She's Old.

Hey everyone! In case I didn't properly force you to give me all sorts of birthday attention, I turned 30 on August 3rd. Yep, that's right folks, She's Old. She's officially out of the college decade, which means growing up. Crap. Seriously, when did that happen?

Well, instead of getting potentially mushy and overly reflective about a birthday that, to be honest, really doesn't make me feel any more mature or responsible than my last birthday... or the one before that... or the one before that... I'm going to post some crazy-old photos and thank some people for my birth, and some other people for their awesome contributions to my life so far. You people are the coolest.

First, my mom & dad. This picture was taken pretty close to the time when I was born. Not exactly, but it was a long time ago, so it's close enough. Plus, it's the only one I have readily available with the two of them together. Sorry Dad, I know it's not the best picture.

Anyway, thanks to these two crazy kids, I am alive and able to entertain on a daily basis.

Thanks.

I also want to give a special separate thanks to my dad.

Dad, you stepped up in a lot of ways when you were needed. Not-to-mention being a completely awesome, hilarious, and really, really great dad. For that, I am forever grateful.

I am truly honored to be your daughter.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

My mom. I understand her more every day through myself and my own life, and I am lucky enough to see her in my mirror every day. Thanks Mom, I miss you.

My sister, Lynda, who was the best big sister a girl could ever ask for.

She was and always will be the person with whom I share my soul.

My sister, Amanda, who has become one of my best friends.

I love you and I'm so proud to have you as my sister!

My Grandparents. Not only did they make it possible for me to be alive (you know, by having kids who ended up being my parents), but they also happen to be the best grandparents in the history of all grandparents. To the most patient, loving, and fun people in the world, Thank You.

Also, even though I don't have a photo that includes every one of my extended relatives...

Thank you too. I have enjoyed you as part of my family.

(Grandma Dorothy Frein)

(Grandpa Don Frein - never knew him, but he sure turned out a good group!)

(G&G Alice and Lanny Barringer, Great G&G Dykstra - I have the same b-day as G.Gram Dykstra)

(Just because it's so cute - Lynda, Gramp Barringer, and me)

Anne & Hope.

You both have seen me through some really terrible and some completely fantastic times. I can only hope that my own daughter (some day) will have friends like you to grow up with. Words cannot begin to describe the influence your friendships have had on me.

You rock.

Tarin, you are way too much fun for my own good sometimes!

And you also happen to be an incredibly fantastic friend. Love you, Babe.

My kickball team. Who knew such a random grouping of people would end up being such a soild group of friends. You are all the best, and I look forward to rolling in the red ball with you, long past the point that it is no longer appropriate.

(Dave & Trish are not pictured)

My puppies, Alice & Sara. I didn't want a dog, but my husband talked me into it.

Getting Alice as a baby puppy was quite possibly the coolest thing I had ever done. I never imagined raising a puppy could be so fulfilling. When we considered getting another dog for her to play with, I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to love it as much as I loved Alice.

Then we got Sara. Boy, was I wrong. I can't imagine what it would be like without her!

These two babies are the best! Thank you, Bubbas, for all of your unconditional love!!

Most importantly, my Husband. You are my world. You are my every thought.

I could not imagine life without you. With you, I am a better person.

Thank you for letting me in. Thank you for marrying me.

Thank you for promising to be with me for the rest of our lives.

I look forward to every moment of it.

And lastly, thank you to My Life.

It has been a rough road.

If there is one thing My Life has taught me, it is that Me is the best I can offer to anyone.

And if I can't laugh at Me, I should just go home.

Thanks for reading and being a part of my life!

You In Clay

Updated the You In Clay blog.

New Post

I know. I'm not keeping up my end of the bargain. I need to update more often. I'll try harder.

I'll be back soon with an update, but I really can't do it now. If you're on Facebook, you can see the photos from our trip... if not, let us know and we'll send you a link to the on-line album.

Later gators.

