Follow Me Boys (...and girls)

Today I would like to explain how to become a "follower". But wait - one of my bestest buddies, Emily, has already done so here. Wow, that makes my job a lot easier. Now all you have to do is scroll to the end and follow her easy step-by-step instructions. You don't even have to create a blog, just a username. And come on - add a picture! We wanna see your beautiful face!

People I hope will follow me:
Brianne (haha - caught you, now you HAVE to)
Joe Brunk
Raynolds
Grady Bray - these 3 boys have no excuse... if they read this, that is :)
Alexis W. (you don't even have to make a photo blog of other people's kids!)
Louise (it's okay if you don't - I still love you)
Heidi (see above comment)
My mom (wait - does my mom even read this??)
Patricia/Jessica
And YOU!!!

Man, I'm so clever.

**By the way, Twitter is pretty fun too. You can let everyone know what you're doing, like, all the time. And the best part is, you convince yourself that everyone cares!!

This weekend:

• touch up paint in living room (still... don't ask.)
• 2nd coat in kitchen (no, we haven't done it yet!)
• paint hallway
• paint all 3 bedrooms

Ready? Set? GO!!!!

Room of the...Eating

As promised here are some before and (mostly) after shots of the kitchen/dining room area!

BEFORE: The wood cabinets blend into the wood paneling above them which blends into the wood ceilings...

AFTER: We painted the walls (and primed the back splash - more on that below)!

BEFORE: The yummy orange-brown carpet blends into the wood paneling walls which blends into... oh wait. I've already explained that part.

AFTER: We painted the paneling!! ("we" is Jason, Keith, Becca, David, Emily, Patricia, and me). This color is called Gallery Taupe, which is basically a light gray with a brownish tint (again, I'm so great at describing colors...) What we are going for in here is breaking up the "blends-into-factor", and hoping that when you walk in you immediately notice the AMAZING wood ceilings.

BEFORE: That awesome carpet. No words. And the curtains? Do you want those?

AFTER (sort-of): Jason ripped up the carpet and we (David and Emily, not me really) put primer on the bookshelf in the back.

Negative: the linoleum is now two shades instead of one... one was under the carpet and the rest has been affected by sunlight for 30 years.

Becca spent the majority of her time priming the back splash in the kitchen. Jason (we) still don't know what color to paint it, whether we should use the same grayish color that's on the walls or a different, darker accent color. Your thoughts?

The counters, small back splash area, and the rest of the back splash are all this beautiful confetti... concoction. (I've run out of nice things to say about things...)

Tonight is another Dave Ramsey class - have I talked about that yet? No, I guess not. Expect a post on that later this week. HAVE THE BEST DAY YOU CAN POSSIBLY HAVE!! And let the little things roll off your back today. Ahhh.. doesn't that feel better? :)

Room of the Living (aka Living Room)

Remember just a few short weeks ago when the living room looked so "beautiful":

Wow... that's a lot of carpet. Who wouldn't wanna just curl up and hang out in there?


THEN we ripped out the carpet and were OVERJOYED by the truly beautiful hardwoods!!!


Well, my friends, it has now officially been painted!! (Of course I stood by the lamp that makes the room look like an orange creamsicle, but...) It's a really pretty tan-ish, orange-ish, suede-looking, ever changing color called "Pumpkin Butter". And once this room actually gets furniture, curtains, art, better lighting, and clean floors, YOU WILL BE AMAZED. No, really. You will. Come see it.

Oh no!! Don't hurt Emily!!! She's our friend!!!

• This weekend was incredible. We have the most wonderful friends. On Saturday we decided to go ahead and prime/paint the kitchen paneling, which ended up being a bigger undertaking than we expected. LUCKILY, Becca was planning to come help at some point and she brought Keith along (Kate was also a big helper - she's great with a paint roller). Then Emily and David came too! So all 6 of us (and Jason's mom too!!) primed and painted the first coat, finally covering the "gorgeous" wood paneling. (Pictures of the kitchen to follow tomorrow!) We would have gone CRAZY trying to paint the whole room by ourselves... they saved the day!

• Then Sunday after church, AT came by to help paint the living room! So AT, Jason, J's mom, and I painted and painted and painted all day. (If I don't have to paint trim again EVER, I will be a happy girl.) Then at like 7 o'clock I wimped out and said PEACE - I'm going home. (Well, I went grocery shopping and THEN home... details.) Luckily, AT stayed and they really got just about everything done.

AGAIN I SAY - WE HAVE INCREDIBLE FRIENDS!!!!!

