Monday, October 26, 2015

weekend update

Short weekend when you have to work. But Friday Doug and I went to a friend's wedding. It was good food and fun dancing. One of my ex-boyfriend's was a groomsman and I ran into him coming out of the bathroom, it was actually nice to catch up a little. Turns out he's been living on the street right next to where I lived with Jill for 2 years.
Saturday and Sunday were complete work opposites. Saturday my patients were so easy that I was actually bored at times. Sunday I started out with 6, discharged 4, and got 2 new ones. I don't like that revolving door of patients, but that's how it goes some days.
One nice thing about working weekends (actually, the only nice thing besides an extra $2 an hour) is Doug has been driving me and picking me up on those days.
He brought me this nice treat for the ride home.
Also he will occasionally entertain me with stories/pictures about what he's doing while I'm at work. This last Saturday he went kayaking with some buddies down the river that's across the street from our house.
sigh, I love fall!
so cute!
I would totally trade that $2 for being off on days my husband is off. Oh well, weekends is part of the territory with nursing. And it's really just every third.
So a person in our neighborhood has 2 really nice apple trees just dropping apples all over the street. The other day mom brought over a homemade pie crust... I'm wondering, is there a polite way to ask someone if you can pick their apples? I can't think of a way to do this... "hey-- you gonna eat that?" is all that comes to mind. Maybe let me pick your apples today, you get piece of pie tomorrow? I don't know, but I want those apples!

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

birthday girls

Introducing my new little niece born on the 18th:
I think it's pronounced L-lee-ah-na
First born niece holding her little sister
awwww
Today is Molina's birthday, 2 years old!
pretty birthday girl!
I have another day off today, mom is coming with white and pink peonies to transplant to my garden. Yay.
I hung out with Jill last night for a couple hours, and while I was doing that Doug was having dinner with his friend and saving me some of his sweet potato fries. If you've ever had these fries, you would understand the sacrifice. So good! And they give you this cinnamon butter to go on top of it. Yes, a tub of fat to dip your fries in, but so delicious!
He loves me :)
Also making me smile, this hibiscus I won at a shower keeps blooming, so pretty
I forgot to share the cool bag I got at the sex trafficking awareness conference last weekend. It was made in Cambodia by a woman who was able to get out of prostitution. It's made from old rice sacks.
I really liked this retro mermaid, had to have it! The 'fabric' is water repellent so I thought it'd be good in a beach bag to hold wet suits or something. Even more cool I liked the label on the bag:
So cool to support something so important. Here is a link to other items in their shop if interested.

Sunday, October 18, 2015

DIY - tile floor!! (and weekend update :))

Oh my gosh, finally the floor is in! A huge sigh of relief. Other things, a nice basket of goodies from mom's garden
When we went to pick up our tile we stopped to get our free tacos and saw this sign. Nooooo!!! We still had two more months of free tacos! Actually though I'm not surprised, we liked there chips, but the food was just meh. Too bad for them though, didn't even last a year.
So instead we ate at a place close to Menards. I got a lemon kale salad with salmon, AWESOME. Doug got the mac and cheese.
We split this dessert, when will I ever learn cake from restaurants is ALWAYS too dry for me??
Laying out the tile picking the best ones
The floor all ready to be tiled!
Rented the wet saw from Home Depot
cute little kitty
I lay where I want!
Doug cutting away
laying it out
setting the tiles in the thin set
ta-da! You weren't supposed to walk on it so Doug made a 2x4 plank walk so we could walk to the shower.
Now some of you might be wondering, but Anne, I don't see the toilet, isn't your house just a one bathroom?
Well yes. Say hello to our garage 2nd bathroom
I quickly learned my old chair with missing bottom going into a trash bag lined paint tray with kitty litter wasn't the ideal situation I thought it would be. First time I used it I get up to see a spider crawling away from under the chair seat. Ew! Eventually Doug put our old toilet in the garage and then lined it with a bag/litter, and that was better. But it was not a great situation. Glad that is over!
Today Doug and I checked out another church (we mostly liked it) and then mom and dad came over for the grouting. Dad and Doug (and sometimes Thor) worked on the grout and mom and I worked outside. We weeded, cut down a tree, took down my garden, and started getting my beds ready for winter/ and next spring.
oh my gosh all that grout slathered all over the tiles made me nervous!
looking better already
the tiles were a little uneven so some shims were necessary for the toilet not to rock
yay! we have a new floor and toilet!
The important stuff in the bathroom is DONE! Last finishing steps are: new floor and crown molding, put up the mirror, frame the mirror, hang the hand towel bar, tile pee splash, new trashcan, new door and molding, bit of enamel fixing in the tub, and I think I will put one more coat of paint on the cabinets. Oh yeah, and I have to finish caulking around the tub/shower surround which I am procrastinating since the caulk was so runny I'm afraid of screwing it up. But it is definitely a usable bathroom! One tiny sad thing I noticed was the floor was never cold with the vinyl floor, but already the tile is colder. But as soon as the grout is cured in 3 days we can give the tiles a good scrub for any lasting grout traces and then put down the floor mat and it should be fine.
We mostly worked on the bathroom this weekend, but we did go to the cider mill last night for Doug's friend's bday. We wasted $34 on this stupid lame haunted hayride, and waited in line for over an hour, but his friend was so excited for her bday and loves Halloween.
he looks like he saw a ghost
tired and bright flash
And got some GREAT news this morning, I have another baby niece! Joel and Michelle's second baby girl was born today. 7lbs 7 ozs, 3 hour labor, healthy mom and baby, just waiting on a name. But very thankful for that wonderful exciting news!

