a day in the life of dave

it must be nice to be a cat. dave spends his days, well, the better part of his afternoons chasing the sun. and by chasing, i mean sleeping in the sun and then moving slightly as its angle through the window changes. he is, in fact, doing this very thing right now. and he cannot be bothered while he is sunning, either. the dogs can stand over him. no big deal. you can open the door... he might oblige you and move out of your way, or he may just let the door shove him a bit. no big deal. it is what he does every sunny afternoon. like i said, must be nice. (and yes, he is currently shaved right now... it is why he looks so skinny.)

i think he was wondering why i took a picture in the middle of his bath.

if you look closely above dave's head, you can see cotton's foot. no big deal.

a day for "fourwheeling...'"

...and when you say "four-wheeling" you must pronounce it "frelerin" as harley would pronounce it. i don't know how he says it the way he does. but it's pretty cute. so sunday started out with a pancake breakfast at our house. matt and alicia and steven, kelly, and harley came over for jay's delicious pancakes. we leisurely looked through the paper and then slowly made our ways on getting more awake for some four-wheeling. andy and ashley made it, too, and after all was repaired and working on the jeeps, we were off. we went to locust grove/tracy grove/courtney lane and spent a good couple of hours up there. it is a relatively short trail, but technical, and with one large mud hole (that the jeeps made larger). but just past the mud hole is "the rock" with a fabulous view.

and so it begins...

(yes, i am aware i posted pictures of different jeeps)

and so it ends...

left to right: jay, stacie, ashley, andy, matt, alicia, kelly, steven, and harley

of course, i couldn't forget pictures of the land cruiser. it is a 1985 fj60 series. it is now a 2 owner vehicle and it very good condition for its age. we opted to not take it through the mud, although, it did not leave the trail clean.

at the end of the day, we celebrated teresa's birthday (alicia and steven's mom) at steven's house. steven grilled out steaks (the best one i have had in a long time) and we all relaxed in the backyard. harley was jumping off the back bank, very bravely, and after taking a break, he realized he had a little scrape on his knee. he was a bit teary, but trying to be brave, and after opting to not have the paramedic look at it, he settled for the nurse. so harley sat next to me in the glider and we had a discussion about his injury that went something like this...

harley: look. i have bleed on my knee.
stacie: oh. i think it'll be okay. look... i have a scrape on my finger (fyi, lost a battle with a fork in the dishwasher). i bet yours looks like this tomorrow.
harley: yeah. me too.
stacie: do you think you need to see the doctor? it's just a little scrape.
harley: yeah. it's just a little bleed. if it was a lot of bleed then you would have to go to the hostipal. and if you have bleed all over your face, then you would really have to go to the hostipal.
stacie: yep. you're right. you think maybe we should clean your knee up. (at this point, he is covered in so much dirt, he is a very light, dusty brown.)
harley: maybe it would feel better with some ice.
so i go to get him a piece of ice and wrap it in a paper towel and put a little bit of water on that so it is nice and cool. i bring it back to him and as we glide, he places the ice on his "bleed" and cleans it off pretty well, stating it feels better, then proceeds to unwrap the ice and clean his leg, which basically made his dirt-covered leg into a mud-covered leg. so he gets all done with this and then squishes all the skin on his knee up and says...
harley: look (skin all squished up and wrinkled), now i have old knees (with a grin on his face)
ah, to be four again. so we finished the evening with a walk and closed off a great weekend.

a day for projects

we have had a lovely weekend. part of the lovliness is in part to the lower temperatures outside. (i am sure those of you in tn are enjoying those, too. i am happy to say ours will be lasting all week...) the other part was because it was filled with family, friends, and progress.

saturday

okay. so no painting happened this weekend- for a few reasons. 1. i personally thought that $25 per gallon of paint at lowe's was way too much. 2. you can get your paint colors matched at wal-mart and save about $10 per gallon. nice, right? 3. no. the paint guy/girl/person never came to the counter. kelly was with me and she used the phone to overhead page someone to paint at the desk 3 times. then after one of the numerous employees who walked by actually stopped, she overhead paged with a very loud, angry tone in her voice. no help. finally, some lady comes and i ask her if she can match paint (since the codes to match the colors are in a notebook somewhere). she said she didn't know how to do it. at this point, we had been there for about 30 minutes. i decided it was just not in the cards to paint my house. project abandoned.

larry, jay's dad, came down for the day to help out with some projects. they were very busy in the yard. they cleared off our back bank of the mostly dead sod (although it would have come out next year). then they cleared out the front landscaping bed, and as they put down some weed blocking fabric, they pulled up the juniper bushes that windsor-aughtry thinks looks nice for landscaping. (not so much). so it is on the back bank to make some nice ground cover. we also bought some decorative grass to plant in between the juniper. and that is also where grandmama's trumpet vines will find their homes. the outside is shaping up.

