Check off, one down, eight more to go!

Today was the last day of my very first rotation. It's been a long journey, but at the same time, I'm surprised it's already over. I am also surprised at how easy it was. It was hard emotionally in many ways, but with so much going on, one just needs to learn how to deal with it. For example, two days ago, I deep cleaned and rearranged the office. It's going to be great for studying, reading, and hanging out in now. It feels so nice to take control of some part of your life again, especially when there are aspects you have to accept to be out of control...like people being sick and dying on you all month long.

This month will be very different, I will be following around a pharmacy district manager all month. It's going to be quite an adventure I do think. Already the plans for day one have changed three times in two weeks. Seeing that I start tomorrow, I don't believe it will change again. My advisor has been trying to pin me down to have our September meeting, without much luck so far. I think the most stressful part will be not knowing what my schedule will be like. I'm hoping it will have some semblance of normalcy. We shall see.

So, on another topic, Max, my larger younger dog, has been doing wonderfully this week at being free in the house when we're not there! He loves it by the way, he's a completely different dog. I think he has a whole new level of respect for us since we have given him the respect of our trust in him that he will behave and not become master and destroyer while we're gone. I've only lost two high lighters so far. I told him I was disappointed in him while holding them and he just hung his head, put his ears back, and walked towards me slowly. It was so cute. So, I got him a plastic bone with an inlay of edible goodness and he chewed the end off of it today. It worked splendidly. He's my constant buddy now too, no more hiding under the bed. Lana does not seem thrilled. She's been rather grouchy today, after three days of not being able to escape her own kennel. She carries this massive bone I got for Max around that is as long as she is and she growls up a storm at both Max and me, but she knows better than to do that to me, so I grab her anyway.

Tonight I'm going out with a couple girls from my rotation to celebrate the end of the first with margaritas. It will be fun, I'm looking forward to it here shortly.

Anyway, this weekend we're having a Labor Day pool party on Sunday, so I'm excited to get the house ready and have all our friends over for the fun. I want to paint our other bathroom, but I may not have time to finish that project and clean house, so I will have to see about that, maybe next week. I need to get more small rollers anyway. I think that is what I will continue doing until I'm sick of it though...repainting the things unpainted so far. It's so stress relieving, and I look forward to the transformation!

Talking about painting, I'm trying to come up with a vertical two canvas idea for the wall space behind my television. I have the blank canvases hanging on the wall to help inspire me, but I'm not sure yet. Not to mention there's this huge hurdle of getting a space ready to oil paint in that I would have to figure out. It'd be great to do it outside if I could keep it clean and keep the bugs out of the oil paint on the canvas. It's such a messy ordeal...and complicated when it comes to waste materials.

I think starting tomorrow morning, I may start running in the mornings since I have some extra time  now with the new rotation an all. I need to, and I'm tired of waiting for it to cool off out there. Soon, soon, it will be cooler. This may be one of the last pool weekends this summer. It will probably be open until October, but I'm not sure how long we'll be swimming, hopefully awhile.

Well, that will be all for today, I need to go get ready for margaritas!

A New Paint Job

What do you do with some old paint and a drab bathroom? Paint it. Zach went to Montana Monday, so I decided it was about time I changed things up around here. It was a lot of work, but I treated myself to icecream and a hot candlelit bath. Our bedroom ceiling will be next, but here are the pictures of where I started, the progress, and the finished product.

Here, I had to take the photo with flash, because it was so overbearing and dark.

Being home alone and a bit down, I decided there needed to be some therapeutic house painting done.

It took my dark mood and started brightening it right up!!

Blurry, but you get the idea.

Almost done! Now, if only the trim would start looking like brand new (and this of course requires a new coat of paint).

The finished product!

Everything was scrubbed down and sparkling :)

Ahhh, between lightening things up, and working myself to the bone, I'd say this was a very successful mood elevating exercise!

It's so great, I love it. I'm letting the colors sink in, they're just so different from what was in there before, so it makes it hard to take it all in. It just makes me happy to be in there now! I really think my bedroom ceiling should be next, but that just seems like a project for another time and another day in the long away future. Maybe the next time Zach goes out of town? I think something is coming up in September, so we shall see. As for the rest of my week, Zach comes home tomorrow, and I don't have my rotation tomorrow, so I have the day off. I think I should get moving on getting the house ready for company this weekend though. We're having some friends over to swim in the pool, which looks absolutely crystal clear and wonderful.

I am hopefully going to keep blogging more regularly now, sorry for such a long hiatus. I'm changing my background pictures to some I took in Washington when we were there in July too, just so you know.

The Best Fourth of July

It all started with an idea, and then months later we were all enjoying beautiful sunny days on the shores of Lake Michigan. The place: Door County; the people: my family. All eight of us were there, and it didn't matter what we did, we were having a good time.

We went hiking in sandals and shorts...

Got out of hand, or just had a lot of fun--ask my Mom :)

 Ephraim was a dry town, so we made sure to have plenty before we went out for dinner, you can tell by our smiles we were only drinking the good stuff!

Silhouettes against the sunset...

The crew...

Yes, we are color coordinated...it just happened. Kristen started it! Fun times, at Door County, Wisconsin.

