A Halloween Fox Hunt

It never fails when we take our little shiba inu out that someone will comment that she "looks like a fox", so we figured why fight it for halloween? I found the cutest little onesie and ran with it! We got her ears painted black at Petsmart(with pet safe spray chalk), but I was worried she would try to lick off the paint if we did her legs so I created some textured sleeves for her instead. And then I decided she needed a skirt to look more girly, of course!! =D 

And of course, it wouldn't be Halloween if the humans didn't dress up, so my muscle man and I played a couple of fox hunters out for a little walk.

Year 6 done, and Lucky 7's Just Begun

Wow... 6 years of taking a self-portrait every day. I don't think I could ever have thought that this project would evolve this way when I began it, but it has turned into the most challenging and rewarding journey, and has truly become a part of me. But this year as I looked through my photos, I came to a bit of a realization.

This journey is no longer just mine. My favorite images as I looked through all 365 were the ones that my muscle man was also included in. And since this project was originally intended to be more about learning photography, I notice that I do enjoy composing shots for the two of us much more than just taking a simple "selfie". Then there is the obvious perk of having all these wonderful shots of us to look back on, something not many couples can say, outside of the aforementioned selfies =P

So for this year, my 7th of taking a daily portrait, I think it's definitely time for a bit of a change! Although it was a bit of a challenge to get my muscle man to agree to it, he's reluctantly agreed to join in! I've decided that to make it easier on myself, diptychs are totally acceptable, and I may even let my muscle man take over the camera for some of my shots! 

Sleeping at work? I'd like to never do that again please.

Alabama is one of those places that usually shuts down at the hint of bad weather. And why, you ask, do they do that? Because the absurdly crazy reports on the news today of abandoned cars, shut down interstates, and people stranded in all manner of places (work, shelters, cars, stranger's houses...) Birmingham is simply not prepared for any type of winter weather, much less a freak of nature snow storm in the middle of the day, so yesterday when it became clear the snow was sticking, EVERYONE tried to leave the city at the exact same moment. The worst possible moment to be leaving, when the snow was just melting under the warm ground and causing ice to form under the fresh snow that was falling...I found myself one of the lucky ones who was stuck at work, and even luckier, I was with my muscle man!

We carpool, so when the weather started turning sour, we decided to try to get out of town and home to our dogs. 2 hours later, and nearly out of gas, we had only moved 3/4 of a mile from my work. So we found a parking lot and walked back to my work, where there was at least food (and lots of booze, my ceo's were stuck too, along with a dozen or so coworkers). We thought about trying again before the sun set, since we hadn't been able to get in touch with our neighbors and no one was home to feed the dogs, but our better judgement told us to just stay put, worst case scenario we would wind up with hungry, upset dogs when we finally were able to get home. Thankfully, the  neighbors came through and had their kids come feed the dogs (that sentence doesn't do justice the difficulty that task was, but I'll leave it at that for brevity). So now, with my bosses out to get more food for the evening, we slowly started accepting that we would have to sleep in my office. Great.


 




I've at least got a decent size office, with a locking door, and we had grabbed some blankets before we left the car, and I keep a stash of jackets and sweaters at work that along with a chair cushion became makeshift pillows, so not the worst set up. But still... It's work... So it was quite the sleepless night, plus we knew that we would want to try to leave as SOON as the roads cleared, otherwise we would be in the chaos of all the other workbound refugees trying to get home. All night I would wake up and check the traffic website, only to hear reports of all lanes blocked due to an accident or abandoned vehicles. But finally, just after the sun rose, it looked better than it had all night. The interstate we use was still delayed in downtown, but it looked like if you could just make it down far enough before getting onto the interstate it would be smooth sailing, and off we went into the cold to pick up the car, get gas and try our luck.



Since both of us hate normal traffic, we already know quite a few back roads to avoid the interstate, so after some very creative navigation and at least 3 "uh oh, not this way" u-turns, we arrived on the interstate to find that not only was our theory correct and NO ONE was on the road, but that the ice/snow was melted where cars had been trekking all night, and the single melted strip wasn't terribly slick. (again, for brevity's sake, I'm leaving out details, but it is worth mentioning we felt bad breaking gov't prompts to stay off roads except in emergencies, but the cop that rode in front of us for 4 miles didn't seem to mind us driving. Plus we figured a big dog stuck outside in the cold, a puppy who's never been alone overnight, and an old dog who acts out when he's not happy kinda qualified as an emergency)

