I painted my living room!

Today K and I took a couple hours out of our busy day and painted my living room. It was pretty fun actually. We bought a couple of rollers, taped up the trim and ceiling and then got to work! It looks pretty nice overall, but there are some imperfections that I wish we could've seen before the paint dried! But that's ok, it was our first attempt and it still looks pretty good. It makes the room feel warmer and it increases my comfort level in it as well. White walls were just so boring!

Last weekend

I had an action packed weekend. That's for sure! On Friday my sister came to visit and we went to K's sister's birthday party. It wasn't the most fun party ever, but it was something to do, and there was Italian Beef and plenty of desserts! We played catchphrase for awhile. That game is always fun.

On Saturday we went to the Garfield Conservatory Garden and pretended that it was summer! I got a lot of good pictures that day. There really are a lot of amazing plants out there. After that we went to dinner at Penang. We got 3 apetizers and 3 meals. We were so full afterward! I got this one pork chop dish that had the most tender pork chop! It was one of the chef's specials. But I can't remember the name of it for the life of me. We also had some skirt steak dish and a seafood yam pot. After dinner we went to the mall and K and my sister went shopping like they have never shopped before. Ok maybe not, but they had fun. I sat in a massage chair at Brookstone. At night we went to a dueling piano bar called Howl at the moon and we had a bucket of Hurricaine Rush (I think) We partied like it was 1997. So in other words, normally :P

Sunday we went to church. Everybody got lost or lost something except me. My sister got stuck in a one way traffic pattern. I couldn't find her for 30 minutes. She even bought a pay-as-you-go phone to call me! Kristin also lost her work cell phone. boo! After my sister headed back home K and I went to a superbowl party and ate pulled pork sandwiches. MMM MMM. Then the weekend ended. Fun times were to be had by all.

My Birthday

Was yesterday! And I'd like to thank everybody who made it special. I really can't say it enough that it really means so much to me. My family came out to visit me and they celebrated it on Saturday with me. Along with K, they made a super fun pirate party with homemade pizza. It was really unexpected and I really was taken back by how much they did for me to make me feel special :) Dino, our pet stuffed T-Rex got a friend named Carrot Nose who is a Triceratops. They've already been getting along great. ...and getting into mischief! Those crazy imaginary Dinosaur personalities sure are colorful! I also got an Ipod nano, which I really needed for working out. My wireless bluetooth headsets kept breaking so I needed another alternative to my cell phone MP3 player. K got me a toaster and a Blu-Ray movie. The toaster works great and it was just what I needed!

On Sunday K's family integrated me into their clam chowder dinner and they even did an impromptu birthday song around a dump cake. It was a pretty fun cake. It was loaded with cherries, pineapples, butter and coconut! What a good weekend I had!

All in good fun

Last weekend K and I went to a pumpkin farm and browsed all of the fresh produce. Most of it actually wasn't overpriced surprisingly. For example, you could get a whole spaghetti squash for $1.29. But there were of course the ridiculously overpriced items such as the $10 gourmet chocolate covered apples... There were a lot of fun sights like camels and some pretty crazy squash for sale. It was so packed there I felt like I was in a sea of people. But I loved it.

This week K and I baked a cold oven pound cake from the America's Test Kitchen "Lost Recipes" cookbook. I swear every single one of those desserts are the best I have ever had. The pound cake had a thick flaky crust on top due to starting the baking without preheating the oven and the cake was just perfectly moist! We brought slices into work because we couldn't possibly manage to eat that much cake by ourselves. Everybody loved it. My coworkers think I am some baking genius or something... Awhile back we made This thing called "Peach Puzzle" which was like a superior peach cobbler, if you even want to call it that. You basically bake whole peaches sitting in a sweet biscuit dough with brown sugar and butter and eat it warm. It was so good that I will want to make it again as soon as peaches are in season again. If anybody is ever around K or I during peach season, you absolutely have to request it!

Peach Puzzle

This weekend we went to a forest preserve and walked around. I saw a family getting portraits taken at dusk with all the fall colors and it inspired me. I think I'm going to go back tomorrow (today) with K and take some glamour shots. I really have to remember to buy a reflector and a stand online, because the local camera shops charge an arm and a leg for them! But anyway, back to the weekend. We drove around and got menus at many of the restaurant's around K's place and I ended up getting hungry and ordering the 3-meat combo at Sweet Baby Ray's. I had never eaten there before and it was pretty good for a chain. The ribs had a delicious rub on them that reminded me of the kind that was on this special order cajun meat that my dad used to buy for read beans and rice. Oh the memories. The weekend has been so good so far. I can't wait for more!

