i might be crazy . . .

So I went tonight and finally bought a couch. It's taken me way too long to decide. After test-driving hundreds of couches, I got the most comfortable one I tried out (that was cheap enough!).

The cushions (even the back ones) and the armrests zip open so you can restuff them if you need to. The seat cushions are all identical, so they can be switched so that they all wear evenly.

I decided to get the chaise instead of the love seat. I think it will be good for laying in to read. My living room will no longer be an empty expanse. Now I just have to wait up to 4 weeks (!) for them to be delivered.

I made myself another project tonight too. I went to Hobby Lobby and got an Andrew Wyeth print called Master Bedroom. I matted it and just have to get a hanger so I can put it up. This mat cutter has been my best recent purchase!

last weekend of freedom

Well, the pre-session meetings begin tomorrow. I have the privilege of taking minutes in our daily meetings for 7 days. We have the NAD Teachers' Convention August 6-9 where I will see LOTS of people from all of the places I've ever lived. It sounds like fun!

On Friday for supper and Sabbath for lunch, I went to Mathis's house. Tyler tried to take a nap on the couch after we ate, but it didn't last long.

Nikie and Chadd fell on/attacked him without warning on their way out the door. He managed to go back to sleep later, but Chadd came back and woke him up again.

One of my weekend projects was to recover the kitchen chairs. I found fabric at JoAnne Fabric for $3/yd. and it was half off with a coupon. So I got enough fabric to cover all of the chairs and make a curtain (I think) for less than $3.00 total.

Here's a close-up of the fabric. I had to find something that matches purple walls! Now I just need some pictures on the wall that go with this fabric! If I get the red couch, the fabric will match that too.

Here's another project I tackled today. I cut the inside mat to fit a picture Jaclyn took of me sleeping at Southern between classes. It was the semester I lived with Lindsey and I used to go to PreCalc at 9:00 and come back and sleep in the mornings. This was also while Jaclyn was taking photography class . . . go figure. Now it's hanging above my bed ;)

Gotta go get the apple crisp out of the dryer and the towels out of the oven . . . wait, maybe the other way around!

now we know!

I know that all of my friends have wondered this about me for a long time!

You Are: 60% Dog, 40% Cat

You are a nice blend of cat and dog. You're playful but not too needy. And you're friendly but careful. And while you have your moody moments, you're too happy to stay upset for long.

Are You More Cat or Dog?

ISFP?

You Are An ISFP

The Artist You are a gifted artist or musician (though your talents may be dormant right now). You enjoy spending your free time in nature, and you are good with animals and children. Simply put, you enjoy bueaty in all its forms and live for the simple pleasures in life. Gentle, sensitive, and compassionate - you are good at recognizing people's unspoken needs. You would make a good veterinarian, pediatrician, or composer.

What's Your Personality Type?

weekend cont.

Sunday was Ryan's time to get finished packing so we could load his moving truck in the evening. We didn't let this stop us from having some more fun together during the day. We headed back out to the lake with the SeaDoo for the real last time before Ryan left. The water was SOOO rough.


After we all went back and showered, we hit Ci Ci's with John Jones, John Locke, and Xavier Hazen for the quickest meal I've ever eaten there. Randy and Mary Jane picked up the moving truck and we hauled stuff out to it until Jaclyn and I had to go. Ryan got a 24' truck, so he had plenty of room for all of his stuff.

I promise that I did do more than just take pictures. I lifted a box or two and Jaclyn and I were about killed moving the guest mattress upstairs after Ryan's room was cleaned out.

It's sad that he's so much farther away now (7 hours). He's on the road as I'm typing and has to unload either tonight or in the morning. We've reached adulthood - all moving out and moving away. I thought this was supposed to be more fun. Well, if we didn't notice the price of gas before, we sure will now!!!

happy valley vacation

Friday
On Friday, I went down to Collegedale as soon as I could sneak out of the office. The Heilmans, Jaclyn, and I went to Harrison Bay for a last trip out boating before Ryan had to move.

We took the Sea Doo just for fun, and it was good that we did since the boat overheated and we couldn't drive it. Ryan and I spent the most time driving it, but Jaclyn took it out for a while too.


It was nice to get out on the lake one more time this summer. Click to make the pictures bigger. I plan on putting lots in this post, so I didn't want them too big. Thanks for this picture MJ! I finally got to steal one of yours! Jaclyn has lots of good pictures from this weekend on her blog too. I don't want to post any of her pictures because it just gets redundant. I'm pretty sure the same handful of people read all of these blogs anyway!

