Changes around here

I have been a bit scattered for the past couple months for good reason...we moved! Joe wanted to keep it under wraps until we got more settled, but last Monday the cat was out of the bag. Our new place could not be more different than our old one - which we still own and are in the process of renting out.


We have lots of open space.


And lots of natural light. The walls are still bare and we are waiting on a rug for the living room, but otherwise are settling in nicely.


One of our favorite perks of the new pad - a fabulous pool! We decided we couldn't go another summer in H-town without one. Hopefully I'll have lots of new adventures to share coming soon.

Week in photos

On July 4th we at the end of the hubs' birthday celebration. Our dear friend MD was crowned MVP of the trip! We were in bed by 8 pm that night so missed the fireworks, although we had a few of our own in Miami :)


We went to our favorite running spot to get back into the swing of our workout routine after our vacation.


My last day playing with the fisheye lens. It's a fun toy to have, but I think I would rather invest in a newer camera first.


I seriously love Target. How cute are these mini Molekine notebooks? If I didn't already have a million tiny blank books lying around the house I totally would have bought these.


On Friday night we surprised our friend MW for his birthday. Everyone was finally recovered enough from the trip last week to have a glass of wine.


On Saturday we celebrated yet another friend's 40th birthday. There seem to be many birthdays this month!


And just a reminder to smile!

Week in photos

I still have vacation brain so posts may be a little scattered this week.


My sis certainly has her hands full. I am bit sad because JJ is now very aware of who is Mama and who is Auntie. Auntie is definitely not Mama. Luckily little Buddha makes no such distinction! They are away at her in-laws for a couple weeks so I am missing my baby fix.


A view of Lake Austin from Mount Bonnell.


The hubs in front of our favorite local eatery.


A fisheye view of our living room. I rented this lens for the weekend.


The official start of our South Beach weekend. We really have the best friends ever.


Us on top of the rooftop bar at our hotel.


The birthday boy at Nikki Beach. Seriously the best Funday Sunday ever!

I forgot...

how nice it is to be in your own, clean, dust-free home!

I have so much to say, wrap up, be thankful for from my 7-week adventure in Mysore, India. However, since I have virtually been up since 3 AM India time Tuesday morning, I think it's time to hit the hay (Joe is already there) and post more tomorrow. Good night :)

Home sweet home

We woke up at 2 AM to drive to Boston for a 5:25 AM flight. Luckily we were upgraded to first class, which made the flight 100% more comfy :) and we are back and unpacked in time for yoga this morning. As much as I love traveling and vacationing, I really love being in my own house too.

I could get used to this view

all items remix'd
top: Anthro
skirt: Old Navy
shoes: Geox
earrings: gift'd
belt: Gap
tights: Hue

My parents left this morning to California, which allowed me to take some remix photos without them asking, "What are you doing?!?!" My mom reads my blog, but I would much rather pose in peace :)

They live right on a lake and it's so peaceful and quiet here. Their patio and the lake make for a perfect backdrop...too bad I am leaving tomorrow!

I love the rose detail and texture around the neckline of this tank!

And because no one was watching :)

A better week

I was a bit stressed out over work last week...here's to hoping this week will be better. At least it's going to be a short one - off this Saturday as well as next!In celebration of another beautiful day, I am wearing a Libery top from Target. They have everything on sale right now...I am still debating on buying some dresses. And as far as I can tell, none of the Targets around me got the Cynthia Vincent wedges...or they sold out superfast. And I was not enamoured with the Zac Posen line. Maybe if I were 20 years younger...

I'm not sure if you notice, but we painted our front porch yesterday. It took about 3 hours but it looks 100% better now. I think we may work on the front door as well as some trim outside next!

A quiet Monday

After a morning of running and yoga, the hubs and I are taking it easy today.I got dressed just because I felt like it. We may spend the afternoon painting the porch...good times!

Countdown

I have never been big on advent calendars. Didn't even really know what they were until recently. But my new tradition (started only last year) to count the days to Christmas is what I am doing now...journaling every day, taking time to appreciate the season. Although this year I haven't had time to make an actual paper scrapbook, this blog will serve just fine!

In unrelated Christmas news, we are home but the house is FREEZING!! Our heater is broken and the part to fix it probably won't be in until next week! Luckily J bought a space heater, but the house itself is about 42degrees compared to 35 degrees outside...brrrrr!

In more unrelated Christmas news, I took lots of photos of baby J today but this one has to be my favorite:

We had our annual girls' Christmas dinner and ornament exchange tonight. Much merriment was had but I think I had a bit too much wine!

Home sweet home!

I drove home yesterday. And in my haste to be home and the excitement of being home, I actually FORGOT to take a photo-of-the-day! The first time this whole year this has happened. I just remembered this morning. So I better go take one right now before this becomes a trend!

Home sweet home

2009 02 27 photo
Originally uploaded by eekachinski35

I had a longer lunch break today so I decided to take advantage and come home for a bit. It's just nice to get away from the office, even if it's only for 90 minutes!

I am so happy tomorrow is Saturday and I am off!

One tired girl

Our tenants in the garage apartment out back have moved out and we spent most of our evening cleaning up. Luckily they had it pretty well clean, we just had to do some touch up work like sweep and clean the oven (gross!). We are also lucky that we already have tenants moving in on Sat - 2 brothers, one in law school and one who just got out of the military. We haven't met them yet, but hope they will be cool peeps.

