spring cleaning & SNOW!

i never thought these two things would come in the same weekend! chris & i have been trying to do some spring cleaning every saturday, one room at a time. this week, it was our bedroom...specifically our closet. i wish i had a before picture, but i'm pretty happy with the after.
to give you an idea of our progress, here's the goodwill pile. plus, there were a couple trashbags of stuff not worthy of taking to goodwill.
last week, i got eva a sweater because it had been a little chilly. i didn't see any extra-long torso sizes for dachshunds...we think it looks like a midriff top on her. but it still came in handy with the SNOW last night!
when we got out of church last night, this is what our car looked like in the parking lot:
it took us twice as long to get home, and we saw several cars stuck in the snow on the way back. i was glad chris was driving! here's what it looked like right outside our apt:eva wasn't sure what to make of the snow. naturally, she tried to eat it. then she started hopping around like a rabbit - i think because her legs are too short to walk through it. we got four inches!
you can see a little better what it looked like this morning:

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.

more eva photos

so the blurriness on our camera was easily fixed when chris cleaned the lens with a q-tip...

valentine's week

we have sort of been celebrating valentine's all week long because on tuesday evening, we got an early valentine's present...a puppy! she's a six-month-old dachshund named eva (pronounced ay-vuh, not eve-uh). we've been thinking about getting a dog for a while. i've never had one, but i've always thought dachshunds were really cute. chris would love to have a great dane eventually, so this is a step in that direction.
eva was a little timid when we first brought her home but has been coming out of her shell as she gets more comfortable around us. she was already crate trained and we've gotten her pretty much potty trained...now we just have to work on her people skills! she has been barking at anybody that walks by. most of the time she's sweet, though, and we've been enjoying playing with her.
we celebrated valentine's last night because the restaurant we wanted to try, devereaux's, was booked tonight. the food was delicious, and they had a live jazz combo playing. i wish there were more places in greenville to sit and listen to music like that. tonight we're going to watch p.s. i love you and eat some cupcakes.

saturday fun

we just got a new computer (no vista problems yet, wes and blakely), so i guess that means i'll have to start posting again. actually i'm finally finished with my december to january work marathon, which means i might have some time to post.

work has been going really well lately. i had several big projects that i finished without any issues, and i'm blessed to have a job that i really enjoy. katy was very supportive of my working long hours for those weeks to get the job finished. i'm happy that i'm through with those, and i'm looking forward to a few months of more normal hours and having all my time free on the weekends.

katy and i had a pretty great saturday yesterday. the weather was beautiful, and we started out the day having breakfast at broadway bagels with our new friends blaire and tim. we're enjoying getting to know them and some of the other couples in our sunday school class. we sometimes think that we'll have plenty of time to visit folks out of town, but our schedules are quickly getting filled with greenville events. it's great because it means that all the time greenville is more like home, and we're developing some good friendships and getting plugged into church here. don't worry, there are still many trips to atlanta and elsewhere planned for the future!

after breakfast i ran some errands. it had been over 6 months (but still under 3000 miles) since i had had the oil changed in my car. it's definitely nice to have a 2.5 mile commute when your car is getting old. after errands katy and i drove to outlet malls at gaffney. we were going to exchange some things i had received for christmas, but katy certainly didn't mind the opportunity to go shopping for a little while. she did buy a dress for the upcoming ge prom, which we were happy to find out will be held this year despite the slow economic times.

we finished up the day by going downtown with scott and liz. we went to takosushi, so katy and i had the unusual combination of chicken nachos, lettuce wraps, and sushi rolls. while i've been skeptical about the theme for this combo restaurant, for me, the nachos and sushi combo worked. this beautiful saturday has both of us looking forward to spring big time.

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.

christmas recap

after a great christmas break, we're getting back into the swing of things. chris had two weeks off, and we spent all of that time out of town! though it was fun to see all of our family, i'm not sure we'll stay gone that long again. we spent the first weekend with chris' grandparents in south georgia. this is at their church on sunday:
then we stayed with my parents in augusta during the next week. we had a chance to visit with some of our old high school friends. monday, we had lunch with my friends christy and lindsey, & her husband gerrit. tuesday, we had dinner and saw four christmases (i don't recommend) with chris' friends jessica and patrick, & his wife brooke. i always enjoy catching up with them...i just wish i had taken some pictures!

we celebrated christmas eve with chris' parents and brothers. we went to a silent Lord's supper service at their church and went to their house afterwards.we did christmas morning with my parents. christmas day, we traveled to see my grandparents in alabama.as you can see, rummikub is a riddle favorite! that's chris there with my cousin ashley's friend patrick, uncle larry, and daddy buck. on saturday night chris & i went to birmingham with ashley & patrick. we were getting tired of dressing and turkey/ham (seeing as how we had four christmases ourselves), so we had sushi and saw the curious case of benjamin button (very good movie!).

after we returned to augusta, we spent the rest of the week with chris' parents. we made a day trip on tuesday to greenwood, sc (between augusta & greenville) to see my good friend from high school, tori, and her boyfriend ron. tori's parents moved to greenville when we were in college. it turned out that chris & i weren't going to be in greenville when she was visiting them, so we met halfway for lunch & bowling. she gave me the cutest paint-by-number stationery.

we rang in the new year with chris' parents' good friends from church, the faircloths (we like to call them mr. chris & mrs. cathy's BFFs!). the men watched the gt bowl game, the outcome of which which made me so very glad we didn't buy tickets. mrs. cathy's friend, mrs. dale, is a consultant for scrapbooking supplies and has gotten mrs. cathy interested. so they worked on some of their albums while i painted the cards tori gave me. chris spent much of the rest of the week watching bowl games with his dad, and i took the opportunity to go shopping with my mom and visit the morris museum of art.