets scared haha.  

Yard Work Progress!

Well today was a verrrrryyy productive day outside.  After sleeping in a bit (til about 9 haha), Peter and I had some breakfast and went outside to do some work.  Peter cut the grass and I did a whole lot of weeding in preparation for laying mulch.  Peter also cut down the pine tree in the corner of the back yard.  It was growing to close to the red bud tree and was being taken over by the hillside.  And he cut down the holly bush in the front yard.  I love holly bushes but it was too huge and in a very awkward spot.  We worked outside for roughly 5 hours and I couldn't be more pleased with the result:

We had already fixed up this area prior to today, minus the mulch.  We will probably be getting rid of the tall green shrub when we cut down trees eventually because it's dying.

This is the area that we've been working on.  I pulled out all the old stuff that was growing here and last weekend Peter turned over all the soil.  2 azaleas, 1 barberry and 1 basil plant later and this is what we have.  Plus the few lillies bit of phlox that was already growing there.  I also transplanted a columbine that was growing from the other side of the driveway to match the one that's growing on this side between the 2 lillies.  I'm going to move the lillies to the backyard after they bloom this year.

Here's a great picture of our grass that has grown in nicely.  It's already starting to really blend with the older grass too.  We used to have huge ornamental grasses here that I absolutely hated haha.

At the end of the driveway on the left side here I am going to finish digging up the things growing right now, turn over the soil and round it down to the driveway and plant grass.  I've pretty much divided up the landscaping work into sections and now that the first two are completed, this is the next section I want to tackle along with a small section on the right side near the road that has a bunch of junk growing in it that can't be seen from this picture.  I think the larger portion of the right side of the driveway will wait until fall when things start to die off.  We're just going to take everything out from there and plant grass as well.

This is where the holly bush used to be haha.  We're going to get rid of the stump and plant grass here as well.

A view from the porch:

I took this from the dining room window.  I am so happy with all of our hard work!

Our house as of today.  Love it!

We are really checking things off of our to do list for the yard.  When we cut down all the pine trees etc we'll be ripping up the one area in the middle of the yard and moving the rhododendron and salvaging the few flowers that grow there and moving them to other areas.  Planting grass is pretty much our theme.  We love pine trees too but there's just too much.  Everything is growing into each other and just going to get bigger.  Some day this summer I think a few friends will be coming down to help cut the trees down.  And we're looking into doing the hillside in the back ourselves with some friends sometime soon too.  It's exciting to see the great changes being made :)