Update

I feel like I should give an update on the house. It's moving along pretty fast. The drywall and plaster are up on the walls. I would have liked to have a smooth plaster but it's a couple thousand dollars more and I thought that was just ridiculous so we went with knock down but I told them to make it as smooth as possible. The stone work is almost done outside. They just have some of the columns left to do. Also on the outside, the hardy board is going to be painted this week (hopefully). It would have been done last week but after half a wall of painting we decided that the color was too light so I had to take it back to be darkened. I'm going to the paint store again tomorrow to get primer for the inside. Nick will probably be the primer guy and then I'll follow him with the color (which we are still in the process of picking). We have met with the flooring guy but we haven't actually ordered anything yet. He has given us a good price on the fusion bamboo that we want for the great room and hallways but we are still pricing out tile and carpeting. We also met with the cabinet guy who is going to make a door sample for us and next weekend I think we might drive up to Georgia to look at stain colors, trims, hardware, etc. The granite counter tops are already chosen but they will have to measure and cut everything after the cabinets are put in. Oh, and we bought all of our appliances (except for the range) at Sears the day after Thanksgiving. We got 25% off plus Grandma's ex-employee discount (thanks Grandma!!!) so that helped out in the budget area. Pretty much how its going to go from here is: prime and paint the walls, install flooring, trim/hang interior doors, cabinets, counter tops, appliances. Somewhere in there we have to order and install the lighting and make up all the outlets and finishing out the plumbing is probably important too. As for furniture, that part of the budget was gone a long time ago. But we figure we can always add that stuff later. Having walls and a roof and insulation is more important right now. Ricky will just have to wait a little longer for his couches!!!! Sorry there are no pictures yet, my camera is in our room and Nick is sleeping. Some time this week I'll try to get some pictures up. If anyone has any ideas or advise about anything PLEASE let me know!!!

SYTYCD

So Brandi, Katie and I went to the So You Think You Can Dance tour Friday and let me tell you it was AWESOME! Oh yeah. First of all we had the best seats in the entire arena. I'm not kidding. There is not one other seat that I would have rather sat in. I just wish I could have gone through the entire show twice so that I could watch it once and the second time I could take pictures with mom's camera to document how freaking fandabulous our seats were. I took some pictures, but I only had my little camera with me (which is a wonderful camera, but it doesn't take the action pics like mom's big camera). After the show we waited outside and we got all the dancers to sign our shirts and take a picture with us. Katee showed us how to do that finger thing she does, I told Will how amazing he his. I told him that the pas de deux was my favorite dance and when he said that he was sorry they weren't able to do it on the tour I said "that's ok, I have it on my dvr...I know it". Yes that's right, he probably thinks I'm a crazy stalker. But not as much as Katie stalked Gev!!! She couldn't even speak to him the first time she saw him (although he did give her a full out hug) and then she ran to the other end of the line so she would be the last person he saw and he signed her hand. That is after she asked how old he is (22, same as her). Katie might have gotten a hug from Gev but I got a full out hug from Twitch!!!! So exciting! Anyway, here are some of the pictures from Friday night.

My mama is for Obama

I just really wanted to say that. But seriously, my parents and Raymond (and Ricky, of course) went to the Obama rally in south Florida which I assume is where this picture is from? Right mom? Regardless, I appreciate the representation of the dance teachers. I feel like we are generally an unheard population. But back to my mama being for Obama, I learned today that she is helping Ricky out (he works for Obama) by going around to people's houses to get them to vote. Pretty intense, huh? I felt it was blog worthy, well that and I liked the picture, and I wanted a reason to write that my mama is for Obama (had to get it in one last time!).

Today I...

drove a tractor. Yeah, that's right, completely not kidding. Today I drove a tractor. It's not my tractor (obviously) it's Randy, our project manager's. He's kind of like a contractor but not so intense. Anyway, he came by the house yesterday to drop off his tractor for us to use to clean up and get ready for the stone to be put up. The dumpster we have is for building materials only (it get's recycled) so there's random trash all over the place, it's pretty gross. The idea is that instead of picking up each individual piece of trash and walking it over to the trash pile to be burned, you just fill up the front of the tractor and then drive it all to the pile at once and dump it. Because of Nick's back he hasn't been at the house (how convenient) so Randy gave the key to me. He asked if I had ever driven a tractor before and I told him that I had driven a fork lift. He chose to ignore my comment (I don't know if he thought I was being sarcastic, or if he just ignored me) and he said to tell Nick that it was here for us to use if we wanted. Well this man clearly underestimates me (hehe) because today I drove his tractor, ha. Well, Nick had to tell me how first. It's would be self explanatory if anything was labeled, but I had to make sure so I wouldn't mess anything up. It's pretty much like driving a fork lift except it has a clutch and the fork lift goes faster. Anyway, I was there by myself because Nick was on his bedrest and there was no one to take a picture of me so here is a picture of the tractor and me driving it from my point of view. If you ever need anyone to operate any farming equipment, I'm your girl. You don't even know.

