shiny new door

my camera has finally been repaired! i can become a part of the blogging world again! what did you all do without me??

last week i spent an afternoon taking our front door from a hideous red to a shiny, classic black! we are so in love and feel like it totally transforms how our house looks. the door now matches our shutters.



this is how it used to look... eek! there are some reds that would look good on a door, but it isn't this one. especially with our brick facade...it totally clashed!

its hard to tell the difference in these pictures because of the little hallway leading back to our door. but trust us..its better. significantly better! you can see our look at our shiny new mailbox though! and also...see that tall rectangular bush?? i hate it. i think it might become half as tall this weekend...

i love the silver with the new paint! i'm such a dweeb.

welcome. you should come visit.

oregon

i finally uploaded some of the pictures from our trip! just looking through them makes me sad. happy but sad, ya know? when we first moved to missouri i was pretty intent that we wouldn't move back to oregon, but these past few months and now more than ever i am so motivated to get back there. i really really hope we can make it happen. lets hope the job Gods shine down on us in a few years!


click on the slideshow to go to the web album - you can view a full screen slideshow from there

anyway... here is a quick run down of what we did while we were home...

lots of time with friends included wine tasting, saturday market, bbqs, parties, knitting, talking and dinner out, going to The Bite

we spent most of monday, just grant and i, at washougal. its this magical little place where grant spent lots of time as a kid. he misses it dearly. i sort of surprised him, but i think he kind of figured it out. we brought sandwiches, read, knit, took pictures. it was nice. that night we went over to some family friends' house to celebrate grant's dad's birthday. we ate some great food and drank good wine...perfect.

tuesday through friday we went to the beach. i have always loved the oregon coast, but i think i really fell in love this year. the weather wasn't amazing the whole time, but that is just fine with me. just being there is relaxing... the smell is amazing. we went to manzanita which just happens to be my favorite coastal town and also where grant and i spent our 1 year anniversary. who went... mom, tim, joel, roger, me, grant, kay, john, sharon, and lindsey came too! we played games at night. there was a LOT of laughing. so fun and so nice.

grant got sick while we were home. sad, huh? he had a fever and the whole bit. he was a trooper though. friday night we wanted to lay low so we went to see The Hangover. i was very reluctant to go, but OMG you have to see it. funniest movie ever. made even funnier when you see it with Lindsey - she has the best laugh! my mom loved it too. seriously go see it.

saturday morning we went to breakfast with my dad and then met up with steve, burton, and jillian to hike at forest park. ok. seriously how have i never been there? it is apparently the second largest urban park in the world and the largest urban park in the US! its amazing. you are down town and then all of a sudden you are in nature - and you can be in nature for 40 miles! its amazingly beautiful - i want to live right there so i can walk it everyday. unfortunately by this time in the trip i had broken my camera and forgot to bring tim's with me. sad. we hiked to pittock mansion and back and then went to lunch at the Laurelwood...SO GOOD!

that night both of our families came over to my mom's and Grant barbequed for us. it was a good way to say goodbye. there were some tears. mom brought us to the airport the next morning at 4:30am so we could board our separate but simultaneous flights home.

it was a good trip. a very good trip.

back

we're back from an amazing time in oregon. it was so fantastic to see all the beauty and to be with our family & friends. there are tons and tons of pictures that i will soon upload to an online gallery. that way you aren't forced to look but you can if you want. sadly, i broke my camera and missed the most beautiful day on the beach. hopefully it will be repaired soon so i can get back to regular posting!

peace out.

today is the day i return to my homeland! i am BEYOND excited!!!! can NOT wait. i want to savor every stinkin' moment, so i won't be bringing my computer. can you believe that?? i'm a little surprised myself, but i want all my time to be spent enjoying the place, the people, and my free time! i will be back in two weeks with lots of pictures and maybe a few tears.

handles

when my mom was here helping us work on the house. she suggested we get handles for the cabinets and drawers in our kitchen. SUCH a good idea considering i shut my fingers in either the lazy susan or a drawer once a week.

a few weeks ago my mom and stepdad were gracious enough to send us all the handles and knobs we would need! i finally got around to installing them this weekend.


before.

asd

during. there is this handy tool that they got us. its like a template for where to make the marks for you to drill. made it all go SO fast.





success!



can you believe how much of a difference it makes. its like i never knew something was missing, but now i wonder how i missed it! we LOVE them!!



i've been getting things done left and right around here. it feels so good to be out of school and have time to check things off our LONG list!



i also wanted to share this little recipe with you. maybe you already do this, but its my new favorite meal and it takes about 10 minutes to prepare (speed is my favorite quality in a meal)...

