Graduation!!!

Sean finally graduated and life is mostly back to normal here at our house. Here are some pictures from the big event.

The whole family

The whole section

Relieved and happy couple

The ladies

Proud mom

Actually receiving the diploma

Getting back to one of my true loves...

The pool. I started swimming again this week. Saturday, Sean and I joined the YMCA which is 5 minutes from the house. It has a great pool, weight room, cardio room, and fitness classes. The pool is currently kicking my butt, however it feels great to be swimming again. I forgot how much I missed it and what a good workout it is. Sunday I swam for about 30 minutes and stopped counting yards since I was in massive pain. Today I swam for about 25 minutes and did 1000 yards. I can remember when I was doing 4000-5000 a workout! I guess I'll have to work up to that. I'm going to go again Thursday morning. Maybe I can do 1200 yards then.

Oh and I definately need a few new suits I think the one I have will be see thur shortly! I don't want to be flashing the old men, might have a heart attack!

A friend filled Christmas

Due to Sean's thesis we stayed in Dayton again for Christmas. With no family coming to visit we invited friends from AFIT to join us for Christmas dinner. I made a beef roast, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes and green beans. It all came out well and was actually mostly stress free. I even managed to exercise before dinner.

Merry Doggy Christmas

The dogs had a super fantastic christmas. Here are some pictures of them with their presents.

New arrangements

Before Christmas I rearranged our living room to fit the Christmas tree and turned a walkway into a cozy room. I'm so happy with the new arrangement that I'm keeping it! Here are some pictures of the new arrangement and our new Christmas tree.

Without internet

Sean and I have been without internet at home now for about 2 weeks. Stupid Time Warner. We are in the process of switching to AT&T. Apparently you don't have to paid for a phone line to have DSL anymore. It is amazing how much you don't realize you depend on the internet until you don't have it anymore. Granted we haven't been completely without since I have internet at work all day and Sean has internet at school.

However there have been times I wanted to write an e-mail or pay a bill or write a blog post and I can't. Then I have to take time at work to do the above thus staying later. I will be super exicited when we have the internet back.

On a side note if you are wondering why I haven't complained about my cable being out as well it is because we now have an antenna only. We have a HD antenna and I are able to get abc, nbc, cbs, fox, cw, and 5 pbs stations. I had no idea that we had so many PBS stations and that they provided such good programming. I watched an awesome program on Gaint Pandas the other day. They are so cute!!!

The daily WTF

I'm starting a new series on the blog called the daily WTF. It is a place for me to post crazy things that either happen to me or that I witness. Today I have a couple so far:

1. I saw a women today wearing stiletto heels and an ankle brace! For those of you reader who are not female it takes a lot of ankle power to walk in stiletto heels. Basically you put all of your weight on the ball of your foot because that tiny weeny pencil thin heel is very hard to balance on. Perhaps there is another method I'm unaware of but still ankle brace and pencil thin heels are a bad combination!

2. Re-reviewing a document only to find correction made in the first review not implemented. I'm not talking about controversial grammar or sentence changes I'm referring to incorrect content. So I had to correct the content a second time which didn't make me very happy. On the plus side using a pomegranate to calm down works quite well. It take quite a bit of concentration to get those darn little seeds out!

Feel free to throw out your daily WTFs!

Days until Thesis is complete

So according to my rough estimate there are 112 days left until the thesis is complete. Sean told me that he would be defending mid Feb so I did my calculation based on Feb 18th. We'll keep this little calculation between me and my readers, since I know Sean doesn't read my blog.

So I suppose 112 more days of doom. I say doom because this is the most stressed I have ever seen him. He isn't sleeping well and can't stop thinking about his thesis. Watching him go through this just reaffirms my plan to not ever do a thesis. I occasionaly bring work home or think about work from home, but rarily do I lose sleep over work. I hope to keep it this way!

So keep your fingers crossed that Sean can get his rough draft done before New years and defend on time!

left ya hanging

No I'm no on day 57 of no power... I got busy again and never got back to the blog. Although apparently one of my very dedicated readers continued to check it and post me comments on my last post.... I won't mention any names.....

