oh my. 600.

This is my 600th post.
Wow.
I can't believe that I still come up with things to say.
Oh wait...what am I talking about? I could talk about anything!
It is going to be so fun to look back on this in many years and be able to see what was going on in my daily life via this weird little online journal. So, in reality, this is as much for me and posterity as it is for you.

Chad and I got up this morning and went to water the community garden before it got too hot. It is still pretty overcast so maybe we will continue to have a not-so-unbearably hot day today. We have plans to do some things around the house. I am headed to the grocery store in a few minutes, Chad went on his run (he is training for another race - not sure which yet), then I am going to spend some serious time cooking and cleaning up the house today. It still seems like we aren't even fully moved in....there are still boxes full of stuff that I don't know what to do with, furniture in weird places, and just general mess everywhere. I can't wait to get it all situated so that I feel like I can actually invite people over!

Looking forward to spending some time at home today and tomorrow. I have to go to a work planning lunch tomorrow with one of my service units but hopefully it won't last too long...

happy day!

Today is my sister-in-law's birthday (Happy Day Meg! - even though it is the other sister in law that actually reads my blog - Hi Anne!)...Chad and I took her out for dinner and it was so nice, just us chickens as my mom would say.
We went to GreenLife (our used-to-be local organic grocery store that is now owned by the Whole Foods chain) - they have a great selection of ready to eat foods. A nice salad bar, cold and hot bar, panini bar, and my favorite - sushi! Everyone got exactly what they wanted, we sat outside and ate the organic goodness of it all. I had a blackberry sparking drink (delish but made me burp something serious!!) and Chad had a root beer (sans high fructose corn syrup - his one request).
It was such a lovely night - we are now home, preparing to spend the next three days hanging out together. We both worked our hineys off this week and earned ourselves a Friday off = a three day weekend!

sweet. home.

I am finally home. Looking at my calendar, it looks like I will get to sleep in my bed with my sweetie for about two or three weeks before I am gone again. Thankfully it seems that he will get to go with me the next time I leave town. For now, our busiest season of the year is starting. We are jumping head-first into our fall recruitment and that means many nights away from home and many early mornings for at least the next three months. The up-side is that I will be in my house at night with my husband - even if I am exhausted and it just means that I get to sleep in the same bed and never have a conversation.
We had our membership retreat the past two days which was interesting, frustrating, fun, and a learning experience. We had to set our "girl goal" for the coming Girl Scout year and here in Chattanooga, we have what are really unreasonably high goals because of this past year's programs. We were instructed to do a lot of what we call "outreach" (i.e. week-long programs or all year programs in the schools) and that adds numbers to your membership. It is great for that year and for reaching the numerical goals of that year but you are really screwing yourself over for the next year, especially if you aren't going to be allowed to do outreach type programs for the forseeable future. You can't set your goal for a smaller number than what you actually got the previous year so I have some areas that have very, very high goals. It means I have to work twice as hard to recruit girls and troop leaders to fill up those numbers BUT...and it is a big one....I am much more concerned that the girls we do have get quality programming. It is hard for me to focus on a strictly numerical goal; I know I can get plenty of girls but if those girls don't get troop leaders who care about them, care about the program, believe in the value of Girl Scouts, then I might as well not recruit them at all. It is definately something to consider...
I have been becoming more aware of protecting the rare and sweet time I have with my husband and I am very cautious of doing things that limit that time. I need to be protective of my free time because it won't be readily available until November...That being said, I still want my loved ones to come see me! Our weekends are pretty open and we won't be doing much traveling until much later in the fall! The house is slowing coming together and getting ready for visitors!

gone again.

I am leaving tomorrow for another two days of being gone for work.
It seems like I am never home.
Makes me appreciate the days and nights I have at home with my sweetie.
Like this one.
It is thundering, lightning, and we are getting much needed (Thank You God!!) rain.
So I am making herb and mozzellllla stuffed tomatoes and steaks.
Yummy dinner with my man.

the basics.

It looks like blogger might be fixing itself so my oh-so-cute background might be back...

These are the window pictures...yes, one before and after set is all I can bear to load with blogger being as slow as it is.

This is our dining room window - looks our into the backyard.

Not too bad before (plus a little Wooby):

And After:

Much bigger looking and open - without the bars/panes.

Sorry about the picture quality - it is dark outside!

I love them.

Our front window is similiar with one large window in the center and two that slide in on either side. We did these sideways sliders in the dining room, kitchen and in the big window in our office/craft room because they look like they don't obstruct the view. The rest of the windows in the house are double hung - or slide up and down for those of you (like me!) that didn't know what that meant before this process started!

We used Window World - a national chain but each store is owned locally so I feel a little better about it. I am very pleased with the results and I have been pleased with their customer service and question answering and promptness.