Ice Fishing

This was a couple of weekends ago, but I still wanted to post a few photos. Anne's family & family friends have an ice fishing tournament every year out on Prior Lake. Somehow, even after about a hundred years of being attached at the hip, I had never attended this... and until this year, had never been ice fishing in my life (well, we really didn't fish this year either). Anne found out that our friend Heiney had never been on a frozen lake (she's from "sconny") so they decided to go. They called me and I went too. It was a GREAT time! It was so nice to see all of Anne's family again, and hang out for a while. Most of the time was spent in the "Aqua Socializer: Ice Edition" which is Anne's brother-in-law, Steve's, ice house. He's the one on the right in the last photo - Thanks Steve! And thanks to Anne, Kris, and everyone else who made it a great time!

Valentine's Weekend

We usually don't do anything at all for Valentine's Day. I'm not a big believer in the Hallmark holidays (sorry Colie) and I can often be quoted as saying "I don't want flowers on Valentine's Day. I want flowers on a random Tuesday, just because you want to." And every year we briefly talk about doing something for V-day, which is usually ended quickly by saying "it's too much of a hassle."

But this year, I decided to break from the norm. I read an article in the paper about a bunch of events put on by the Three Rivers Park District for the big V and decided to sign us up! So Friday night, we started off by going to Timberlodge, which is unsual for us lately. I also realized after dinner that the gift card I planned to spend was actually for Outback. Oops.

Anyway, then we went to the Richardson Nature Center at Hyland Park Preserve in Bloomington. You know the giant ski jump you can see from 494? It's over there. They hosted an event called "Candlelight & Choclate" which was a 3/4 mile stroll (with ice cleats) through a portion of the nature preserve. The trail was lit by cute little tiny lanterns. At the building, they had outdoor bonfires with haybails to sit on. It was pretty crowded (and cold) though, so we didn't stay outside. Inside, they had coffee, a crazy amount of chocolate, cutsie V-day decorations, and live classical string music. I tried to post a video of the music, but I guess the file was too big. It was a great time, and I would highly recommend it to anyone!

Dustin and Buck
(This deer head was hanging over us a t Timberlodge and we didn't even realize it until we were leaving.)

One of the little lanterns on the trail

Us on the trail

Inside the building

The "chocolate" portion of the evening

Okay, then on a completely unrelated note... We also cleaned an rearranged our den. It looks so nice! It looks more like a den now, rather than a giant pile of crap. Also, those of you who have spent the night in this room before: you will be happy to know that we finally hung curtains on the window. Privacy abounds. We also put the old area rug from the living room in there to warm up the floor a bit. And we plan to get a new living room coffee table at some point, so we'll put the old dark mahogany one in the den. Then once we get a slipcover for the couch (to cover up the gramma floral), we'll be set! A place for ladies happy hour, even if the boys are playing poker! Anyway, we're stoked. Thanks for humoring me. Boo yah.

Okay, okay, I'll post something. I know that when you don't post for a while, people stop looking. So even though I don't really have a lot of time to give a big update - or all that much to update about - here are some photos to enjoy.

I've hit the Winter Wall. That feeling during winter, somewhere between desperation and complete anger. Where you never quite know what incident will set you off to start throwing things... or just crying. Yeah, that's me right now. It doesn't happen for everyone, but it happens for me every year. Dustin too, although I've never caught him crying about it. For those who love winter and cold, I envy you. For us though, there is a breaking point. This is about the time every year where we seriously start considering a move to someplace distant, exotic, and most importantly - someplace SOUTH. We start to question what it is that keeps us living here. Who in their right mind would do this every year - willingly?! So when those occassions arise, we have to remind ourselves why we stay. Here are some of those reasons:

We live here.
We love our house, and our proximity to the city and everything we enjoy doing.

Taking advantage of every summer opportunity!

Born & raised

(D, Dad, & Lynda)

(Dustin, Karen)

Fishing. Well, Dustin fishes. I just bring the bad luck.