Last weekend

I took a long time to write about my weekend this week, but I really had a great time. On Friday I went out to John Barleycorn with some friends. I hadn't seen most of them for months! The night ended pretty early for who knows what reason, but at least I got plenty of sleep! I guess we're all getting old and can't stay out like we used to!

Saturday was a sad day. My 3 week old pro lens broke all of the sudden. I went to use it and what do you know? The AF motor didn't move the focus ring! Man, you'd think when you drop a load of cash on a specialty lens from a good brand, that you lens will last longer than 3 weeks. At least I can get it repaired under warranty and the lens is insured. But The lens will be away for about 2 weeks. That's no fun!

On Sunday Kristin and I had a St Paddy's day dinner party. That was really a lot of fun. We made corned beef and cabbage from scratch. We even corned the beef for a week! Everybody had a blast. Even Dino had a great time. He danced and partied like crazy!

A random job

I applied for a random job today. I figured, what could it hurt? They're planning on laying off a lot fo people. Even though I don't think I'll be one of them for several reasons. It doesn't hurt to see if any companies nibble on the line. And hey, if I actually get a really good offer, maybe it was meant to be anyway! Life's fun like that.

I've been going around town with my camera all weekend. It has been an experience, but I have learned that it will make my neck hurt if I carry it around for hours. I need a backpack if I am going to do that more often. next time :)

OK I changed my mind

I LOVE my camera. I had a great time photographing just about everything yesterday! And people do enjoy my hobby as much as I do, hehehe. But seriously, I'm excited because it is looking to be a super fun hobby from here on out. I'm getting used to the camera, and I'm getting better and better at taking good pictures with it.

I also had fun Saturday when I went out with K and another friend. We had some good conversations and we really had a blast. I made country fried steak as well that day, but it tasted more like pork chops than anything because the recipe called for a bread crumb crust.

Free to me!

Last Friday I received a banquet ticket worth $80.00 for the local Sister Cities branch. I wanted an excuse to wear a suit since I hadn't worn one in almost a year. I felt like I wasn't giving them the attention they were used to when I still lived at home and wore suits every Sunday. Anyway, I was happy to be at the banquet with Kristin and her family because I looked snazzy. But the night kept getting better and better! First, there was wine. Secondly and most importantly, they served filet mingon. Unfortunately, it wasn't wrapped in bacon or seasoned generously like I like it. But I've never gotten such nice meat at a fund raiser banquet! And to top all that off, they had performances from cultures around the world including Japanese drummers, African dancers, Aztec recreation dancers, and Chinese New Years style dragon dancers. Those were my favorite because the dragons were so intricately designed and their faces moved too!

After the dinner Kristin and I were going to drive back to Iowa, but my parents convinced us that it was too late, so we decided to leave the next day. But during the phone call I got all excited because I saw an accident were some dude rear-ended a police car and there were like 10 other police cars monitoring and directing traffic. I was so excited that when the guy in the left turning lane got the green light, I started going too... Then I realized I wasn't supposed to and I slammed on the brakes, right in front of the cops. I then proceeded to hang up the phone and whistle innocently, like that would make a difference :P

The next day Kristin and I headed to Iowa. I had work to do, so we left pretty late, but that's ok. I ate so much food that weekend, which was also free to me because I didn't have to pay for it! I love my dad's grilling and my mom's cooking. We ate pot pie, ribs, homemade cream of broccoli soup, collard greens, sweet potato pecan pie, apple kringle, and I'm sure a couple other things I forgot. And I loved it all. mmm mmm. Instead of watching TV we all finished a 750 piece CSI puzzle, which didn't even have a picture on the box because that was part of the mystery! Then once we put it together, we had to look at the crime scene and find evidence to prove who the guilty party was! It was a lot of fun and I think everybody loved it!

Zoo and Geneva Lake

I was up in Geneva Lake again this weekend. James came back into town along with just about everybody. The wedding was canceled, but not the plane tickets. So we just all hung out and did random stuff. It's always nice being up there because there is so much beautiful scenery. Everybody had a good time as far as I could tell and this time Kristin came along!

Kristin and I also went to the Lincoln Park Zoo. It has been a long time since I have been to the zoo. We saw a lot of fun animals including a roaring leopard. It was so loud. I was glad to have been there when it roared! We also saw a bunch of sick looking animals. There was a bear that just had jaw surgery and its tongue was hanging out about a foot out of its mouth with its back all hunched. I thought the poor thing was going to die. There was also a camel with one saggy hump. I felt bad for it too :( But it didn't look sick so I wasn't so worried. But even with the sick animals, I still saw plenty of healthy ones and got to see some cool primates.

