Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Before & After

So I have the week off work and yesterday was my big project day. Up came the gold living room carpet that was installed in 1969 or '70 (see the first photo). It wasn't a bad color to start with, but it was getting grungy & the dog had already started ripping it up.



Besides, look at what I knew was underneath! Oak floors, original to the house, which was built in 1934. Much better.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Christmas Highlights

Some of my favorite photos from this Christmas, spent with my parents & sister's family on Saturday and my in-laws on Sunday.  :)

Thing 1 & Thing 2 with their first tree (that died a week before Christmas).  The second was . . . less well shaped, but they seemed just as happy with it.
Little Thing 2 underneath the tree.  When she was a little girl, his auntie used to love to lie on the floor & stare up at the lights, too.

Sadie's first Christmas with us!  Here, she's getting a Christmas morning pig ear.  Not my personal preference, but she loves them & it kept her quiet while I opened stockings with my folks.

My sister & brother-in-law, celebrating their 12th Christmas as a married couple.  :)

The boys loved their new Glow Doodles, as evidenced by Thing 2's face in this photo . . .

And Thing 1's face in this photo!  What a bunch of hams.  :)

Thing 2 helping his mama unwrap one of her gifts.
Thing 2 with the "big big yellow digger" he requested and Auntie & Uncle provided. 
Brother-in-law, modeling his Patriots hat from Justin & I.

Thing 2 checking out Sadie checking out the tree.

Littlest sister-in-law,  modeling her new coat from her brother & I

And snuggling with her puppy, Lacey, on the kitchen floor.  :)

Friday, December 24, 2010

Stepping into Christmas


Today, I video chatted with my husband on 3 separate occasions, which pretty much made my week. The first time, to open our presents to each other; the second, to just chat for a bit while I ate my oatmeal & before I ran to the grocery & liquor stores; and the third, when I was at his aunt's house, so he could see all 15 of his extended family members, and they him. :)

Tomorrow, I'll be spending the day with my parents, sister, brother-in-law, nephews & the two dogs at my sister's across town and video chatting with the husband again! :) This Christmas is definitely a blue one, but we're making the best of it. God willing, this will be the only Christmas we ever spend apart. Christmas 2010, bring it.

Hope you have a lovely, warm, and bright Christmas wherever you are tomorrow!

Monday, December 20, 2010

At Least I was Warm & Dry

Snowy conditions + Christmas shoppers + a few disabled vehicles on the side of the road = a 3 hour, 53 minute commute home. Normal commute time with fair weather conditions? 45 minutes.

Welcome back, Old Man Winter . . . you grinchy bastard.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Random Thoughts from this Week

  • The above saved me some change this morning while running work errands in Portsmouth. I miss living in that city, but thankful that I visit every Friday for work.
  • I took out the trash & recycling last night wearing my grandfather's wool flat cap & my grandmother's leather gloves. Given that this was their house for 46 years, there's a comfort in that.
  • You know you've had a long week when you get home from work & errands on Friday and promptly fall asleep for about 3½ hours. Luckily, I have a pretty low-key weekend ahead, so I can rest up & finish Christmas shopping and card-sending.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

The Tree!

Guess who had help decorating her tree tonight from two sweet boys? I can't seem to get really excited about this Christmas, being that Justin's gone (hence the short, fake, not at all what I normally get tree.) I may post about this Blue Christmas at some point. However, it certainly helped to have assistance from the monkeys (primarily the one on the right) for tree-trimming!

And yes, Thing 2 wore his Batman costume from Halloween to decorate the Christmas tree. Little kids are freaking awesome. They do what they want.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Blocked

So, somewhere along the line with this blogging thing, I got stuck. I've always been both a procrastinator and a perfectionist (symptoms of the good ol' ADD), so writing is never a stress-free activity for me. However, there's a difference between taking an extra ten minutes to refine & hone your post and worrying so much about achieving perfection that you don't post at all.

I'm really going to try to avoid the latter option in the future. I used to be able to do it - look at this short but sweet post from 2007. So, in a first valiant effort . . .

Hey - check out this pic of my adorable nephew, Thing #2. :) And scene.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Sadder than it means to be . . .

So, I have a pretty good life, you guys. I honestly can't complain much about how fate has treated me - a wonderful childhood, a loving family, a career I enjoy, and a husband who has made me smile pretty much every day of the 2+ years we've been together.

