Busy Couple of Weeks

Sorry I haven't been posting too much lately. It's been a hectic couple of weeks. My parents were in town last weekend and will be here again this weekend...we'll be heading to NH. It's great to have them in my neck of the woods for a while! Another great visitor is coming in town tonight - our family Aussie friend, Anthony. He was an exchange student of ours over 20 years ago and we've kept in touch with him over all those years. Since he's in the states for business, he's popping over to Boston for a weekend before heading back to Australia. Between tonight and Monday morning, he wants to see our places in NH and Boston and see the city. So, it will be a crazy, but great, weekend with everyone.

Anyway, the reason life's been especially hectic is that we got a renewed motivation to get the house back in order post renovation. We still hadn't unpacked everything and are still very much working to get organized and decorated. I haven't gotten nearly as much done as I wanted to in preparation for our company, but have been working hard none the less. So, Mike and I are exhausted and are looking forward to some down time after our guests return home. But, for now, we're looking forward to a great weekend!

Once my parents and Anthony leave, I have another friend staying with me a couple of nights while she's in town on business. Hopefully, though, I'll be able to find a wee bit more down time than I've had in the past few weeks to post some pictures.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Leaf Peaping Hike

The weekend of October 11th, we headed up to NH to check out the fall leaf progress. The trip was also a continuation of our anniversary celebration.

Just as we were getting ready to leave, I noticed the sun setting on our tree in our backyard. As you can see, the leaves are changing in MA as well.
On Saturday, we opted for a hike that was marked "Easy" in our hiking book. I've been looking for a hike that has a great view but that my parents (who are coming for a visit) would enjoy (ie not be excrutiatingly hard). So, we headed up Rattlesnake Mountain outside of Plymouth, NH. I think that they tag the hikes simply based on the round trip mileage amount vs the view because that hike was not "easy." A lot of moutain hikes are switchbacks up the mountain so that the trail isn't that steep. This one just headed straight up! So, even though the mileage wasn't that long, the entire trail was VERY steep. I consider Mike and I to be in pretty darned good shape and we were seriously huffing and puffing for about 40 minutes up the steep trail to the top of the mountain. During that portion, I thought "no way am I making my parents go up this!" However, once we reached the top, the trail was back into consideration. The view was absolutely stunning!

Although I think these pictures are pretty good, they don't do justice to the amazing colors of the foliage on the landscape. It truly was a spectacular view.

Here are a few close up of the gorgeous leaves.

Now that it's a couple of weeks later, the fall peak has hit Boston. It's not the "best" fall I've seen but the rich colors of the leaves never cease to amaze me.

Jack and Jenn's Wedding

On Oct 4th, Mike and I had the pleasure of attending our good friends' wedding - Jenn and Jack - at the beautiful Larz Anderson Park in Brookline with a great view of the Boston skyline. It was sunny and beautiful, though a little chilly.

The reception afterwards was at a hall just at the bottom of the hill. We had a great time getting to know more of their friends and family and celebrating the event with food, wine, dancing and fun.

Me and the Beautiful Bride

Dancing with Kari and Luke Wiley (born 4 days later!)

It was a great event and we had such a fun time being there!

Top of the Hub

My birthday dinner surprise was a fabulous dinner at a great restaurant in Boston - Top of the Hub.  It's at the top of one of Boston's tallest buildings, the Prudential.  We enjoyed a great dinner overlooking much of the city.  It was great and relaxing.

Afterwards, we strolled over to Newbury St. to find some ice cream for desert.  The first place we came across was Emack and Bolio's, a local chain, which neither of us had ever tried.  After thoroughly enjoying our orders, we decided we'd definitely go back.

It was a great birthday dinner!

Like a Kid in a Candy Store

That's how I felt on Saturday. We had a busy work weekend planned of getting stuff done around the house so I wanted to be sure to "schedule" in some time to do something I would enjoy to celebrate my b'day. We woke up Saturday, had some breakfast then headed out to 3 very different home stores to check out.

The first was the Boston Materials Resource Center. I like to think of it as a "used" Home Depot. Since I'm looking for some solutions to a few home decor\organization challenges, I'd figured I'd go check out what they had and see if anything would work for me. I didn't but it was still fun to look around and see what they had. I also got some good ideas from the set up of the store to re purpose some of my doors and trim that was removed during the renovation.

