Who Would Have Thought

At this moment (yes, around 5:30 pm) one year ago I remember sitting on a sidewalk reading a book called Whales On Stilts (a crazy book, but fun....I needed to read it for my library). I was in a city I did not know very well (Lexington) and I was waiting for a guy I did not know very well either (some random guy named Matt).

I had met him online, we had talked on the phone, but a first date is something completely different. So here I am trying to read for work, not remembering much because I am anxiously waiting for this guy to arrive and see what might happen.

Just as I was starting to be able to calm my nerves a bit and get into my reading my cell phone began to ring. It was Matt! I did not see him because he was across the road by the door of the restaurant. And he did not see me because I was on the sidewalk and his view of me was being blocked by my car. The book was quickly closed, thrown into the car, and the date began....

(to read of the first date, please see my first blog)

Who would have thought that on our one year anniversary of meeting we would also be celebrating almost 4 months of married life? It is amazing how wonderfully and quickly life works!

Making it our own

Matt and I have been somewhat busy working on little parts of the house. And the funny thing is that the parts of the house that we worked on are usually the very first things that I do to a new house that I move into. So it is amazing to me that I have lived in this house for about four months and I finally got window dressings made and up for the dinning room....

And I made wonderful window dressings for the living room. They are actually out of the same pattern of material just one is in a red print and one is in a black print. I need to thank Amy for giving me a reason to go through my material and by chance finding these that I had purchased years ago.

I also need to thank Laura for the beautiful fabric that is now a wonderful piece of art in the entry of our house. Our house is coming together slowly. And we are making it our own. But right now I need to make it very clean for a party that we are having tomorrow!

Mowing

As I was mowing today, in the corner of my eye I saw something fairly large moving in the grass. However, when I actually looked I did not see anything because it all looked green and ready to be cut. But, I knew that I had seen something. So I kept looking and to my surprise I finally saw this beautiful Preying Mantis. I think that I scared it half to death, but I gave it a large area around it that I would not mow in. So now I have a spot of the back yard that is not mowed. I will try to get to it tomorrow, maybe it will have moved by then.

It Takes A Village

It all began with a soccer tournament. Carol's boys were playing in a soccer game in Roanoke last weekend so she asked if they could stay at our house. Of course we said yes. Then Mom and Dad wanted to come down, so we suggested the same weekend as Carol. Then we decided to buy a shed for our back yard. Mike and Amy were interested in helping to build it. So once again we had a family vacation at our house for the weekend. We went from 2 people in our house to 11! And it was great fun. Well I guess it was great fun because on Saturday I was gone from 6:00am to 6:00pm for class. But when I came home I found.....


Some monkeys on top of the roof of our brand new shed (which was just a huge block in the garage when I left). Though it looks like Mike and Matt were having fun.


By Sunday afternoon we had all of the shed done (except for shingles and some fancy work around the door). So we all posed in front of it because as I said it takes a village. It took cooks (mom and Amy), cleaners (Carol), supervisors (Dad), entertainers (Adam, Austin, Shannon), Gofers (Eamon), and hard laborers (Matt, Mike, and me...for a bit). Amy is standing in front of our newly plowed up garden which was the chore mom and Amy accomplished on Saturday. Thanks! I look forward to using it in the spring.

Since this picture was taken Matt and I put on all of the shingles. We also have painted most of it to match our house. That is not done. I am sure that there will be a picture of it when it is complete.

Thanks to all who helped last weekend. We could not have done it without you.

Picture Of My Cat

I am now showing Amy how to upload pictures. I thought that the one with my cat, Tinker, and I would be a very nice to use as an example.

Training

Today I am showing my sister how to Blog. Maybe she will start one.... ; )

Bells

Since Matt's blog, we have not had a chance to attend the church that we visited that day again. But we did have a chance to attend two handbells practices and one choir practice.

Matt certainly has been able to display his knowledge and talent on the handbells. You should ask him about playing the melody on 8 chimes while the rest of the 8 or 9 of us played the back up chords. I was so proud of him. And it made me smile to see how happy playing handbells again made him.

Yesterday we were late to the practice. We walked in and they were shocked, then they stated that we could sign a card that they had going around. So we grabbed the card and were about to sign when we realized that the card was to US! To say that they missed us at practice and hoped we would come back...little did they know we were just late.

I think we might just stay at this church for awhile..... :)

Birds

Yes, this is a picture of our house. It is located here for two reasons.
1. To show to those who have not yet had a chance to see the house in person.
2. To have you notice the trees on the left.

I love this time of year. It is cool at night so the windows are cracked a bit to let in the cool breeze. But the additional benefit of that would be that the birds in the trees (which are located right outside of our bedroom window) wake us up in the morning. So in addition to the harsh alarm clock, I also get to hear bird songs as I try to drag myself out of bed.

In addition to the trees out in the front, the birds seem to love our garden and yard out back.
It seems as if every time I step outside in our backyard, I see at least two to three birds just hanging out in our back yard (as you can see there is not much to entice them here, but they seem to like it anyway).

But the best bird story that I have at this moment, is one afternoon recently I was in the garage with Matt and to our shock (and also the bird's) we found a bird very confused and flying around in our garage. We quickly shooed it out, but for the next minute or so I kept seeing feathers floating around.

I am enjoying this as much as I can at this moment because I know that soon the weather will turn colder and the birds will no longer be around.

Southern Trip

This past weekend Matt and I went to Charlotte, NC to attend a Renn. Festival. I did not take any pictures, but all you have to do is look at the other pictures of when we went to a Renn. event and we looked just like that again. The event was very fun, and hot, and crowded (it was opening weekend). We decided that in the future we are going to wait till later in the season when it is cooler to go. I have a feeling that this is going to be a yearly event for us because it has some sentimental meaning to us....it was where we went for our second date :) Our favorite events were a spoonerism story told by Zilch, and juggling by The London Broil. Sue...I was told that I should tell you about a shirt that we found, that is in regards to one of your past comments. We were very tempted to buy it, but in the end decided not to. But the shirt said "LADY BY DAY, WENCH BY NIGHT" We just had to laugh considering what you had said about me earlier.

After the festival wound down a bit we headed out and went farther south. We had planned this trip to Charlotte for about a month ahead of time, but it was not until Thursday before the trip that we realized that we were going to be only 45 minutes away from Matt's Uncle Gary and Aunt Donna. So we quickly called his Uncle and Aunt and told them we would be in the area, and they told us to come on down and stay with them (which is very kind since they are in the midst of rennovating!) We got to South Carolina and found their house only to be greeted by: A wonderful host and hostess, two very friendly dogs, a cat who was unsure about us, a lovely dinner, wondeful converstaion, and a very inviting bed after such a long day. We woke the next day and spent the next morning talking and walking around the properity with Uncle Gary. Then we met Aunt Donna for lunch at Fatz Resturant. If you ever find one - get the Cajun Firecracker Appetizers. Amazing!!

I think that the thing that shocked them the most is that we are (at most) four and a half hours away from them. I hope that with that realization they will take us up on our offer to have them come and visit us sometime. *That goes for all you other friends too....just give me a bit of notice to prepare the house a little*

It was a quick trip, but certainly a worthwhile one. And one we will probably do again!