what we do Thursday night's at 9pm...

Okay, I'm going to blame this sequence of events on good weather and cancelling cable.

Last Sunday we cancelled our cable...both as an attempt to save money and as an attempt spend our time in a more productive manner. I can say I'm really enjoying not having cable, even though it is the middle of March Madness (thank you cbssports.com for broadcasting EVERY game).

so last Thursday night we grilled our dinner because it was oooohhhhh 65 degrees in the middle of March...so why wouldn't we grill our dinner and enjoy it out on our porch?! It was such a delightful start to our evening when we decided that an adventure was in store as opposed to settling in and watching tv because that was no longer a possibility...

So off to Home Depot we went (who doesn't go on their adventures to Home Depot?!) to find a house plant to liven up our gray wall papered and gray carpeted lame living room. So we are wandering around the store picking out our plant and the pot when we think to ourselves..."let's paint the kitchen!" So I promptly call Ed (the best landlord I've ever encountered) and ask him if we can paint the kitchen. He responds, "as long as it's not purple!" He even told us we didn't have to paint it back if it was a neutral color!!

So we picked out our color (without bringing samples home first...), got our supplies and headed back home around 9 pm to clean out the kitchen and start painting! hmmm....it was a GREAT idea at home depot...but at 1:30 am we were a little tired, but still glad we did it while we sat in bed eating a bag of chips and salsa because we were starving from working so hard!

Before...

a VERY white kitchen complete with white floors,

white cabinets, white counters and white walls:

and AFTER...a happy yellow kitchen:

so that was our Thursday night...we're THRILLED with our yellow kitchen and it makes it feel so much more homey in our little apartment! It's quite wonderful what a gallon of paint will do for a room and a home :) Good thing we cancelled cable, huh?!

Since December 20, 2009

Wow - it's been a while since I've updated. You see, life's been...well, crazy. Since December 20, 2009 we...

Saw AMY DODD!!!!! Our dear friend Amy has been stranded in Alabama since August. Okay, I shouldn't say stranded...she decided to go down there with Athletes in Action (a Christian organization that works with athletes - so cool, i know!) Anyways, she was up for a few days so we squeaked in a game night with her and Jaq!!! the only bad thing about this was that they beat us in pictionary...on our home turf. It was only because we let them since Amy was up for such a short time and we wanted her to feel good about herself. Don't worry, it won't happen again...

We then celebrated our own Christmas by ourselves the weekend before Christmas. We thought it'd be fun to have a "Christmas morning" and wake up and make cinnoman rolls and exchange gifts in our pjs. We had a GREAT time!! We even bought ourselves one of the same presents:

We then hopped in the car the next weekend to head to good ole VT to celebrate Christmas with Ry's family. It was a crazy weekend since Ry and I had to work half days on Christmas Eve and then drive back on Sunday - I think we had three days there...but we managed to squeak in some snowshoeing:

And some rifle practice, of course....

So we returned to Massachusetts for approximately 3 1/2 days and then decided it be a wonderful idea to surprise my father for his birthday on New Years Eve!! The drive was quick and easy after a 1/2 day of work for both me and Ry...

My father was so confused when he opened the door! The look on his face was PRICELESS (this is a reenactment because, although I had my camera when he opened the door...I sort of forgot to take a picture):

So we got to see my father, pat-ricia, ricky, jill, the grams and the pops, AC, UM, cousin and boy and everyone else celebrating my father!! I hadn't missed my father's birthday in my whole life, so it was great to be able to be home for that!! AND on top of it all Aaron and Erin came by (probably for the italian cream cake mostly):

We had a great visit in NY and saw a wonderful show with my mom and mike...and we also got to go to the market...an obvious to-do when in Rochester. However, the entire NINE AND A HALF HOUR drive back to NY looked like this...so we do not think we'll be doing a winter trip to NY any time soon....

So it was back to MA for a crazy January which saw me start a new job 50 minutes away from where we live. DMH shut our office down in Danvers (that's the VERY SHORT story) and so my company moved me to the Haverhill office...but as an outreach worker instead of admin...so I'm actually using my social work degree!!! I work a kind of interesting schedule. It's a four day week with 12 hour days on Wednesday and Thursday...and then I have to work every fifth weekend. But I get the Monday before and after off when I work a weekend...so sometimes I only have three day weeks! Anyways - we had a few weekends to ourself before tax season started and we did things like go snowshoeing:

And then we also got to go to New Hampshire on a church retreat that we didn't think we would be able to go on!! It was a great time in which we got to act like little kids and have snowball fights and play capture the flag, along with learn more about our awesome God. We learned a lot and did some growing and just had an overall good time:

Aaaaaaand then it was back to MA again! This time to start tax season and a crazy schedule for Ry. All of February he was back and forth to the Cape, to Maine and all around Massachusetts. His travel time has started to quiet down and now it's just long hours at the office for him. There is a light at the end of the tunnel...his halfway point is tomorrow! Only six more weeks. Oh and most important to note (though I have no photo evidence), is the tax season beard he has grown. I will get some evidence soon, I promise.

So that's life (mostly...) since December 20th. It's been a crazy couple of months...I'll try and update more frequently...but between Ry's crazy hours and my oddball schedule - we try and spend all the time we are awake and alert (which is not that many hours during the week...) having some quality time...and we're even going on a date tomorrow (thanks to my mother and PF Changs!)

Anyways...until next time...