Herniated Discs

Ok, so apparently these things gravitate toward me. About 9 or 10 years ago Nick hurt his neck when he was at a national guard training and then a couple years after that he was in a car accident that aggrivated it. He had an MRI then and, according to him, the doctor said that he has two herniated discs (C4-C5 and C5-C6). Every year or so his neck starts hurting and about two years ago it hurt so bad that he actually went back to a doctor for pain meds. So Tuesday morning, after I had slept for about two hours, Nick woke me up practically crying in pain. Apparently he slept wrong, something about a missing pillow. I took him to the ER and a shot of Toradol, and 2mg of Dilaudid later he was still in pain. Crazy, right? That would have totally put me on my ass! The nurse even made a comment about how he was "not a small man" (haha) and she was impressed how he was able to walk out of there. Anyway, it's now 5 days later and we are out of muscle relaxers, he finished his prednisone today, he only has a couple percocet left but at least he is able to walk around the house a little bit. Maybe Monday he'll go back to work. Between Wolfie, Minnie and Nick, I'm over the whole herniated disc thing. My dad said that he should fall off a ladder, it worked for him. I'm looking into that.

oh yeah

oh yeah, and we saw High School Musical 3...it was awesome.

I know you're jealous

So we went to Orlando this weekend to meet up with mom, Aunt T.T., Grammy, Mary, Michael, Katie and Janell. We went around to show Grammy Michael, Katie and Janell's apartments and then we went over to Disney. We walked around Wilderness Lodge, Contemporary, Polonesian, and the Grand Floridian and ended up eating dinner at the Grand Floridian. It was a nice day, we took boat rides and monorails between the hotels and just looked around at all the interesting stuff there. After dinner we went back to Katie and Janell's apartment to have birthday cake for all the October birthdays (Janell, Grammy, Michael, Katie and Mary) and then we went to bed. Sunday morning mom left with Aunt T.T. and Grammy so Katie, Nick and I decided to go to Home Depot and the Expo center to look at ranges and then back to Disney. We walked around Downtown Disney (my favorite place) and ate dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. Then we started out on the journey to watch the fireworks... we took a bus from Downtown Disney to the Dolphin, where we got ice cream (yummy), then we took another bus to the Magic Kingdom where we then picked up a boat over to the Contemporary. We watched the Halloween fireworks from the Contemporary in our usual spot, Katie yelled at some old people for talking and then we took yet another bus from the Contemporary back to Downtown Disney where our car was. Now this might sound intense to watch fireworks, but you know you are jealous of the picture we got. On the bus back to Downtown Disney we were singing "Wishes" (of course) and the bus driver got into this huge conversation with us about how many times we've been to Disney. He ended up giving us (Katie) cards for the buses (they're collectors, you can't buy them anywhere, you have to ask for them from the transportation people. Now Katie has all the monorail cards and all the bus cards, the only ones she doesn't have are the boats) and he took our picture "driving" the bus! Yeah that's right, who else do you know that has a picture like this?!

Oh Crap...

Ok, Ok, I'm sorry. I did not realize I had such a following! hehehe. Sorry I was in a mood the other night and I completely appreciate everyone checking my blog every day :) I read yours every day too. And I am again sorry that I didn't respond earlier but I was working and then last night we had a bit of a internet problem. This problem was in the form of a playstation 3. Nick and Nicky found the need to hook up the playstation to the internet so that they could play socom online. Which is fine until they went to bed and failed to hook the internet back up to the computer. I tried everything I could think of to get the internet to work but of course I couldn't figure it out. Suprise, suprise. But I got my scrapbooking night so that's good. I finished the recital book and I started on a little book for Brandi's graduation party. Yes, I'll bring them to Orlando this weekend. I'm highly excited for the fun filled family weekend with Grammy. Well that's about all I have to say for now. I'm at Jenifer's using her computer (since ours is still not going online) and I have to go to work now.

