Plot: Time Lapse Montage - Part two

During March we did some fun things. We made fresh homemade bagels. We went out for sushi. Our four month anniversary marked the first day of spring. We went on a hike. Then by mid to late March I began volunteering downtown at a community theater and not long after that I got a new job.

By the time March rolled around I had been out of work for about three months. Though I had been keeping myself somewhat busy with housework, errands and sewing projects, I was getting pretty restless being at home all the time. So in attempt to get out of the house and hopefully make some connections, I contacted a theater downtown to volunteer at called the Bunbury. I was hoping to be involved in the costume design part of it, but by the time I got there, the designer had everything down and didn't really need any help, so I ended up helping with stage production, mainly the props.

The production was called "Crimes of the Heart". (A tragic comedy about three sisters who deal with a difficult past and each dealing with their own crime of their heart.) By the time the show started I was in charge of making sure props were set before the show and cleaning up after the show. My only responsibilities during the show were telling the sound booth when it was ok to start and to drop a bag of sand that made it sound like the actress had just fallen from her attempt at hanging herself from a chandelier.

About a week before the show started I was offered a job as a secretary at Advanced Global Communications. It is a company that installs data cables, telephone systems, security systems and other audio visual devices. I was working 40 hours and then had to be at the theater by 6:30 every night. For the next three weeks I was only able to see Nathan for about an hour to eat dinner then I headed out to the theater until 10:30 or 11 at night, which by then Nathan was usually in bed. I was exhausted and overwhelmed.

The theater is run mainly by volunteers, so the play was not with out some technical difficulties. On any given night you may have heard the cricket sound track in the lobby while waiting to come in, the phone ring (controlled by the people in the sound booth) vary in length thoughout the play, and various props would either be missing or somehow get broken. However, two major technical difficulties happened that I was responsible for. One, I missed my cue to drop the bag leaving an awkward silence. I had forgotten to reset the bag the night before, so when I went to unhook it from its latch, it wasn't there. I didn't catch on to this very quickly, so there was about 10 seconds of me verbally processing and trying to figure out what to do before I realized all I needed to do was to pull it up and let it go..Two, one of the other volunteers was unable to make it one night, so I was called up to the sound booth to help out. I had never done the lights before but it was easy enough, just hit the button that says "go" when I am told. The problem was that during the show I heard a cue "go" that wasn't meant for me. So when I hit the button the light cue went to black in the middle of the scene! Rush came over and had it go back, but then it was stuck in the wrong cue for the rest of the scene. I felt so bad. There was nothing else anyone could do to fix it.

Despite all that, I enjoyed working with the theater, I was able to meet some nice people and make some connections as I had hoped. Rush, the stage producer, owns his own production company and is putting on a production of Alice in Wonderland either sometime this summer or this fall, which I will be designing the costumes for. I have been working on some sketches for them, and really need to finish. I am quite excited to do some designing and for the chance to work with him, he is a really fun guy.

The play is done now, so things have slowed down, which I am thankful for.

Here are some pictures of our delicious bagels and of our hike.

Golden Brown

Boiling them

:)

Terrified I was going to fall

:)

Plot: Time Lapse Montage - Part one

Ahh its been so long since I have been on here to write an update! Lets see, last time I was here was... January!! (I had to go look, hence the delay...)

Well a lot has happened since then, all of February and March and almost all of April.

Nathan spoke briefly about some of the things we got into in February. My favorite from the month was getting those old sewing tables and transforming them into our new bedside tables. That was a lot of fun, I love seeing ideas transform into real things. Makes me feel like I belong on HGTV:) Needless to say, I am very happy with the way they turned out.
Other February happenings included our annual delayed Valentines day. We found early in our relationship that if wait a couple days after February 14th, Valentines day becomes much cheaper to celebrate. However, we stayed in this Valentines day and had a nice dinner at home.
My least favorite part of February was going to the dentist. Since Nathan has dental insurance, we figured we'd put it to good use, so I did some research and found a dentist in the area. I went in for my appointment; a small building not far from where we live, cute, with a fireplace :). After filling out my paperwork, I was led through two French doors and into the patients chair where the dental hygienist proceeded to take 15 different x-rays of my teeth, most of them being fairly uncomfortable. Then the dentist came in to look at my teeth, and found for the first time since I was a child, a cavity. No, not just one, but three! Three cavities! Are you kidding! So I had to make another appointment so they could fill them. After this appointment I found that having a numb mouth is a very strange sensation. To this day, my back tooth is very sensitive to cold things, so I find myself eating things on the left side of my mouth, which makes the right side sad.

Apart from that I'd say the rest of the month was just spent trying not to go crazy from being in the apartment all day, hanging out with each other, and doing things that young married couples like to do..you know, like going to church and grocery shopping.

I'll stop there for the night. Maybe tomorrow I'll catch up on March!

