new look & uncooperative dogs

well, i was trying to take a (timed) picture with me and the dogs. i don't know why i thought they would cooperate. anyway, here is my new haircut and the dogs. :)

new knitting vocabulary

i have added some new letters into my world of knitting terms. i have been pretty standard with the *k*, and *p*, and occasionally the *k2tog*... now, after some online demonstration, i can *s1 as if to purl*, *yb*, *yf* and make new, pretty patterns. :) here are a few pictures (and previews) of things to come. they still need to be *blocked* but regardless of that... i am also going to be brave, soon, and branch out and try an adult sized hat. i will share a picture of it, too, if it is worthy of such.

wet paint!

no, it's not wet anymore, and there are still plenty of blank walls in the house, but we have gotten some of the painting out of the way. with kelly and alicia's help, the kitchen, dining room, and office were painted. i painted the guest room and guest bath. it is so nice to finally have some color on the walls. so here they are......

grassy field

the dining room is green on top and white below

grassy field

the kitchen and dining room match

harbor blue

adorning the guest room

fresh wessel blue

in the office

sunset blush

warms up the guest bath

amy and lex came to town

amy and her dog lex trekked (well, drove) over from franklin to visit for the weekend. the dogs were so excited to have a furry visitor and we tried really hard to convince amy to just move on over here, too. (and she would if the ash. police dept. would not make her redo everything she has already done to earn her cop status. but anyway...) we spent some time on the blue ridge parkway and took her to dinner at the pisgah inn and on sunday we had brunch (and mimosas!) at mayfel's and spent a bit of time at the mast general store. the dogs enjoyed chewing on some new rawhide bones and playing with lex, who is just a sweetheart. unfortunately, i don't have any pictures of us with amy (amy has all of those), but hopefully i can post some after she shares them with us. we had a great weekend and enjoyed hosting our first official (overnight new) house guests.

the three amigos

sweet lex

looking glass rock

checking out the view

sunset

no trip up the parkway is complete without some wildlife (dead as it was)... a rattlesnake

gatlinburg...

we headed to gatlinburg in august for alicia's birthday. we split rent on a huge cabin and enjoyed our time there and in pigeon forge and downtown gatlinburg. on our saturday there, jay and i decided to hit the chimney tops trail. we thought we were in decent shape. well, our current shapes thought differently. we did hike about 1.5 of the 2 miles.... and when we were still staring at the mostly straight up trail, and the clouds enveloping the top of the trail, we decided to save our lungs, hearts, legs, etc. and head back down. but we got a few pictures from there. the next day we all hiked up clingman's dome and enjoyed some views on the way back. it was a nice, relaxing weekend with good friends.

still smiling post hike with "the chimneys" in the background

looking down the trail

very large tree. and me.

little waterfall and nice, cool water

old sign

steven & kelly, matt & alicia, jay & stacie

me and kelly at the top of clingman's dome

group shot

the parking lot... it is crazy that it is only 0.5 miles away

deliquency

i know it has been a few weeks since i have made a post. my work schedule has changed back to normal since then and we've hosted an out-of-town guest. i know... poor excuses. so, because of my lack of posting, you will be getting a super update! i don't even know where to start. of course, because they are so easy, we can always start with the pets. i know they are always happy to have their pictures posted....

beautiful barley

still bed buddies

cotton still has the habit of de-fuzzing her tennis balls

dave will sometimes keep his shedding contained to his own bed

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.