Because I have to...

I am writing this blog because Katie, the only person that looks at this web page anyway, wants me to put something new up. Not that I don't appreciate you looking at my page every day and not that I don't appreciate the one comment you left (which was pretty rude, I have to say), but I don't have anything to talk about.

I've been working at night. It pretty much sucks because then I'm asleep all day and up all night but at least I get stuff done for the house. If you have been following my highly exciting blogs, we did get a bathtub. In case you were wondering, It's a corner tub and it extends five feet from the corner in either direction. My new thing is lighting. We went to the lighting store to discuss options for the kitchen lighting (there's a vaulted ceiling, it's just a pain) and we ended up picking out fixtures too just to see how much it would cost. Let me tell you, this shit is expensive! I'm just about ready to go to Wallmart (yes, that's right, I said Wallmart - I feel like it just brings my cheapness to a whole other level) to get ten dollar crap fixtures for everything. So needless to say, back to reality, I've been going online to try to find discount or closeout prices on the things we picked out at the store in Tallahassee. You have no idea how time consuming that is. Thank god I don't have a life because it would be in some serious trouble from the multiple hours a night I spend looking for good deals online. I can't imagine how people do this house building thing when they actually have friends! geez, I feel sorry for them!

Well that's about all I have to say for now. George came up again this weekend to work on the electricity, he said that one more weekend and he'll have it done. Ismel (sp) came over to help too, thank goodness. I appreciate him for just being there so that Nick and George don't kill each other, not to mention that he actually works when he comes and it's not even his house! Janell, if you're reading this, please reiterate to Ismel how much I appreciate him. The framers are supposedly finishing this week on stupid little things (like my fireplace, which I've had a drawing that has the exact dimentions of what they have to build up for a week and there's still nothing done on it) and the stone and the hardy board are supposed to go up sometime soon too. Other than that I'm just working and trying to plan a night when I can scrapbook instead of doing house stuff. For now I'm going to go watch "Planet Earth" on the DVR and try to go to sleep.

I should probably update on the house, so here goes. While I was in Orlando this past weekend they did a lot! The roof is dried in and ready for shingles, all the windows and doors are in place and all the main walls in the house are finished. There are finally stairs to go up to the "bonus" room (which by the way, they are making us finish now) which is exciting because climbing up the random ladder which was leaning against a yet more random wall was not my favorite thing to do. Not to mention I was tired of declaring that I shouldn't be on the ladder in the first place because head traumas run in my family. Speaking of randomness, we have to buy/tell them what we're going to buy for the strangest things. I mean, I understand the concept of wanting to know the size of the bathtub we are going to buy before you build the wall that will encapsulate it. However, is it completely necessary to know the exact dimensions? Why can't you build the wall according to the plans or what will fit in the space and then tell me what size bathtub will fit. That seems so much easier. Whatever, it's just annoying because they ask and if I don't know for example the size of the bathtub then it's a huge deal and how could they possibly continue on the house until they knew the size of the bathtub?! Is this humorous to anyone else or is it just me?! I mean really, who knows the size of your bathtub? I feel like it's one of those commercials where they ask "It's 11:00, do you know where your child is?", well it's freaking 3:21, do you know the size of your bathtub?! I feel like in celebration of it being three hours into the month of October, I am going to declare October "getting to know the size of your bathtub" month. And I think it's important in this very special month for everyone to really have an understanding for the size of their bathtub...you know, just in case anyone asks. There may be a pop quiz. BTY, if anyone has any phenomenal ideas for a fire place let me know. Apparently I should already know the box dimensions, what's going to be on the outside of it, how high off the floor it's going to be, what type of furniture will be in a fifteen foot radius of it and the birth dates of my future unborn children. Simple things like that. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Orlando!!!!!!!!!

