Showing posts with label north carolina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label north carolina. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

screamtime

can you guess where we went today? with family visiting we decided it was the perfect opportunity to get a little fun in between the rain showers. it's rained the past few days and it's forcasted to rain the rest of the week. we've been cooped up playing video games, watching movies and doing a little crafting. (i'll be posting what we're making tomorrow). hopefully by the time brian and irina arrive friday afternoon we'll see some sunshine.

here's luana a little too happy to zip. she was a bit nervous at first, but she ended up being a natural. unfortunately we couldn't convince my mom to give it a go. i'm sure she would have had a ball too!

the terrain was quite different from our jamaican canopy tour a few years ago. instead of trees we pretty much zipped from hill to hill, dodging the occasional cow. and yes the mountains were "smokin" today. we were pretty much the only locals who took advantage of the ride. not that it wasn't busy, but everyone we met including the 10 others in our party were from florida up for the summer. i'll let the pictures do the talking. zipline flickr.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

holden beach, nc

and we're back. had a little fun, got some sun and definitely wished we had a few more days to enjoy the surf. surprisingly, it's still about a 7 hour drive to get to the southern coast of north carolina. i really can't complain. to drive half a day and be able to bask in the ocean breeze is worth every minute of driving.

i am glad to be home. i missed aaron and the pups. we've already hit the hiking trails today. so i went from one extreme to the other in a matter of hours. insane how that works.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

sneeze catcher

this week's project: tissue cozies. they're really simple to make and i can use small pieces of leftover fabric to make them. i've learned that i have to plan a little when making projects sans pattern. especially if i want to make any modifications, like adding a key ring. it took a few tries to figure out what i was doing. always a live and learn experience. hopefully with time it'll all become second nature.

i was thinking about adding credit card holders to to the checkbook design. not sure if i want to revisit that project so soon. maybe in a few months. i really need to keep a sewing journal of some sort. with measurements, steps, etc. i have been downloading tutorials and printing them out for reference, so that's a start.

we've been getting a little bit of snow. not much to write home about. we were hoping to get some sledding in today, but so far not enough to cover the little bit we got last week. we need to break in the super sled dad got us for christmas. we might have to save it for tomorrow.

we're hitting the slopes tuesday. first time to actually go skiing since we've been here. i'll need a refresher for sure. i might end up taking snowboarding lessons instead. i want to give it a go. although watching the people trying over christmas break, i have a feeling i'll be spending most of my time on my butt. you gotta start somewhere.

a little over a week before we head to san antonio for the AAD (american academy of dermatology) meeting. i'm so excited to go. i can't wait to see everyone and there's gonna be so much to do while we're there. TONS of pictures to come, i can almost guarantee it! i'm so glad it's in a warm place this year. i'll have to bust out the shorts that have been packed away for months now. we're even going to do a little geocaching while in town. jamie wants to try it and i'll need to help her get the hang of it. she's planning on getting a gps when they get back to washington state. aaron and i have found it's a fantastic way to see the area. and all the ones i've downloaded are along the riverwalk so it should be fun!!

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

biggest upset of 2007

of course i have to post this: biggest upset of 2007

AND appalachian state won the national championship for the third year in a row on friday. go mountaineers!

Sunday, December 09, 2007

making the lists

in case you missed it. an article was recently brought to my attention. thanks, aly. read more here: america’s 10 best outdoor towns

"the mountaineers are a win away from an unprecedented third straight national championship." aaron almost had a conflict of interest. it could have been siu vs. asu in the championship game. unfortunately siu lost to deleware last night. not much of a football fan but go mountaineers!!

"...these towns have not only back doors to some of the country’s best adventure terrain, but also lively, livable communities that are dedicated to playing in and preserving the great american playgrounds."

