Mr. and Mrs. Fix-it

This weekend marked a first for us - the installation of something - permanently - into our house. After a few days of sitting in the office and complaining "I wish there was a fan in here!", E decided that it was his job, nay, his duty, to install one. So, one trip to our favorite big box home supply store later, and we have everything we need to replace our boring light fixture with a new and fabulous ceiling fan!

We opened the box and spread all the pieces out on the floor before even beginning to get started. We haven't even looked at taking the light fixture down. All the hundreds of tiny pieces lay on the floor in front of us - here's a small sampling.
It is at this point that E looks at me and realizes, "You know, I think I'm going to need a ladder for this." We don't own a ladder. We've been waiting for just such a situation to head out and purchase one. However, not wanting to bother with another trip out, he improvises by putting our kitchen step stool on four bed-risers from college. This seems awfully precarious to me, but he's more than satisfied. Fine. This seems to work.

In the end, more swear words were uttered than I can recall, specifically pointed at a certain drill owned by a certain husband and only one extra trip to the big box home supply store, he had the whole thing mounted and running like a champ. Good work! I'm enjoying it as we speak.

Flushed!

This morning started like any morning - wake up too early and in a bleary mix between sleep and awake, throw on appropriate exercise attire and head to the gym before work. This is in an effort to keep myself healthy and fit, not because I really LOVE seeing 5 am.

The item shown above is an essential part of my gym paraphernalia. As important as my water bottle and my towel, my iPod shuffle keeps me entertained whilst attempting to not stare and the ridiculously top-heavy guy next to me and wondering how I can make my shoulders look like that lady's. Not her. HER. Oh, wait, I meant while working out. I love the little shuffle. I wear it clipped to my shorts, completely out of the way.

In addition to being completely out of the way, clipped to my shorts is also, apparently, a very dangerous place to be when I have to take my last bathroom break before heading out in the morning. This morning the little shuffle lost it's vice-like grip on my shorts and went tumbling headfirst right into the drink. That's right - potty 1, shuffle, 0.

Seeing as how no actual potty activity had taken place, I fished it out and let it dry over the duration of the day, fearing the worst. However, amazingly enough, it works this afternoon. It's a miracle!

This did prompt a series of discussions of just what is your toilet price. What would you abandon in a toilet under what circumstances? I'll say this. Anywhere but my house, I might have let it go. Apparently my toilet price outside of my own home is my beloved iPod shuffle.

They're full of hot air

Yesterday I went with some friends to the Plano hot air balloon festival. This consisted essentially of a ridiculous number of booths offering such delicacies as corn dogs, funnel cakes, and nachos, a climbing wall and other athletic endeavors, and tons and tons of hot air balloons. It was a really good time. After touring all the booths and enjoying a corn dog (with mustard!), we found a good spot to sip strawberry lemonade and watching the action. It was awesome! We stuck around until it got dark and a whole new set of balloons participated in the glow, which basically means they all light their fires at the same time and look like a field full of giant lightening bugs. Neat-o.

A new toy

Happy birthday! This is the present my fabulous husband got me:
Okay, that one isn't mine. That's a picture of one that someone took with a really nice camera and some knowledge of how to take pictures of glowing screens that I found on Wiki. This one is mine, and I love it love it love it. Need to map yourself? Use the built in GPS and map finding tools! Need to check your email for some crazy reason - no problem! Listen to music? It's also an iPod! Want to buy something on Woot? Go for it! Oh yeah, you can actually use it as a phone too. Amazing!

The best feature? There's an application you can download (for free!) that lets you use it as a flashlight. This is the Swiss Army Phone.

We don't like Ike

This past weekend my stepsister got married! This is fabulous. Normally I would have all kinds of things to say about the ceremony, the flowers, the dresses, the cake. (Especially the cake.) But in addition to all that, there is something else to talk about. Something large and menacing and altogether disruptive. That's right. I'm talking about Ike.

This is Ike. He's a category 2 storm, which doesn't seem particularly bad, but he comes with a ridiculously large storm surge of 14 feet (much better than the projected 30 feet). Worst of all, he came ashore in the town I grew up in, where both of my parents still live with their spouses. In addition to that, it then followed highway 288 up to where my brother and his wife live, then decided to take interstate 45 to Conroe, where my stepsister's wedding was scheduled to be occurring. After all that, he decided to continue on to hit my grandparent's house and then straight to Rockwall as a tropical storm to dump rain on our house.
All in all, this storm really had it out for my family.
We managed to pull of the wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony that we managed to get all fixed up in eight hours, after deciding to push things forward a day to avoid being crushed by falling tree branches in the outdoor setting. We danced, we ate, we had general revelry. My stepsister looked fantastic and I could tell that she and her new husband were really happy. I'm glad we got to do it - even if we had to hurry it up a bit.