Don't Hate Me Because I'm...

Stupid.

This weekend we did a TON of work at Jason's house: let me show you all the pictures I got.








Ooooh this is my favorite...






No, you're not going crazy. Yes, your page has fully loaded. There is no "right click - show pictures". There ARE NO PICTURES.

Sadly, I didn't remember my camera on Saturday (painting day #1) and I did remember it on Sunday (painting day #2) but my memory card was still in my computer at home. Grrrrrr... So please don't hate me because I'm stupid!!

*Check back tomorrow to hear about all our amazing friends and because I'm going to take a TON of pictures tonight.

My dearest Becca,

I finally changed my blog header.

I hope we can be friends again now that your face isn't chopped off. :)

I LOVE YOU!!!!!!

Put Yo' Train Up, Girl.

So like 2 years ago, when Cara was home from Athens, she told Nick (little bro) that the next time she was in Chattanooga, we could all play "Mexican Train Dominos". Well, something always comes up - holidays, other friends in town, etc - and we just haven't had the chance to get Cara over to play. So......

Sunday she came over and we finally got to play!!

First you each take 12 dominos each, hiding them so others won't see...

...they look like this and you start your train with a 12 dot side, (then the next round you start it with 11, then 10, until you get to 1 or just get tired of it all - we made it to 8?).

This was my train at one point, ooooh ahhhhh!!

Sorry, I'm really blanking and I really don't want to explain it all, but here are the rules. :)

Then when we were done, we got real bored and started making designs! I think mine's the best, but I may be biased.

It was sooooo fun!! WE LOVE CARA!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARA!!!!!!!!

The big 2-3 in 0-9! :)

House Progress (Weekend 1)

Here are the promised pictures from the weekend!

Look at this place!!! Isn't it BEAUTIFUL!?!?!

We pulled lots of carpet out. Look! There's the horse room carpet and the rainbow room too!!

Here's my bestest buddy J-dog doin' his project of choice - prying up the tack board.

Oh, and just in case you didn't belive me on this whole "rainbow carpet" thing - this stuff was WALL TO WALL!

We have had so many wonderful friends stop by to see the progress!

To name a few: Kasey, Kristin, Alex, Forrest, my family (mom, dad, Nick), David, Emily, Harley, AT, Ryan, Evelyn, Keith, Kate, Becca, and Todd.

WE LOVE YOU!!!

Sha-zam!

I can't believe that Jason hasn't even owned the house for 1 full week yet and we've already accomplished so much!

Wednesday: closed on the house
Thursday (after work): pulled up carpet and padding in all 3 bedrooms
Friday (after work): pulled up staples in 2 rooms
Saturday (after I slept in): pulled up carpet in hall and living room, hauled to the dump
--Kristin, Kasey, Alex, Forrest, my mom, dad, and Nick stopped by!
Sunday (after church): pulled out staples in LR and hall, and swept for the 1,000,000th time
--AT, Ryan and Evelyn (Jason's coworker/neighbors), Emily, David, and Harley stopped by!

This weeks agenda includes CLEANING CLEANING CLEANING and then painting this weekend!!

PICTURES of the house and all the fun people who stopped by to follow. :)

B'wood Beginnings

Last night began day one, as stated in the previous post, and in ONE LITTLE HOUR Jason and I got a lot accomplished. (I know what you're thinking - one hour? Is that all? And yes, and I'll tell you why in a minute.)

This is the master bedroom that has blue walls and blue carpet with a blue bathroom that has blue carpet and blue floor tiles underneath and blue tiles on the wall. In the bedroom the carpet itself was easy to pull up, but as you can see (no, that's not floor damage) we still need to pull up all the little carpet padding pieces. The floors look great and with a little more TLC they will be BEAUTIFUL!!

Yeee-haw! This is the crazy rainbow room. If you click on the above picture I hope you will be able to see that the carpet is rainbow stripes. Really. No, seriously. I promise I will save a square of it in a frame so that someday we can look back and see how far we've come. (Again, that's not floor damage, just padding junk.)

Finally, the beautiful horse room, that will eventually be the office. (I guess I should have saved my Yeee-haw for this one...) This carpet was the MEANEST. It was really thick and hard and I got poked by staples every 5 minutes. But it's worth it because look how pretty the brown horses match the floors!

• We also pulled up the carpet halfway down the hall towards the living room, but about that time it had been an hour (we got ALL that done in just one hour, remember!) and we both just started to feel yucky. We wore masks and gloves, but obviously it wasn't enough. When I talked to J this morning I told him I have a bad headache and he said, "Oh yeah? Me too, probably from breathing all that junk in." After today, hopefully we will have all the carpet up, and if we're lucky, we'll haul it off on Saturday morning.

