a beautiful day in the neighborhood

We are loving our home and our neighborhood more and more each day. In the evenings when it starts to cool off, we leave the door to the screened porch open so the breeze blows into the house and Harley plays inside and outside without a fuss. It's fabulous!

We've been going on lots of walks/runs lately. The weather (when it hasn't been raining) has been warm and perfect for being outside! We have a pretty routine route that we take, and it always cracks me up that Harley knows the way. Our neighborhood is perfect for taking walks - though a little hilly, which makes for a good workout. There is one street that I particularly love. It is completely shaded and is always cool and damp and smells like honeysuckle. mmm...

Forgive the cell phone picture.

Yesterday we went on two walks. Even though we had taken our usual run (shortly after I got home from work), it was too nice of a night to sit inside! We headed out again later for a leisurely jaunt around the block, which was lovely.

Like I mentioned, we are loving our neighborhood more and more. Every day I see people I haven't met before and am learning folks names. Older neighbors sit on their porches and wave to the passers by, kids swing from their tire swings in the front yard (it's not quite as picturesque as it sounds... it's a little red), people plant in their gardens and play with their dogs. In fact, we live in DOG CITY, folks. Between our two walks last night, we saw 13 different dogs. 13! I need to count the number of people who run or walk past our house on a given night, but it is definitely in the double digits. I love that we are in a city that innately has such an emphasis on being outdoors!

Change of weekend plans: Andy AND Sharon are coming tonight! Thank goodness for multiple rooms with guest beds! We are SO excited to spend time with two of our favorite friends!!

11 days to embarkation

Yes, embarkation is a word. They use it on the Royal Caribbean website.

11 days! Thank you, Ashley for graduating from college. David and I are SOOO excited about heading out of town one week from tomorrow to begin our vacation! We'll go first to Birmingham to spend the day watching Ashley get pinned and graduate, then we'll spend 2 nights in Columbus and one in Jacksonville (with family hopefully!) en route to the cruise! Harley will spend the week boarded with my parents three dogs in Columbus, so he'll be leaving town with us (which reminds me... I need to talk to Chuck about 'house sitting'). We'll be cruising through the Bahamas for 5ish days, and I can.not.wait. A few things I'm most excited about:

• Spending time with my family.
• Playing lots of cards and Catan.
• Hanging out with my parents.
• Eating awesome food (this is definitely what David is most excited about).
• Getting a tan (prayerfully).
• Reading, reading and more reading. All of this (again). And definitely this Becca recommendation. Other recommendations?
• A break from work clothes and a chance to lounge around in whatever I want.
• Coming back from a week-long vacation and having a holiday at work (thank you, Memorial Day!) - and getting to spend it at camp (thank you, boat driver training!)!

There are probably many more fun things about it, but I need to contain my excitement so I don't totally flake out on all of my responsibilities between now and then.

productivity

I really like to be productive. I like to make a list, then do the things on my list and cross them off. I get the greatest sense of accomplishment from having a completed list. Sometimes I will even add things to my list that weren't on it originally- just to cross them off to make myself feel better about being productive (yes, I'm sick, I know).

Last night was a productive night! David had his first class of the first summer term (yep, no break between spring and summer terms), but he got out early! I was able to take the dog on a long run (ok, long for us... not that long in real people terms), do all the ironing (which was a lot since it hadn't been touched in... a while), simultaneously catch up on Dancing with the Stars and tidy things up around the house before he got home (dinner was in the crock pot. and it was gross.). Since he got home early, he had time to mow the lawn and blow off the porch and driveway. So by dinnertime, we had conquered much of our to do lists. Post-dinner we cleaned the couch cushions [side note about our couch cushions: if you are in the couch-buying market and you aren't looking to get leather, I recommend looking for cushions that have removable- and machine washable- covers. Ours aren't, and man it would make life much easier if they were.] and got to spend a little bit of time just hanging out and playing with the dog.

All in all, it was a great night- largely due to our productivity. Tonight needs to be equally productive because I have floors that need cleaning and we have company coming!

Thursday night: Andy
Friday night: Sharon

Can't wait!

free KFC

Go here to print a coupon for FREE KFC from Oprah! It's only valid until noon today, so get it now!

steak & kate

Last night David surprised me with a steak dinner! In fact, he bought fillets and grilled them to perfection! I'm so thankful for him.

After dinner we spent time with our respective gendered friends, which led to a last-minute babysitting gig! We love baby Kate and it's always nice to spend some one-on-one (well, two-on-one I guess) time with her.

sister-kate

Ashley came to visit!!

(oh, and I went to the hand doctor today. He removed all bandages and I'm free! I can wash my hands again and type without accidentally hitting the Windows button all the time!)

We were terrible hosts. No, seriously. We didn't do ANYTHING! Granted, the weather was crummy so there were much fewer options for activities, but we didn't even try. It was so nice just to have Ashley at our house and a part of our normal, [boring] weekend lives.

We ate lunch at Amigos on Saturday (she was craving Mexican and David was thrilled) then had our friends (yes, we only have 4) over for dinner (like most other Saturday nights). And of course we grilled out because that is the only way to ensure that we women-folk can sit around and chit chat and let the men do all the hard work. Just kidding. But kind of serious. Oh- we (women) did make a total of 4 (2 were mine, 2 were Sarah's) loaves of Amish friendship bread.

Post dinner treat: one mudslide, many straws.

After church on Sunday, we got to hang out with Courtney and Jonathan! They were in town visiting with Jonathan's family and house shopping. Yep, Jonathan is moving to Chattanooga! We are so excited!




All in all, it was a rainy, gross, lazy, sickly (I'm still working on getting over some kind of voice-stealing, cough-inducing crud) weekend... that was AWESOME because Ashley was here to enjoy it with us! Come back soon!



PS- the title needs some explanation... though there isn't really one. For some unknown reason Ashley and I have called each other "sister-kate" for... a long time. Neither of us are named Kate. It's weird, I know.

just a thought

Riches - like manure - do no good 'til they are spread.