Still. This deployment thing is HARD. I can't give many details about what Justin does, but he leaves for a mission soon. My husband, the other half of my being, is about to be out of communication for awhile, doing something potentially quite dangerous. How could that fail to infuse my daily life with fear & worry?

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Gobble, Gobble

I'm off to the lake house this evening to celebrate Thanksgiving with my parents, sister & brother-in-law, nephews, and 2 pups. And we hope to have a noon Skype chat with my husband from afar. :) Wherever you are tomorrow, hope you have a lovely day, filled with warmth, food, and laughter. Oh, and be sure to click on that picture of the bagpipe-playing turkey above - you'll be glad you did.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Predictable . . .

Now that much of my grandparents' furniture has been shifted around within this house, moved to another family house, sold, or given away, I have room to think about bringing new pieces of our own selection into the house. Below are some of the items I was coveting last night.


(Etsy listing here)


You can pretty much divine our decorating aesthetic from these three pieces. It goes something like this: maps, wood, brown leather. I think I would have been at home in Hemingway's writing studio in Cuba. :)

Friday, November 19, 2010

Link Dump

I have a few partially drafted posts that have been sitting around for a few weeks now. And they're mostly just links to things that I enjoyed on the interwebs. Thought I'd consolidate them into one post & throw you some links here!

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Ahhhhhhhh weekend

How the heck did it get to be Tuesday already??? I sat down on Sunday afternoon to write a short post about the lovely afternoon and evening Sadie & I spent with my friends & their dog. Then I got distracted and saved the post as a draft. And now it's Tuesday. Oh well.

The shot above is from Castle Island in South Boston. We took the pups for a walk around the loop, then they "highjacked" the rest of my evening and fed me dinner & wine until the safest course was sleeping over (rather than driving home). Lovely. :)

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Our Trip to La Crosse, WI

That title contains words I never thought I'd type. ;) I've been to Wisconsin before, mind you, but it was a church youth group trip to a youth center in Green Bay eons ago - and I don't recall much choice in the matter. Not that I had much on this one, either. Husband was on a short leave before heading to much warmer & further climes (somewhere in the Middle East - I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you). Ergo, Wife must travel to wherever he be.

And in the end, it wasn't bad. I booked us a suite in a wonderful B&B called the Bentley-Wheeler. The owners were kind & thoughtful, brought us amazing breakfast baskets in the morning, gave us restaurant recommendations, and otherwise just left us alone to be "the couple spending time together before the husband deploys." Bless them for that.

And for the bargain basement price of $135/night, we stayed in the most amazing suite I've ever seen. It was a 3rd floor ballroom that was converted to a suite with massive living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, porch, and CHURCH ORGAN! The fuzzy video below was taken on my phone, but it gives a sense of the joint. If you turn your volume way up, you might be able to hear my narration in the background.


The view from the porch

On the 4th day, due to a booking error, we had to move downstairs to the normal-sized guest suite. However, it was no dump either & the owners waived that night's room charge due to the mix-up. Note: my husband has on athletic shorts in the above photo, thought it does not look that way.

Lovely room!

We spent an indecent amount of time napping, eating, and shopping at the market down the street. It was lovely to see my husband after nearly 2 months apart, and heartbreaking to say goodbye to him again. With luck, I'll be seeing him sometime in the spring on his 2-week, mid-deployment leave. We're meeting in the middle in Scotland! And that's the cheerful thought I'll take us out on . . .

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Just before the beginning . . .

I'm back! I had a nice time in Wisconsin visiting Justin & will write a post soon about our trip. However, thinking about my husband and our relationship (which is rather long-distance right now!), I wanted to share this post that I wrote back in April of 2008. If any of you know Justin, pay careful attention to the way I describe my Mr. Right. I met Justin about a month later. :)

Monday, November 01, 2010

See you next week!

No posts this week, as I'll be in Wisconsin visiting Justin before he deploys to the Middle East. I'll leave you with this great photo of my sweet monkey nephews trick or treating to tide you over. Catch you next week!

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Sunday Morning

Oh, fall Sunday mornings, I forgot how great you can be. Coffee & oatmeal & relaxing on the couch after a great Halloween party with my college friends last night. And let's not forget - flying out to see my husband on Tuesday!!!