We did end up being 4 days without power. The power went off Sunday 12ish and didn't come back on until 9pm Wednesday. Flushing toilets with buckets of water and boiling water on the grill to do dishes in the dark was getting mighty old. We lost tons of food from our refrig and freezer. The only saving grace was that our USAA home owners insurance ended up giving us 250 dollars to replace our food. We didn't have to meet our deductible or file a claim or anything. I love USAA!

Things are back to normal. Sean is a crazy busy mess with his thesis and I'm still being super house wife. I'm just counting the days until he is finished! Actually perhaps I should start a real count and just not telling him so it doesn't stress him out.....

Hurricane Ike in Dayton:Day 3

Sean and I have been taken back in time to when people didn't have electricity or running water. Our power has been out since Sunday at 2pm due to the hurricane category 1 winds that hit our area for about 4 hours on Sunday. We were quite lucky that the house and our trees survived which was not the case for a lot of people. Our neighborhood looked like a war zone. Tree and limbs down all over the place. A few blocks away a tree hit a house and damaged the roof. Another tree crushed a shed. I'm going to try and take some pictures this evening of the damage.

Gas stations are running out of gas and raising the price to 4.30 a gal. Luckily I have 1/4 of a tank which should last me until early next week. Tonight I need to clean out our frig and freezer. Some of the stuff we saved by taking to a friend's that has power and an extra frig. We also filled up quite a few bottles and some pitchers of water so we have fresh water to drink. If this lasts much longer I may be walking down to the creek to get buckets of water to flush the toilets.

Last night the Brinks security system, that was installed in the house by a previous owner, but we don't use, started going off at 5:00 am this morning. My guess is the battery was running out of power. We couldn't figure out how to get the cover off to begin with. It takes a square something. Luckily when I went to the garage to the socket set, I saw the control box in the laundry room. When I got the cover off I couldn't figure out how to disconnect the battery. However thanks to my Dad I knew to unscrew and pull out the wires to disconnect them from the circuit board. Now at this point you may be asking yourself why I was doing this and not Sean.....well funny story the cat knocked Sean glasses off the night stand while I was gone (in Colorado) and the dogs chewed them up. So Sean was basically blind. Anyways I'm frantically unscrewing and disconnecting wires and of course it is the last one that turns the damn alarm off! I'm of right mind to write Brinks an e-mail and state that as part of their disconnection they disconnect everything!!!! Bastards!!!

However I'm not really complaining or mad because we were very fortunate and I know the power company is doing everything they can to restore power as fast as they can. Apparently they had sent crews down to Texas to help those people who are probably worse off then we are. On the plus side this will be a story to tell for years, I'm saving money on electricity, and bonding with neighbors. On the downside work has power! oh well.

We are surviving with the grill, flash lights, and pb&j!!!

Latest garden scoop

I've harvested and eaten and given away a whole bunch of tomatoes. I won't be getting as many as I had originally thought because the mites really got my plants. A couple of plants just died but the rest are hanging in there and I seem to have gotten the mites sort of under control. The cucumber plants only ended up producing a few. I think it got to hot for them. They keep wilting.

The melons (cantelope and watermelon) aren't going to produce anything edible. The cantelope kept getting eaten by the cucumber beetles and I think got a fungus as well as being crowded out by a zucchini plant. The watermelon's leaves suddenly started curling up and turning yellow and looking wilty. I think it might be bacterial wilt or something else. Either way it is quite sad since I did have a few baby watermelons. One of they appears like it might be getting bigger but it could all be in my head. The plants aren't dead yet but struggling for sure.

The green beans were and are delicious. They appear to be flowering again so I might get some more before it freezes!!! Oh and most exiciting I have corn. I unfortunately picked two of them too early, but there are still 6 or so still out there. I'll let you know how it tastes. Second most exiciting thing is my green peppers appear to be starting to turn!!! My thai hots have been turning for a little while now. In fact I need to go out there and harvest some of them. I wonder how spicy they will be.