Friday, November 02, 2007

take the tour

per request, here are photos of the interior of the house. it's still a work in progress.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

record highs

still no internet/cable, hopefully the problem will be remedied tomorrow. the cable company keeps sending installers before they’ve laid-the-line. and since the local office doesn’t have a phone number, at least one available to the public, we’ve had to physically go down there and make arrangements three or four times. so they finally laid-the-line wednesday, which was scheduled for friday, and we’re supposed to have everything (phone/internet/cable) installed tomorrow. i’ll be quite surprised if everything goes according to plan. i guess it was a good thing they didn’t come friday, they would have been vying for a parking spot in our driveway. we had the invisible fence installed, the plumbers working, and both our real estate agent and builder all here that morning.

even when you purchase a new home, you’re still going to have a few kinks that haven’t been completely worked out beforehand. ours was no different. luckily it’s still under warranty and all the problems are being fixed at someone else’s expense. the main culprit seems to be sediment from our well clogging screens and building up in our toilets causing them to continuously run. we noticed a wet spot on the ceiling in the living room after one toilet ran all night and immediately shut that water off. then the toilet in the master bedroom started to run, so i shut it off as well. (didn’t want to have a bigger problem than a few running toilets.) this was about a week after we moved in. we called the builder and informed him about the problem. he said he’d send a plumber to fix the problem, we hadn’t heard from him or a plumber since. jill and jerome suggested we call vivian, our real estate agent, and sic her on him. plumber was here two days later. we now have functioning toilets upstairs. thank goodness, i was getting tired of running up and down stairs to relieve myself. jerome with the help of aaron installed a filter on our water pipes and it has made a huge difference. i don’t have to fill the washer with buckets of water anymore. it was much easier to do that then to unscrew the hose, clean out the screen and reattach the hose again.

then a few weeks ago i was reading the Mountain Times, which is the equivalent to the Illinois Times, and i couldn’t believe how bad ‘design wise’ it looked. i ran upstairs to grab a copy of the IT to do a side-by-side comparison and when i walked into the guest bedroom i noticed a shard of glass on the carpet. i walked into the bathroom and the plate-glass mirror had fallen off the wall and shattered into a million pieces. it must have happened while we were bike riding that day and luckily we had closed the room off so the dogs were unaffected by the crashing glass. it looked like it was only held up with double-stick tape, which i found quite disturbing. we ran out and bought brackets for the other mirrors and replacing the mirror has been added to the list of things for the builder.

i did start painting some rooms this past week, the mudroom, my sewing room and two bathrooms. i didn’t have any problems till i reached the second downstairs bathroom. i decided i wanted to paint it yellow along with the other bathroom downstairs. so i bought a gallon of “pale butter” paint. i put on one coat and decided the color was too yellow, almost florescent for my taste. i only used a quarter of the paint so when i went back to lowes i bought a quart of the “sunglow” color. i was quite happy with this choice but it ended up taking me five coats and two quarts to cover up the other original yellow. i couldn’t figure out what was going on. i knew that i was covering up another color but it shouldn’t take me 5 coats to do so. i finally figured out the new paint roller i was using was spooging out some type of gray color along with my yellow and that was why i wasn’t making any progress. i switched rollers and problem was solved. i felt like i was in a steven king story and the room refused to be painted. after that ordeal, i’ve taken a short break from painting, mainly to give the blisters on my hand a rest. later this evening i’ll start painting the computer nook/craft room gray and red. i’m starting small and will eventually move up to the bigger rooms, but that might be a while.

tomorrow will be a busy day for all. aaron finally starts working. bosco and marley will get their first taste of the “correction” (shock) from the invisible fence, and i’ll be painting and waiting around for the cable people to install everything. it’ll be easier to update once we have everything in-house. i’ve only been going up to use internet every other day. it’s too much of a chore to make a special trip just to check email and browse. yeah, i’m lazy like that. i’ll post our movie listings tomorrow. we’ve watched an abundance of them the last month, probably more than we have in the last year. a lot rented and many from our own stash. we’re on a coen brothers kick. new favorite movie for me…the big lebowski.

till tomorrow.

oh, the reason for the title. apparently they’ve set record highs in temperature this summer, highs in the upper 80s. the humidity is what’s killing everyone, every single person i talk to says it’s never been this bad. i guess we brought the midwest weather with us. although i’ve heard it’s reached over 100 in springfield, so i really can’t complain.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

old crow medicine show

i really wasn't a fan. i'd heard a few of their songs on xm and occasionally aaron would play their cds on a drive but i never had that "i have to have a copy for myself" feeling about them. so when he got tickets i was a little less than enthused. it was, however, something to do in boone and a chance to absorb some local culture. (they're from a nearby town)

there was a broad array of people at the show. hippie kids trying to get tickets outside the door; rich, grey heads sitting in seats all around us; lots of college kids dancing in the aisle. i was quite surprised the show was sold out, but soon changed my mind after the band took the stage. there wasn't an opening act, which doesn't happen too often these days.

