Jamaican me crazy!

VACATION TIME IS FINALLY HERE!! We are off to Jamaica early, early tomorrow morning. Keeping our fingers crossed for good weather and easy travel (none of my usualy travel luck, hopefully!). Talk to you all in a week!!

Just call me 'Four Eyes'

I have always hated wearing glasses. When I first got them in the fifth grade, I used to hide them in a tree on my way to the bus stop so that I wouldn't have to take them to school. I seriously hated those pink plastic glasses. I tried several times in high school to wear contact lenses but was squeamish about putting my finger in my eye; I remember one particularly traumatic experience when Katie had to peel the contacts from my eyeballs after high school graduation. Then in college when Nate and I got engaged that was the kick in the pants I needed to finally get over it and wear contacts. I was not going to walk down the aisle wearing glasses and I wanted to see Nate's face the whole way down the aisle.

Now, after five years in contacts, my glasses rarely see the light of day. The last time I tried to wear them they gave me a headache because the prescription is so out of date (I last replaced them sophomore year of college - eight years ago!). So last week I bit the bullet and visited the eye doctor to get new glasses.

I decided that since I rarely wear them anyway I could afford to be a little adventurous in my selection; if I hated them, I could just never wear them out of the house. I have always admired the girls who wear funky glasses but was never brave enough to try it myself. I bit the bullet and chose some funky maroon frames. I am SO in love with these glasses I am actually PLANNING to wear them out in public; like 'standing-in-the-closet-trying-to-find-the-best-outfit-to-show-off-my-glasses' kind of planning. They're like a whole new accessory for my wardrobe!


Sorry about the glare. I couldn't figure out how to make it go away, but you get the basic idea.

The Nerd Center

On Saturday we went to see The Dark Knight. It was one of the best movies I have seen recently. I know a lot of you who read this haven't seen it yet so I won't spoil it by doing a whole review, but it totally lives up to all the hype from recent months. Heath Ledger is down right maniacal and I hope he is at least nominated for an Oscar for this performance. On a side note, if Katie Holmes is smart, she's kicking herself for having turned down this movie.

After the movie we went to check out the house. The whole roof is on and the shingles are sitting up there waiting to be put down on Monday. They have already installed the 'guts' of the fireplace and started the HVAC and insulation. We should get electricity and plumbing roughed in this week. Cameron said he expects drywall to start going up in about a week. We have been told that drywall takes about 10 days is the most boring part, so we will be glad to miss most of it while we are on vacation.

This is the view of our house when you turn onto our street. Pretty nice!!

All of the windows and the exterior doors are in.

The fireplace is hooked up. I cannot wait to use the fireplace this winter!!

The guest bathroom tub is sitting in the living room.

The framework for the garden tub in the master bath has been put in. Another thing I am looking forward to using!!


Today we dropped the puppies off at the groomers and then went to not one but TWO libraries, or as Nate like to call it, the Nerd Center. Nate has officially become a library Nerd. When his parents were here for the Fourth, his dad and I were talking about a book series that we both like to read (the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child) and it was suggested that Nate might like it since it's a little Bond-ish. Nate, of course, scoffed at the notion that he might like ANYTHING that I read. But lo and behold, last week he asks if I have one of those books his dad was talking about. He took it with him on his business trip and then read most of yesterday afternoon until he finished it. He tried to oh-so-casually ask if I might have another book (like I wasn't going to notice that he TOTALLY LIKES A BOOK THAT I RECOMMENDED). Sadly, I don't because I borrow all of my books from the Nerd Center for which he teases me mercilessly. So today we were off to the Nerd Center to find Nate a book. But not just any book, it must be the first book in the series , which of course has already been checked out. I tried explaining that the books are all stand-alone and they don't have to be read in order, but to no avail. He simply must have the FIRST book and that is all there is to it. So we are off to the library in Noblesville to see if they have it. Again, he is disappointed I finally convince him that one of the other books will be just as good and I promise to put a hold on the first book for him. Nate has officially become a card-carrying NERD who borrows books from the library. (Please feel free to make fun of him the next time you see him).