I wonder what other fun stuff I'll be doing in the near future

Weekend, The

Friday was pretty uneventful. Kristin and I hung out, but we didn't really do anything besides watch TV. I ordered pizza and ate it. It was good.

Saturday we went shopping for a track jacket for myself. I found one that I liked a bit and it was on sale for only $30, but Kristin wasn't digging it so we didn't get it. The other ones I saw were around $70, yikes!!! After that we did the whole youth group leader thing and I brought donuts. They were hyper little boogers and they also scratched up one of those thin plastic table cloths. I told them to stop, but at the same time, I was remembering how I used to do that so I kept laughing and they took it as a sign of my approval. ooops. I guess I'm a little immature for my age! After all that fun, Kristin and I went to a haunted house with 3 separate attractions. Kristin got scared, I keep talking to the people running around trying to scare us. Only once did I jump slightly. It was fun though!

On Sunday Kristin and I bought two pumpkins to carve since they were on sale at the local grocery store. After that We went to Oktoberfest at Lynfred Winery and walked around the area and looked at some of the older architecture. We then rented a few scary movies to watch. Kristin got scared again, but I was A-OK. Kristin even got scared of Dino, her beloved stuffed dinosaur. But after some coaxing she came to love him again. I was worried because Dino was the first "sweet" gift I got her and if she didn't like it anymore I'd have been sad :(

But on a sad note. during that weekend a friend of mine called off his wedding a week before it's scheduled date. I dunno what happened, but I'm sure there are some very hurt people. And I hope that their emotional wounds will heal over quickly.

I beat K to it!

The Chicago Spire

My weekend was pretty laid back because I have some crazy sinus cold that just kicked in Saturday morning. I hope it goes away Monday, that would be great! Anyway, on Friday, I hung out at Kristin's house and just lounged around. We talked a lot. I dunno what we talked about though. The cold is making me delirious!

Saturday, I watched a lot of TV in the morning and learned a quick way to make puff pastry, how to brine a pork roast (soak in salt water) and that Donald Trump is building a 90 story building in Chicago. Of course, that will be ironically "trumped" by a 150 story building scheduled to be finished in 2009 in the north side of Chicago. This building will be the tallest in north America, and strangely it will look like a giant screw. After that I rode my bike 10.4 miles to the youth group leader thing I do at the church. That was a lot of fun! I wore earplugs for the first time and it was so peaceful and quiet. I found myself becoming overly comfortable while riding like this so I made it a point to remind myself that I have to maintain 100% attention and scan for potential hazards just like they taught me in class! Luckily my nose behaved for the whole bike ride! After the youth group I ordered fried rice and watched Donnie Darko with Kristin. I still don't completely understand what the director was trying to get at in the movie. But I think Donnie could travel through time or something. Or he was just super crazy!

On Sunday, Kristin and I made white bean and chicken chili, sweet potato chips, with some special cornbread muffins with green onions, sour cream, sharp cheddar, and creamed corn inside. They were very soft and moist. With a little tweaking they could be some fantastic snacks! My nose is driving me crazy today and I think the cold is worse, but what can I do but wait it out... well I guess I could take 6 Sudafed, 1 Claritin, 2 Tylenol, and one vitamin! That oughta fix it! wait.... nope, didn't help.

new clothes

This weekend K wanted me to buy some new clothes because apparently buying new clothes only once a year is too seldom :P So with her super girl-power persuading skills she convinced me to go to the mall with her. She told me she had a 20% off coupon for Express so we went there first. We picked out some button-up shirts and some graphic T's to wear in combination. She had me try on about 10 different pieces of clothing. This is a lot more than my average shopping visit. So after all of the experimentation with combinations I decided to get 2 shirts and 2 T's But then I realized that if I bought 3 shirts I could get the third for only $8 more than buying two with the multiple shirt discount and the 20% off coupon. So I got a third. We also looked at jeans and track jackets, but I decided for my wallet's sake not to buy any more. Even with the 20% off and everything the 5 pieces of clothing cost me about $130. EEP! Luckily for me the mall closed so I didn't have the chance to be tempted to buy anything else.

Later that day I checked out ae.com to see if they had jeans my size online. They're much cheaper than Express so I felt safe going there. I also found a stackable 15% and 20% off coupon to apply to my purchase so I was happy to get a 32% discount. I decided to buy 2 pairs of jeans for only $56 after shipping and taxes. Now that's a bargain because I have to get 36' inseam pants and they rarely have those in stores and especially not for a discount!

