My New Musical Intrigue

In the past few years, I've really gotten into our local NPR stations--one of which (WNKU FM) plays a lot of great new and local artists. I've been hearing songs by one particular artist for a while but am just now finally investigating his music: Jack Johnson.




I realize I am a little late to the game on this one...

I love his music. His voice is appealing, but real; his music is simple, but catchy; and his lyrics are clever. He's also from Hawaii, so we all know he gets extra points for that!





If you've been living under a rock like me and aren't familiar with him check him out at http://www.jackjohnsonmusic.com/.



On a different note, we've had two busy weekends in a row, hence no blog posts.

Friday, June 6 was my friend Paula's 30th birthday party. It was technically a surprise party, but she knew something was up. We went to Valley Vineyards, a winery out in Morrow near where I grew up. They have a Friday night steak grill out buffet thing. Paula seemed very happy--in fact, I'd say she was glowing, but that could have been the facial she treated herself earlier that day.





Saturday we did some more cleaning on the kitchen...ugh...and then it was time to celebrate with Sara. We have a very fun tea party at Bonbonerie--complete very large, colorful hats--and then headed down to Newport on the Levee for the "Good Vibrations" show at Shadowbox Cabaret. After the show, we headed to Jefferson Hall for more drinks and dancing. Two little frat boys, who didn't look older than 19 kept hitting on us. It was very amusing.


I decided, however, that I have outgrown that bar scene. It was kind of sad. All these girls were dressed up in full hoochie wear, scouting the guys like lionesses. The guys meanwhile were in full Abercrombie gear, scouting the ladies like jackals. It was like being back at OU at the Junction...


This past weekend the Red Sox were in town to play the Reds. We didn't intend to go to the games originally because the Reds were making so hard--and expensive--to get tickets, but we had an opportunity to buy some tickets last minute, so we couldn't resist. This was the first time the teams had faced off since the 1975 World Series when the Reds won.


Friday night was great. The Harangatan (Aaron Harang) was on top of his game, pitching a lights-out game that we won 3-2. Saturday Bess and Kevin joined us for the game, which we unfortunately lost. A few key management decisions made the difference:


1) Griffey swung on a 3-1 count. What the heck?
2) B-Phil did something similar, ending a critical inning
3) Dusty Baker left the relief pitcher, Mike Lincoln, in for the 9th when he should have brough the big man, Francisco Cordero, in to close the deal.


Oh well. We lost, but we had a great dinner at Bangkok Bistro afterward with Bess and Kevin. Ginger felt a bit abandoned all weekend, I think, but I made it up to her the next day by taking her to the dog park in Waynesville. Dad and I had a nice afternoon just hanging out on Father's Day at the dog park then under the shade of Grandpa's big tree at our house in Waynesville.

The last two Sunday nights were spent busting my butt at the shelter. I have a new volunteer, but she's still a very slow cleaner (who really just wants to love all the cats vs. clean), so I end up doing a lot of her work for her. Next week, the nice gloves come off and the whip comes out! :)

Now it's to the grind at work.


Sara's wedding is this weekend--I'm so excited for her! Brandon and I bought her and Steve tickets to see Wayne Brady in Las Vegas.

Kitchen and Weekend Update

This week is a bit crazy in the evenings, so I've decided to use my lunch break to update my blog.

First, the kitchen: except for some minor painting and hardware things, the kitchen should be complete by this evening. YEA! Our handyman is grouting the tile and installing the ceiling fan today. We'll need to seal the tile and grout later. Our countertop went in on Monday.


Here is a picture of the countertop, pre-faucet and floor installation:





This is what the floor looked like this morning (you can see the faucet in the distance):

We ran into a minor snag with the fancy ceiling fan remote we bought, but hopefully Rick and Brandon can sort that out this afternoon.

This weekend went Saturday having a nice visit with Dad in Waynesville. I made him a pot of turkey chili and we hung out at the dog park with Ginger and three of his dogs. (He also fixed our exhaust fan!) Afterward, Brandon and I went to the Caesar's Creek nature preserve for a hike. It was hot, so we indulged Ginger and let her get in the creek. She loved it!