the band took the stage a few minutes after 8. a stand-up bass player, 2 banjo players, a fiddler who also played the harmonica and guitar, and an acoustic guitar player. most of the guys looked like they were about our age, perhaps even younger. i wasn't expecting that at all. by their sound, i figured they were a lot older. they pretty much started rocking (or whatever you'd say bluegrass bands do) the instant they took the stage. i seriously felt like i had stepped back in time. no fancy light shows, no frills, no gimmicks just music. there was a lot of clapping, foot stomping, and hooting and hollering. even a little bantering between band members. they also had a local guy clogging/tapping/flat-footing to a few songs. i could imagine what the grand ole opry was like in it's heyday. i wondered if hank williams, johnny cash, patsy cline had played shows like this. it was, overall, a great experience.

far different from the police concert we had seen the week before. at least old crow appeared like they wanted to be there and that they still enjoyed each others company. don't get me wrong, sting was great. but that's about all i can say about the show. it was blah. none of the band members made any eye contact. hardly any movement about the stage. i was sooooo unimpressed. and that's all i'll say about that!

so i may be a slight convert/fan now. live shows have a way of doing the unexpected.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

welcome to the high country

It’s official, we’ve left the Midwest and are slowly becoming residents of boone. We left Carbondale Saturday morning and made it here in about 9 ½ hours. (Had to make a few pit stops with the dogs.) It’s the first time I’ve had to drive the last hour of the trip and let me tell you that I’m not a fan. Just don’t like those windy roads. Guess I better get used to it, it’s now my life. At least we live really close to town and I won’t be driving them on a daily basis.

All our loot arrived yesterday, all 8500 lbs of it. Aaron had to go pick up our truck driver at 6:30 a.m. cause the driver drove by the night before and didn’t think he would be able to make it with his semi. There was a possibility they would have to get a smaller trunk, unload our stuff in a parking lot, load it onto the small truck and then drive over here to unload again. Luckily, in the light of day it wasn’t a problem. I was amazed how the driver was able to maneuver that big rig. He was able to back it up on an incline and turn completely around in a small cul-de-sac. Crazy. I also learned it costs about $1000 to fill up a semi truck that has a 300 gallon tank. And they get between 5-8 miles a gallon. Insane. We ended up helping the guys unload the truck. They didn’t get a local crew to help so there was just 2 guys including the driver to unload. We called in Jerome and the five of us got everything unloaded in about 5 hours.

Anyways our stuff made it safely, at least all the boxes we’ve unpacked thus far. We’ve mainly plowed through the kitchen boxes and not a single glass broken, chipped or scarred. Impressive. I remember when I was younger how excited I was about unpacking boxes every time we moved. (Which was once ever 3 to 4 years.) It’d be 3-4 months before you got your stuff so you’d semi-forget what was packed. How quickly that changes when you’re unpacking a whole house of stuff you just saw last week. I guess I really can’t complain. At least I didn’t have to pack, load and transport everything.

It may be a few weeks before we get internet and cable. I think they have to lay a line out to the house before we can have everything up and running. We’ve been heading to panera and aaron’s office to get on the internet. You don’t realize how much you use something til it’s gone. I think I could live without tv, but the internet that’s a different story. We google everything. How do you make sushi rolls? Who’s the actor in that one movie? How do you spell…? The list goes on. Plus it feels like a slight disconnect when I can’t check my email or other sites. Plus none of you all know how we are if I don’t give you an update every once in a while.

Just to let you know, I did fail the written portion of my nc drivers license test. Don’t worry, I missed the most obscure questions that have nothing to do with my driving abilities. How am supposed to know the percentage of people killed by drunk drivers every year or that you have to downshift when going down a steep incline instead of breaking? (who drives a stick anymore?) it would have helped if I would have glanced at the book, but I didn’t think I would have to take the actual test since I’m licensed in Illinois. Now I know the laws backwards and forwards. Ask me anything!! (Courtesy of not having tv or internet or anything else for that matter.) The funny thing is that I do have a license number already in the system from when I lived here 15 years ago. I remember taking driver’s ed in Fayetteville my sophomore year of high school. I don’t remember actually getting a license but my permit must have acted somewhat like a license. Weird, I almost don’t associate living at ft. bragg as living in north Carolina. And we lived there twice while I was growing up. Maybe boone was more than a cowinky-dink. Hmmmm.

Back to unpacking…ugh!