This weekend was fantastic... Mike and I did some serious work around the yard. We have a great big hillside that right now is overgrown with weeds and grasses... that got sprayed and we started planting some St. John's Wort, which is a pretty flower (also used to treat depression). This hill gets a lot of sun, so the St. John's Wort should do well. We have another hillside that gets a good bit of shade, so we're doing periwinkle on that side. All of this is supposed to be super fast growing (you know me... I want it to cover the hillside overnight), but I'll still have to be patient!
Mike and I also made a little visit to the Amador Flower Farm... what a fantastic place it was! They specialize in day lilies (which I had a ton of at the old house) but they had all sorts of other beautiful plants. I'm so excited... I was out of room at the Mather house, but now I have 5 acres of land to plant on!
All in all, it was a fantastic weekend - I planted some hanging baskets for the wrap around porch, a ton of groundcover, some bushes for the front walkway and helped with the two avocado trees. We still have some wisteria that we're going to plant in Shadow's pen (to help shield him so he doesn't bark at everything) and then some olive trees. We're having a hard time finding apple trees that are not the 3-in-1 kinda (I just want some plain old Granny Smith's!), but the people at Lowe's said we might see that a little later in the season.
In other exciting (and totally unrelated) news, Kati and Nate are engaged! I'm so super excited for them! They've set a date (June 4, 2011) and are moving forward with all of their plans (duh... we're Smithson girls, we can't help but plan from the beginning!). The proposal was super sweet - Nate took Kati to Yosemite, they climbed to the top of the Yosemite falls and he proposed there. Hooray!
Monday, March 29, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Catch Up
Hi faithful blog followers (ok, well, there's like 2 of you and I don't know how faithful you are since I rarely blog regularly anymore)...
So sorry it's been so long... life has been super busy! I'm working on training in my new job, unpacking and settling in with Mike and getting the Mather house ready to rent out! They finally came to fix the floors, so now I'm working on getting rid of the extra furniture that we have (seriously, a lot since we've combined two households!) and getting the house ready... I think next week I have to go in and touch up on the paint and do some more clean up. It's all been pretty darned stressful! I am trying to sell the furniture on Craigslist, but am not having the best of luck... people keep saying that they will meet me but then they stand me up! It's so frustrating because it's not exactly like I have a ton of extra time right now!
Ok, back to work now... I just got the new Train album, so I'll do an album review soon!
So sorry it's been so long... life has been super busy! I'm working on training in my new job, unpacking and settling in with Mike and getting the Mather house ready to rent out! They finally came to fix the floors, so now I'm working on getting rid of the extra furniture that we have (seriously, a lot since we've combined two households!) and getting the house ready... I think next week I have to go in and touch up on the paint and do some more clean up. It's all been pretty darned stressful! I am trying to sell the furniture on Craigslist, but am not having the best of luck... people keep saying that they will meet me but then they stand me up! It's so frustrating because it's not exactly like I have a ton of extra time right now!
Ok, back to work now... I just got the new Train album, so I'll do an album review soon!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Congressman
Thanks Amber!
A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in Montana , when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust.
The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?"
Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.
The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany .
Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored.. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.
Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."
"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud.
He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.
Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"
"You're a Congressman from D.C.," says Bud.
"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and You don't know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter. This is a herd of sheep.....
Now give me back my dog."
A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in Montana , when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust.
The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?"
Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.
The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany .
Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored.. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.
Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."
"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud.
He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.
Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"
"You're a Congressman from D.C.," says Bud.
"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and You don't know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter. This is a herd of sheep.....
Now give me back my dog."
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Moving Day!
What a crazy day! Today was the official moving day! Thankfully, both my parents and Tim and Nicki (along with Miss Skyler) helped Mike and I schlep all of my stuff from the old house to Mike's. It actually went a lot faster than I had thought it would... apparently after 10 or so years of moving around, you finally figure out how to pack your stuff up (Dad, I'm so sorry about that one college move where EVERYTHING was in paper bags). We rented a Uhaul, picked it up around 9am and were back eating pizza at Mike's around 12:30... not bad for the sheer amount of stuff I have! I have no idea where it's come from over the last few years!
It feels so good to finally have all of my stuff up here... it doesn't seem like that would make a big difference, but it really does. Now for the unpacking and organizing... if you know me, you know I thrive on organizing! One thing on my big, daunting list of tasks over the next few weeks to check off! Next up, figuring how to rent the house out!
Tonight Mike and I watched a new show... it's a documentaryish type show that HBO is doing called "The Pacific". Part one of ten was on tonight and it's really good! We just set it up to tape the rest. Tom Hanks narrates it. There's another show coming up on National Geographic next Sunday... it's an 11 part series called "Life" and it looks absolutely amazing. I can't wait!
With that, I think I'm off to watch some more tv and then to head to bed!
It feels so good to finally have all of my stuff up here... it doesn't seem like that would make a big difference, but it really does. Now for the unpacking and organizing... if you know me, you know I thrive on organizing! One thing on my big, daunting list of tasks over the next few weeks to check off! Next up, figuring how to rent the house out!
Tonight Mike and I watched a new show... it's a documentaryish type show that HBO is doing called "The Pacific". Part one of ten was on tonight and it's really good! We just set it up to tape the rest. Tom Hanks narrates it. There's another show coming up on National Geographic next Sunday... it's an 11 part series called "Life" and it looks absolutely amazing. I can't wait!
With that, I think I'm off to watch some more tv and then to head to bed!
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Chaos
I know, it's sort of a weird title. I'm sort of at a weird spot right now, so I guess it's fitting!
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind. All of it good, but all of it a little on the overwhelming side.
First, Mike and I decided to move in together. I'm beyond excited, but am remembering just how much I hate moving. All of it is just super overwhelming. To make things even more complicated, I can't sell my house right now, so I'm working on getting it rented out. And by working on renting it out, I mean that I'm working on getting my crap moved out. The whole thought of being a landlord is beyond my comprehension right now.
Secondly, I took a new job at work. Now, I typically don't write about work on my blog (I think it's safe to say that things can get said that don't need to be on the internet), but this is a really good step for me in my career. It's doing a similar job to what I'm doing now, just with a different focus (desktop processors rather than server processors). It will be helpful in expanding my product knowledge as well as some of the other programs that I haven't been exposed to yet. Again, totally excited about it, but that doesn't make it any less overwhelming.
Ok, so that's only two things... but it's two BIG things! :)
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind. All of it good, but all of it a little on the overwhelming side.
First, Mike and I decided to move in together. I'm beyond excited, but am remembering just how much I hate moving. All of it is just super overwhelming. To make things even more complicated, I can't sell my house right now, so I'm working on getting it rented out. And by working on renting it out, I mean that I'm working on getting my crap moved out. The whole thought of being a landlord is beyond my comprehension right now.
Secondly, I took a new job at work. Now, I typically don't write about work on my blog (I think it's safe to say that things can get said that don't need to be on the internet), but this is a really good step for me in my career. It's doing a similar job to what I'm doing now, just with a different focus (desktop processors rather than server processors). It will be helpful in expanding my product knowledge as well as some of the other programs that I haven't been exposed to yet. Again, totally excited about it, but that doesn't make it any less overwhelming.
Ok, so that's only two things... but it's two BIG things! :)
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