Next stop was a place I just found out about. They're moving into a larger space and, therefore, are having a sale. It's called Restoration Resources and they collect goods from historical Boston homes, churches and public buildings and sell them. It was really awesome to peruse through their store and see all the beautiful doors, mantles, light fixtures, ginormous mirrors, pedestals...you name it, they had it. I kept trying to figure out how to re purpose these things in my house. Again, I left with nothing but definitely got a lot of ideas for future projects and will definitely go back to visit when they move into their larger store in January.

Restoration Resources

The next and final stop was the Boston Design Center. I have been wanting to check this place out for years. Given that it's not open to the public, it hasn't happened. However, they had a floor sample sale this weekend that they did open to the public (for a small fee and some security hoops to jump through to get into the building). BDC is mostly "high end" furniture pieces which means "more expensive pieces than I'll ever buy." However, in the spirit of Trading Spaces and Design on a Dime, I knew I'd get some inspiration to use on a smaller budget. Mike and I spent quite a while shopping through the many floors of stores. It was great fun but we were both tired of shopping after that (well, Mike actually was tired of it long before I was but he was a trooper and didn't peep any complaints).

So many floors of fun!

On the way back home from our shopping extravaganza, we drove through a neighborhood that we used to pass through a lot back in the JP days. There's a really awesome building, in a not so great area of town, that has been boarded up even since I first laid eyes on it. I've always admired the building and wished it a second life someday. I was thrilled to see that it looks like someone is doing that for it...construction is happening there. Below is the picture I quickly snapped with my iphone of it. Since we were driving and it's a camera on a phone, it's obviously not a high quality shot. I think the bend you get from the movement's pretty cool though! That circular window always make me think of The Crow.

After eating and resting a little, we extended the fun portion of the day with some tennis. Then the work portion of the weekend started. We cleaned out the garage and stacked the firewood that had been dumped... I mean delivered... on the driveway that morning. That was all for Saturday. Sunday was spent unpacking, cleaning and organizing the basement. It's still a bit of a disaster but less of a disaster than it was last week!

Another Year Wiser

Yup, it's that special day for me. Until this morning, I honestly wasn't able to work up much excitement for it. After Mike's recent b'day and our anniversary, I felt a little special occasioned out. Plus, most of my energy has gone to working full force on getting our house a little more organized and together for the parental visit this weekend (they only are up every couple of years it seems and I wanted the place to be as "finished" as possible).

The funny thing about birthdays, though, is that they are still kind of exciting. I woke up excited to get presents and begged Mike to give me one even though he hadn't wrapped it yet (a trainer for my bike - wahoo!). The celebration is up to him tonight and I'm sure he won't disappoint. All I know is that reservations are at 7. As long as cake is involved, I will be a happy girl! Plus, I've been contacted by tons of friends and family (you guys rock)...to know they're thinking of me is pretty darned awesome.

Candlepin Bowling

On September 27th, Mike's youngest nephew, Jacob, turned 3!  To celebrate the big event, I got to experience a game unique to Massachusetts - candlepin bowling.  It's pretty much like regular bowling, but with skee ball size bowling balls and tall, thin pins.  When you say you're going to go bowling, people always ask the question, "Big ball or little ball?"  I still giggle every time (I know, I'm so mature).

Mike and I are totally not competitive, as you can see

Actually, I'm okay with Mike being better than me at 2 things - bowling and mini golf.  I'm not good at either and I'm okay with that.  So, all competition was put aside to enjoy the game.

We rented 2 lanes.  One had a bumper and the other was grown up bowling style - open gutters.  Those gutters definitely saw some action that day (from mine and others' turns), but I was fairly impressed with myself on how I did.  I won't be joining any leagues soon but I had good beginners luck.  Maybe it had something to do with all the skee ball I played in arcades as a kid.  Not that I remember going to arcades that much, but when I did skee ball was my game of choice.  Probably because you could earn lots of tickets for "prizes" on those lanes....you know where you spend $20 on games to get a prize worth about $0.25, but I digress.

Other than the balls and pins, candlepin differs in a couple of other ways - 1) You get three rolls per turn (as opposed to two) and 2) the pins aren't cleared after each roll of the ball.  About half way through the game, I learned that the beauty of candlepin is that you can strategically use the downed pins still on the lane to knock down the rest of the pins.  It seems rather obvious to me now, but until Mike told his sister to do that, the thought hadn't occurred to me!

