October 29, 2007

Dan and I have had a FUN weekend. My childhood friend Lara Kirkham was in town for a conference, and we got to hang out last week and over the weekend.

I haven't seen Lara since 2000, maybe 2001. We have kept in touch off and on since high school. I kind of lost track of her for a while when she was traveling and moving about for the Navy. But, she's staying put for a while until she's done with her duty.

Thursday, we went to see the Nashville Predators for the first time. It was great, because they won and because we got $5 tickets thanks to the Vanderbilt Graduate School.

Saturday Lara and I went to the flea market, which I love, but am a little overwhelmed by sometimes. Lara was excited about going to Hatch Show Print afterwards to get a great print.

Then, dinner was at Rosepepper Cantina, one of the best restaurants in town, and it's in our neighborhood.
Maybe if my mom finds an old picture of the two of us when we were younger, I'll post that, too.

October 23, 2007

We must be doing something right, because we have grass!

We have been so lucky to get rain all this week, and some last week. Hopefully, our water bill won't set us back too much.

Keep praying for rain!

October 15, 2007

This weekend, we undertook the biggest home improvement task to date. We have done a lot of smaller projects all along the way, but this was the biggest one-day task ever. We tilled up our entire front yard, and planted grass. We didn't really have grass to begin with--we had a yard full of dust and weeds. Then the drought hit, and we just had dust. Since our house was moved from another location across town, the heavy machinery used to move the house compacted the soil making it feel more like concrete than vegetation.

So, we rented a tiller and got to work with the help of Dan's family. His dad manned the tiller. I didn't think to get pictures of that :-( And Dan's granddad (as the hardest working man alive) helped us out too. We found construction debris, bricks, concrete chunks, rebar, rusty hinges, rocks and all manner of things in the ground.


We pulled it all up, and put down soil amendments (top soil, mushroom compost, manure, etc.).



We tilled that in, and put down more.


Then, came the grass seed and the straw to cover it.


And now, my least favorite part--paying for the water to get the stuff growing.


Otherwise, all of the work is for nothing...

Keep praying for rain so we can have some grass and the poor Tennessee farmers can at least have a fall crop.

We are so proud of ourselves for finally getting such a big project finished. I think we'll take a little break for a while after that.

October 10, 2007

I've already asked the question--What Simpsons character are you? Now it's time to ask, "What superhero are you?" Dan and I got the same results:

You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 90% Supergirl 66% Wonder Woman 61% Superman 60% Robin 53% Hulk 50% The Flash 50% Green Lantern 45% Iron Man 35% Batman 30% Catwoman 25%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

October 3, 2007

Thanks to my boss, the girls I work with and I attended another VIP party last night hosted by Nashville Lifestyles Magazine. We listened to a fun band, and had dinner off of hor'dourves. A good time was had by all.

My main motivation for sharing is to shock everyone with my short haircut!

October 1, 2007

I'm good at a few things but blogging and gardening are definitely not in that category.

Because I'm a bad blogger, you haven't heard from me in a while. Because I'm a bad gardener, I stared death in the face this weekend. It's a leap to connect that cause and effect, but in this story it's true. Here's the story: I have tried three times to plant bushes along my back fence to create some privacy between our yard and the alley. Of course, a brand new privacy fence would do the trick, but that's not going to happen. So, the second round of plants I put back there are dying. I planned to dig them up and put them in the buckets they came in originally, then park them in a sunnier location to see if they could recover.

So, I start looking for the original planters. I find all but one in the shed. The last one was thrown haphazardly in the back corner of the yard. I grabbed it and carted it over to the plants with the rest of the buckets. After I set it down, I looked inside. I saw a big black spider. Being of the frame of mind that the only good spider is a dead spider, I killed it. But, because I was a zoologist in a former life, I wondered what kind it was. So, I turned it over. And, to my shock and horror I found a bright orange hour-glass shape on the bottom of the body. Since this is the tel-tale sign of a black widow, I promptly started freaking out at the thought that I had just carried this planter (with holes in the bottom) across the yard withing noticing that it could have crawled out at any moment and killed me. That was my first stare-down with the afterlife over the weekend.

The second came a little later the same day. I had to take a shower after my gardening experience, so I went to the linen closet to get a clean towel. Thank goodness I didn't have my glasses on, because I didn't immediately freak out when I saw something scurry from the linen closet. I put on my glasses and saw a big brown spider, which I promptly killed. Thanks to a half-off coupon to the Nashville Zoo, Dan and I learned all about poisonous spiders a couple of weeks ago. I recalled my zoo trip and realized that the unwelcomed guest was a brown recluse.

I hope no one planned to drop by for an unannounced visit this weekend, because you will enter our home to a cloud of toxic chemicals. Don't worry, we won't leave the dogs inside. Just don't plan to drop by if you value your life. I don't think anyone could survive the amount of pesticide I plan to use to rid us of our deadly little roommates.