my sweet husband (our anniverary & my birthday)

last wednesday, august 11th, marked 3 years of marriage for christopher & me! we are thankful for God bringing us together and for strengthening our marriage these past few years. we have many more to go! we spent the weekend celebrating with a trip to charleston, which chris planned and kept a surprise until last week. i hadn't been there since middle school and had been wanting to visit again, now that we're south carolinians and all. we stayed at an antebellum hotel downtown called the mills house.on friday evening we took a carriage tour of downtown. i love the quaint row houses and cobblestone streets! on saturday, chris & i each planned an activity. there was an art museum two blocks from our hotel, the gibbes museum, so i couldn't resist that! chris was very patient with me as i enjoy taking my time looking at paintings.chris chose for us to visit ft. sumter, so we took a ferry that afternoon. he definitely enjoyed looking at the monument and old cannons. i was reminded about how little i retained from u.s. history, which i attribute to having coaches for all my high school history classes!
we ate delicious food (especially seafood!) all weekend. my favorite restaurants we went to were magnolia's, where they serve kind of a modern southern cuisine, and hominy grill, a quaint brunch place where the servers wear t-shirts that read "grits are good for you." when we left the hotel on sunday morning, there was a torrential downpour! chris had to navigate alternate streets so as not to forge the rivers that various streets had become. we had planned to drive to the beach at isle of palms before going home, so we headed there (less than a half hour drive), hoping the rain would subside. it did briefly, but began again. we just decided to enjoy our time there, since we were getting wet anyway!
my husband is a master of surprises. i brag to my coworkers (who, being counselors, are pretty good at confidentiality!) that christopher is like a vault...i haven't had a chance to blog about it, but he also surprised me on my birthday in july. i wanted to get some friends together at my favorite restaurant in greenville, the lazy goat (mediterranean tapas food). chris made all the reservations. my favorite part of any meal is dessert, and this is especially important on a birthday. i thought maybe friends could come over for cake and coffee afterwards. chris led me to believe he had some amazing dessert in the fridge (i wasn't allowed to look in it all afternoon), and then surprised me at the restaurant by having them (singing, of course), bring out a mint chocolate cake from their sister restaurant/bakery. it was delicious! i love christopher!

march update

chris & i have been staying busy this month! he just started softball season with the church league again. i'm looking forward to watching his games and getting to hang out with the other wives. chris is entering his busiest season at work, with a yearly design review coming up. my work has been pretty exhausting lately. my outlet has been getting together with my friend lori every week to work on various craft projects. she's into making jewelry, and i'm working on another decoupage to decorate my office.

chris & i visited augusta weekend before last, for my friend tori's wedding shower. she & ron are getting married near chicago in july. the shower was quite a reunion! here's the trio of high school best friends: tori, jessie, & me. and the three of us with carrie. this group goes all the way back to middle school!old roommates from atlanta: tori, meghan, nidhi, me. we had a nice visit with both sets of parents and then returned to greenville for a celebration of the end of our forty days of community campaign at church. our sunday school class has grown (i.e., doubled) over the last several weeks!

des projets d'art

as promised, i've been starting some art projects before i start my new job (official start date: july 2nd). there is a dear woman that volunteers on thursdays with me at piedmont women's center who makes the cutest greeting cards and sells them for only $1.50. i've bought several from her, and it got me thinking...i used to make all my own cards when i was in college. at the time, it had as much to do with saving money as being creative. i had gotten out of doing it as i'd gotten busier in grad school, but recently i've felt inspired to start again. here are a few cards i made last month:
i also bought a canvas this week at michael's. it's the largest one i've ever gotten, 24 x 20" (they were having a great sale!). is there anything more intimidating to an artist than a blank canvas? i have an idea in mind...my french teacher in high school had this great painting in her home in which the artist incorporated newsprint in the background, under the paint. the idea of a collage-style painting appeals to me, so i'm thinking of using some glossy magazine pages...i'm still not sure what the painting will be of, though...any suggestions?
(eva couldn't resist her curiosity as i took this!)

finished art

here's a picture of my completed collage. i discovered these cool rub-on decals at michael's that you see in the corners.

the music room

many of you know that i left my job before the holidays. (if you didn't know, feel free to ask me about it.) i'm hoping to get involved with a volunteer opportunity that i learned about through our church. i'm still keeping an eye out for counseling positions, but they're relatively scarce. in the meantime, i'm finding things to keep me busy...

i've started a small project that combines two of my loves: poetry and art. here's some background: my junior year at georgia tech, i took a poetry class (yes, there's poetry at tech!). it was absolutely one of my favorite classes (chris liked the fact that half the football team was taking it with me). one of our assignments was to write an original poem based on a photograph. i chose this one i had taken of my grandparents' living room because it's a place where i feel inspired, and i have many wonderful memories of daddy buck listening to my mom play the piano there.that year my poem was published in gt's literary magazine, and i shared it with my family. so now i'm working on a collage that will hopefully bring it to life in a visual way (kind of like what an artist did for a favorite wcw poem of mine).
here's another picture from last christmas (2007) that illustrates what i had in mind when i wrote the poem. i plan to give the collage to my grandparents when i'm done. in case you were wondering, blogging about it doesn't ruin the surprise because daddy buck - who turns 85 today! - does not own a computer, much less has access to the internet.