Friday, October 29, 2010

Rock. On.

This is awesome. It comes from one of the wedding blogs I read while planning our wedding. Since the author got married, the site has evolved into a blog about marriage and community and feminism and lots of generally awesome things.

And then I stood in front of the mirror wondering if I was the kind of girl who wore grey cowboy boots and black tights out to dinner. Was I, really? Was I that hip, ever? What would it take to be that girl? 
And then I realized. What it would take to be that girl was wearing the outfit out of the house. That was it.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Spooooky

I took the dog for a walk tonight, about 3 hours ago. The night was oddly lit, as the clouds covered the moon, but there was a strange orangey pink glow in the sky. We're walking along, perfectly normal nighttime walk, all well in the neighborhood. Sadie stops to do her business and we both hear a rustle in the trees across the street. Scares the crap (literally) out of the dog. I remain slightly calmer.

We walk on and somehow the time of year & the atmosphere of the night conspire to turn things spooky. I keep thinking I hear someone behind us and every shadow takes on a sinister overtone. It gets to the point where I'm thinking, "OK, I have on sneakers & a jacket with deep pockets, so my phone & keys won't fall out if I have to run. Sadie's fast and I was an All New England track star, so we'll be fine." Then, just when I'm completely spooked out, I hear an owl hoot somewhere off in the trees. An owl! Is that out of central casting or what?

Somehow the absurdity of an owl actually hooting in the distance on a creepy night breaks the spell. I chuckle to myself and we make our way home, unscathed.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Oh gods of blogging . . .

why do you hate me so? Well, the gods of blogging (if there be such things) are fine to me - it's the ones who are in charge of blog get-togethers like Blogtoberfest who seem to have a vendetta going. At this point, I'm 1 for 4 on Blogtoberfests. :(

I made it to the first one, traffic & Red Sox kept me from the second one, I was detained in NH for the third one, and last night, I got home from work late and felt really, really, really crappy. Too little sleep this week? Too many nights working late? I don't know. I just know that I sat down on my couch for a second to rest before getting ready and the thought of getting changed, driving into the city, finding parking, etc. when I felt so yucky had me in tears. I feel terrible I missed it, especially since there was a waiting list, but I just had nothing left.

I hope those who made it had a great time (seemed like she did and they did) and that Jenny will host another one next year so I can finally make a successful sophomore appearance!

Monday, October 18, 2010

A Walk with Sadie

Soon after we moved into the new (to us) house, Justin & I took the new pup for a walk down our new (-ish) street. We wandered down towards the reservoir and reveled in the August evening. I never had time to create the post I was hoping for about our walk, but maybe my notes do an ok job on their own . . .
  • bugs, birds and noises everywhere
  • green trees & verdant summer life
  • cold beer in coffee travel cups (sneaky!)
  • calm water on the reservoir & evening sunset hue
  • walks along the road with sadie now & our kids eventually
  • our place now

Saturday, October 16, 2010

911!

Yikes. That's how many posts I've written since I started blogging nearly 5 years ago. For nerds like me, it breaks down as follows: 29 posts on Enigmatic Snippets (no link, as it was lost in the wilds of cyberspace), 113 posts on Wer Ond Wif, 128 on Museophilia, and 641 here on Hodoeporicon. It's pretty funny that I have almost as many posts on the wedding-specific blog as I do on the work-related one I've had for a year longer! Although, I am getting better at posting regularly on Museophilia, particularly with the photo series I'm doing right now.

In thinking about blogging tonight, I also wanted to draw your attention to this great post from Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman. She highlights ten important things she's learned about blogging and I think some of her tips are great motivators for the days you just can't come up with anything to say.

And in other blog news, yours truly will be attending the fourth annual Boston Blogtoberfest this coming Thursday! I haven't been since the very first one in 2006 (the germ of the idea of which I actually helped create, though Jenny ably executed the whole thing). Now that I'm a repatriated Boston blogger, I'm excited to meet up with old friends from the city and meet new bloggers in the area.

Also - this has nothing to do with anything, but has anyone else been listening to The Suburbs compusively? Soooo good.