Props: Shabby Chic (Jill) or Awesome Cheap (Nathan) Tables

So, this was a project that slipped through the cracks. Not so much our accomplishment of it, but our bragging about accomplishing it on the blog.

The pictures are in reverse order, so, watch the transformation unfold from end to beginning. Notice the beautiful and classy nightstands to either side of the bed (the duvet cover was a Jill creation).

Here is a close up of the job. If you're wondering, yes that is an ESV Study Bible. Great setpiece, isn't it? Notice the fresh, white paint and the illusion of age that comes from careful sanding.

Here is where the tables began their life, as a pair of cheap sewing machine tables. Jill found an antique shop out in the Indiana boonies that she wanted to visit, so we made the trip. It was about an hour outside Louisville, but it was a different world. That's an exaggeration, but not a huge one. I saw at least three places to buy a tractor on the way out.

Jill had wanted some side tables for a while, and she had hopes of finding some good ones there. I don't pretend to be an expert on these things, but there does seem to be a large market for antiques in and around Louisville. Where it all comes from, I'm not sure, but, in terms of price, things get cheaper as you move out of the city.

So, we didn't find any nightstands persay (but if I collected Coca Cola stuff, mmm, I would have been in heaven). We were about to leave before we found an almost matched set of sewing machine tables. Crazy, I know. But, with a little work, some paint, a matched set of knobs from Home Depot, and a screwdriver to remove the unneeded hardware, and you have what we see here.

I love the cheapness; I love few things more than bragging about a good deal. Apparently, though, it's a stylish result. So I hear. By that I mean, so Jill tells me.

Plot: A Cold Spell

I have been chided for letting so much time lapse since my last post. Jill just explained to me last night her vision for alternating blog posts, so, not only have I been letting my end of the blogging bargain fall by the wayside, I've been holding her up. This is an attempt to make up some ground.

It's not as though I've been entirely idle, though. Here are some of the things I (often we) have been into for the past month, working backwards:

-Today I got myself tested for tuberculosis. The test gets checked in two days. I haven't coughed up any blood so, I think things look good.

-This past weekend I took a pair of teacher certification tests. Hopefully the Praxis will be the last standardized test I ever take, maybe, for a while.

-We saw a star show at the planetarium. It was free (the best sauce) because of some of my students who were presenting there. I should thank them.

-Jill got to come to school and watch the sophomores put on a science demonstration show for some visiting fifth graders. She also got to see me entertain sixty elementary school children for a while and yell louder than she has ever heard me. I'm sure that's the part that stuck with her.

-We went out to sushi, feeling very urbane and sophisticated about the whole thing.

-We (mainly I) have watched three and a half seasons of 30 Rock. I'm less than proud of that one.

-We visited Ball State University, where my sister will be attending in the fall. I was supposed to do homework in the car. I didn't.

-We made bagels and roasted our own peanuts. Jill was excited about these. It was very domestic. You'll likely hear about them later.

-We started attending a small group at church. It's been great and we were definitely spoiled by full meals two weeks in a row. The experience has taught me that I am terrible with names and I ignore my lack of knowledge long past when it's acceptable to ask. I've been doing a lot of back door conversing, trying to get people to say their own names.

-I shaved my beard.

-Jill shaved her legs (I assume).

As I'm sure you can see, it's not like I haven't been busy. Tell Jill; back me up.

Plot: Visitors weekend

How I miss this girl. I was so excited that she came to spend the weekend with us, though not so excited for some of the other events of the weekend.

Friday night before Kelly arrived, we received a knock on our door from our landlord. She had a troubled look on her face and asked to look at our hot water heater, apparently the apartment below us was getting soaked. About an hour after that we had some men come shut our water off and told us we would be getting a new heater in the morning. Kelly arrived shortly after this.

Sure enough, at 9 the next morning we had a new hot water heater being installed. I was so excited, since previously we

only had enough hot water to take one hot shower and one lukewarm one.

We went out for the day with Kelly, showed her around town and such, but when we came back we had yet another surprise. Some men were in our apartment installing "Driz" an industrial vacuum that sucks water out of the floor. It had to run constantly for three days... awesome.

*below* "Driz"

However, we did not let this stop us from enjoying the weekend. We also did a fun craft while Kelly was here. Nathan and I bought some muslin fabric to make curtains out of and some coffee to dye them. They didn't turn out quite as dark as we thought they would, but we like them. I'll let the series of pictures tell the story.

Coffee pot fail lets try boiling it ready to pour

stirring and such

So exhausting..

For finished product please see our video labled: Setting

Thanks to Kelly for photographing these special events:)

Plot: Our week long adventure - The Honeymoon

After a six hour drive from Michigan the day after our wedding, we were home, but not for very long. We unloaded our over packed car and heaped it into our living room. Very exhausted we climbed into bed for the night.