Only seven more days until VACATION in JAMAICA. We just found out today that our friends are on the same flight from Charlotte to Jamaica, so we get to start the party even earlier than we thought!

Sound off!

Ever had a particularly bad day at work? Happens to me more often than I would like lately, but this website always gives me a good laugh. Look up your employer to see what people are complaining about at your company. Some of the comments for my company were laugh-out-loud funny. (Of course, I don't suggest you do this on company time!)

www.jobvent.com

Countdown

Only 10 more days until we are sipping strawberry daiquiris in Jamaica.

Raise the roof

Today was our meeting with Park, the guy in charge of building our house. We have waited almost a month for this meeting and re-scheduled it twice. Our meeting was set for 3:00, Nate was coming home to pick me up at 2:30. At 2:15 the phone rings; it's Nate, sick as a dog, calling to say he's coming home to go to bed. I ended up going to the meeting alone, while Nate attempted to sleep off whatever tummy bug he's managed to pickup.

The meeting wasn't really as exciting as we thought it would be. Park is very nice, much younger than I expected. But the meeting was mostly a recap of information we already knew, like our plot plan and our electrical layout. He expects to be able to give us a completion date in about three weeks and thinks he'll be done in September. Cameron assured me that we wouldn't have to close until October since that is what our contract says. If the house really is done early, I don't know how we'll be able to resist closing early! Guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

After the meeting, I headed back to the house to check out the roof progress. No action shots though because the guys were already done for the day. But we DO have a roof! It's mostly up, except for a little tiny patch up front by the eaves. But it looks awesome! The second floor was much easier to distinguish with the roof on. Not sure why that makes such a difference, but it did. They also put in most of the windows and doors.

Only a little more roof to go:


The front door will be painted Musket Brown later.




Nate is feeling a little bit better after his nap, some ginger ale and a little TLC. Hopefully he will sleep it off and be all better in the morning.

Express yourself

Express just launched their first ever online shopping website at www.express.com. I am always excited when my favorite stores have online shopping because it's hard to find good sale stuff in my size.

Natalie, in case you didn't already know, THE LIMITED is launching an online store later in the summer. Pretty soon you won't have to miss out on all THE LIMITED fun.

For those of you are big fans of THE LIMITED:

Sporting wood

Or as Nate likes to say, "Sporing wood".

We took our friends Buster and Weez (yes, that is what Nate actually calls them) out to the house on Friday night, after a yummy Thai dinner. Less than 24 hours after our last visit and we already had a whole second floor.

The second floor is a LOT harder to figure out than the first floor. Some of the rooms were obvious (like the master bedroom and the loft) but it took Weez and I several minutes to distinguish the shared bathroom from all the closets and tell where some of the door frames will go. I took a lot of pictures and when I uploaded them I had to pull out the floor plan to figure out what I was looking at in some of them!

Nate was really worried about the size of the backyard for awhile but now that we have seen it with the house on the lot, things look a lot different and I think his worries have died down a bit. There will be plenty of room for a deck AND a fence next spring. I also didn't realize how much side yard we would have until this last visit. There is a enough yard for the things we want to do but not so much that Nate will spend the whole weekend doing yard work.

Our meeting with Park and Cameron is at 3:00pm tomorrow and I hope we can catch some of the roof going up and get some action shots for the blog.

We took advantage of Buster and had him take our picture together in front of the house. Since we always go out alone, I rarely get to be in the shot!

Master bedroom and sitting room. I love all of the windows in here.

My new closet. Everyone knows how much I love to shop but even I don't have enough clothes and shoes to fill this closet. This is the BEST CLOSET EVER.

Nate shows off his 'Man Cave' to Buster and Weez. Nate has already laid claim to the loft as his 'Man Cave'. He has grand plans for this room. I'm just thrilled that his video game junk won't be on full display in the living room anymore.

Check out flickr for the rest of the shots: www.flickr.com/photos/unwraplife/

Pretty as a picture

Yeah!! They started framing our house today. Cameron called this afternoon to tell us that the first floor was mostly done. They think they will have a roof on it by Monday, as long as the weather stays nice.