Once we were off the interstate, it's thankfully just a few turns to our house, on pretty major roads. So the ice wasn't very bad there, although it was definitely in worse shape than the interstate, and would have been very dangerous had my muscle man not known what he was doing (we passed 3 or 4 cars in a very deep ditch just before our subdivision). I was so excited to finally be home I could hardly contain myself. When we pulled into the driveway I just literally started jumping up and down in the driveway like a little school girl! We could finally enjoy some of this gorgeous snow, and better yet, take our little snow puppy out into it! I know that's petty, but I don't have a kid, and our puppy is pretty darned cute and has never experienced snow =P And most importantly, we were home! Not stranded, not stuck, not wrecked, and not stuck for another night in an office or shelter or some other place that's not home. As for the dogs, they are all quite fine now, and yes, our little snow dog definitely had a great time playing in the yard! =D

What an interesting two days to say the least!! So glad to be able to end it on such a happy note! 

Bucket List: Spur of the Moment Vacay

This summer took quite a while to pick up speed it seems, we didn't get out much during the first of the summer due to colder and rainier than usual climates... So once we got started, we really took the bull by the horns and have had a blast making up for a dreary summer this fall!

My parents were taking a fall vacation too, and so on their way back, we decided to meet them for a few days in Chattanooga, TN. We couldn't leave without going to the aquarium, and with my love of everything underwater, I was definitely loving it!

 My muscle man was super excited about the penguin exhibit, and he had lots of fun making the penguins chase his hand down the glass! Those little guys were super fast, I barely got a good shot at all haha!

And of course, there were sharks!  We stumbled on the big tank while they were doing a fish feeding show with a diver in the tank, so the fish were super active and we were able to watch from a side window since we didn't much care for watching the diver, we just wanted to see the fishies!!

But my favorite was the jellyfish exhibits!!

Quite an enjoyable little weekend trip for me and my muscle man, and definitely helped make up for the rather blah start to our summer... So at least we were able to end the warmer weather season on a high note!  (We're not tied to school schedules, so "summer" for us runs from when you pack the sweaters away until you break them back out again =P So this mid-October trip makes our summer list haha! )

Bucket List: SCUBA Diving (again)

This year has really been quite an adventure for my muscle man and I! This is really more of a 'bucket list' item for him as I've already checked it off mine... I've been a certified diver for 13 years now, but had gotten out of practice since I didn't have anyone to go with until now! So even though  I was a little worried about diving into such an expensive hobby (pun intended =P) I'm really glad my muscle man decided to get certified!





The best thing about him deciding to get into scuba is that we actually live about 15 minutes away from a great little quarry that's been flooded and turned into a dive location. It's actually the place I took my check out dives when I got certified(it's like the road test when you get a driver's license, you have to pass a written test, but then you have to go on several dives with your instructor before you can scuba dive on your own). And as fate would have it, it's also where my muscle man wound up going to do his check out dives too!

I went with his group for a bit of a refresher for myself, there were actually quite a few parents of kids in the group doing the same thing haha. My muscle man's instructor decided they would do the required 4 scuba dives in one day, which was quite exhausting, but really fun!

Since that trip was mostly more about testing skills, and since we had a really big group, we didn't get to see much of the quarry. But since it's only 15 minutes from our house, we decided a few weeks later to go back just the two of us and get in a few more dives and have some fun.  =)

This trip was a lot more relaxed, and it was great to get into the water with my muscle man and swim around for a bit, and explore some of the less explored areas around the quarry. It goes down really deep, something like 180feet, but we stayed shallow since there was this terrible thermocline (level of freezing ass cold water) at about 40'.

So aside from dipping down into that cold area to check out a wrecked car or something, we stayed shallow and just took our time checking things out. As we were swimming around, I noticed the absolute coolest thing I've seen while diving in freshwater... jellyfish... no really... A JELLY freaking FISH... In freshwater! I tried to get a photo of it, but without a macro filter or any advanced settings on my little point and shoot 35mm underwater camera, a blurry little smudge is the best I could do =P

It was still quite a fun little day out at the quarry, but we still haven't fully explored all that's in this little hole. So I'm sure that we will check it out again at some point, if for nothing else than to just keep our skills up between more adventurous dive trips. =)

2nd Verse, Same as the First

In celebration of my muscle man and mine's second wedding anniversary, I figure it's high time for a renewed interest in this blog. We are very much still newly-weds, though this year I think we've survived without as many of the big, annoying fights haha! But no one is perfect, and I love how much we have grown to understand each other, and we are so looking forward to the next several years learning even more how to live and love together harmoniously.