That night we did some work around the house and watched Jay Bruce, our new phenomenal Reds outfielder, play some incredible baseball. We ate a very late dinner of mixed grill kebobs with the first margaritas of summer. Brandon is good cabana boy.

Sunday we slept in, then did some more house stuff and the plumber can to unhook all the plumbing in preparation for thecountertop. I had cat shelter duty, as usual, so it was a long night.

Last night Paula and I went to dinner then to see the long-awaited Sex and the City movie. It was bit predictable, but very enjoyable nonetheless. I see a bit of myself in both Charlotte and Miranda. Charlotte gets extra points, though, her maiden name is York, just like me!

Charlotte likes to have everything perfect and hold things up to fairytale perfection. Miranda is a bit neurotic, but exceptionally stubborn. These are all characteristics I hold...I suppose that is why women relate to these characters, though: in varying ways, they are reflections of us.

Tonight I'm going for my final dress fitting for Sara's wedding. I can't believe the big day is almost here! We're having her shower and bachelorette party this weekend. It's also Paula's 30th birthday weekend and I have a cat volunteer meeting Saturday--busy busy!

Moving Right Along

The kitchen remodeling project is moving right along.

We worked until 10:30 p.m. Monday to finish reassembling the cabinets, installing hardware and paining the ceiling and walls. Tonight, we only worked for a few hours--putting addition coats of the wall color on and more hardware. We should be able to wrap up this portion of the project tomorrow night and start putting all our food and dishes back. WHOO HOO!

It will be great to be able to cook again. We are so sick of fast food from the weekend. Ugh.

I'll post new photos tomorrow. Right now my digital camera batteries are dead.

It's funny: I think we subconsciously picked colors that are a tribute to Hawaii for the kitchen. The walls are the color of the sunset; the cabinets represent the sand; the floor and countertop look like lava rock. What can I say? We're obsessed.

Kitchen Update

We spent Saturday doing prepwork in the kitchen for painting. There was a lot to do, so it was long day.

First, we had to remove all the cabinet doors and drawers (including all the hardware) and clean out all the stuff stored inside them. Then we had to fill all the old hardware holes with wood putty and spackle to prepare them for new hardware. (Our hardware was so old that it is no longer a standard size, so we need to drill new holes.)

As I mentioned, our handyman removed all the wood paneling, fake brick and wallpaper then drywalled to make smooth walls. Well, he wasn't able to sand everything down before he left last week--the mud wasn't completely dry--so we had two walls to finish sanding before we could prime. We also had to remove random nails and hooks, the ceiling fan, door bell, etc. and fill those misc. holes.

While Brandon was doing that, I scraped the existing cabinets where the paint was flaking off and wiped out all the excess dirt. After that and the sanding was done, the kitchen was filled with paint chips and drywall dust, so we had to thoroughly sweep everything before we could put up a coat of primer.

We got almost everything primed last night, but finally threw in the towl around 9:30 p.m. I've included a few photos of all of our cabinet doors, now ready for primer, and the almost-entirely-primed kitchen. I got a little too into painting, can you tell?

Busy, Busy Bee

Life has been a bit of a whirlwind for the past few weeks--both at work and home--so this might be a long post.


When I got back from my conference in Iowa (which was great, by the way), I was thrown right back into a cluster of short deadlines at work. Before I left, I began working with a local video production company to produce a 15-minute video for the UC Cancer Hall of Fame event we hosted on May 9.



The doctor leading the event had asked me to work on the project at the last minute and, although I knew it would be intense, I told him I'd do it. So, aside from day-to-day media activities I couldn't ignore, I exclusively dedicated myself to this project for about two weeks and let the other stuff pile up. That meant when I got back from Iowa, I not only had to work several nights to get the video editing and production wrapped up, I had just a few days to finish about five stories due for our newsletter, among other things.


