Feeling Merry

I just returned from a week away in Denver, celebrating Christmas with my family. I feel very blessed that we were able to have the time together and also see many extended family members and friends while we were having our white Coloardo Christmas. It felt extra special this year to all be together.

Since today is the last day of 2011, I thought I'd make a list (my favorite) of my top moments this year. And next week (yes, I promise to be back next week, but probably not so early) I'll talk about the start of my happiness project.

*My new job: A year in, and I am loving the decision to change jobs to something that I not only love, but something that challenges me.
*Our kitchen: We're about halfway done now, but I still love the change that is in the room now. I still can't find the exact right place for everything, but it just feels better.
*Outdoor work: The garage is wonderful, and our new patio will be so nice this spring and summer. I know Nathan has big plans for the yard this year, too, and it's going to be the nicest yard in Lincoln, I'm sure.
*Vacationing: Our trip to the Bahamas was a much-needed break from the cold. And I love that many of our trips were ones that let us see family and friends this year!
*Celebrating: So many of our friends and family celebrated big events this year: babies, weddings, engagements, moving back to Lincoln, and it is fun to be a part of their joy.
*Shelby: Little Shelby and I have gotten to know each other much better now that we spend so much time together. It's really good entertainment being home and learning all of her little quirks. I think I'd be bored out of my mind being home without her, though I have to admit I get a lot more done when she's not afraid of the vacuum, the hairdryer, the steamer, etc.

Wishing you a happy New Year!

Kitchen Progress

I had planned on doing a book review for you all today, but my friend Kelley requested kitchen photos instead. So we will save the book review for another day and instead let my first post in a while be mostly pictures!

These are the new cabinets about the stove, and our awesome corner cabinet. Originally, if you remember, we planned on doing open shelving over there, but it wasn't as easy to build as we thought. In the end, I was very glad we ended up with it because it holds all of our small appliances easily, and I don't really like everyone seeing the chaos that is generally our cabinets.

This is the other side of the kitchen. Even just with the upper cabinets done, we have more storage, so I moved my cookbooks into the kitchen so they are more accessibly.

Here is the fun rug I found at crate and barrel while shopping with my mom. You can also see some work that we still have to do--baseboard over on the far wall, the tall cabinet will be emptied and taken out of the kitchen so we can put the door in, and the bottom cabinets still need to be painted or replaced so the dishwasher can be installed.

Jim is currently working on the cabinet for the other side of the room, next to the fridge, so I'll show you that when it's all done.

Fall Love

Today is a dreary, dreary day, and I have to admit that Daylight Saving Time put me in such a good mood, I don't even mind. It's the perfect kind of day to drink hot chocolate and curl up with a well-loved book. Shelby on the other hand is having a very hard time adjusting to the time change and keeps trying to get us up early.

I am also loving that we finally have fall because I excitedly pulled out my winter clothes! I had worked on updating my wardrobe last year to have more work and home friendly items that didn't scream college student, and this year I realized that most of my sweaters had seen better days. So I decided to go out shopping.

Last weekend I found some great deals at Ann Taylor Loft--all sale things were 50%, so most of the things I got were $20, including some super comfy cardigans. It wasn't until I got home that I realized I already had at least two black and gray cardigans, but they do go with everything. I also found some super comfy sweaters at Target as well a $10 tall black boots. Then yesterday I got a sweater cape. Sweater capes fall into the category of "trends I questioned until I gave in and now can't imagine life without them" like tall boots and skinny jeans. I have been wearing it around the house all day and it is like wearing a blanket. Plus it makes me feel like an old-fashioned book character. Or Sherlock Holmes.

Toastmasters Speech: Learning Body Language

Since it is Toastmasters day today, I thought I'd share the speech I gave a couple of weeks ago. At the time it was five days before Shelby's adopt-iversary, and since the speech focus was "your body speaks," I decided to improvise some of Shelby's movements. So, whenver you see me describing a look, or see the word this, imagine me pretending to be Shelby.

I have never considered myself to be a dog person. I mean, sure, I like dogs and I loved our family dogs, but I never understood the people who are crazy over their dogs. You know, the people who talk about dogs like they’re children, the people who let their dogs sleep in the bed, the people who take their dogs everywhere they possibly can. And then we got Shelby.

Shelby the sheltie joined our family almost a year ago. We got her from a friend of a friend—they had two puppies left in a litter that had been born in June, meaning Shelby was four months old when we got her. And we were perhaps irresponsible dog owners, in that we did basically no research on the breed before we got her.

Here’s how I decided I wanted I wanted a sheltie. I found some at a local rescue and decided they were cute. I sent the link to my friend Leah, who said, Trent and Jess have sheltie puppies, let’s go look at them this weekend. So off she, Nathan, and I went to “look at the puppies.” We watched the two puppies play together and played with them, and then, when she got tired, Shelby climbed right into Nathan’s lap. Obviously, we were heading to PetCo to get supplies for our new puppy within the hour. And so started our journey with Shelby.

As we later found out, Shelties are known for being loving, loyal, affectionate, and willing to please and obey. They are also very vocal and expressive dogs.  And Shelby is no exception. She is our little shadow, We have learned a lot about Shelby over the course of the year, and she really is like a furry little person, with her own personality and expressions. That’s right—my dog has expressions. And tonight, I’m going to demonstrate some of them for you, as they are really the best way to get to know Shelby.