We've sort of organically decided this year to try to travel more, either local weekend getaways, or longer 3-4 day trips... and of course, we try to make at least one big trip each year as well.

Our favorite (or most common at least) is the Sunday day trip... We're lucky enough to have some absolutely amazing places near us, like this great waterfall that is surprisingly close to our house!

I think it's called "falling creek falls" and with all this rain we've had this summer, it was gorgeous!

 I decided since we got a bit of a late start that I would make us a picnic lunch to eat at the waterfall, and it was so relaxing to just sit around with the sounds of the water echoing in the little cove/cavern area underneath the falls. Also it was a nice little shelter from the sun! 

 

Bucket Listing 2013

We're filling our bucket quick quickly haha! My muscle man decided to jot down a list of 'bucket list' items he'd like to do in 2013, and since his birthday comes at the first of the year, he took advantage of the warm-ish weather to go ahead and (almost) knock one of the items off the list! He really wants to go exploring in a cave this year, and we had heard there were some 'off the map' ones at Desoto State Park in Alabama. So after a little sweet talking by me to the park ranger, we had our (literally!) hand drawn map in hand and off we went! No such luck in find the real cave, but we did get half-way there with a (man made, but several hundred years ago) cove/overhang in  the rock wall =D

First though we went to the park's namesake waterfall, desoto falls, which has a man-made dam just before cascading over a gorgeous rock face... Here's the view you get from the normal, easy to walk from the parking lot overlook: (I only took my 50mm lens with me, since I knew we'd be in possibly treacherous areas and didn't want to risk my expensive--not to mention heavy to carry on a several mile hike--lens...so my angles were quite limited)







And then here's  the view from the mile or so hike that we thought would take us down to the river's edge after swinging toward the waterfall (it didn't.. but still, very glad we took the detour, this view was absolutely amazing!!!) If you look really closely you can see little people off to the left side, that's where the first photo was taken.

So, slightly disappointed that the trail didn't take us down to the water after the gorgeous overlook, we tried again to figure out where the trail the park ranger had drawn for us was... We finally found it, but were way too tired to hope that we were right and continue on down river and away from our car... Instead we walked around between the two trails, which gave us some really amazing vantages and it's also where we discovered the little welsh cave (named apparently because welsh settlers carved them, I think I remember the ranger telling us).

See that little person at the bottom left? That's my muscle man, about 20 feet away from the rock face that goes up so far you can't see the sunlight!! I wish I would have had my regular lens to really capture how huge it was! I was also concerned my battery wasn't going to last, so I didn't take many photos in case we did find the big cave and I wanted to use a battery-draining flash to light photos in it...

And here's the whole expedition group!! We even brought the dog along with us, he absolutely loved exploring! =D Granted, he was so excited when we finally got home from our journey haha, his poor little paws were exhausted after 2 days of hiking!!













From the very back of the cave to the opening, I'd say it was probably a good 30-40 feet? Lol I'm really bad with distances, but suffice to say it was quite large! I think all three of us sat down on that large rock to the left with plenty of room to spare... The 50mm lens really didn't do it justice, but I was very glad to have a lighter weight camera than my other lens, which is a beast...

 Oh, and then we decided to stay for the night because my muscle man wanted so badly to find the cave, and we figured that since we had found the unmarked trail that was close enough to merit staying, and I certainly wasn't going to tell him no on his birthday trip!! But that's another story for another day =D

Steak! N! Shake!

 SO excited that Steak 'N Shake's newest location is about 5 miles away from my house!! Before today, the closest one was 2 hours away, and I'm used to Orlando where there was always one around... I have a bit of an unhealthy obsession with steak n shake (let's face it, any obsession with a place that sells chilli cheese fries and 800 calorie milkshakes has to be unhealthy haha!), so now I can indulge it at any time, and I'm excited!

The grand opening was today, so you know I had to be there!! Hour long wait be damned, I was getting my steak n shake! We actually got a little sneak peek the other day, they were testing out the restaurant and we got to test the drive thru, but today we wanted to go in, sit down, and eat some awesome artery-clogging treats!

Plus today we got one of the specialty milkshakes, it had a ton of hot fudge and chocolatey goodness!!  (we're dessert before dinner kind of people, especially at a place where the dinners are so filling!)

When I said "unhealthy obsession", I really meant it!! One of my favorite things at steak n shake is their chilli cheese fries, or sometimes just cheese fries if I'm feeling a little healthier =P So I decided to just full out indulge my unhealthy desires and have that for my main course, while the muscle man chose a slightly healthier bacon cheese double burger! We seriously ate way too much, but the best thing about steak n shake is that it was totally easy on the wallet! We both ate for under $20, and that included tip! Granted, we did split a single milkshake, but that's because I knew I couldn't finish my fries and a whole shake all by myself haha!!