Friday, October 08, 2010

Birthday Musings

At 8:37pm, 29 years ago, I was born. A small ginger child with two loving parents and a big sister who would come to love me, but initially wanted me to live in the garden shed. ;)

At 8:37pm tonight, I turned 29 years old. I was on a walk with the dog, having just gotten back from dinner with said sister, her husband, and her two sons. I wandered up the street, nursing an Old Foghorn barleywine and missing my husband. We walked up the street a ways, then turned into the conservation area near us, which I refer to as "the field" in my head. I pulled the pup up a small rise, then plopped down to drink my beer and gape at the field and the stars for awhile.

At first, I just felt bad for myself. "I'm 29," I thought, "and it's my birthday. But my husband is far away. I miss him." But eventually, the night got to me and I came around. "It's a lovely night, I have a lovely dog, and I'm going to spend the weekend at the lake house with my parents, my nephews, and two lovely dogs. How much have I really to complain about?"

So that's the final word. :) Happy birthday to me.

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

That Time of Year Again, Soon

Actually, I think we're just a little past it. Go read this at Sweet & Salty and understand what I'm talking about. This bit rings true with me now - "I want stews and porridge and mittens and woodsmoke and bats."

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Photo Cheat

The last two weeks have been crazy busy - this past Sunday was my first day off since my honey flew away on the 14th! 11 straight working days does not a good blogger make. However, I've been able to keep up with the other blogs better, since their content involves more photos. So, in that vein, I decided to pop a photo up here and call it a blog post.

I was recently going through our wedding photos (for posts on Wer ond Wif, of course). I picked out both black & white ones that I liked and ones that made me go "bwahahahahahaha." This photo covers both bases. It was taken during Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," a song with which half of the wedding party has a special relationship (see here and here for more illumination). I believe this is the part that goes, "No, we will not let you go!" My husband does it very convincingly. :)

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Absence

Well, Justin left on Tuesday morning for a couple of months training stateside, followed by a ten-month deployment overseas. Le sigh. The house feels empty - even with a dog and a fish and five houseplants and many boxes yet to be unpacked.

I've known about this deployment for as long as we've been dating, as his battery received notice of the possibility two years ago. Our two-year dating anniversary is on the 24th. So I've always known he might go. And it sucked, but I got used to it being a vague thing, somewhere in the future.

Then, the planned deployment date forced us to change our wedding date and that sucked. But, we got over and through that hiccup and the deployment still seemed like just a thing, over there somewhere, not HERE.

But now he's gone. It's weird. I know I'll get more used to it as we go, but it's startling right now. He's not here to greet me when I get home from work. He's not here to pour coffee into my travel mug in the morning and send me out the door with a kiss. He's not here to help manage the crazy dog. ;)

I've always been fairly independent and I lived alone for many years. I'm sure I'll be able to handle the alone-ness of it all better than some, but I keep thinking that this is more temporary than it is. He's been away for a week or more before with army stuff - he'll be home soon, I can't help thinking. Of course, he won't be, but my body/brain/heart keeps expecting him there to fill the empty space on the couch, in the car, at the table, in the bed. It's weird.

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Various Things (Still Not Hiatus-ing)

Yeah, I'd like to emphasize that I'm still not really hiatus-ing. I said that in the title, but I wanted to make sure you saw it. Right. Anyway.

I came on to tell you that we've moved! We are officially into the new house. House, not apartment. I have to get used to this "house" thing, having not lived in one since . . . maybe 2004? Well, I guess that excludes the 5 months that J and I lived with his 3 friends in a massive duplex with 5 other college kids on the other side of the wall. This, though, is our house.

Well, it was my grandparents' house, but we're working on making it ours. It's very messy right now, though. Case in point - my sister & brother-in-law, lovely folks that they are, stopped in the other day to let the pup out for a pee, as we had to be out most of the day. I texted her, "how did you like the "new" house?" Her response? "Loved the kitchen table, then saw a lot of boxes." ;)

Anyway, we're here. We'll likely be here until we have gray hair and our kids are in college (or older). And that's nice.

Also - I found a new blog that I am in love with: Whoopee. And it led me to this awesomeness:

Monday, August 23, 2010

Random Thought from the Commute Home

I don't care what decade it is - listening to old-school Beasties in the car (and calling it "old-school Beasties") just makes me feel f-ing cool.

Also - what's with the declared blog hiatus prompting me to start writing again? Is the writer inside me just a contrary teenager? Seems quite likely to me . . .