So, went to Orlando this weekend for the now annual girls weekend of Disney water fun! Which kind of turned into the weekend of shopping at Home Depot (thanks to Katie and Janell for your input!). Well, that and the weekend of trying to stay up late with no success, becoming a master cake decorator, and watching retarded dance movies (never rent Razzle Dazzle). Oh and did I mention the weekend of getting sick because thanks to Katie and Brittany, I feel like crap! haha, oh well, it was worth it I guess :) Anyway, in case you haven't figured it out, I went to Orlando to visit Katie and Janell on Thursday. We hung out, spent practically an entire day at Home Depot on Friday picking out everything for the house and then Brittany flew in Friday night. We watched that horrible movie. No, that's a lie. Katie and I watched that horrible movie, Brittany and Janell were smart and fell asleep. For some reason it was so bad, I couldn't stop watching it. Anyway, after the movie Katie and I decided to decorate Janell's birthday cake that we had made earlier. We spelled out "H. B. Nell" in sprinkles (Brittany gets full credit for the idea) because writing out "Happy Birthday Janell" would have been way too intense, even for a master cake decorator like myself. Then Katie and Tard decided to make foil ducks for the top of the cake. I made two, Katie made one and Tard made one. I have to say, they're pretty hot. I would put a picture on but Katie is a slacker on uploading her pictures onto Kodakgallery. On Saturday we went pool hopping at some of the Disney resorts. We went to the Polonesian, Grand Floridian, Contemporary and Wilderness Lodge. We went on all the slides, layed out and participated in a hula hoop contest (I won, of course...that's right!!!). We ate at the new restaurant in the Contemporary called "The Wave". It was a really cool place to go, the design was amazing but I don't think the food was worth the money. I'd much rather eat at the midprice place at the Polonesian or the Grand Floridian, actually I'd rather eat at any of the other midprice Disney restaurants that we've been to. I highly recommend it for drinks and appetizers (that crabcake was amazing!). After dinner we went back to the Grand Floridian to watch "Wishes", got chased away from our usual spot by roaches (yes, that's right, roaches in Disney World but don't worry, Janell told the front desk people), and ended up on the dock. Wishes was wonderful as usual, even without being able to hear the music and when it was over we were all ready to go back to the apt. Brittany left early Sunday morning and after yet another trip to Home Depot and some Moe's for lunch, I left too. A great weekend, like I said, when Katie decides to get her act together there will be another picture or two.

Interior Walls and Trusses

So we have interior walls now, and most of the trusses up. I got a little freaked out because the window in the media room was off center which would make me crazy. Turns out when they made the frame for the front door there was a miscommunication and they framed it to be 6 inches too big. How that can happen? I don't know, it makes me think what else happened that we haven't caught yet. Anyway, they are going to frame out the front door the correct way and move over the wall of the media room wall 6 inches (to where it was supposed to be to begin with) which will make the window center. On a good note, we gained 4 feet by dropping the trusses on the east side of the house by one foot. Now the "bonus" room upstairs will be 16 feet wide as opposed to 12 feet wide. That means even more room for people to come visit! please. ;)

Some of my favorite dance pics of last year

Home for the weekend!!!!

So we went home this weekend which was muy exciting for me!!!! I was kind of stressed because we were going to leave Friday after Nick got off of work, drive to Orlando to pick up Katie and then drive the rest of the way to Hollywood which would have put us there at around midnight. Nick wasn't feeling well on Wednesday and Thursday so he decided to take off work on Friday! yea! And then to make it even better, when he came home Thursday night (he had to go to a PTO meeting) he said why don't we drive to Orlando now?! So needless to say at 8:30 at night we packed in about five minutes and started the four hour drive to Katie's apartment. We slept, got up and drove to Hollywood and were there Friday by the time my mom came home for lunch!

The dogs were super excited to see us. Wolfie didn't even know who Nick was at first, he kind of stared at him with that blank look on his face until Nick spoke and then I think he realized who he was because Wolfie started jumping all over Nick! Well, as much jumping as Wolfie does. Minnie is doing well, she has her own crate with her memory foam mattress and her own sheets and blankets, her purple horsey and her own water bowl (which Rosie likes to stick her head in Minnie's crate and drink). She is still on semi-bedrest, she gets treated like a little princess (Katie even made her a princess sign for her crate) and she gets to sit on the couch with mom and dad when no one else is allowed. She is able to walk around now as long as she doesn't run or play so she seems to like that. As far as her back is concerned, she seems to be comfortable. She's not arching up like she was doing before and she doesn't have that pitiful 'i'm in pain' look. The other dogs are doing well, Daisey's tongue is still out and she's still chasing Rosie, Wolfie is still guarding all the doors, Glyniss is still crazy, and Rosie is still counting the days until she's an only child again.