~I can feel my arteries clogging... but those fries were amazing!



And one last shot, because let's face it, one of the awesome things about steak 'n shake is the atmosphere and the open kitchen! It was absolutely packed, both in front and back of house, but the service was still amazing and quick =D Plus those cooks and servers just look so darn cute in their little aprons and bow ties!  Love it!

House Work: Worth it?

While buying our short sale was definitely the best financial decision for us, I'm certainly feeling the negative side effects of such a purchase about now. Don't get me wrong, we got an amazing deal! Even based on the square footage listed on the realtor's site (which we thought was just the square footage of the main floor of our split level, we've since confirmed this) we got the house for less than $100/sq ft., which is pretty average around here for a 3 bedroom, but our house has 4! And if you consider the actual square footage, which includes the 'basement', we wound up paying around $80/sq ft. So the short sale hassles, waiting, and confusion definitely paid off when it came to the bottom line.

But with that said, the downsides are pretty obvious... The former home owners had fallen behind on their mortgage, so home renovations probably weren't too high on the priority list =P In fact, aside from a couple of wallpaper borders that are totally not our style, and a coat of bright-bubblegum-pink paint in one of the spare bedrooms, there isn't a whole lot that isn't original to the 15 year old house... I mean nothing is falling apart, it's just that nothing has been changed since the builders left it, not a fixture, not a door, not even a wall-plate haha! (seriously there are several plug covers that are broken off, no doubt they were behind furniture, so when they busted, they were out-of-sight-out-of-mind)  We did get lucky and the house had been lived in while it was listed, at least until we put our bid in. But not by the owner, she was renting it out to some guy... We think we've determined it was him who installed wiring for surround sound in my muscle man's basement mancave(very well, I must say, it's professionally done), too bad he also ripped out the original carpet and didn't get around to replacing it with new...We've also determined he was probably single, middle aged, and didn't own a working vacuum or dusting wand... Anyway, point being:

EVERY single surface in the house is in need of TLC.

The floors need a good cleaning (check! eh, sorta)

We rented a steam cleaner from Lowe's for about $50 including the soap, and after a long and hard day of work, the carpets don't exactly look new, but they certainly look clean! As much as the steam cleaner tried, it's just impossible to vacuum up 15 years of wear on a carpet.. the fibers are all smushed down in all the paths around where furniture was.

The living room carpet is actually going to be re-purposed  downstairs for the muscle-mancave, I'm getting hardwood floors upstairs in the living room/dining room! Hopefully those will come soon, we're budgeting carefully!

All the rooms need a fresh coat of paint (working on it!)

The kitchen painting project I already wrote about here: link, and the master bedroom was next on the list to get rid of this awful whitish-blue color that covers nearly every remaining wall in the house. After that we gave up and bought a 5 gallon bucket of paint for the rest of the house, we can customize the colors later if we decide that's what we want to do, but we just want the blue gone as soon as possible! It's kinda depressing, because it's such a cold color, and here's the kicker, my dad was over helping paint the other day, and came to the conclusion that it's not even paint! He thinks it's a blue-ish tinted primer! Which explains why it's on literally every wall, and was applied before the popcorn ceiling... 

Several light fixtures need some help

Some of them are just not our style, some just need new bulbs... and then there's the ones outside that seem to have a short, we're gonna have to get the electrician out for those if new bulbs don't work..

For some reason, the faucets don't match the accessories

In all the bathrooms, there are these pretty (silver colored, I don't know what actual finish they are, nickel or chrome) faucets on the sinks... Too bad the showers and towel racks are all brass!! We've solved this problem in the downstairs bathroom by replacing the leaky original (silver) one with a brass faucet, and it's super pretty! I think in the master we're going to eventually work on making the shower and lights match the (silver) faucets, but that's going to be a while coming because we want to do a fairly major bathroom reno.

And on top of all of that, there's still the normal moving hassles to deal with lol! The decisions about what decor to chose (I only have furniture for a one bedroom apartment, and no dining room furniture! Luckily my god-mother is on top of that one and offered us her dining set woo hoo!! =D ) Where to hang pictures/what kind of art to buy (again, one bedroom apartment, I don't own much wall art because I've never had many walls!) Plus all those windows to curtain!! In short, it's going to be quite the journey to turn this place into a palace, but I think that between my muscle man and myself, we're pretty ready for the challenge!! More updates to come!!