I made salsa tonight from all my different types of tomatoes. I got a hot pepper from my CSA and decided to add some of it because Sean thought it was a little bland. It is good thing that I only chopped up half of the pepper (serrano I think) and then only put half of the chopped up portion into the salsa. Now it has a bit of a kick. I think I got a seed during one of my tasting because it burned the back of my throat. It is melding in the refridgerator until tomorrow. Hopefully it won't get too much spicier or I will have to add more tomatoes or something.

I'm going to try and make pasta sauce later in the week and maybe can some chopped tomatoes. I got quart sized canning jars from my next door neighbor. Tomorrow I'm going to look at good will for some pint sized ones. I want the smaller ones for canning jam. I've got a whole bunch of blackberries that I want to turning into jam. Apparently you can make small batches of jam in your bread machine (if it has a jam setting). We'll see how it goes!

Garden: Update

So far I have harvested:
Tomatoes: 7 pear, 4 zebra
Zucchini: 1 huge one (I have no idea how that happened)

Unripe but coming:
tomatoes: a billion (way too many to count)
Zucchini: a few (however they are sneaky, so it could be more)
Cucumber: 3-4 (although I'm still trying to figure out when you harvest them)
Bell Pepper: 10-12 green ones (I'm debating whether to pick some of the green ones. Supposedly if you pick you first batch of peppers green it will cause the plant to produce more pepper overall. The problem is that Sean and I don't like them green!)
Beans: A whole bunch (It would be way to hard to count. I've got to go out and check them today to see if any are ready to harvest cause they are certainly getting bigger)

Flowering or still growing:
Corn: getting bigger but no silk yet
Watermelon: tons of flowers
Cantaloupe: tons of flowers (the cucumber beetles have been really attacking these, so we'll see what we get)

The dogs first home hair cut

Sean and I decide to save money we would start grooming the boys at home. It costs around 120 each time they are both groomed and for that we could buy a nice pair of clippers. So that sealed the deal. So this past Saturday we gave it a go and let me tell you it is a whole lot harder than it looks. As my Mom put it "They look like they were attacked by the mad clippers!" I thought everyone would enjoy some pictures!

Before


"Stop the torture!"


"What are you doing to me?"


"Oh dear, some one help me!"


After


After

None of the after picture do their "Great" haircuts justice. I'll try to take some better ones.

Dayton air show

This past weekend Sean and I took my parents to the air show. It was an awesome air show. By far the best I've ever seen! There were at least 5 aerobatic acts. Also we got to see the f-22 which is asolutely amazing. It really puts the f-16 and f-18 to shame.

In addition to really neat performances we were in a special section with free food and drinks as well as practically front row seating. Raytheon donates money to the Air Force Association so they give us a certain number of tickets for our people to attend the air show in style. The food was just your standard BBQ food however having access to cold bottled water the entire show was by far the best advantage. We must have gone through at least 8 bottles! It was quite hot and sunny.

Here are some photos of the event! Enjoy!!

Misty Blues all women skydiving team


C17 - flys like a jet but is huge


F22 - awesome after burners


more F22 coolness


Legacy flight


us


F104 - they look like the fighter jets from star wars


more F104


Sean D Tucker - areobatics

Up close to it

Patio Updates

Hey everyone, I know I'm averaging like once a month right now but I at least have some pictures to share. Here are some pictures of our completed patio.


Almost done


Grass growing


Other angle

picture of completed bed

Here are some pics of the finished bed. It has tomatoes and beet and carrot seed in it already so more pictures to follow.

raised bed progress

Well I still don't have my raised bed in the ground the 4x4 didn't come in time for the weekend before this last one and this one was mostly a rainy mess. However Saturday I was able to level out the ground for where the box is going to go. Tomorrow is suppose to be the day for installation so keep your fingers crossed. The weather is suppose to be nice. I've got to pick up wire mesh and landscaping fabric for the bottom. You may be thinking why mesh? Well moles are why! I don't want them tunneling up into my bed. I'm going to take some before and after pictures so be on the look out.