Check out my hot shoes with fluorescent laces!

It took a while for the birthday boy to warm up to the gang (he's going through a shy phase) but he seemed to be having a great time after the initial "hide behind the parents' pant legs" stage.  The bumper lane, mostly populated by the kiddos, didn't even get through an entire game.  It was actually pretty impressive how slow some of those balls were rolling down.  :) The non-bumper lane, mostly adults, got through almost two games.  A good time was had by all!

All the cute kiddos!

Meet LW!

Just last Saturday night I was dancing with Kari and her baby belly at Jenn's wedding (will be a future posting) and last night I was holding her beautiful new baby, Luke Wiley, at the hospital. Congrats to Kari and Jimmy and welcome to the world, L.W.! Kari not only is a close friend, but a neighbor, too. I'm looking forward to many home visits with the new family.

Isn't he precious?!?!

Me and my new buddy!

She's Crafty!

And she's just my type! For those of you who got the Beastie Boys reference, congrats!

Today's posting is to share a few of my recent craft endeavors. About a year ago, we started shopping for our renovation. During our shopping excursions, we came across the coolest pebble tile that we loved and wanted for our bathroom floor. Then we got hit with sticker shock. It was $40 per square foot! Yikes! Even though we had a small bathroom, that was just a bit too much of a splurge to consider. However, I thought I could possibly make the tile myself for much cheaper. I did a little research and then bought the supplies to test it out. Then the renovation started, the stresses of it kicked in and our tile plan was forced to change.

But, I still loved the look of that tile and wanted to see if my idea would work. So, I dug in the (still not fully unpacked from renovation) basement and found my supplies - a silicone baking pan, river stones and my resin mix. First step - find a level surface. The level said my sideboard was good so I set it up there. I carefully placed the river stones at the bottom of the silicone pan in a pleasing arrangement, mixed the resin and poured. Bubbles in the resin product slowly rise to the top and breathing through a straw (for the CO2) gets rid of them (thanks for the straw tip mom!). So, I checked in on it every 5 minutes for the first half hour and got rid of any rising bubbles. A cardboard box acted as a good cover for it's initial drying period to prevent any dust (more realistically, cat hair in my house) from getting embedded in it. After 72 hours, the resin very easily removed from the pan and voila! Here is my beautiful river stone tile:

Cool, huh? I wish I'd had a little more time before the renovation to work on this because it would have been the coolest bathroom floor ever. Maybe on my next renovation. For now, it's going to be used as decor in our NH condo.

My next project looks like it might become a regular at the baby showers. So, to all my pregnant friends out there, you might be seeing this at a shower near you! The Wile E. Coyote onsies I made for Kari came out so well, I decided to make some for my friend Katherine. She and I met through our book club that we participated in for about 7 years. So, I figured a book theme would only be appropriate. Below are the customized onsies I made for her:

I missed the shower but took a quick trip down to visit last Wednesday to give her the gifts and visit. Good thing I did because Miss Sarah was born 4 weeks early on 10/6! Congrats to Katherine and Erik! I look forward to meeting your future bookworm.

Two Years and Counting

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Two years of wedded bliss have flown by. It just doesn't seem like it's been that long since our perfect fall, New England wedding occurred. Thinking back, our young marriage has already gone through a lot of ups and downs - 2nd home purchase, home\condo renovations done by both ourselves and others, trips in several countries and continents, job loss - and we're closer and stronger due to all of it.

Cheers to us for two years and many more to come!

Peaked Hill Pond Hike

Several weeks ago when we were in NH, I persuaded Mike to go on yet another hike with me.  From our condo, we have a great view of a few smaller mountains.  So, I checked to see if there were any trails on them.  There was only one and it seemed like a good choice being somewhat short in length.  Since we were trying to get some work done on the place, we didn't have a ton of time to play so the trail was a winning pick.  

We drove to the other side of the highway from us, a little over 3 miles and set out up the trail.  The trail was nice and wide and Mike and I walked side by side on it.  Somehow, though, I seemed to catch ALL of the spider webs on the trail.  It was seriously unreal how many I was constantly walking through and picking off while Mike was able to not go through one.  Also, I did a very stupid thing.  I forgot to put on bug spray.  Mosquitoes love me and I should really know better.  I paid for it.  I literally got over 20 bites on this 4 mile, 2 hour hike.  Other than the spider webs and mosquitoes, we really had a nice relaxing time and enjoyed spending some time outside.

