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??

goodbye

i am done with summer school! i am in great need of the break and can't wait to see Oregon and all of its inhabitants the next few weeks! i'll get us all caught up on posting so we can post Oregon pics!!

last friday night we had a little party at our house for one of Grant's colleagues. Mehmet was a visiting professor from Turkey here for 3 months, i think. he is super sweet and had lots of fun with all the guys in the lab. we were sad to see him go but happy to be able to have a little party to send him off well.



i couldnt get that bottle open and i wanted a drink!



have you noticed i have this thing for taking pictures on an angle?? its like i think i can make any picture more interesting my turning it... weird, i tell you! this is mehmet and aaron playing wii



you like our little grill? G made brats and burgers - they were very delicious and will probably cause atherosclerosis but i think it was worth it.





aaron and sara recently bought a wii and brought it over for the party. it was so much fun just watching - not sure if you will think its funny, but i was laughing hysterically!



they got so into it! they were all worn out!





bruno was HILARIOUS with the bowling. he would go all the way back to the wall and run forward stopping just before falling on the table! we were certain he was going to bite it, but he never did!

i think a fun time was had by all and it made us look forward to having more social gatherings in our new place!