so what did kelly and i do with our day? we finished sanding the rust off of a wrought-iron table given to us by kelly's (step) father-in-law, kenny. after sanding we spray painted it. in between the sanding and washing it and painting it, we took time for some pedicures on the back patio. we painted lots of things! :)

the evening finished itself at matt and alicia's house for a cook-out. we had hotdogs, potato salad, baked beans... typical cook-out food. and their across-the-street neighbor, joyce, made a delicious banana pudding (like my mom makes). it was a great day and a great night.

colors in my house!

so we finally picked and agreed upon what colors to paint every room in this house. it took awhile, but after visiting back in franklin, we realized our house is so "blah" that it needs color. fast! so this weekend shall be spent doing many things, but painting is on the list. here are the colors and where they are going. and after things get painted, i will take pictures of the actual walls, because they will probably look much better than my pictures of paint sample cards.

master br

green goes in the master bath

the lightest brown will be in the living room/kitchen. the green will be in the rest of the kitchen and upper dining room walls.

the light brown will be the guest bath. darkest blue in the office. lightest blue in the guest room.

cookouts

we also enjoyed some yummy cookouts while in franklin. jay's family grilled out on friday night and we got together with my mom's side of the family the saturday we were there. lots of good food was shared, as well and laughter. we did not have our camera at jay's mom's house, but i did happen to get some pictures when mom's family was over.

my paw-paw

a night for the girls

my sweet "little" cousin, lauren, has recently become a licensed aesthetician.

(that is a hard word to spell.) anyway, she came over to mom's on thursday while we were in town and did facials and chemical peels. rachel, mandy, and becca made it over as well for some pampering and catching up and a girls night out. it was lovely and spa-like. i made dinner and we enjoyed some good wine and a relaxing evening. we now have fresh faces and learned the importance of good skin care. it was nice to see lauren in her element, too. her mom, my (first) cousin melynda, came as her assistant. too bad lauren doesn't live over here in asheville. i would have facials all the time. you can't beat her excellent prices and personal touches. (if any of you are interested in getting a facial or setting up a spa day for your friends, just let me know. i will get you all of lauren's contact information. she does schedule appointments in-home, and can manage a small group of ladies. i would love for your face to feel and look as great as mine!)

franklin, pt. 2 "a night for the dogs"

so the girls got to visit their friends, too. zeke and boaz were waiting for us at maggie's bark park, with their mom, stacy. we met them before we moved and we all enjoyed getting to know each other and hang out. stacy is a flight nurse for vanderbilt so we always have lots to discuss in the medical world and the dogs just play and play. with only each other. they are lab snobs. stacy's boys are also yellow labs, both about the same ages as cotton and barley. admittedly, though, barley seemed to feel left out because she isn't "yellow." she seemed to do her own thing but every now and then would join in the group. one thing asheville doesn't have is a decent dog park. or more than one (crappy one, i might add) period, so cotton was ecstatic to go and play. barley was just sort of "there." but we all had a good time.

THE CAST OF CHARACTERS

ZEKE

BOAZ

COTTON

BARLEY

THE ACTION

the yellow lab snobs

the outsider

the herd... barley is hard to see, but she's in there, too

cotton and boaz hanging out

a big pile of labs

the foursome

so behind....

okay. so i am going to have a blogging marathon this weekend. i am so so behind. july was a busy month of working and travelling and this and that. i am aware that this is no excuse. so, while i have some spare time, i am going to blog. a lot. some things even happened in june. of course, if i didn't tell you this, you wouldn't know, but anyway...

last week we went to nashville/franklin to visit with family and friends and celebrate my birthday (29 for the first and only time!) and we had a wonderful visit. it wasn't super relaxing. there was always something to do and somewhere to go, but all in all it was a good week. we drove down in our new 100 series land cruiser. and we took the dogs. (which may have been a mistake.) and we came back with a little uhaul trailer filled with a free lawn mower, the rest of our couch, and my/our christmas ornaments, jay's 3-ton jack and jack stands, some flowers from my grandmother's house, and a few other various items. we both came back with fresh hair cuts. i came back with a fresh face, too, thanks to lauren and her chemical peel (more on that later).

my mom and dad's house is beautifully landscaped in the front and back and their yard backs up to a huge corn field. that was where the girls (cotton and barley) headed most days to do their business. so, while they were busy, i snapped a few shots of my parents' backyard. when they moved in 11 years ago, they had no trees, no patio out back, no hot tub!, and hardly any flowers. it's amazing to really see how much everything has grown and become established. here are a few pictures from the yard.

the stepping stone with paws mom made before we moved

a visit from the baby hummingbird

crepe myrtles

hibiscus

the "oasis"

some corn, where the girls go :)

on the outside looking at the back of the house

two sweet "sisters"

barley waiting on her sister to hurry up