Oh and my tomatoes are huge (6+ ") so as soon as the bed is ready some will go in there and the rest will go in the unraised section. I have somewhere around 20+ plants all going strong so I think I will probably give a few away. Now the only problem with that scheme is I have no idea which plants are which at this point. My bad for not being more careful with the label when I transplanted them to bigger pots. So it could be a bit interesting. I started three varieties (red zebra, moonglow, and yellow pear) oh and some hybrid brush like ones that I got seed from my co-worker.

Last bit of garden news: I had 2 whiskey barrel planter out front that weren't being used. I kept thinking I would get flowers to put in there but I didn't want to spend the money on actual plants. So one has leaf lettuce and one has peas. I started the peas a little late so we'll see how they go. Oh and I had another ugly pot I inherited that I put more leaf lettuce in. It was quite a bit of work taking out most of the old soil and mixing in new top soil and compost so keep your fingers crossed.

Actually I lied.... even after I get the raised bed in I'm putting paver stones back by the fence to make a walkway. I started the trench but then filled partially back in while leveling the space for my raised bed. And I've got to get rest of the patch in shape for the rest of my veggies. I want to raise it up party as well but I'm not sure I will have time. I managed to acquired 37 8" paver stones like you would use for a tree ring (the smaller ones) from craig's list for 25$!!! Quite the steal however I'm not sure if that will be enough or I will have enough time to get them put in before I really need plant the rest of my seeds. I'll keep you guys posted. Pictures I swear will follow.

Garden progress

I started my tomato and pepper plants about a month ago. They are growing like crazy. The tomatoes are at least 6 inches. The pepper are progressing a little slower but they are still doing well. It has been so fun to see how much they grow from day to day. It was a stressful when I was waiting for them to sprout. I kept checking and checking to see if anything was coming up. Finally the tomatoes sprouted and then about 4 days later peppers started coming up. I can't wait until it gets a little warmer during the day so I can start putting them outside for part of the day.

I'm about half way done with my 1st raised bed frame. My co-worker has been instrumental in this effort. Basically, I bank rolled the project and I help when I can with the construction. I "supervise" so to speak. I am however working hard to cleanup and prepare the space it is going to go. The plan is to finish assembly and put it in the ground this weekend if we get the 4X4. I had to special order untreated cedar 4x4's because they generally only carry treated ones. However treated wood can leach harmful chemical like arsenic into your soil so I steered clear of that. I can't wait to see it completed. It is going to look super fancy and nice. And hopefully grow awesome veggies!

A day in the life of Me

I thought I should probably provide some insight as to why I haven't been posting lately so here is an accounting of an average day in my life.

6:30-7am - wakeup
7-8am - get tea, pickup kitchen (if still some dishes from the night before), exercise
8-9:15 - shower, get dressed, dry hair, let dog in and out and in and out, get lunch, make oatmeal, pickup house, etc.
9am-6:30pm - drive to work, work and drive home
6:30 - 8pm - change, make dinner, cleanup from dinner
8-9pm - do some housework, lately working outside (mowing lawn, cleaning up my garden, etc.)
9-10pm - start getting ready for bed and spend a little time doing whatever else I need to do (looking stuff up, checking e-mail, cat boxes)
10-10:30 - finish getting ready for bed and maybe read if I'm not to exhausted.
10:30 - 11pm - go to sleep.

So as I can see above I don't have a ton of free time right now. By the time I get to 9pm I'm usually exhausted and just want to go to bed. Unfortunately I'm one of those people who can't just go to bed. I have a routine of stuff I do before getting into bed and it generally takes at least an hour. I'm a very routine person. If I don't set my clothes out for work the next day it can take me twice as long to get ready.

Anyways there you have it a typical day in the life of me.

Today's Smile: Spoiled Puppy

Oh and in case you are wondering, I didn't sleep on couch, I kicked him out of my spot a few minutes later. Little spot stealer!!!