New Moon Review

I will probably get stoned to death by Twi-hards for saying this, but I thought the first Twilight movie was horrible!  I am not sure why they didn't put more money into it to make it a better film, with the following that the book series has, any person with a pulse and a half a brain would know that Summit Entertainment would make their money back ten-fold.

Thankfully, Summit put their money where their mouth is for the sequel, New Moon.  I will admit, I was one of the crazy fans in line for the midnight showing last night... Not because I was just DYING to see the movie, but it just sounded like something fun to do.  (The next day at work?  Not so fun.)  

The movie was of course cheesy and sappy at times but the two male leads were easy on the eyes and this installation of the Twilight series provided some comic relief at just the right points in the movie.  I thought there could have been more fireworks between Edward and Bella, just didn't sense the passion that they seemed to have in the books but I was happy that the acting seemed far less awkward than the last movie.

Overall?  Two thumbs up!  Probably won't see it in the theater again, but because I am a nerd, I will probably buy the DVD. :)  

Black Friday

Black Friday is like a drug for me... I love all the sales, I get giddy and my heart starts to race just from the thought of saving 50% on ANYTHING. But I know I should not go, I know Black Friday is NOT good for me.   Usually I don't go.  Because if I were to go shopping on Black Friday, I would shop for me and not for people I need to buy Christmas presents for.  I save all my shopping for the day after Christmas.  However, Bryan's sister-in-law sent me this AWESOME web site this year that you simply MUST check out.  It's called Live Black Friday and it has all the Black Friday advertisements ALREADY!!!!  Now you have a good week to map out your Black Friday strategy and to prepare yourself for all the crowds. Enjoy!

http://liveblackfriday.com/ 

TextsFromLastNight.com

Enter my absolute new favorite web site: TextsFromLastNight.com.  This site is beyond HI-larious.  The site is exactly what it says: people send in their random text messages from last night (or whenever).  The randomness is what makes it hilarious.  Most of the text messages have something to do with drinking too much or indulging in, ahem, "special" brownies or similar smokeable grasses.  But many of the texts contain an underlying sarcasm, which, if you know me, I find hilarious.  

To add your own text (or forward a text you got) all you have to do is include your area code - no names or anything tying you to the message.  GENIUS!  

Here is a little sampling:

• (516): Thank God they found balloon boy, I was afraid that Michael Jackson was ordering take out from heaven.
•  (630): all i remember is you climbed in a garbage can and said you were trashed
• (774): i just walked into a room at this party and someone yelled "dibs!"...
  

My New Lover er Computer

Yes, you've probably figured out by now that I have a lot of Love's in my life.  Here is one of my newest: My MacBook Pro!  That's right, I ditched my PC for a Mac and L-O-V-E it!!!  

Here are the things I love the most about it:

1. iPhoto - so easy to upload, organize and find pictures
2. Numbers - incredibly easy to organize my finances as well as track them with charts and categories. 
3. iTunes - I've never used iTunes before, I always used Limewire, but will never go back!  iTunes is so fast and easy and I love how it organizes my music, with album art. 
4. Safari - I stopped using Explorer when I started blogging because Explorer... Well, it just sucks.  I had been using Firefox, but Safari is much easier to navigate and much faster. 
5. Speed - there are only 14 known viruses for Macs at the moment, unlike PCs which are susceptible to... Well, a lot more (I don't know the number.)  Therefore, Macs are much, much faster.
6. Size - I travel for work about every 6 -8 weeks or so and lugging my 10+ laptop around, plus it's cords and everything else was not fun.  It made my back hurt and frankly, I just dreaded it.  My Mac weighs 4.5 pounds.  I carried it through the airport today and it was much, much more pleasant.  
7. Battery - My battery lasts 7 hours!!! Yes, 7!  Traveling today, I was able to pull it out at multiple times to use it without pulling out the cord with it!  Those of you who travel a lot, especially for work, understand how wonderful that it.  
8. Sleekness - You know me, things have to be cute! And this is cute!  So sleek, modern and hip looking.  Love walking around with it. :)

There are many more things that I love about this wonderful machine, but I will stop with my list there.  The only con to my Lover is the cost, you can definitely get a PC for half the price.  However, if anyone asked me before buying a PC, I would totally try to talk them into a Mac.  It was worth every cent!