Then it's on to painting!! I may get your opinions on paint colors if we come to a room that we can't decide on. :) (By the way, I do know that this isn't my house.)

It's the Start of Something New!

Just a quick note to let you officially know:

Jason closed on the house!!

We are both really excited and I'm so proud of him for taking this huge step (I'm sure I've said that 12 times by now).

Today is day one:

• take tons of "before" pictures (that's what the new camera is for!)
• pull up carpet (easy)
• pull up carpet padding (not so easy, but hopefully easy)
• remove tack-board, or whatever it's called

I would be more ambitious and put more things on the list, but as it stands, we'll never make it that far in one evening!

READERS BEWARE: In the coming months you will probably see more pictures of someone's house then you would ever care to... but it'll be FUN!!!

Today's Top Ten

In honor of my 100th post, I wanted to give a quick list of my 10 favorite posts from 2008 (and early 2009).

1. 4-Wheeler-phobics Anonymous - my account of my first 4-wheeling trip in years
2. Not So Wise - I got my teeth out! and said silly things!
3. Workin' 9-to-5, what a way to make a livin'! - the beginnings of my new job
4. August Birthday Celebration! - we had a b'day party with tons of friends!
5. Well, It's Official. - I finally made the decision to move out (and my 'rents said ok!)
6. Does this mean I'm a grownup now? - I actually moved! and didn't drive my mom insane!
7. Use Cushion as Flotation Device - my first work trip to Yee-Haw, Arkansas
8. Things You Should Know About Me - weird facts about myself that probably scare you away (my highest # of comments ever!)
9. I've Been Holding Out On You - Jason buys a house (which he closes on in less than 4 hours!!)
10. One Hundred!!!! - finally, my 100th post featuring my goofy dog and my sweet new camera

If you haven't read these, feel free! What your favorite post from your own blog? Comment and leave the link so we can all read it!

One Hundred!!!!

Well, my dearest friends - this marks my 100th POST!!!!!!!!!! Now I don't have anything super cool for this big post, but I did give myself a 100th post gift:




I got a Nikon D80!! SWEEEEEEET!!!!!!!!! I'm not very good at taking pictures yet (duh) but I promise better pictures in the coming weeks! YAY!!! I'm so stinkin' excited about it I can hardly stand it. Here are just a few pictures of my only living subject: Dasherton.








Doesn't he look like he's saying "Mom, seriously, I'm done with the pictures here."

Oh, you just wait, Dash. You just wait.

All My Blog Buddies 4

I met Kristin Mardis working at camp in 2006, and I think that it was that summer when we were in small group together (with Gill?). She told me that she went to UGA which is where one of my very best friends (Cara) goes to school. Kristin had just joined a sorority and was looking for a campus ministry to become involved in. I remember telling her how much Cara loved Crossroads (UGA's Campus Crusade) and said she should check it out. Honestly, I don't think I thought about it too much after that, and from time to time Cara would talk about her friend Kristin. The next summer I put it all together that they really did know each other! (Yes, it really took that long.) This year they led a Bible study together and it's so cool to see pictures of them together on facebook. Okay all that was kind of a side story, but anytime I think about Kristin, I think UGA, then I think about Cara, and.. alright, you get it. ALSO - I discovered (again, later that I probably should have taken) that her sister and Anna's brother are MARRIED! Later, I will tell you how I know Anna (though I don't know yet what I'm going to say since I don't remember an official meeting... hmm...). Kristin is DEFINITELY one of the most fun people to be around - she always has a smile, and it's wonderful when I get the chance to spend time with her. HOPEFULLY she will find a way to move to Chattanooga with all the other super cool camp people and we can spend even more time together!!

I LOVE KRISTIN MARDIS!!

"We interrupt your regularly scheduled friend loving-"

...to tell you how much I love my boyfriend. Now, I'm not going to get all super mushy or create an elaborate picture collage (that takes some time that I just don't have), but I wanted to let you know that sometimes the smallest things make me so stinkin' happy!

I must start by saying that Jason has always "tolerated" my dog Dash. Notice that main word there - TOLERATED. Not liked. Definitely not loved. When I decided to move out and take the dog he thought it was a CRAZY idea, that I would hate it and that the dog would get on my nerves. Well, he definitely gets on my nerves, that's for sure, but I wouldn't have it any other way. (He's my guard dog.)