I waited (rather impatiently) for Nate to get home and then we headed out there to take a look. We were so jazzed to see it finally look like more than a hole in the ground; it looks like a house!! It suddenly seems very, very real and we were both grinning from ear to ear the whole time.

Standing in the driveway, looking at the garage. All that wood is the rest of our framing kit.

That's a lot of wood!

Standing in the garage looking toward the great room and kitchen.

Standing in the foyer looking at the living room.

Standing in the kitchen looking into the great room. The fireplace will be in the left-hand corner. Nate is checking out the view from all the windows. This room is very open and bright. I love all the windows!

This is a terrible picture of me (showcasing the fireplace) but I told Leah I would post a pic of the top I found to go with these green shorts. (PS. If anyone knows where I can find a skinny white belt to cinch the top, please let me know).

Can't stop smiling!!


We finally have our builder meeting scheduled (you know, the one that's supposed to happen BEFORE the house gets started!). It took three or four tries, but barring disaster, we'll finally get to sit down with Park next Monday and get the time line for the rest of the house.

If you want to see more pictures check us out on flickr:
www.flickr.com/photos/unwraplife/

How'd it get to be Wednesday?

Man, this week has gone fast. Not that I am complaining because I am certainly looking forward to the weekend, but I just can't believe how the week has flown by.

We had an awesome Fourth of July weekend. Nate's parents came up from Charlotte to spend the weekend. It was the first time his mom had visited us in Indy (his dad came for a night right after we got here). They made the long drive up on Thursday and left Sunday morning.

Friday was a little overcast and cool, but turned out nice by the evening. We took his parents out to see the house but not much had changed since our last visit. The basement looked more like a kiddie pool after all of the rain!


Friday night we went to Symphony on the Prairie at Conner Prairie. Conner Prairie is a living history museum not very far from our apartment. They have an open-air summer concert series most weekend evenings, with different themes every weekend. Fourth of July was, of course, a patriotic theme. The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra played about twenty patriotic songs and ended with a big fireworks display. And an unexpected side benefit was that we could see several other fireworks displays from around Indy during the concert.


This picture is for Buster - Nate enjoying his turkey leg!


Enjoying the symphony.


On Saturday we went downtown to do a little shopping and visit the car show. It was a nice day to be outside and we enjoyed walking around downtown.

And in between it all, we played a LOT of Wii. Sadly, both of his parents are better at it than me, even though they get to play like twice a year. I never seem to get any better at it; must be a side effect of growing up in a family of all girls.

Only 18 more days until vacation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
-Declaration of Independence, 1776

In deciding what to post this morning, I decided to re-read the Declaration of Independence. It has been years, probably high school, since I read the whole the thing through. I am in awe of extraordinary bravery of those ordinary men.

But that's not what this post is about. The passage above is probably one of the most familiar passages of the entire document, words that most Americans recognize. In reading it through this morning, I was struck by the words 'pursuit of Happiness'.

The dictionary defines pursuit as:

1. the act of pursuing
2. an effort to secure or attain; quest
3. any occupation, pastime, or the like, in which a person is engaged regularly
or customarily

—Synonyms 1. chase, hunt. 2. search. 3. activity, preoccupation, inclination.

Pursuit requires action, effort, a search or quest. Happiness is not a right or a guarantee. I do have the right to wake up in the morning and decide to be happy. Happiness is a decision.

Most days I win this battle but the last few weeks have been stressful and I had forgotten that the pursuit of happiness is my right. Starting today, I will again make the conscious decision to be happy (at least most days!).

If you want to read the full Declaration of Independence or other information about it, visit www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/index.htm

Busy bee

Someone at work sent me this today to tease me about how I have my finger in so many pies at work. This is certainly how I have been feeling lately at work. I am doing ten different things at once, with a hundred more on the 'To Do' list. I never seem to catch up! As a Type A person, I hate not being able to give each task my full attention and make sure every detail is perfect. Lately, I am just relieved to get a task completed; only rarely do I have the luxury of making it all that I want it to be. Maybe through this, I will learn to let go (at least a little bit) and be content with getting things done well, even if they can't be perfect.