On the fourth, we sat outside and drank beer and wine until dusk when we walked down the street to the harbor. There were Adirondack chairs on a small boat dock out in the middle of the water. My sisters and I sat with our legs hanging over the side down towards the water, with our Momma right beside us (a little nervous), and the guys sprawled in the chairs. Then we watched private firework shows happening all across the shoreline. It was the best fourth of July I've ever had, a treasure for time.



The Sea

Today was just a beautiful day. I sat for many hours in a chair on the sand bar with the gentle waves of Lake Michigan crashing against my legs and torso as I watched the ever still and steady blue horizon. I am a water person, I am just so happy here. It makes me excited about coming back with my family in a few weeks, and about the Pacific in a month. I just want to spend every moment down there. A few photos I've pulled from our time here from Liz Anderson's (cousin) facebook profile:

This is Nat Holzwart (cousin) "frolicking" :)

I'm going to go try and catch the sunset tonight!

In the heat of June

June, the month where it is still a titch light at nine in the evening, and the heat is beginning to get too hot, the mosquitos get you wherever you are so you're constantly looking for where they're breeding to kill all their babies. It sounds harsh, but the bloodsuckers still seem to survive. They're little black ones.

It's been nearly a month since my last post, and well, I have done a lot and very little.

Rearrangements galore! I like it lots better this way.

I just made that bed...Queen of the World....

This is the newly dressed mantle, no longer with a butterfly garden adorning it.

The pool is ready, but is forever trying to return itself to a nasty mess, so that's frustrating. I'm going to need to vacuum it tomorrow. I've already showered today and it would be a sweaty and wet job covered in bug spray and sunscreen. Yaaay.

On Friday we're leaving, and our neighbor's daughter, Olivia, who is maybe 18 or 19, is going to watch the house AND the DOGS. I'm anxious about it, but she has dogs of her own, and really likes dogs, so I think she'll do a good job. I think I'm going to type up a reminder list. I think we're going to pay her like fifteen dollars a day, I'm not really sure if that's too much or little, but if the dogs are alive and well and the house, yard and pool not in complete ruin (like it does on vacations...) then I will be elated. She's going to water the back lawn an hour every other day (just turning it on and coming back later when its stopped to turn the spiggot back off), cleaning out the pool skimmer every other day, three visits with the dogs, and maybe if I'm lucky watering the house plants once, and feeding Duke the black goldfish sporatically. I told her she was more than welcome to use the pool, and I think I'll show her how to use the TV if she wants to watch it while letting the dogs out of their kennels for awhile. Maybe written instructions...

I am pretty much packed, and have started making a pile as I folded and put away clothes today of things Zach may want to take, but he's going to have to go through that tonight and pack it up. I am making spaghetti and meatballs for dinner tonight. Yum!

So, I've been day dreaming and drawing up plans for an addition to our house over the western part of the flat roof. I'd like to keep the back part as a patio, but extend everything else that has house beneath it. It would be really nice not to have to keep replacing that silly roof and worrying about it every winter and rain. We would be able to make a full sized master bath with a large walk in shower, tub, and double sinks I believe. That would not be extending the closet much if at all, but I think it's a pretty large walk in. We could keep it in line with the rest of the house by just extending the roof! We would have to talk to contractors and real estate investors to see if it is worth the investment though taking into account eliminating the nightmare of a flat roof we have on that side. The best time to do it would be just before we want to replace the entire top part of our roof, since we'd be redoing a bunch anyway. I'd want to put windows in too. It is getting to be fifteen years old, soooo we shall see.

Anyway, I'll hopefully write again sooner rather than a month later!

Here is a picture from when we first moved in nearly two years ago:

Look how small Max was! And I was thirty pounds heavier with long hair!!!



A cool summer day.

Today, though cloudy, is delectable. It's cool, fresh, and smells of wet earth. It's unusual for this area to be so cool in May, but I'm loving it. I took advantage and went for a run. My mother made me feel like a slacker when she asked me if I'd gone running since she'd been here and I'd had to confess that I hadn't. It was nice, but difficult. Cramps in the rib cage the whole way. Yes, I am probably dehydrated, oh well. I have some pictures though! I found my camera battery charger today, and was able to get a few taken and onto my computer after 30 minutes of charging. The picture of the lilies are through my kitchen window. I'll go out later and get better ones, but I was in my housecoat after my run...waiting to cool down before I shower. I was thinking that wouldn't be appropriate, haha. Oh, and I made a loaf of bread the other day...by hand! Thanks, Moma! She's the one who taught my sisters and I how, she's always been making bread. I didn't think, however, that it would take me all day to make. I need to come up with a more time efficient manner to make the dough and rise it and be able to freeze it and bake it when needed. Anyway, here are my pictures:

I made this out of The Joy of Cooking cookbook, it was meant to make two loafs in bread pans, but I wanted a free standing round loaf. I probably coul have still made two loafs, this one is huge. It's about six cups of flour. It was just the simple white bread, the first one listed in the breads section. I would recommend reading all the information about making bread beforehand, it was really helpful.

Cloudy, so I can't get good shots without the yellowing lights on :(

I hate that painting, lol I'm going to take it down and replace it with something else, but at least it's the right size.

The new layout of our living room.

So pretty!

They're blooming! From little bulbs I planted in the ground, they're blooming!!!

House Gardens and Renovations