All that to say: The other day, Jason got off work early and I assumed he would just go home and call me later. Well, out of the blue I get this picture/text message:



"Hello!"

My heart melted when I realize that Jason went to go take Dash out, feed him, and play with him because he knew I wouldn't get home until late. Then yesterday I called him and let him know that it would be at least 6:00pm or later before I left work, and when I got to my apartment, Dash was SUPER CLEAN and fed and happy - Jason had given him a BATH!


Remember the man who tolerated? Now he LOOOOOVES. ...Whether or not he'll admit it.

All My Blog Buddies 3

Number 3, baby - Becca Rocha!






I met Becca and her brand new husband at CVP at Alumni Reunion weekend in 2007. Jason told me I would love her (another great choice by him!) and we sat by them in worship that night. It was a while, I think, before we started hanging out, but I do remember going to lunch with her one day and having an INSTANT connection. (Random note: I called her Becca Power like every time I talked about her for at least a year, and I didn't even know her before she was married!) Throughout our time as friends we have had amazing, silly, heartfelt conversations about anything and everything and I value her opinion and insight as a friend, wife, and mother. When we found out that she was going to have Kate, goodness gracious - we knew we'd all be aunts!! This baby has been a HUGE blessing to our group of friends; not only do we have the wonderful example of marriage from Becca and Keith, we now all get to share the experience and watch the wonderful example of their parenting too.

I LOVE BECCA ROCHA!!

All My Blog Buddies 2

On to numero dos - Miss Alex Walker!


Honestly I don't know when I met Alex, but it's funny because her parents treat me as if we've been best buddies our whole lives. :) Alex and Jason grew up in church together and when we first started dating he would always say, "You've got to meet Alex, she's great, you'll love her!" We joined with Becca and Katie to form the original Nucleus in... 2006? (Yeah, because I had spent my first summer at camp and had a really rough fall semester, and those girls helped me through when I needed it.) Alex has been like a sister for so long and when she decided to work (again) at camp in 2007, I was so excited to spend the whole summer with her. (By the way, during the fall of 2006, I TOTALLY told Alex that she was going to marry Forrest Walker and she said, "You know, I think I might." While at camp, we met several times a week really early before all our kids woke up and prayed together and grew our friendship more and more. Forrest and Alex began dating and by the next summer, I was asked to be in their wedding (and sing!), which was such an honor. Though we don't hang out as much as we'd like to, I love her as if we've been best buddies our whole lives! :)

I LOVE ALEX WALKER!!!

All My Blog Buddies 1

Dear all my blog friends,

I have decided to start a blog post series giving a short account of how much I love/how I know people who regularly read my blog! How fun, right? So in honor of my first stop blog every day, I'm starting with miss Emily Geyer!

I met Emily at CVP in 2006, she was in the office and I was a kitchie/counselor. I always thought she was a super fun girl and very sweet, but never knew the kind of friendship that God had in store for us. The next summer I worked in the office and she was working at Samford, but she sent letters, photo postcards, and other goodies, and I STILL didn't know what great friends we would become. When David proposed to her at the beginning of this year, Em and I started emailing back and forth about all the fun wedding things she was planning. She moved to Chattanooga in the late spring and we started to hang out regularly then. Becca, Alex, Emily, and I started meeting together for fellowship and prayer and since then we have all been bestest buddies. On any given week, you can find Jason and I over at the beautiful Geyer residence, eating up all their food, being silly, and playing Catan.

I LOVE EMILY GEYER!!!

I've Been Holding Out On You

Alright dear friends. It is time to spill the beans. There is something really fun and awesome that has been in the works for several months now, and it's so close to being official that I feel compelled to let you know NOW!

JASON BOUGHT A HOUSE!!!!!!!

Note: The text says "Here it is! YAY!!"

What an amazing and exciting experience it has been to go house shopping! All those years of watching HGTV started to pay off (and I'm sure will continue to as I help decorate), and Jason found an adorable diamond in the rough that's like 5 minutes away from the Geyers.


3 bedrooms, 2 (1/2.. I'll get to that) baths, basement, weirdo/neat carport with a patio on top, and all kinds of other goodies like a gorgeous wood ceiling and some of the most beautiful closets I've ever seen.

I wish I had pictures already to show you, but not to fear - you will be there with us every step of the way, as we:

• rip up carpet (think rainbow colored shag, light blue shag, yellow shag, and brown checkerboard shag)
• paint walls (think homey, wonderful, earthy tones)
• and eventually get around to remodeling the bathrooms (think pink tub and pink tile, with little brown tiles sprinkled in for the hall bath and blue blue blue for the master bath) and kitchen (remember that brownish orangeish redish color stove your Great Aunt Sally had in her kitchen? yeah, that's the one).