Sabbath
Jaclyn and I stayed up until 2 am Sabbath talking. That's what happens when roommates/best friends are away from each other for a while ; ) We got up and went to the 2nd Third at CA, then had spaghetti (of course) at the Heilmans.


For the afternoon, we decided to check out Coolidge park, even though the clouds were threatening rain. I love the view from the walking bridge. They've really done a lot downtown to make it look nicer in the last couple of years.

I rollerbladed up this curvy sidewalk once. I don't recommend it. You can't tell how steep it is from the angle shown.

When we got back, we played "Sabbath Clue." Ok, I don't remember the real name, but that gives you an idea of the point of the game. Apparently, I am a trend setter, because as soon as I did this:

Mary Jane tried to copy me:

She couldn't do it because she was laughing too hard. Jaclyn managed to get the pencil balanced:

And Ryan just laughed at us all. He did manage to get the pencil balanced too, but I don't have a picture of it. We are all ADD and got sidetracked for a while.

summer in the ad. building

Well, my name is finally on the wall, I guess that means I'm official!

Nikie is our accountant. She's Don Mathis's daughter and is married to Chadd Watkins, who teaches at Madison Academy. I snuck in and took a picture of her on the phone with a parent. She's been really busy this summer!

It just so happens that the day I take my camera to work, everyone else was on the phone. This is April McNulty (Aaron's sister for you SAU people). She works in the business office and answers phones from 9-2 during the summer. She's really nice and helps me find things all the time, since I don't know where anything is.

Well, picking out library furniture has become somewhat of an ordeal. This is a picture of Luane Logan looking through furniture catalogs (she's the librarian) and Don Mathis signing all of the checks that are going out today.

I finally got my diploma matted and hung in my office. I bought a mat cutter at Hobby Lobby on Friday and cut the interior green mat. Last night at Target I found a 10" x 13" frame that said it was matted to 8" x 10", but it was really half an inch smaller in either direction, so it worked perfectly!

my weekend

Ryan came up to visit this weekend, since he decided to leave camp early. The weather was really nice, except for the temperature. It was too hot to do much of anything during the middle of the day. We went to church on Sabbath (my first time here), ate lunch, and went to a park that is in Hendersonville, TN. There were LOTS of Canada geese, random ducks, and weird trees with softball-sized green balls hanging from them. (Anyone know what kind of tree?) We played catch and tried to take a nap in the shade, but it was too hot. I took pictures of the animals I saw there. We saw a duckling get stuck in a wire thing that was down in the water. It's mom climbed out without a problem and left it inside!

Sabbath
My three nature pictures from this blog are from Sabbath afternoon.

The park had pretty purple flowers growing along the entire bank of the river/creek/pond thing (it's manmade) and attracted lots of bees. I should have taken a picture of the whole bank so you can see it.


I was kind of surprised to see canvasbacks in the water. This one looks pretty sad (click to see bigger), but it was there nonetheless. I cropped it before posting, so hopefully it didn't lose a lot of detail.


Speaking of sad-looking animals, this fox was half dead wandering around in the Highland Church parking lot. It had ticks all over its back and was scratching like crazy before it sat down and just looked at us while we drove closer. Ryan says it was smiling, but I say it was grimacing from pain. I don't think he signed up to be a blood donor. =(

Sunday
I am being a good little tourist. I have already seen the zoo, a plantation, and now have been to a home game of our local baseball team. The Nashville Sounds' stadium is on the south side of town and is smaller and not as nice as Bellsouth Stadium where the Lookouts play in Chattanooga.

Ryan made a good point about this sign in asking what "other items" might fly into the stands at a baseball game. Any ideas?

The game was pretty interesting, considering that baseball can sometimes be 3 minutes of action spread out over 3 hours! The Sounds lead 3-1, lost the lead and stayed tied for a while, then won 6-3. This first picture is a Sounds player safe at first after the pitcher tried to pick him off.

I like this second picture because you can see where the ball hit the dirt and the catcher caught it (click to enlarge). The batter checked his swing - we have photographic proof.

You can see their ugly camo uniforms. I don't know why they're wearing those, considering that their colors are black and red.

The scoreboard was pretty interesting - a giant guitar! They're going to build a new stadium closer to downtown, right on the river.

memories from camp

I have been working on this post since last week . . . Grr, uploading problems . . .