(Mark)

(Dustin)

(Dustin & a very unlucky fish)

Family & fun in Waterville

(Brandon, Manda)

(Sara, Alice)

(The Point)

Three seasons of kickball every year!

(Spring '07 CHAMPS)

(Heiney, Mama Dish, D-Rae, Colieolieo, RaRa)

(Thug, Guido, Voltage, Jentz, Slick Mick, Dave - aka. "Your Name")

Backyard BBQs

(Becky, D, Anne)

(Kristian, Adam, Tarin)

(T)

The Lakes area in Minneapolis is very active. I absolutely love the city and all it has to offer in the summer. We're so close to the lakes and to Downtown, we try to take advantage of as much as we can. From the outdoor concerts, bike trails, art fairs, sidewalk dining, block parties, and everything in between. It's impossible not to find something to do.

You cannot beat this city in the summertime.

Driving up 35w at dusk is probably one of my favorite sights.

SEE YOU SOON, SUMMER!!!

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year everyone! And thank you to everyone who came to our New Year's Eve party. We had a great time bringing in '09 in '90s fashion! It was a great party and a great holiday season - and we have our friends and family to thank!

Happy Thanksgiving & it's almost Christmas!

Yes, yes, the holidays are upon us! A time for traveling, pressure to buy the perfect gift, and scheduling enough get-togethers in order to please everyone. Hmm... I feel like I'm missing something... oh yeah, the actual events that we celebrate in the first place!

This year, let's not forget that this is a special time for family and friends to spend time and appreciate each other. Our festive moods are at times dampend by the expectations and pressures we feel around this time of year.

Love one another, spend time together when you can, and appreciate the non-material gifts you have been given. Be grateful for your family and the bounty you enjoy together. If the tree falls over, or the turkey explodes... don't fret, take a family photo around it and laugh!

Happy holidays everyone!

Hello?.. ello?.. ello?..

Is anyone reading this... or are you all wasting too much time on Facebook?

P.S. Sorry I've been kind of boring lately.

Deedle-ee-dee

Hey Everybody,

Sorry I haven't posted much lately. Not much going on right about now. And obviously my last post of funny jokes as an attempt to still give you something to read without actually having anything to write about... well, I guess I was the only one who found them remotely funny. Oops. Anyway, as I said, there is really not much going on with us right now.

We are this close to being done with the electrical work at home, so that we can patch up the drywall around the new patio door and do the final trimwork and painting. We're not sure what color we are going to paint the wall (or more than one wall). It's just a basic off-white right now, but we're feeling like it should be something more. But then again, we don't want too much color and we still want the focal point to be the fireplace wall. My mind keeps going toward something in an orange or gold tone, but with the kitchen being "leapfrog" green - ouch. So we just don't know at this point.

Also, unfortunately, the construction industry has been in the dumps this year, as I'm sure everyone knows. Not conversely, this is has effected the remodeling portion of the industry as well. So I've had to take a cut in hours (and therefor, pay) until at least the end of the year. It's only two days per pay period, which ends up being every other Thursday & Friday off. It doesn't have too much of an effect on us at home, for now. I just hope the time off doesn't increase after January 1st. Of course, although people are not quick to jump into a remodeling project at the moment, there are still plenty of people dreaming about it, and still plenty of competition for those jobs... and therefor more required of me to give them that "wow" factor. So although my hours have been cut, there is no shortage of work to be done. I have also been taking on more and more of the marketing responsibilities this year, and we are now smack in the middle of holiday cards & other paraphanalia, for which I am almost solely responsible. More work and less time to do it? Yes PLEASE!!

On a lighter note, however, the holidays are upon us, and we look forward to spending plenty of time with family. Dustin plans to do a little hunting, which I know he is really looking forward to. And I hope to spend some of my "time off" doing some major organizing projects at home. I'm trying to enjoy this anticipation of spending more time indoors. I tell myself "finally, I don't have to feel guilty about being indoors." This feeling typically lasts about two weeks, at which point I start to think "GET ME OUT OF THIS HOUSE AND ONTO A BEACH!!"