We intended on leaving at 10 the next morning. We were not too far off that mark despite the packing, breakfast, and showering that all took place.

The drive to Maryland was something like an 11 hours to our destination, the Elk Forge Lodge Bed and Breakfast. I was questioning whether it was even worth it to travel this far for a bed and breakfast. As it turned out, it was. The place was beautiful, a huge old house with stained glass windows, three floors of rooms, sitting areas, a game room, and a conservatory, where breakfast was served every morning.

The night we arrived we got in a little later than anticipated. We went to the front door, which we were told would be unlocked..it wasn't. We thought maybe this isn't the front door, so we proceeded to walk all the way around the building at 11:30 at night, with only our phone light to guide us. Finally we found a doorbell and someone came down to let us in. We were so tired, we climbed in bed and went to sleep.

The following day Nathan had some homework due, so he worked on that while I napped.

We found out that we were right on the border of Delaware, a state with no sales tax and we had just opened all of our cards from the wedding. We ventured over there for the day to spend some of our Target money-our best buy was a board game called othello.

On Thanksgiving, we thought we would go to a restaurant that we had a coupon for. It was located on a river, a tiny little town clearly only inhabited during the summer. We found the restaurant and thought that the sign said that they would be open at 5. It was 4:30 so we stayed and despite the misty cold air we got out to walk around a little bit. As 5 o'clock rolled around, we went back to the restaurant to find it still deserted. Reading the sign a little closer we find out that the Thanksgiving dinner was served yesterday. That being a bust, we start back toward the B&B looking for anywhere that was open. About two hours later, we are both starving, we look to our right and we see a place that is open that isn't a McDonald's. We came upon a shady little diner named " The Chuck Wagon." They are serving an all you can eat Thanksgiving dinner and they were open, we couldn't pass it up. We had the nicest seats in the house, right next to the electric fire place. We had our fill, then went back to our room, totally satisfied with our first Thanksgiving dinner together.

Nathan and I went out to a nice restaurant one night and ordered a meal of appetizers and wine, in my opinion, it was the best meal we had. I love variety in a meal.

We were back in Kentucky the following Saturday and went to church on Sunday. Concluding our first adventure as a married couple.

Synopsis

Like Nathan said there has been a lot of change in our lives over the past few months. I wanted to hit a few of the highlights and hopefully elaborate on them a little later.

We both graduated in May, not long after Nathan was on his way to Kentucky for the summer to start classes while I waited not so patiently for a ring so that I could start planning a wedding.

Early July, Nathan surprised me with the engagement on campus. I said yes.

Many phone calls, decisions, and conversations later, we were ready to get married on November 20,2010.

The day after we were off, back to Kentucky for a night, then to Maryland for our honeymoon.

The next couple of weeks following were spent finding a home for all of our wedding gifts and making a few swaps with Target.

Soon after I found a job making quilts. It kept me busy before Christmas, working over 50 hours a week.

I had to take the day off on my birthday on account of my car being completely coated with a 1/2 inch layer of ice, which I did not really mind given the day.

We ventured North for the holidays. Seeing both sides of the family yet trying not to overload our time was tricky, but we figured it out.

We were back in Kentucky for New Years Eve, which we spent with a few of Nathans friends from his program, I being the only girl.

Our friend Mike came to visit, making him our first guest.

Soon after our friend Kelly came to visit during MLK weekend. This same weekend we found out our hot water heater was broken and was leaking all over the apartment below us. We had the immense pleasure of meeting "Driz" the industrial vacuum that was sucking water out of our floor and was running constantly for three days.

We have set every Wednesday night to be our "date night" usually a time to just be intentional in conversation and hanging out, usually dinner is included. One date night this month we went to a winery since we hadn't been on a fancy date since our honeymoon. There was live music, wine, some awesome sweet potato fries and a comfy couch.

An ongoing decision making process has finally come to an end, we have decided on a church.

Just recently I found that I was laid off from quilt making, not to say I was too surprised since after Christmas business slowed dramatically.

I also had a meeting with an entrepreneur who is trying to start a clothing line sort of modeled after Toms shoes. He really enjoyed the designs that I brought and will hopefully get to be a part of this organization as it starts, God willing.

Nathans project for the past couple of months has been refurbishing an old computer by combining and swapping parts from another old computer in hopes that it would run the internet and connect to our tv, which it now does. I was so proud of him when he got it all hooked up and running. Very impressive Mr. Harris.

Nathan has also been getting hurt quite a bit lately. His little activity cost him a gash to the toe from dropping the computer on it. He sliced his finger with his new knife cutting ham. And splashed acid on himself in a lab at school.

That should just about bring you up to speed on our lives, and like I said, Nathan and I hope to expand on certain topics, one so we can remember them better and two so you can understand.