However - and it is a big one - they left my house a wreck. They "cleaned up" after themselves meaning that they didn't leave glass, plaster, or bits and pieces laying around - for which I am very thankful. They did not put anything else back where it belongs. They took down curtians, blinds, moved furniture, scooted beds, etc and didn't bother to put those things back. After spending a 3 days in a training that based around having fabulous customer service and coming home to the mess in my house I think I am going to write them a letter. It wouldn't have taken them 15 minutes to rehang the blinds that they took down and put the beds back where they belong and it would have sent their customer service through the roof in my book. Going the extra mile is a big deal. A really, really big deal. Fabulous customer service = getting something you didn't expect (in a good way!) Instead, I will always follow my recommendation of them with "...but they will leave your house a mess!"

what is wrong?!?

Yeah...my sister sent me an email that said something was wrong with my blog background.
She was NOT kidding.
No clue what is wrong or what that little white box means.
I loved my background - I hope it didn't somehow get deleted. I haven't been in there messing with the HTML code so unless someone else has, I don't know what happened.
I am going to try to post some pictures so we will see what happens.
If it doesn't fix itself in a day or so I will see if I can correct the problem.

excuses, excuses.

My reason for not cleaning the house right now?
I have a sleeping, purring cat snuggled in my lap.
Our snuggle time is limited because the rest of our family members (ahem...Chad and Gwendolen) like to pester us so we are appreciating this afternoon slumber.
I am going to the last night of a camp tonight rom 6 to 9 then I will come home, get a few things done, then crash.
I have a long To Do list and happily I will have most of tomorrow to get it done.

blogger is not making me happy.

If I could upload pictures (Dani - I'm feeling ya'!), I would show you our beautiful, wonderful, clean new windows in our house! Great energy use update that really just updated the entire look of our house. They are so open, wide and clean looking. We went with windows that slide sideways in our living room, dining room and kitchen instead of the traditional double hung (slide up and down) windows. It means that they are more open looking - without that bar across the middle. They are just one solid window. They were installed while I was in Knoxville this week and they are lovely - just what I imagined they would be.
Now I have to re-install all of our blinds, rearrange the furniture they moved to get to the windows, and hand curtains back. I know we got a great deal on fabulous windows but couldn't they have put our furniture back where it came from (there is literally a chair sitting on our guest bed. On. The. Bed. Whoa.)
Maybe soon I can show you pictures...

ew.

I am sorry for all of the gramatical and spelling errors on the previous post...
they have now mostly - I think - been corrected and we can move on from that hideousness.

I am back home from two and half days in Knoxville for meetings. We are working on re-aligning our council. It sounds so scary, business-like, and vague but if you have never been a part of a strategic learning process or a business realignment (which must happen now that our councils have been merged for almost a year now), consider yourself lucky. It is challenging, exhausting, breeds confusion and disagreement, and then once you finally get it all figured out - you have to go out and convince the rest of your organization to buy into all the things you have decided. For us, this means other staff that is not on this particular team, volunteers, girls, troop leaders, parents, vendors, etc, etc, etc....not an easy or even all that fun a process. Necessary and interesting. But I wouldn't go as far as to call it fun.
In other news, I have this strange swollen, infected, weirdness on my ankle. I know I shouldn't tell my gross and weird personal problems to the world but I would like to request some prayers for quick healing. It has gotten progressively worse since Monday so I am going to the Dr. this afternoon - I am pretty nervous about it. I haven't the slightest idea what it could be and I have gotten myself sufficiently worked up about it...

In better news, I have a nice new house update to show you. If blogger will upload pictures tonight, I will pass it along!

shouldn't.

I shouldn't be this tired after getting about 7 to 8 hours of sleep last night but I don't think I have yet recovered from our oh-so-busy weekend.
I need another weekend to recover from my weekend!
Everything we did this weekend was fun, interesting, and I am so glad I got to share it with people I love. It was a blessed weekend, for sure.
This week doesn't look like it is going to provide any rest for sure...today I am in the office for work, pleading with my computer to work long enough for me to print and mail my principal letters for recruitment.
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I will be in Knoxville for the second installment of our strategic realignment meetings (doesn't really describe it for me either...).
Chad and his family are planning on leaving Thursday afternoon to go up to Elizabethton to see family (oh - was that through Knoxville you say?) and stay through Saturday evening.
Chad invited me to go. I can't decide how many nights this week I want to sleep in a strange bed.
The answer is - as few as possible.
I need a real weekend.
Can't decide whether to stay or go.
Want to go. Also want to sleep.
Next week won't be any easier - tell you more about it then.

busy weekend.

This weekend is going to be ar from relaxing but it will be fun - and really that's what matters right?
This morning brings us to a lesson on how to do a honey harvest at the Agricultrue office. Chad's bee keeping class will be learning one more step in how to take care of their bees and get the goods from all their hard work. We are looking forward to the day that we will have bees and honey at our house!
This afternoon and evening will bring friends spending the night, a dinner date with a friend from Hobby Lobby (P! love her!), mom and another friend spending the night in preparation for an early departure tomorrow morning.
We are going on our annual rafting trip on the Ocoee tomorrow...which, frankly, I think should be turned into a 3 or 4 times annually sorta thing...however, for the first time (to me!) we are doing the upper Ocoee and the middle Ocoee on the same day. It means that we have to be there (over an hour away) at 8am but spending the entire morning laughing, rafting, getting wet, being scared, not being scared - all sounds like it is totally worth it! I am excited that we have good friends and family to go with us.
Truly looking forward to our busy and fun weekend!