When we got home, my mom, Katie and I went to Glamour shots to use up a coupon mom had. It was interesting to say the least. The people were rude but it was fun getting our make up done, taking the pictures and then being sarcastic about how they came out and how long it took. We went out to Grandma and Grandpa's that night to see them and got to hear all about Grandpa's bruises on his leg (he fell and got kind of banged up but he's doing ok now, no worries). On Saturday we stayed home, shaved Wolfie and Daisey (she tried to bite me, and she actually did bite Katie!), helped mom clean and cook for the BBQ that night. What started out to be a small get together turned into a full out party. It was great, we got to see family and friends and my dance girls. I couldn't have asked for a better weekend, it was fierce (haha). Can't wait to be in Orlando in two weeks!

We have walls!!!

Monday, even though it was labor day, they started putting up the walls on our house. They are called ICF walls, pretty much it's blocks of styrafoam (how do you spell that?) that get stacked up on top of one another and then they pour concrete down the center of them. It's pretty cool, they look like big 8 foot legos. Supposedly they will get them all into place with all the windows cut out, etc this week and then they will pour the concrete on Monday. Now if we can only get this rain to stop that would be great. I just came back from being over there and there are puddles where the trucks came through and the amount and the size of the mosquitos is unbelievable! They are like small birds flying around biting my legs. And of course they only bite me. Nick and I were out there this morning putting up the temporary electric pole, he got bit once or twice and I got bit like twenty times! They even bite through my clothes! I have a bite on my stomach that the thing had to go through my shirt and the elastic of my sports bra, now that's rediculous! And they're so big I feel like I can pick them off of me and throw them! Oh well, I guess I need to invest in some industrial strength bug repelant. Either that or I can put thousands of citranela candles all over the property, one or the other.

My Babies

Again, for those of you who didn't know, Wolfie had a herniated disc this past spring and had to have surgery to have it removed. We found out then that this is very common for pekinese and other dogs that have long bodies and short legs. He did wonderfully after surgery and we are so excited that he is able to walk with no difficulties! He had to be on bed rest for six weeks and none of the dogs are allowed to jump onto or especially down from anything. We have been very careful with all of them, lifting them down the front step or down from the car, but unfortunately about a month and a half ago Minnie started having some back pains. We took her to Dr. Evans (my new best friend since she performed a miracle on Wolfie) and she was immediately put on bed rest, prednisone and valium to decrease the swelling around her discs. I am happy to say that Minnie is doing a little bit better now. She finished her prednisone a week ago and although she is still on bed rest for awhile longer, she doesn't seem to be nearly as uncomfortable as she was before. She and the other dogs, are staying at my parents house for now so that Minnie can be near Dr. Evans just in case anything happens. We miss them very much and can't wait for them to come up here but they are not going to make the trip up to Tally until we know that Minnie is going to be ok. For those of you who donated your change to the "Save Wolfie Foundation", thank you so much! Dog surgery is just as much as human surgery (I really need to get them insurance!) and he thanks you for saving him! Keep those piggy banks filling up just in case Minnie needs you and keep thinking happy, decreased inflammation thoughts so that hopefully, she never will.

We Moved!

For those of you who did not know, Nick and I just recently moved to Crawfordville, FL. It's about halfway between Tallahassee and the panhandle, for those of you who don't know where that is (I would assume that's just about everyone). We have 5 acres of land that we are building our house on and in the meantime we are taking over at Nicky's house. Hopefully the house will be done in a couple of months (they said 4-5, so that puts it to be done in January) because as much as we love Nicky, living in a small room with all of our stuff kind of sucks. They actually finished pouring all of the foundation today, we had a minor set back in the form of tropical storm Faye. Between Faye and other storms, it rained here every day for two weeks, which apparently is not good when you want to lay concrete...who knew. Anyway, Nick is teaching 5th grade at Riversink Elementary (I think that's a horrible name, it sounds like someone is going to sink in a river) and I am currently orienting in the PICU at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. Nick seems to really like his job, there is another male 5th grade teacher, which is nice for him. Someone to talk football with. The PICU at TMH is interesting so far, its very different than Joe D. A lot of things that I'm not used to and not a lot of things that I am used to. I guess it will work out in the end. Most of this for now will probably be about the house, which I know is not very interesting for most people, so I'm sorry ahead of time. I'm also sorry for how nasty this blog thing looks, I'm still trying to figure it out...