We normally see critters on our treks, which is always very exciting.  On this one, we got to see a cool little dude - a red eft.  He was very cute and Mike couldn't resist picking him up for a better look. So, you can get a good idea of his size.  I have to say, I was pretty impressed that Mike spotted him among the leaves.  Note: no animals were harmed in the taking of these photos.

As the name of the trail pretty obviously suggests, our destination was a pond on Peaked Hill.  My trail book description notes that part of the trail is across private land.  At the pond, there were signs that the inhabitants of that land frequent the pond.  We found a jon boat, canoe and assorted fishing tackle at the edge of the water.  It really was a peaceful place and, I suspect, a really nice spot for fishing.
On the way back down, we encountered another couple of critters - a toad and a frog.  The dude below hiding among the grass\leaves is an American toad, I believe.
From the trail, we could hear rushing water so we decided to stray off of it and check it out.  We were glad that we did.  Just a little ways down a somewhat steep slope, we viewed a pretty cool waterfall.  Unfortunately, my camera battery died right after snapping a picture of the toad.  Thank goodness I still had my trusty iphone on back up to be able to snap a memory of the place.  

4 weeks and two days

That's the time between when I filled up my car last and when I did it again last night. Even though I have a sports car that doesn't have great gas mileage, I was able to stretch it out that long. How you ask? Well, first of all, I'm not going to pretend I have a long commute or that I drive a ton. I don't. But I do usually fill up at least every 2 weeks, sometimes every week (never more often than that unless on a long driving trip).

So, how was I able to stretch a tank that far? Biking to work at least a couple of days a week and walking to all my evening errands, that's how. Saving money and getting my work outs in....I like it! Thanks high gas prices for helping me to also acheive my fitness goals.

Challenge Update

I still hate push ups. Perhaps more now than I did 2 months ago. I'm better at them and my arms are hard as rock, but I hate them. My strategy for them for September worked out a little better. For July and August, I did them regularly and tried to average 30 to 40 per day. For September, I did 100 per day and was able to not do them nearly as much. In 3 months, I've gone from doing "comfortably\easily" (I use these words loosely since I'm still talking about doing the push ups I loathe) 10 at a time to being able to do 20 to 25 at a time. I realize I'm far from passing any armed forces boot camp, but it's an improvement for me and that's all that matters. To reward myself to my dedication to (suffering through) them for 3 months, I'm giving myself a month off. Not that I won't be doing any, but I'll do them as part of my regular workouts and not try to achieve doing tons of them. 3000 over the last 3 months is pretty darned good, though (if I must say so myself).

I still don't hate sit ups. I did 2500 during September. I could pump out about 300 of those (easily) far quicker than "getting through" my 100 push ups. I still don't have a 6 pack. However, I do have a shadow of a 4 pack. Though, when I asked Mike if he could consider it a 4 pack, he said "almost." I pretty much take that to mean "honey, you're cute but no"....I'm still saying it's more there than not. Honestly, the only way I'll have one is if I lose more weight. I'm not sure that's a reasonable goal at this point. I think I would need to become a professional athlete in order to do that. Since I'm not that talented at anything, I don't see it being a lucrative career move. So, I'll just keep with the measured sit ups since I don't mind them. I like having something to do while watching tv. Sitting still is not exactly my forte.

Speaking of weight, I've been getting back to my weight loss lows. I kept staying a couple of pounds over it due to all the vacations, traveling, parties, showers, weddings, bbq's, birthdays....you name it! This summer had a lot of eating events! This last week I've been getting back (and staying at) my low so I'm pretty happy about that. I just don't think it's realistic or reasonable to truly lose any more. I'm happy where I am. How many times can a gal say that in life?!?! Plus, looking at my weight loss graph, I've been maintaining (plus or minus) this weight for 6 months. I've heard the 6 month "magic number" from a few sources that it's the amount of time that your body takes to "reset" to a weight. Meaning, if you weigh X amount, your body wants to continue to maintain that (hence the difficulty of weigh loss). So, hopefully, this is where my body will continue to want to stay.