First of all, a little rant...you were going to get about 5 times as many pictures (there were some really good ones!!) but Blogger is only letting me load 1 picture at a time - if that many at all - and I just can't sit here for days trying to load pictures.
Ok...enough with that.

As you know, my parents and I went to Biloxi last week. It was the first time that Mom and I had been since Katrina came through on August 29th, 2005 (?).

It was amazing to see how the "lay of the land" had changed since we last saw it...

where there used to be block after block of one and two story row houses there was virtually nothing left.

Nothing except the live oak trees - gnarled, weathered, and still standing strong after all these years.

I think they should be called "live" oaks because they continue to live - storm after storm after storm.

We found this one spot where there was nothing but a few blocks in a row of these beautiful trees (the state tree of Georgia, by the way) and someone had hung a swing. Of course we couldn't resist but to try it out and we did...

One of the most amazing things we saw - an awesome testament to the resilient people who live on the gulf shore - are these carvings. The few live oak trees that just could not weather the storm - most of them directly on the beach in the median of the highway - broke off in the storm. They had a wood carving artist (or a couple) come in and make these broken trees beautiful again - a constant reminder that beauty can come out of bad cirsumstances.

Those are just some of my favorites...there were plenty of them, all along the beachfront stretching to Gulfport.

That's all for now...maybe I can load more pictures later.

Headed to work. I was in a less-than-pleasant meeting until 10:15 last night soI can pretty much bet you that I will be coming straight home and going to bed early tonight...

delayed.

I am sorry about being missing for a while...
I thought this was going to be an easy week off traveling with little to do.
Didn't happen.
Been dealing with fallout from a decision at work (not my decision, it is just my fallout).
I still love my job.
This just happens to be the not-so-fun part of it.
Biloxi pictures to come...

projects.

After yesterday's traffic horror extravaganza, I am so thrilled to be home that I might possibly never leave again.
Until next week when I will be gone another 6 days in a row.
Awesome.

As for today, Chad is in the back yard with a chainsaw. I am fixing up the bedrooms preparing for guest coming Monday (and hopefully spending the night!). This is a good excuse to have a goal in mind for finally getting the bedrooms set up and hopefully some of the mess in our "den/spare room/office/work-out-room" cleaned up and put away.
Gotta go before Chad comes in and finds me blogging...

worth it.

I am back home. In our house, with my sweetie, and our two energetic animals.
In our house.
Battled tons of traffic on a Friday afternoon.
It was worth the 11 hours on the road to get here.

get on with it...

Well, I am finally in Columbus after a long drive and a nice visit with my sister and Frannie in the ATL.
I have successfully mowed the grass, mom and I will paint in the storage area, and then we have plans for a mother/daughter date night with my best friend and her mom. Fun!
Then tomorrow we are on to Biloxi! I am excited about spending a few days with my parents - it will be like I am an only child!!

vacay.

Friday afternoon brought in the initiation of about 9 days of vacation...our office is closed for the next week to allow us a week of summer leisure (which, in my opinion, is well-deserved!). I have been looking forward to this weekend of hanging out with my honey and then a few days with my parents this coming week. I believe I am headed to Columbus on Tuesday morning with a stop in Atlanta to see my sister and her new house. Then on to Biloxi with my parents for a few days of relaxation and tourism. I am pretty excited about a few days off, very excited to get to hang out with my parents for a few days, but pretty bummed that Chad has to stay home and work. I wish he got more vacation time but we are saving up for a possible trip sometime around our (2 year...whoa!) anniversary in August. A long weekend might be manageable for us amist my heavy recruiting season...

As for this weekend, we got many things accomplished for the house yesterday. Chad spend some frustrating time working on making the lawn mower run smoother. I am working on fixing up one bedroom at a time...pictures to come. I wish I had an unlimited budget to get, buy, do, fix anything and everything I want but I will use what I have and make it look good. We did buy a $20 night stand at our church's yard sale yesterday that I will be painting and finishing to go in one bedroom. I am fixing up a little reading corner with a comfy chair - working on making all of our hand-me-down furniture look good together is my present challenge. A visit from my mom and sister as soon as I get back next week poses a deadline for getting things looking decent...

Vacation. I am not sure what to do with myself...so much that I might just do nothing. :)

another jig.

That home-again, home-again jiggity, jig has appeared at my door again.
It was so nice to be home with my shower and my bed and my sweetie after a few days in The Swelter. Just one day of work, a meeting tonight, and then 10 days off.
Ten. 10. Diez. Awesome.