The first, most essential Shelby look is “the potty look,” which looks like this. When we brought Shelby home, Trent and Jess had already been working on potty-training her, so she was familiar with the concept. And during the first week, Nathan figured out that this meant I need to go outside. So really, potty-training Shelby was pretty easy. However, she soon figured out that if she wanted to go outside, all she had to do was tilt her head and we would stop whatever we were doing to take her out, even if she didn’t really need to go and all she wanted to do was play fetch. While we tried to break her of this habit, it was often met with the I’m so cute so give me what I want look. She also used this look to get us to let her start sitting on the furniture and sleeping on the bed. What can I say, it’s hard to say no to this.

This next look is not to be confused with the potty look. It is instead the look Shelby uses to communicate with us (demonstrate). When we talk to her or ask her questions, she’ll respond with head tilts. Now, I’m pretty sure she can’t actually understand what we’re saying most of the time, but, there have been some instances where I think she can. For example, we were talking about what flavor of food we should get for her next: chicken, beef, deer, rabbit, or duck. She’s She sat there listening tilting her head, and when we said duck, she went like this. So we bought her the duck and since then, she’s eating like a normal dog rather than picking at it like she was before. Maybe she understands us after all.

The best Shelby look is what we like to call big toothy grin, which looks like this. She did this a lot when she was a puppy and was very happy with whatever she was doing—playing fetch, doing her obstacle course, chewing up shoes—that kind of thing. She doesn’t do big toothy grin very often anymore though, and instead just smiles.

Other expressions in Shelby’s repertoire include the glare, the stoic look, the wink, and the I’m watching you look. And if you’re not watching her when she wants you to be watching her, she will paw at your hand like this until you start paying attention to her.

As you can see, Shelby is very good at expressing herself in ways that we understand. Or maybe after a year, we’ve just come to an understanding. And maybe, after a year, I’m one of those crazy dog people after all.
I thought the speech went really well, but I was surprised by the feedback, most particuarly the comment that I was using the word "and" too often. I am not sure if it is a "speech" thing, but I am curious about the hatred for conjunctions--there have been other times people comment on using and, but, or, etc. at the beginning of sentences and how this is "bad grammar." I personally love using these words at the start of my sentences (and I'm sure if you go back and read this, you could have a rather fun drinking game with my use of conjunctions), so it might just be something I have to accept that I will be called out on.

Ghost Stories

Today, I went to the library. Now, really, pretty much every blog post I write ever (assuming I am back to regular blogging, which I am attempting now that life has settled down a bit) could start with today, I went to the library. Because I go to the library a lot--there are some weeks where I go literally every day.

Lately, I haven't checked out any books I'm totally in love with. I've checkd out many audio books that I'm totally in love with, that's for sure, but nothing that I've read. So today, I checked out two books I've already read. But I checked them out because the third book in the series comes out today: The Strangers on Montagu Street.

I originally checked out the two pervious books for the cruise, without knowing that they were more ghost stories than they were historical house stories. And for those of you who don't know, I have a huge fear of ghosts. They freak me out--in fact, they are the reason that I am afraid of the dark. I did actually have nightmares on the cruise while reading them, but I can't resist them because they are that good. Plus, it always does us a little good to face our fears, which is why I checked these out again and also why I'm trying really hard to listen to people's birth stories and not immediately hide my eyes when someone gives birth on TV (yes, giving birth is my second biggest fear).

With a lighter work week ahead, maybe I can get these books finished before Friday and then head over to barnes and noble and read the third one on my nook . . .

Prepping The Kitchen

Fourth of July weekend, we spent most of our time prepping the kitchen. We took down the orignial cabinets, which we planned to re-arrange. The first couple came down relatively easy; however, the last set was so wedged into the wall opening that Nathan had to take it apart to get it down. In the process, we actually tore up some of the wall, which we had to patch.

But that was not the biggest patch job. When the guys were working on the garage, they had to disconnect our hardly-used kitchen fan. So, before we could paint or eventually put up new cabints, we had to take that out. And by we, I mean Nathan. It was also wedged into its original space, so it took a while to get it out. We then had to cover the hole with drywall. Once everything was sanded and ready, we used two coats of primer to try and cover up all of the gray and blue. It was about two-plus coats of purple, too.

While everything was drying, we started priming and painting the cabinets. Even after we decided to have Nathan's dad build us new ones, we still finished painting them because we could use them in the garage. And it's a good thing, too, because they don't look as pretty as I thought they would. Here are the lessons I've learned about painting cabinets since: sand the old gloss off and clean them. Watch out for paint globs. Use small foam brushes for the doors.

Back To The Kitchen

This weekend was very exciting for me--we finally have our new cabinets up! Our kitchen looks like a kitchen again, only new and improved. And for those of you who thought I couldn't talk any more about my kitchen, we'll have a week's worth of posts about my kitchen.

The whole reason for starting the kitchen project was my obsession with HGTV. I was watching an episode of Dear Genevive, and someone said something that I completely related to: I hate this room so much, I don't even want to be in here.

That is NOT how you should feel about a room in your house, but especially the kitchen (particularly if you don't really love cooking, doing the dishes, etc. to begin with). To me, our kitchen never felt like it made sense. I could not get the current cabinet arrangement to work with the way I felt things should be. It was dark and gloomy and I would glare at the cabinets because they were so ugly. The layout did not work with my chaotic style of cooking. And we didn't have enough counterspace.

So, armed with confidence from HGTV, I convinced Nathan to spend the weekend working on the kitchen. It would be so easy, we'd be done that weekend or at least that week. Or so I thought...