I think my early morning is getting to me and I am ready for bed. Somehow I don't think I will be getting up quite that early tomorrow, as I have to be at work by 7. I am so looking forward to a nice 3-day weekend off!

Almost home

Just one more day of work until we are on the road to Arlington. (The road to Kona somehow sounds cooler.) Five whole days of resting and relaxation with the fam. I cannot wait. If you are reading this post, please be ready to take tons and tons of photos!

It's funny how I refer to Arlington as "home," even though I haven't lived there for almost 10 years (eek - I will have been in Houston exactly 10 years this coming fall!). I guess home is where I feel comfortable, safe and loved, no matter where the physical location is.

A week already over

Here's to a great week. We had a productive and fun filled first week of January. We are in the process of trying to rennovate and rent out our upstairs unit as well as the garage apartment. The new coat of paint did wonders as will some new carpet. I have a feeling the garage apartment will rent first.

Alan and Patrick are visiting this week as well. We are going to dinner on Tuesday.

Here is a just a fun pic of me and my boy on NYE. I gotta start taking more daily pics.

5 reasons that I want to finish decorating the house:

1 - we've lived here over 1 year and it's still not done

2 - i am tired of looking at blank walls

3 - i want to tidy up the clutter

4 - i want to be able to lounge on the floor more comfortably

5 - i want an excuse to buy some new stuff!

i am going to take some before pictures of each room this week. and will slowly make each room into the after that i'm dreaming of! woo hoo!

A clean workspace

I finally cleaned off our desk today. We were swimming under a sea of paper and adhesive! I should have taken a before picture but I prefer the after. I just have such bad habit of collecting clutter - I have really been trying to work on it, but old habits die hard.

I have enjoyed the day off. Only 9 more days until we leave for NYC! Can't wait!

Let's sue the landlords

Brrrr...our heater is not working and the house is cold. Apparently the part we need will not be in until this coming Wednesday so we are going to have to suffer until then. I'm sure the outside weather will stay cold until then and then it will warm up again once it's fixed. Isn't that how it always works!

Doing this year in pictures thing is actually a little more difficult that I imagined. Some months we "did" more things than others so trying to find pics on the months without big events is hard. I was thinking about doing a different year from 2006 but this year I have really taken much more photos of normal stuff than any other year. And doing this photo a day is hard but I kind of like it - makes me think of what I would like to take a picture of!

Here I go to have some breakfast and try to warm up...

A new month!

My first post for March. This blogging thing is weird and interesting to me - I've been addicted to reading posts of these people that I DON'T KNOW at all - but I like to see what they have to say. Most of it is scrapbooking-related (yes, I am a big nerd). And I like to see different peoples pages. Maybe it's the voyeur in me - I like to see what other people do with their lives. How some people can make the mundane seem fabulous. And I guess that's what I want to do with my scrapbook of March 2006. Our ordinary life. But I love it!

I had a hard time sleeping last night because yoga ran so late. And when I woke up this morning, at like 4:52 AM, I felt like I had just closed my eyes! I hate that. Joe got up around 5:20 - he went swimming with Jim this morning at the 4 seasons pool. I had a hard time finding me keys this morning - of course they were simply on the opposite side of the stove than I ususally throw them! Boot camp with Richard was good this morning. This week he has been mixing it up (i.e. not making us do 100 push-ups at one time), which has made the class better to me. Rhonda, DeeDee, Pete, Janeen, Terry, James and JJ (new girl) were there so it was a fairly full class. I need to get a picture of my boot campers!

I had my usual bowl of cereal for breakfast this morning while perusing the new Creating Garden at Two Peas. I think if I had to I could totally live on cereal. I also talked to Tinger this morning. She and John may be moving - I am keeping my fingers crossed that they come back to Texas.

And now that the sweat has dried on me and I feel so glamourous (eewww!), I am off for my morning shower. Hopefully the steam won't set off the fire alarm!

8:39 AM
My new favorite thing to make for breakfast is soft boiled eggs. With a little salt and pepper, they are yummy. Got the idea from Peggy. They are kind of like sunny side up eggs. And they have more flavor than dried hard boiled eggs. A good way for me to get my protein in the morning!

9:48 PM
Today was so bright and sunny outside I couldn't help but be in a good mood! We were busy at work but not too crazy, and the post-ops weren't too crazy, either, which helps!

Matt and I went to Berry Hill for lunch and sat outside. I had yummy grilled fish tacos. Love Berry Hill food!

After work I went straight to yoga and met Joe there. Joey showed up again as well! This is the first time I've been to two classes in a row. It wasn't too bad - in fact I improved on some things, although at the end I could tell I was getting tired.

We got home around 8:45 and since we haven't gone to the g-store in forever, we didn't have anything good to eat for dinner. So Joe made some eggs, which I ate with toast and jelly (and I can't believe it's not butter). We definitely need to get some food - I think we're even out of cereal (gasp!)!!

So tomorrow I want to take some pictures at work. I totally forgot today and it would have been great for it because we weren't slammed. Also, next house project is to finish decorating the bathroom. I want to put more hooks up and get something on the wall. That shouldn't be too hard and it's something I can control, unlike furniture from Italy or France.

Hope I can fall asleep tonight....