So to the 2 (1/2) bathrooms - there are the two I already talked about and then you go downstairs towards the laundry area and WHOA - all of a sudden: there's a random toilet. Yes, it works. Yes, there was a roll of toilet paper sitting next to it when we toured the house. Hmmmm. Don't know how I feel about it. Anyways...

Luckily for me, Jason wants my opinion on everything and I've even been able to choose the living room, kitchen/dining room, and office colors so far. :) As soon as he officially gets in there and we start bringing the house out of the 60s/70s, I will let you know!!

WHOO HOO!!!!

Things you should know about me.

**Update: You guys are AMAZING. No really. You don't know how exciting it is to get SIX (lets count 'em!) comments! WHOO HOO!!**

• I hate the chicken in Campbell's chicken noodle soup, so I pick out each and every tiny chunk before I eat it. Every time.
• I have earrings on 99% of the time.
• I have my ears double-pierced, but wear earrings in them 2% of the time.
• I love hot tea, but despite Jason's notion that I can "get used to not putting sugar in it", I can't.
• I love telling people that I worked out more than the actual work out itself. (That's honesty right there.)
• I never make my bed, and I ususally get up on a different side each day.
• I check my email 800 times every day. Wait, make that 801.
• I stink at Mario Kart, but I will play it all day.
• I have a HUGE desire to be crafty, but zero follow through.
• I set my alarm for at least 45 minutes before I get up and hit snooze 4-5 times... This is usually a bad idea.
• I have a jar of peanut butter m&ms on my desk and many friends at work who like to stop by. :)
• I check my cell phone 200 times every day - just in case I missed a call. (But the times when I don't have my phone by me is when I miss like 10 phone calls... Murphy's law, right?)
• I LOOOOOVE Typhoon of Tokyo (and Ichiban) and always pick out all the carrots in the rice before eating. (I'm such a freak.)
• I bite my finger nails, but I promise that 2009 is the year I will stop.
  
  What is one random thing I should know about you?

Pretty Bloggyness!

Look at my pretty new blog!!!! How super fun is this?! Okay, so it really is 3:30 in the morning and I'm posting for the second time like like 3 hours or something. I just HAD to share with you the play by play of all I've accomplished in the last hour or so.

I created my own blog header! SWEEEET! I got Photoshop Elements for my birthday and was just complaining to Emily tonight about how I don't know how to do anything cool with it. Well, I realized tonight that there is a "create photo collage" tool and you can pick a super cool template (like the one I used). Then you just double click each frame and add a picture. Then I added text, "flattened the image", and saved it as a jpeg. Oh yeah, and before all this, I found a cute new background from the cutest blog on the block (which I'm sure you've all browsed at one point).

Okay so the OTHER thing is, I broke down and signed up for Twitter. Alex had talked about it like 2 months ago and I had no idea what she was talking about, and then I've noticed it on the Pioneer Woman's site (PLEASE tell me you've read her love story by now!) and I thought it was cool. (also discussed this with Emily tonight) so it just seems like Facebook status updates, but honestly I've given up on Facebook lately because blogging is just so much cooler.

Anyway, this is a PLOY to get you to sign up for Twitter so that we all know even more ridiculous details about each others daily lives. Like "hey, I just ate a muffin!" and "taking the dog out to pee" - stuff like that. Now GO! And SIGN UP! :)

Twenty. Four.

Newest Obsession:

Recently Jason and I have decided to become "tv show watchers". We weren't sure what show we wanted to start watching - Lost, Dexter, 24, Heroes - so many to pick from!!

But we decided to just go for it and pick up season one of 24 at McKay's for $13 right before Christmas break started. Wow. It was CRAZY! We watched all 24 episodes in like 5 days! The show, for those who don't know, is about Jack Bauer, a CTU (counter terrorist unit) agent who kicks everyone's butts. [Chuck Norris wears Jack Bauer pajamas.] Anyway each episode is one hour of a real day, and there are 24 episodes (hence the name) so each season is one full day. Fascinating, really.

I got Jason the second season for Christmas and we will start the 3rd CD tomorrow (so we've watched 8 hours so far). It's addictive!!

Anyone want to borrow season one and obsess with us??

*Oh, and FYI for all my CVP peeps: for like 2 weeks I kept calling it two-four. Yeah, you know like a 2-4, not twenty four? Okay, come on. You get it.