Friday, August 20, 2010

A Meta Post

See, the thing is - I'm always composing blog posts in my head. Always. As life goes on around me & through me, I'm commenting on it, adding pictures, finding links to support references. Constantly.

BUT. What with this & that (and the this & that is much more than usual this year), it's rare these days that all of my mental posts make it here, onto the "physical" space of the blog. Unfortunately, it's not going to get better for another month or so, as my lovely new husband is being deployed in mid-September. And we're in the middle of moving into my grandparents' old house. And I'm still working three jobs. And the new dog, while adorable, is completely. crazy.

So. In the interest of making this continue to work, I might take a brief hiatus. A short one, I promise. I've been posting rarely lately, so it's just making it official, I guess. Fear not, though, I will be back. I can't think of a polite way to say this, so here it is. For years, I used this space as a place to tell stories of my day, my life, my mind. Then, I got a husband who's a good listener. While he's far away, guess who I'll be coming back to? ;)

P.S. In case you haven't noticed, I've also been mucking about with the blog's template. I changed over to the wooden planks background a few months ago and have just decided to switch it up again. I like the leaf background now, but we'll see how we feel in a few weeks, shall we?

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Guess Who Came Home with Us Yesterday Morning?

Sadie! The phrase we keep coming back to as best to describe our new pup? Full. Of. Beans. ;)

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Home Again (& Wedding Pics!)

Well, we're home from our week on Prince Edward Island and we've got the wedding photographer's photos! You can access them here: http://aaronrohdephotography.zenfolio.com/p958984016. The password is "jswed".

I'm so pleased with all of the photos! The one above is one of my many favorites. Go check out the photos and enjoy! Be forewarned, though - there are 950. ;)

(cross-posted at Wer Ond Wif, of course)

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Outta Town

Off to PEI in the morning to restore my soul with family, friends, and views like this. Back next week.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Taken Directly from my Facebook Status


Going to meet a pup called Sadie (http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/16922772) tomorrow night! If all goes well, she might come home with us in a couple of weeks. :)

Monday, July 19, 2010

General Check-in

Okay, so here's the thing. In the hectic months leading up to the wedding, I kept saying, "We'll do that after the wedding. We'll have more time then. After the wedding."

Hmmm. Not sure where all that free time I thought I'd have has gotten to! It's life, I guess - there's always something else coming down the pike. However, we are having a particularly busy summer. On our plates at the moment:
  • We leave for our annual vacation on Prince Edward Island a week from tomorrow. This is a great thing, of course, but requires planning & packing & taking time off work & such.
  • Since we drive up, the trip also requires getting some work done on my car - the brake job my mechanic recommended last summer and possibly something with the suspension, as it's been a very bouncy ride lately.
  • We're moving! Since my grandparents' house in Hometown is (regrettably) empty, we're going to move in. This of course requires LOTS of planning & packing & such. We have to get out of our current lease in Portsmouth, clear out our storage unit (this Saturday), and move everything sixty miles south (probably the last weekend in August).
  • Since we'll be moving to a house with more room & a yard, we can finally get a dog! We've both wanted one for a very long time, but the timing was never right. Of course, now . . .
  • Justin is deploying in September. :( Which means that all of these things - move, dog, etc. - need to take place before he leaves. As does a bunch of military paperwork that proves I'm now his wife. And celebrating his birthday (9 days before his deployment date) and making sure he sees both of our families a bunch before he goes.
  • Both Justin's and my best friends are moving to the midwest in August and September, respectively. This doesn't require much work on our parts, but is very sad and prompts us to try to see them as often as humanly possible before they go. Thankfully, my friend will only be out there for a year, but his (our best man) is starting a PhD program, so he won't be back on the East Coast for quite awhile.
There are other things, as well, but these are the major ones. See what I mean?!?

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Snapshots from a Wedding

And we're back! Sorry I didn't weigh in sooner, but we got back late Monday night. AND since my computer crashed two days before the wedding (!), I had to wait until that got sorted to post any pics. The old one is completely dead, but thanks to the generosity of our wedding guests, we were able to buy me a brand new one!

Hence, posting again and wedding pictures galore. At last count, there were over 400 photos of the wedding weekend - and that's just on Facebook! We should be getting the official photos any day now . . .

So, before delving into recaps and insight, here's an utterly random sample of my favorite wedding photos. Be forewarned - there are 23. ;)