Steak Salad

• top sirloin...this was on sale at Sam's, but you can use whatever - we have been using 1.5 steaks for the two of us

• crumbled gorgonzola...or feta, or blue cheese, or...

• dried cranberries

• sliced almonds...you can buy these already sliced near the salad dressing at the grocery store

• red pepper, sliced

• red onion, diced

• green onion, sliced

• any other veggies you want!

• newman's own light balsalmic vinagarette...i don't usually like vinagarette, but am obsessed with this! all of the newman's dressings are way good (pasta sauces too!)

slice the steak into 1-inch cubes, put in a frying pan with a little bit of oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper. cook on medium-high until done (about 10 mintues). toss all of the ingredients together and devour!

we have had this about 10 times in the past 2 weeks and i'm still not tired of it. and that is saying something! i usually need a lot of variety.

new handy(wo)man in town

because grant is handier with tools and much more patient than i, he ends up with a much longer list of house to dos than me. so when i skipped my afternoon class a few weeks ago i decided i should devote the time to things on his list.



i started by taking down the ceiling fan in our bedroom. i know you all probably love ceiling fans... why though? hate them. plus this one is ugly, g is tall and we have low ceilings. it had to go. i won't say there weren't a few moments when i thought i was going to either 1. electrocute myself or 2. drop the fan, but in the end i was successful.



see that tricky red wire? it caused me about an hour more of work, but i dominated it in the end!



new light!



next up... our garage was in shambles. i know this doesn't look that great, but believe me it was a HUGE improvement from what it was before i spent two hours in there. G hates being cramped so he had been frustrated since the day we moved in. its even better since we got rid of all that garage sale stuff!



lastly...i mowed our BACK yard! take a second to absorb that... do you see the hill? now let me tell you the funniest part about all of this. when we were buying a lawn mower i insisted on two things 1. it needed a bag and 2. it needed to be self propelled so i could mow if need be.

soooo... i'm out there mowing the lawn in 95 degree heat plus humidity on our bumpy, weed infested hill and i can't get over how unimpressed i am with the self propelled action of our mower. after an hour i finish and end up with HUGE open wounds on both my thumbs.

G comes home all surprised and excited about all that i accomplished and causally asks me if i turned on the self- propelled function on the mower... you should have seen my face. umm it isn't automatic?? turns out there is a lever you have to push. ha. no wonder it was so F-ing hard.

transformed

first off... can you believe how green these pictures are?? i didn't do any editing on the colors - makes up for the brown we saw the first 5 months we were here.



we bought our house with what used to be a tree in our front yard - it had turned into a bush after years of neglect. actually everything was bigger than it should have been and we were barely getting any light in our front windows! we set out with a new set of clippers and in two hours our front yard looked way different. it makes me wonder what could happen if we get out there for a whole day in the next few weeks!



G hard at work. we can actually see the trunk! we are wondering though...does the bark peeling mean the tree is sick or infested? does anyone know? i suspect yes, but just wondering.



all done!



G also pruned the trees in front of our windows and that big bush/tree. i spent the time weeding...those pictures aren't flattering you you'll just have to take my word for it! we seriously have weeds that have thrived into bushes. how do people let things get so bad??

when we were done we ended up with a HUGE pile of branches, weeds, and clippings. as we headed inside our next door neighbors got home. i had never met the wife so she came over to introduce herself (she is way nice and 4 months prego so you know i love her)... she saw our pile of clippings and offered to take them to the mulch place for us! they have a truck so the next morning we loaded it up and they took it away for us. isn't that so so nice?? we will have to make them dinner. they also have the cutest 14 month old little girl!

one dollar

we had a garage sale last saturday morning. we were exhausted, but pushed through to get up early and get rid of some crap. i was too lazy to put price tags on anything so we sold almost everything for $1. a ridiculous steal for some of our stuff, but it was worth it to just see it go. we made about $150 in three hours so i'd say it was a success!

looking at this picture makes me kind of ashamed at my display abilities... i didn't realize how crappy it looked. eh..oh well.



this was a wedding gift - there was a his and hers each filled with whiskey. wonder why no one bought it??