Fortunately, we do plan to take a vacation with my sister and her husband during her spring break from teaching next spring. The four of us had a great dinner at our place on Friday, which was intended to be a planning session. However, at six bottles of wine and four in the morning, we realized we didn't accomplish as much as we hoped. It was a fantastic evening though, with a lot of laughs!! It was very much needed. Thanks guys, for coming over!

Yesterday afternoon we spent the day with our kickball team, lounging in Tim's party room, watching football, eating way too much junk food, and being entertained by the cutest babies in the world. Way to go, Lily, for your first couple of forward crawls! It was a great weekend... we hope you had a good one too!!

Until next time!

Funnies - or at least I think so...

Usually, I am the last person to forward jokes. But I got an email from a coworker today that cracked me up. These are only a couple of them. Maybe I'm just way too tired - or maybe I just really needed this today, but I thought I'd try to give everyone else a little laugh too.



A Woman's Revenge:

"Cash, check or charge?" I asked, after folding items the woman wished to purchase. As she fumbled for her wallet, I noticed a remote control for a television set in her purse. "So, do you always carry your TV remote?" I asked.
"No," she replied, "but my husband refused to come shopping with me, and I figured this was the most evil thing I could do to him legally."



Wife vs. Husband:

A couple drove down a country road for several miles, not saying a word. An earlier discussion had led to an argument and neither of them wanted to concede their position. As they passed a barnyard of mules, goats, and pigs, the husband asked sarcastically, "Relatives of yours?"
"Yep," the wife replied, "in-laws."



Who Does What:

A man and his wife were having an argument about who should brew the coffee each morning. The wife said, "You should do it because you get up first, and then we don't have to wait as long to get our coffee."
The husband said, "You are in charge of cooking around here and you should do it, because that is your job, and I can just wait for my coffee."
The wife replies, "No, you should do it. Besides, it is in the Bible that the man should do the coffee."
The husband replies, "I can't believe that, show me."
So she fetched the Bible, opened the New Testament and showed him at the top of several pages that it indeed says ...HEBREWS.



The Silent Treatment:

A man and his wife were having some problems at home and were giving each other the silent treatment. Suddenly, the man realized that the next day he would need his wife to wake him at 5:00 AM for an early morning business flight. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence (and LOSE), he wrote on a piece of paper, 'Please wake me at 5:00 AM.' He left it where he knew she would find it.
The next morning, the man woke up, only to discover it was 9:00 AM and he had missed his flight. Furious, he was about to go see why his wife hadn't wakened him when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed.
The paper said, "It is 5:00 AM. Wake up."



Har har har... I know, they were really cheesey. And sorry they were a little man-bashy. But I thought they were funny! Have a nice day!

Just a couple of project photos...

I had posted a while back about our bathroom project, and even though it has been finished for quite a while, I finally got around to taking some pictures this weekend. So here area couple of photos and the link to the old post. http://sporksparty.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html



The first photo is what the bathroom looked like when we bought the house. We replaced the vanity, countertop, light fixtures, and faucets before we moved in, and removed the wallpaper.



And this is what it looks like now... on a good day. I have to admit, it's usually not this clean.






I had also mentioned Dustin's birthday present, which we both really enjoy! I just got around to taking some pictures last night... So I had this photo blown up and is now hung on our bedroom wall. It is about 5ft wide and 2.5ft tall. The photo is of the view we enjoyed from our patio during our trip to Caye Caulker, Belize last winter.

Since the photo is so bright, we decided we should brighten up our decor a bit as well. About a week later I happened upon this quilt and shams that I immediately fell in love with... I think they look great!!

So thanks for looking... this was probably boring to some, but I just thought I'd follow up on a couple of previous posts! Have a nice day!