Monday, October 12, 2015

weekend update

Last week Doug and I went grocery shopping, Meijer was doing their 10 for $10 deal (actually buy 10 and get 11 for $10) and one thing in the sale was organic tofu. So after googling that it can be frozen I got 11 cubes, and saved $30. Now, we don't normally do tons of soy or soymilk at all, but it is organic and I think the breast cancer/estrogen thing is really not as correlated as much as other diet/factors in the US diet, so I'm not worried about weekly tofu eating.
Fried up my cubes in (too much) oil with dashes of soy sauce
stir fried my veggies
together with some pre-made House of Tsang schezuan stir fry sauce, and it was delicious
This weekend was a mix of sleeping in, walks with Doug, and hanging with friends.
Saturday we went to a Planned Parenthood protest. Doug's fourth, my first. Yikes. It was rough. People yelled at us, gave us the finger, some lady swerved over in her car to scream out her window at us. Yikes. There were also beeps of agreement, but it was hard. I was telling Doug I'm not really sure that protesting actually does anything, but then came home and was reading Reader's Digest and in the Points to Ponder section it had a quote saying "... protest is disruption, protest is confrontation, protest is the end of silence, and it creates space for the other work to happen." True and it is doing something, even if small.
After that not-so-fun event we went to the cider mill and met up with some of Doug's friends.
Gorgeous day. Good donuts and cider, fun with friends. Then out to eat at Red Robin. Our waiter sang some Bruno Mars song to Doug's friend since it was their anniversary. Which was fun.
Sunday we went to church and Bible study with Matt and Rachel. It was good. Then we went to their house for brunch. Rachel always makes tasty food. Their nursery is super cute and just waiting for the baby to come!
Then we headed home. I worked on homework and Doug is still working on insulating the crawl space. We took a nice walk and then ate leftovers and watched a movie. Nice weekend!

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

weekend update

Another nice long 3 day weekend home with Doug.
Friday was really the only somewhat sunny day of the weekend, I did go ahead and paint a coat around the bay window. Slightly regretting it, but Doug likes it, and the wood will be more protected by the outside paint.
before:
after:
Doug and I also checked out a cidermill closer to our house (but we think we'll stick with the further, yet tastier donuts one!)
It was supposed to be my work weekend, but I traded someone so I could have Saturday off for my friend Rachel's baby shower
Such tasty food and I loved her pretty flower arrangements
Being at the baby shower fueled a desire to make her a quilt. She is having, what I keep calling, but probably should stop calling, a 'unisex' baby. And of course she isn't, she just didn't find out the gender so I wasn't excited about making a present, but then I wanted to.
Another co-worker had worked my Sunday so she could go to the doctor on Monday, so I had that day off too! Doug and I checked out a church for the second time, we thought it started at 10 so were surprised it was only 1/2 hour with one song... turns out it had started at 9, whoops! Then we had a really good conversation about how our church hunt is going, and then I spent several hours making Rachel's baby a quilt
picking fabrics is fun
This is my first quilt I kinda just started cutting and sewing with no real pattern
the front is ready (I kinda wish I did a less bold green, but too late now!)
backed it with a nice soft green flannel back and stuffed with quilt batting
Edged in brown, all done! I really whizzed through that thing. I hope she likes it, and I partly hope it's a boy with all that green, brown, and blue.
Doug's friend Thor moved in with us for a couple weeks, he had lost his job and couldn't afford his rent. It makes me feel bad the way he seemed to walk on eggshells the first few days, I can definitely be too controlling, I wish I was better at making people feel welcome. So Doug cleared out the small bedroom for him and cleaned the garage. He made this picture wall in the garage hanging up a bunch of frames I had just sitting in a pile
Makes me smile
I am also proud of my zinnias I planted from seeds this spring, so big!
this sweet kitty makes me smile
and a pic of me and Ben from hanging with Liz last week. This was probably before he puked all over my lap
I must be getting some kind of cold. My nose was running of course right at bedtime and then I couldn't sleep. This morning was Bible study, and should do a little homework still before I pick up my parent's at the airport. I would really like to go back to laying out the couch reading, I'm a third through Bridge to Haven by Francine Rivers, she is a Christian author who often writes of God's redeeming power. I'm in the part where she is having her back to God and it hurts to read of her bad choices. I can't wait till the part where she returns to God. And shout out- you have never sinned too bad for God to take you back. He LOVES you. He is happy to forgive and completely forget your sin.
Just in case anyone needs to hear that. I always like hearing it too.