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June Goals

I have seen this around the blog block so I figured I would give it a try. Maybe it will hold me accountable, maybe it will just be a list of things I never get around to doing. Who knows!?!

1. Upload and send graduation pictures to my sister.
2. Update the blog at least once a week.
3. Hang the mirror in the guest room.
4. Take the couch cover to the dry cleaners.
5. D.I. the basket of stuff that is sitting in the living room.
6. Create some sort of art for above our bed.
7. Plant the herbs into their permanent containers.
8. Write the paper for the class I am taking MORE than 24 hours before it is due.
9. Do laundry at least once a week.
10. Keep the kitchen counter clean for a month.
11. Lose 5 pounds.

I think these are all pretty reasonable to the point that they have a chance of completion. Well, all except number 8- because we all know that will never happen.

In other news, I have tons of pictures to post and many fun things to write about. I just haven't. Mostly because I am a slacker. Somewhat because I have been spending time in the yard cutting the bushes back and putting mulch in strategic places so that it looks as though we are trying to care about the appearance of our yard. I really thought this is why we pay the yard people but apparently that only covers lawn mowing. I think I need to add gardener to my future entourage.

Two Years Later

It has been two years since that fateful April day at Virginia Tech. I wrote this then and will re-post it now. It is still unbelievable and still makes me want to cry.

"While 32 of our friends and classmates are in heaven trying to explain what a Hokie is, I stand here sure in the fact that I wouldn't want to be anything else."
So, yesterday I got a message from Kevin telling me something bad had happened at our beloved Virginia Tech. When I checked the news one was dead and one was injured- some kind of "domestic disturbance". By the end of the school day, that number had jumped to 33 dead, 20 more injured. We both sat on the couch in disbelief as we watched the events unfold on the TV and the internet.

It wasn't that long ago that I was there- walking under the arch in Norris to make it over to Hokie Grill and back (usually with Macel) before the next class started. It wasn't that long ago that we were stumbling the mile or more from the commuter lot to make it to a football game before kickoff after 8 hours of tailgating, walking right by that building. It wasn't that long ago that we had some random sorority event in the crossover lounge at AJ. And it wasn't that long ago that many of my friends sat in the very classrooms where this all went down.

Today in school was weird. Trying to pull myself together so that I could answer the questions my students had. Many of them knew I graduated from Tech, many still did not. Hearing them say they were scared to go to college now and that they didn't understand why this had happened was hard because, at 8:30 this morning, I did not understand why this had happened- part of me still does not understand why this happened. And some of them were still jerks.

I guess it is easy to try to place blame because that is what we try to do when tragedy strikes. But this person was intent on finding and killing who he was looking for. If it had not been Norris Hall, it would have been a dining hall, or a dorm lounge, or the Drillfield. The one person to blame for this is dead along with 32 innocent individuals. It is terrible and just....sad. The human stories are starting to emerge from all this...the ones that tear your heart out of your chest and make you go back to that place that you once thought was so safe.

And here we are now...both of us still staring at the TV in disbelief. Talking to our friends who maybe finally understand that once you become a Hokie you never stop- orange and maroon always match- and you still think Blacksburg is one of the best places in the world. My best friend- a diehard Hokie Hater- is dressing her son in orange and maroon on Friday My sister- a Wahoo- has put a VT logo on her Myspace. And thousands of people throughout the world have seen our tiny little Blue Ridge Mountain town pull together to get through something that no one should ever have to experience.

As cheers of "Let's Go Hokies" rise above the sea of people on the VT drillfield, I just want to cry.

Neglected

ne·glect

tr.v. ne·glect·ed, ne·glect·ing, ne·glects To pay little or no attention to; fail to heed; disregard: neglected their warnings. To fail to care for or attend to properly: neglects her appearance. To fail to do or carry out, as through carelessness or oversight: neglected to return the call. n. The act or an instance of neglecting something. The state of being neglected. Habitual lack of care. [Latin neglegere, neglēct- : neg-, not; see ne in Indo-European roots + legere, to choose, pick up; see leg- in Indo-European roots.] ne·glect'er n. In other words...the state of this blog.

The First Night in Reno, or The Night I Was Mistaken for a Hooker

Sometimes you need to get out of Utah, if for no other reason to remind yourself how quirky it is and that the rest of the world isn't so conservative. With that in mind, we spent last weekend in Reno for the Western Athletic Conference Basketball Championship. We almost didn't make it! You see, Dr. HokieKev spent the first part of Furlough Break in New Jersey working his undercover job. His flight back was supposed to get into Salt Lake at 10:30, our plane to Reno left at 11:10- plenty of time! Not so fast my friend, he was delayed and ended up sprinting across the airport to make the flight that I was prepared to cry, lie, and wager into staying at the gate until he arrived. None of this would have been a problem had the WAC kept the schedule as originally planed which gave Utah State the night game. Instead, they changed it to give the home team, Nevada-Reno, the advantage. Since when there are home teams in championships, I do not know- but that is another story for another time.