This weekend

Dustin's mom and stepdad, Karen & Ben, came to stay with us this weekend. It was a good time. We had a relaxing Friday night and Saturday, then went out to The Shout House on Saturday night. It was tons of fun! I used to love to go to Little Ditty's when they were open, but hadn't been to the shout house. It was great! And we were lucky enough - even while it was still busy - to snag a table in the second row. Good times!

While we were out, I also spotted a group of girls that I graduated with from Farmington. They were out for Amber's bachelorette party and seemed to be having a great time. Great to see you girls!

We also had our new patio doors installed this weekend. We still need to patch the drywall, have some electrical work done, and have the new trim installed, but we're that much closer, and we are LOVING them!! We joke that we are not going to move the table back into the dining room because we love the new view from the couch :) It's amazing how much more light the doors bring in. This photo was taken yesterday afternoon (when the sun is on the other side of the house), on a very overcast day.

We also had our first snow yesterday. It wasn't much, and mostly just a rainy, wet day. But it snowed. I suppose it had to come some time.

New Kids on the BLOCK!!!

Here are the photos in no particular order...

Anne's leggings, my leg warmers

Before the show

This guy even shaved lines in the sides of his hair. And I must say, good choice on the sweater.



My glow-in-the-dark shirt painted sweatshirt.

Joe, Jon, Jordan, Danny, Donnie

Me, Kris, Becky, Anne

NKOTB RULES!!

Kris, Bec, Me

In the bathroom at Excel (random).

The smoke and lights made this seem like even more of a dream come true!

The surprise set in the middle of the floor crowd. I SOOO wish we had been down there!!

There are so many more memories of this night, so many good times! The whole night was just so completely awesome! I have a renewed crush on these boys... er... men. There is something to be said for making a comback like this. Not only did they put on a truely awesome show, but one of the very cool things about being there was that there was not a person in that crowd (about 99% were 25 to 35 year old women) that was not completely into it. You should have seen the crowd during Hangin' Tough - the entire place waved their arms in unison. The screaming crowd made it feel like we were all back in 5th grade. And to those who were there... all I have to say is... Jordan's solo. Yeah, you know what I'm talkin' about.

So there it was! The moment we've all waited for - for fifteen years! It was SO worth it!!!

Hi there!

Things are actually kind of busy around here, even though they're not really very busy. This past week was the JLC conference, where I spent all day on Wednesday in seminars. (JLC = Journal of Light Construction, I'm sure that sounds fantastically exciting to everyone else, right?)



The rest of the workweek was spent getting ready for the Remodelers Showcase. It's a division of the Parade of Homes, in which we show a house we've remodeled the past year. I am generally in charge of anything in-house related to marketing, signage, brochures, etc (aka. "the creative department"), so I had spent a good portion of the week getting all of that together. And in keeping with my general style, everything was at a rush-rush out-the-door-at-the-last-minute pace. But it all came together and we had a lot of nice comments on the house (and the signage). Here's a couple of photos of the project (which I took, by the way):

Sandwiched between working the Showcase Friday night and Sunday afternoon, was our first annual Kickball camping trip on Saturday. It was a great time, and we really lucked out with the weather. It rained for a few minutes in the morning, but that was it. It was a gorgeous day and a gorgeous campsite. This was the first time I slept in a tent in something like five years, but it wasn't so bad. We stole the matress pad off the guest bed, so that helped. All in all, it was a fun time. I think we all agree that it will be a yearly trip.

Knowing that I had a very busy week and weekend, I took Monday off. It was nice. I slept in a little, got some coffee, had a doctor's appointment, then did some shopping. I thought about getting a massage, but somehow a half-day trip to Marshall's won out. I did end up getting a few good pieces, but I had to try on everything in the store to find them. Oh well, that's expected from Marshall's. It was a nice day. I just wish I had taken two ;)



This weekend will be the start of a new project. We are having the new patio doors installed in the dining room next weekend, so this weekend we will be tearing out the window trim and drywall. I'm sure there will be some other little projects to prepare as well.



That's all for now. How about you? What have you been up to?