Well, I haven't done anything very interesting in the last few days, so I decided to post some of my favorite pics from camp that I had with me on a CD. I printed about 50 pictures at Walmart to put in an album, so I had fun looking through them all again.

This picture is from the Sunday of staff week. We were all given letters on our feet and raced each other to spell words or phrases that were called out. I had fun documenting the chaos. I can't remember who the "C" is in the picture, but the others are Josh Kanen (A), Teresa Hennen (M), and Daniel Howell (P).

Our Thursday night skit was called "Native Nosocans." The skit was 1/3 creation story, 1/3 acceptance of other people who are different from you, and the last 1/3 I didn't understand. Parts of it were funny though. One interesting thing to note was that most of our "Indians" were Hispanic. This particular one was called Chief Opiehontas, aka Opie Vallejo.

The best evening skit was Miners' Camp, in my opinion. Josh and Chris were hilarious. I think the kids really enjoyed it. The skit started at line call where kids went to the field to play some games. We then followed the two main characters through the RV park, where they experienced all kinds of misfortune. They get hit with water balloons, have flour dumped on their heads, get more water thrown at them, their hats are stolen, and they get to the town where the last hotel room has been given away. They pray and in the end, they find gold in the Lost Creek Mine.

This is Buick (before his unfortunate haircut). He's a Belgian and lives in a pasture with Bertha, the other Belgian. They live right next door to Mini Pearl, a miniature donkey. The size difference is pretty funny when you see them side-by-side. This picture was on my desktop at camp and has been on my desktop at Highland. I just like the picture.



My favorite evening of the week was Wednesday. We all headed out to the RV park for a picnic supper, then moved up to the barn for Ranger Rick's Wild West Show & Congress of Rough Riders of the World. Events included the keyhole race, partner switch (switch places on horseback), barrel racing, tomahawk throw, relay races, breed show, and others I can't remember. The staff were allowed to do two of the events, barrel racing and the gun shoot (nerf guns with needles to try and pop balloons). I did barrel racing during Adventure week and it was really fun. This picture is Jenny Seal burning out of the arena after rounding the last barrel. It's my favorite barrel racing pic of all.

Belle Meade

This is the front of the mansion on the Belle Meade Plantation on the SW side of Nashville (I think?). The family that lived here had the name Harding, but they weren't related to President Harding. The daughters married two Jackson sons, but they weren't related to Andrew Jackson. So, a lot of familiar names that don't do any good.

Jaclyn and I went through the mansion tour, which lasted about 40 minutes. One interesting thing was that they used tulip poplar wood in construction, but it didn't look rich enough for their taste and social status. So, they brough in a guy who faux painted wood grain on all the doors and trim.

What Belle Meade is famous for is thoroughbred horse breeding. They said that a lot of times, all of the horses entered in the Kentucky Derby (I think that's the right race - ask Jaclyn!) were from the Belle Meade bloodlines. Seabiscuit is from Belle Meade blood.

This is looking out from where the mausoleum is. We couldn't tell if anyone was actually buried in there. The path and all of the big hardwoods were very pretty.

We are masters of self-portraits. A well-placed stump made a good tripod for this one. We're sitting on the porch of the building the Hardings lived in while they built the mansion.

The little garden behind the cabin had some nice flowers in it for taking pictures of bees and butterflies.

Here is one of the bees!

wild animals

Jaclyn & I went to the Nashville Zoo on Sabbath afternoon to see what kinds of creatures inhabit downtown Nashville. It was pretty hot, but the zoo has lots of shady paths, so it wasn't too bad. We did lots of walking and saw all of the neat animals they have.

This was actually one of the later animals we saw, a ring-tailed lemur. It reminds me of the movie Madagascar. The lemur king is soooo funny in that movie. Anyway, I think they're pretty.

I LOVED this exhibit with the Lorikeets. They would let you buy a cup of nectar to feed them, but we didn't want to. So, I used my SAU ID card (not good for a student discount at the zoo, but great for attracting birds) to lure the birds down to my hand. One tried to take it, I think.

These chairs were really cool. They weren't quite big enough for us both to sit comfortably, but they were nice for one person.

This is us looking hot and tired at the animal show. They showed two smaller cats, an opossum, some arthropods, a two-toed sloth, and an albino boa constrictor. There might have been more, but I can't remember.