I'm in Love

I have to thank my friend Stephanie for this next find I have... I can't believe I've gone so long without knowing about it!  Have any of you guys heard about "Real Simple" magazine?  Um, I haven't!  But I have now!  I have been pursing their web site all afternoon and have so many things I am going to be trying around our house!!!  Check out their web site: RealSimple.com, so many great tips!!!

Life with Puppy: Week One

We survived our first week with our puppy!  Bryan said  to me today "I think you should get paternity leave when you get a puppy!"  That would be nice... Doubt that will ever happen though. 

I think the first week went pretty good though!  Potty training is going... OK.  I thought it was going well at the beginning.  At first, he would go to the back door and bark if he needed to go out, which I thought was just amazing!  However, he has since figured out that he really doesn't like cold and rain (which we've had a lot of lately) and therefore, finds it much easier to just pee wherever he might be standing, which is most often a carpeted area.  So, we've got to get him broke of that, I'll let you know how that goes.  We only had one major accident this week and that was because we tried leaving him in his kennel for 9 straight hours - not a good idea at all!  Our wonderful parents have offered to come over on their lunch hours though to let him out until he gets older so we don't have to deal with a smelly mess and batheing him every night - thanks Parentals!!!

So far he hasn't chewed anything of extreme importance.  I learned VERY fast to pick up my shoes as well as my purse - anything is fair game to him!  He loves his squeaky toys as well as any type of bone.  We started putting peanut butter in his Kong, however, I don't think that is agreeing with him tummy, so that has stopped for the time being.  He and the cat are developing a love hate relationship - JD loves to chase Wrigley and therefore, Wrigley hates JD.  However, we did see Wrigley try to play with JD once this week, but that was before JD caught him in his mouth... Poor kitty.

He is not quite sleeping through the night yet which is making for two very tired masters.  We're keeping our fingers crossed that it is coming soon though!  He loves sleeping in our bed with us and we've made the mistake of letting him in the moring between his 5 a.m. potty break and when we get up.  Now he thinks if he barks long enough, we'll let him up.  So that too has stopped. 

Even thought we're tired and a little frustrated with the potty training, Bryan and I LOVE having him around.  He is so funny to watch and has such a little doggie personality!  We start puppy classes on November 3rd, hopefully he'll be the smartest kid in the class. :)  I'll give you guys another update when there is something more to report on that his bathroom habits.

Introducing Jack Daniel aka "JD"

So, I finally won the battle of getting a puppy!!! :)  After months of BEGGING and quite frankly annoying the living hell out of Bryan, we picked up our 12 week old puppy on Friday afternoon: JD, which is short for Jack Daniel - Bryan's favorite thing in the world (next to me of course.)
 
We had a great first weekend at home with him, he is doing great with potty training, 85% of the time he will go to a door and bark when he needs to go out. Hallelujah! He is also doing very well with crate training, he didn't like being in there the first night, but by Sunday, he was going back to his kennel just to take a nap with the door open! It just warms a mother's heart! :)  

JD also met mom and dad's dog Sadie this weekend.  Sadie does not like other dogs and proceeded to show her teeth everytime JD got too close.  But Sadie is such a froo-froo dog that it was more funny than anything.  He also met Bryan's parent's dog Maggie.  Maggie is a pit-bull/terrier/beagle/boxer mix and VERY territorial.  She decided to claim all of JD's toys as her own and not let JD near them.  She snarled at him a few times which caused me to freak out and Bryan to laugh.  They'll be good friends though once the whole territorial thing has been established.  Which is good, cause we're going to need puppy-sitters! 

JD also met our cat Wrigley this weekend.  Wrigley has never encountered a dog that was not afriad of him, so he's not really sure what to make of this dog who is not intimidated by him at all... JD thinks Wrigley is there solely for him to chase... Which is pretty entertaining to Bryan and I for now, but we should probably break him of this.  

I'll post some more pictures of JD as he gets bigger, at 12 weeks he weighed in at 18 pounds!!! He is going to be a moose, his paws and ears are gi-normous!

Mother of All Make Overs: The Outside After

So - I am going to let the after pictures speak for themselves :).  Stay tuned, my goal is to have the entire house posted this week, trust me, you don't want to miss the inside. 

South side of the house - no more rotting siding!!

East side / back of the house - fully covered with siding

A quaint little porch is now on the front

Mother of All Make Overs: The Outside After

Looking to the south

Back yard, the tree right in front of me is actually a cherry tree!!! So pretty in the spring and the cherries make great pies.