As soon as the ceremony was over, we all headed for a night of sleep before a morning of evacuating to my grandparents, where we hunkered down for the rest of the weekend. We rode out the remaining parts of the storm there. For those who are worried, everyone is okay. Nobody lost anything that can't be replaced. My dad lost a tree. My mom lost a fence. My brother, well, he lost a gate latch. Everyone made it out okay. Now if we could just get power and water restored to the Houston area, everything could start going back to normal for them.

The weirdest part of all this? E and I go back to work tomorrow like nothing even happened. The Big-D is a-ok from this mess. So while my family down in H-town goes through cleanup, we've got to head back to work.

I might take the cleanup.

Homebound weekend

This weekend marks the first in over eight weeks where E and I haven't either had to go somewhere, had people visiting, or were otherwise occupied with extensive things to do. In other words, this weekend consisted or absolutely no plans whatsoever. What do you do at a time like this? Household chores you've neglected for eight weeks, that's what.

E is in charge of mowing and trimming, so I tend to gardens and any plants that live in planters. Remember, I am a TERRIBLE gardener. I have a ficus given to me as a gift by a fantastic set of women (my mom and grandma), that I have successfully not killed for over six months now. However, it is on the brink of demise - almost always, since the day it arrived in our home. On a suggestion from both my mom and mother-in-law, I trimmed all branches that seemed dead and kept only the live limbs. This amused my husband so much that he took multiple photos of my poor plant. (He's named Ben - because the scientific name is ficus benjamina and we are nerdy, nerdy people.).And here's a picture of my dog, simply because I can't go an entire weekend at home without taking a photo of her. Notice how she's sitting in her doghouse... Also a gift from my grandma. She really likes it in there - especially when mowing or trimming is happening.
E was nice enough to stand by one of my alphias so I could take a picture of how tall it seems to be. It's growing fantastically and looks amazing. I'm very grateful for plants that require almost no attention from me. This one just seems to grow and grow. Next year, I expect flowers. (That dirt spot? That's from the sprinkler installation earlier this summer. Don't worry, it will grow back - or so I tell myself.)

We saw the in-laws for dinner, cleaned and manicured the house, and even managed to watch a movie on HBO (free until the end of the year!). Sunday after church we had fullfilled almost everything we had not planned for the weekend. So what to do next? Head to the driving range for some awful golf practice (in efforts to not be so terrible). We each hit a large bag and according to E, about 10% of our shots went exactly where we wanted. That's an improvement! And check out the awesome golf shoes I got on super sale at the Nike outlet for 85% off! Who can resist that? Not a budding golf junkie like me! Now all we have to do is watch the Cowboys beat the Browns and eat take-out Chinese. It's been a great weekend.

Labor day without laboring

She is a certain first full week at work at a company in the wide wonderful world that is Denver, Colorado. Aurora, to be exact. Both of us are terrified and feel ridiculous, lost even. Her from Kansas, me from Texas, by way of grad school in Fort Collins. There's something about being thrown into an office together that can really cause two people to bond. What started out as a few questions at work turned into evenings full of sushi. Days full of shopping at any given mall in Colorado. Weekend trips with nothing in front of us but two whole days of mountains. I do miss her terribly, and when she and her husband decided to visit us here in Texas, we were more than happy to oblige.

What's a visit to the H household without a round of (absolutely terrible) golf? Okay, so E and I are terrible. D is even still a beginner. Her husband, hereafter referred to as R, played golf in college. So while we were out there hacking away at things, he managed to shoot par or below par on every whole. E managed to hit par once, D had a couple of amazing drives, and I even managed to get a bogey once! Trust me, when you golf like I do, a bogey is awesome. Regardless, we had a great time. So great, in fact, that the guys went out for another round the two days later while D and I hit up the stores. In between we managed to throw in some downtown Dallas touring, lots of dominoes and euchre, and even went to a Rangers game! I just wish we could see our whole dinner club again... Can't wait until we see everyone again during our February visit to Denver. That's right, I said February and Denver and visit all at once. What can I say, Texas heat will make you long for those cold winters and down comforters.


There's that one person you can always count on to do anything for you.