So anyway, we made the plane and headed to Reno. Our seat partners were fun. Dr. HokieKev sat with the Aggie pointgaurd's family and I sat with a woman who lives down the street from Sarah Palin in Wasilla, AK. We chatted. Dr. HokieKev made friends. We finally landed in Reno. The first game was fairly uneventful. Upon its conclusion, we headed back to the hotel to change for dinner. After a quick tripadvisor search, Dr. HokieKev settled on The SteakHouse at Harrah's! which was across the street from our hotel. We got all dressed up and made our way to the hidden gem (seriously, located UNDER the casino- accessible only by slightly hidden stairs- booths only facing out. Total mob front from the 70s) with EXCELLENT food! We ate dinner, desert, blah blah blah boring boring boring and then proceeded to leave. As we were crossing the street back to our hotel, Random Dude approached Dr. HokieKev and clearly said "Dude, are you in a position to help me find a hooker?" and clearly looked directly at me. WTF!

Now I am not easily offended- in fact, it takes an awful lot to offend me. But this- um, yeah- was a little bit offensive. I mean, do I really look like a hooker? And before you all comment on my obvious hookerish attributes, I would like to add that I was not dressed in a manner that would warrant the assumption. I didn't have the dress from Halloween on (I save that for Vegas)- I didn't even have anything that lowcute on- and even if I had, so what...no reasonable person has ever jumped from cleavage to hooker. In fact, both Dr. HokieKev and I looked like we had stepped out of a J. Crew catalog (aside from the fact that nothing we were wearing was actually from J. Crew). I guess this particular weirdo was into preppy hookers with professorial pimps!

Accountability- The Report

What I Accomplished Over Furlough Break

1. Match living room paint and touch up all the walls I also touched up the paint in all the other rooms upstairs. In the process, I made friend with pink putty.
2. Clean the kitchen really well Everything but the inside of the refrigerator is now spotless. Well...I also didn't get around to washing the floor, but nonetheless.
3. Hang the picture frames in the guest bedroom FAIL- I didn't go downstairs all week
4. Find or build a bedframe for guest bedroom #2 FAIL- see above
5. Clean the master bath really well I also cleaned the 2nd bathroom really well.
6. Install fancy shower head in downstairs bathroom FAIL- see above
7. Find two brown, quilted euro shams for the master bedroom that do not cost $99.99 each They aren't quilted but they are cute and didn't cost $99.99. I made the sales girl at Bed, Bath, and Beyond take them off a display.
8. Figure out something to do with all the mail Got a mail holder for the laundry room
9. Organize the laundry room/tv equipment room FAIL-eh...
10. Build a coat rack for the laundry room I also made a shelf and got a container for the mail. Now if I could only get Dr. HokieKev to put his keys on the keyrack...

6 out of 10- better than 50%!

Pink Putty and Paint Stirrers

When Dr. HokieKev and I decided to move to Utah, we also decided to buy a house. We took a long weekend last March to fly out and look at over 30 houses...in three days. We bought the last one we looked at. Fanciness and upgrades enticed us. Things like this:
And these:
And all this (which, consequently was its own pain in the butt- but I think we finally have it working right):

And this lovely kitchen with its gorgeous travertine wall:

The reason for all of the fanciness was mostly the fact that the previous owner was the builder. In fact, that is his profession- he builds houses. He puts fancy upgrades in his. So, we bought his house and with it got the upgrades. We own these things now- they are still fancy.

However, in all of these upgrades and all of this fanciness, the former owner neglected to pay attention to details. Let me remind you- he is a builder, he builds houses. That is how he makes money. Anyway, he left out the details. I don't know why I have picked now to start worrying about these things, but in the last few weeks they have really bothered me. You see, there were several spots throught out the house where paint was touched up- with the wrong color. There is a fairly large section of an accent wall in our living room- the only wall in the whole house that is a different color from the rest- that was painted the wrong color. There were nail holes. And gouges in the wall. And almost every light switch plate looked like someone had taken a chopstick size screwdriver and punched a hole in the wall right next to it. The ones without actual holes, well...you could tell that there were holes which were painted over- poorly.

I mean, I guess I could give the guy the benefit of the doubt. When you are moving out, you are bound to ding some walls or leave some nail holes unfilled. But once again, he is a builder. He does this stuff for a living. That is how he makes money. I could also see if the fixing of these things took time. And before today- maybe I thought they did. But once again- DUDE BUILDS HOUSES. FOR A LIVING.

Once again, I don't know what this has just started to bother me, but it has. Noone will be able to tell that the accent wall is two colors. But I know. Most people won't realize the poorly painted over imperfections. But I will. So today, I went around my upstairs with a can of pink putty and filled in the holes and gouges. It took less than ten minutes. I didn't even have the proper putty knife. I used a paint stirrer. Did I mention the putty was pink?


After about an hour, the pink putty turned white. Once again, I took less than ten minutes to go around and sand away the excess. One day this week, I will take another ten minutes or so to paint over the holes and dings and dents. I don't build houses for a living. I also no longer have chopstick size holes next to all my upstairs light switches (I am saving the downstairs for another day).

Now there is the small matter of that pesky 1500 lb. gun safe in our office...