Back corner of the lot

Looking to the east

Side yard

Mother of All Make Overs: The Outside

First off, sorry it was like two and a half weeks between posts... Right after I posted last, I hit the road for work with back to back trips and then threw being in a friend's wedding in there as well - it's been a busy month to say the least! Anyway, I wanted to get started with what I am calling "the Mother of All Make Overs."

In February Bryan decided to buy a house from his parents. His parents had bought the house in December with the intention of flipping it and renting it, but the more they worked on it, the more Bryan liked it and the more it became clear that it would be the perfect starter home (for him, not me, I still have my own apartment.)

When they started working on this house, saying it was rough would have been extremely nice. This house was worse than a sh*thole. It was disgusting, there was stuff growing in it and living things roaming around. Let me make this clear though - there were people living in the house up until the day possession switched!

The first pictures I am going to show you are the befores of the outside of the house. We hauled out 9 truck loads of heavy limestone, 12 truckloads of brush (packed down), cut down 19 trees and over 20 bushes... When I say "hauled out" I mean we removed from the back yard and moved to a friend's farm. Yeah. I had lots of blisters by the time this was done and we were all extremely sore - the best work out you could ever ask for!

Anyway, enjoy the befores!

East side/back of the house...

Front door

The gutter situation

Side yard... At one time that was a sand box turned giant kitty litter box

Front of the house, lovely red color :)

Another view of the side yard

South side of the attached garage

Stay Tuned... Mother of All Make-Overs: A Multiple Part Series

Wanted to give all my blogies (my new word for Blog Groupies) a heads up that I will be starting a multiple part series this weekend on the before-s and after-s of Bryan's new house (which I kind-of-but-don't-technically-live).

Seriously, stay tuned, you DO NOT want to miss this!!!

Heritage Days 2009

For those of you unfamiliar with small-town life, every respectable small town throws a little party every year, normally ending with the word "days". There is Sauerkraut Days in Lisbon, Watermelon Days some where up north, Old Settlers Days in New Virgina, well, in Mount Vernon, we have Heritage Days.

Every year, everyone that grew up in Mount Vernon or has some kind of tie, tries their best to make it back... Why you ask? Because its always a blast! There is a street band, a mid-way, lots of carnie food and of course, beer!

This year was especially fun for Bryan and I. Heritage Days kicked off on Thursday night with a fireworks show right across the street from Bryan's new house, so we had people over for a bon-fire and watched the fireworks. The rest of the weekends events take place in uptown Mount Vernon, which is where my new apartment happens to be located. So I threw a little housewarming party on Saturday night before we all headed up town.

Its always fun to see people you haven't seen in awhile and especially fun to be outside on a summer night, listening to music and enjoying a few beers. :)

Already looking forward to next year...

Goals for Summer: One Month Down

So, I thought I'd give you all a little update on how I'm doing with my goals one month into summer. (FYI, I consider summer to be the months of June, July and August, so I have until the end of August to get these done.)
Goal #1: Create Art
I am happy to say I've actually done this one!!! Quite a bit of it too... In fact, my dad the other day said to me "When did you become so crafty??" I took it as a compliment. Ideally I would put pictures of the art I have created here, but it's not all done... One of the projects I did I am going to completely re-do, another is almost finished and the final one... Well, I just haven't gotten around to taking pictures. Soon though, I promise!
Goal #2: Start Scrapbooking Again
Well, my first scrapbook project is going to be a before and after book of Bryan's new house. The house isn't finished yet, so I don't feel like I can start yet. I want to have all the pictures I am going to use before I begin. His house-warming party is tentively set for August 8th, so it will need to be done by then!!!
Goal #3: Back-up Digital Pictures
Haven't even thought about it... I still have two months.
Goal #4: Plant some Plants
Haven't done this one either, however, my house warming party is in less than two weeks, so I might try to get it done before then. If I don't, I might scrap it for the year because then it's kind of late in the season. In my defense, we had a REALLY cool spring, then all of a sudden it jumped from like 60* to 100* within a week and now, three days before the Fourth of July, it's 63* at this very second. Not much time to get into the gardening mood.
Goal #5: Plan out Meals
I am very proud to say that I've been doing pretty good with this one!!! Bryan and I have cut WAAYY down on how much we eat out and I've been going grocery shopping once a week. It's helped my wallet too, however, that's just fueled my shopping addiction.
Be sure to check back, I will hopefully have pictures of my new place after this weekend!!!