In the midst of all of this, I was also wrapping up a complicated schedule of interviews and facility tours for a reporter at the Columbus Dispatch who was interested in learning more about the joint cancer program at UC. This is a new--but complicated, somewhat sensitive--initiative at UC. Basically, UC, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (where our pediatric faculty practice) and University Hospital (our teaching hospital) have committed $60 million to recruit the physicians and researchers we need to boost our cancer program up to a level where we could apply for NCI designation. It's a big task.


On the home front, we're smack dab in the middle of our kitchen remodeling project. The walls are pretty much wrapped up. We will be painting the walls and cabinets this weekend.















We have a lot of prep work to do first, though, including patching the old hardware holes and installing new hardware. I'm including a few photos, including one of our two new cabinets.


Please note that our fridge and dishwasher are in the dining room right now...ugh. I'll post more photos as we go.


We also had a new tree planted last week. We love it! It's a Canadian Red Cherry, which has tiny white flowers in the spring then turns red in early summer.

Our yard is coming together nicely. Brandon is keeping the grass trim and nice, and I spent at least three hours planting my little city garden and plethora of annuals Wednesday night.

Eat your heart out, Bess. We're going to win the garden contest this year!





Last weekend we hosted our moms in Cincinnati for a belated Mother's Day celebration, which was great. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we always enjoy hanging out with our moms. We had a tasty (though slow) lunch at Hyde Park Tavern, then visited the butterfly exhibit at Krohn Conservatory. The day was topped off with homemade berry cobbler and ice cream. YUM.

Still in Iowa

I'm still conferencing in Iowa.

After the day's sessions and social activities, I went outside to the swamp behind the hotel (it's bizarre) and saw two adorable families of baby geese. It was so fun to watch their parents herd them along the edge of the water hunting bugs, then scurry across the water when the other geese approached. It made me think of when I used to sit for hours out in backyard playing with kittens at our house. One summer we had four pregnant female cats how up at our house. As upsetting as it was that the cats weren't spayed, Becca and I enjoyed a summer full of fuzzy little kittens and, fortunately, we found homes for nearly all of them.

I'll be glad to get back to Ohio tomorrow. I miss my little family (which consists mostly of animals), a regular workout routine and balanced meals.

Update

It's been a while since I've updated this, so here's what has been happening:

1) Last weekend, we went to visit Ben, Julie and their new little guy, Jacob, who was born in mid January. They seem to be adjusting well--except Ben still thinks he has the time to brew wine in his garage, mow and mulch his acre-lot, among other things. It was great to catch up with them, and meet Jacob finally. That kid is adorable, though still in a very needy phase.

It's overwhelming to watch new parents. Babies are so incredibly helpless and needy that it seems quite daunting to me. I also don't like the idea of being a mobile milk machine, but I suppose that comes with the "mother" title. :)

2) We've starting remodeling the kitchen! Our handyman came out this past week and stripped all the wallpaper, wood paneling and faux brick off the walls. (WHOO HOO!) He plans to come back this week finish patching the walls so we can start painting. He's also putting in a ceramic floor, installing a new ceiling fan and dimmer switch and a few other things. We'll be doing all the painting and hardware.

Our countertop has been ordered, but unfortunately will not be installed until June 2. We choose to go with a durable--but more affordable--composite material called Simplicity. Our color is hazelnut tweed.

We also cut down the small tree in our backyard that died and had the stump ground out. It will be replaced with a large Red Canandian Cherry tree the week of May 17.

Last night, I caught up with Sara. She's about to tie the knot (June 21) so we talked wedding stuff, which is always fun, and I saw where she'll be living soon. (Steve's house.) Today I had a nice lunch with dad.

Now Brandon is in St. Louis visiting Paul and I'm in Iowa City for a communication conference. I hate traveling without Brandon. It sounds corny, but feel like something isn't quite right when he's not there. It makes me think about what it would be like without him in my life. I'm a pretty independent person, but frankly the idea of Brandon NOT being next to me for the rest of my life makes me sick. I guess that's what happens when you love someone as much as I love him. It fills you up and makes your soul--and existence-feel more complete.

I just wanted a movie called Feast of Love that explored this idea. If you haven't seen it, it's worth a watch.