All I have to do now is buy a track jacket and I'll look super fly. Well according to Kristin. I do agree that with her help, I was able to buy some pretty nice looking tops!

So I really got 7 articles of clothing for about $190 so each article cost on average $27. That's not too horrible especially considering Express's top-notch quality! I can feel the good construction in the seams and fabric texture :P The button up shirts even come with handy plastic inserts to keep the collar tips straight (yes they are supposed to stay in there, they give you spares with your purchase).

So here's the damage, minus the two styles I couldn't find on expressfashion.com

Express 1MX (dark brown instead)	Express 1MX	Express Graphic T (light brown)
AE Faded Indigo	AE Medium Stonewash

mmmhmm

On Thursday I made fried catfish for Kristin, her grandmother and her sister. They loved it. I cheated and used Zataran's cornmeal breading though instead of making it from scratch. Her grandmother also made some delicious traditional cornbread that contained only corn meal, oil, salt, and eggs. It reminded me of those corn cakes I tried to make once as a kid because I learned that George Washington loved em! I didn't like the corn cakes so much because they were very dense and had little flavor, but Kristin's grandmother's cornbread had plenty of flavor. I even put a little maple syrup on my piece.

Friday was a pretty awkward night. K's friend met a new girl about a month ago and they're already official. They call each other by nicknames regularly and cuddle more than any other couple I've seen. This made it kind of awkward because I find it annoying when people can't keep their hands off one another while in public. And they just met and they were cuddling like they knew one another for months. We played Apples to Apples entirely too long, and I suggested we stop playing that game and move to another once to everybody, but I was ignored. So I secretly begged K to intervene since it was her friend, but even that took awhile. The strawberry daiquiris were very good though. I only had a tiny bit because I was driving. Her friend is a good dude though so I hope he is happy with his new gf.

Saturday was a pretty laid back day. We made 49ers flapjack dough the night before and let it ferment over night. When Kristin came back over the next day, we cooked them up and they tasted more sour than we remember from Walker Brothers, but they were great with syrup. We decided that we'd try not to let them sit over night at room temperature next time and see if the taste was more similar. After that we did our youth volunteering thing at Kristin's church. They had a special speaker who told her story about how she tried to kill herself and how she found God afterwards. It's sad that she felt so desperate to kill herself though, but I'm glad she is happier now.

For dinner I had a Work Burger from Crave. It is one of the better burgers out here. It comes with bacon, onions, mushrooms and cheddar cheese. They even cook the beef to -order, so if you like yours a little more pink, you can ask for it! We then watched Apocalypto. It was a pretty good movie, but yes, Mel Gibson is still the king of gory snuff films. There was a lot of blood. He sure loves his blood.

On Sunday Kristin and I hung out at her parents' house and went shopping at random stores. Her parents fed me brownies with walnuts and I ate too many. But boy oh boy were they good. At least Kristin is keeping me working out over the weekends. That makes me feel a little better. We also ate dinner at her parents' house. I had Lou Malnati's pizza and herb crusted tilapia. After all that I watched Queen with Kristin and took an online "personality strengths" test. Apparently my strengths are: Competition, Achiever, Focus, Strategic, and Significance. So basically, I'm gonna kick your butt at whatever I do every time by focusing on my strategy and it'll be a significant butt kicking. yeah that's right. :P We tried making flapjacks again just to experiment and we only let the dough rise for an hour before cooking it. It was a lot more self-adherent and dough-like, but the flavor was better. We still have to experiment more to get the recipe right! Maybe leaving the flapjacks in the refrigerator over night instead of at room temperature, or adding more butter to the recipe will help.

20

Well this is an obligatory post to make my 20th post. This weekend I'll be interviewing to be a youth group leader at a local church. It should be fun. I like working with kids, but middle school aged kids will be a challenge. I'm also going to be grilling with Kristin tonight and I'm bringing bratwurst! I love bratwurst, especially the ISU MEATS lab kind!!!!

update!

My weekend was pretty boring, but I did get to see Superbad on Friday. So that was nice! It's a pretty funny movie and it may make some geeks in high school have high hopes of getting a hot girlfriend, but I don't think 2/3 of the guys in that movie would even have a chance with any of those girls in real-life high school. People are too concerned with image at that point to date people that aren't in their crowd.

I cleaned my apartment on Saturday. The Pine Sol smell is finally going away. I always feel good when I mop the floor because I imagine the disinfectant killing all the bacteria and the wet mop getting all of that dust. But don't worry, I'm not some sort of weird neat freak. I've only mopped twice since December '05.

I hung out with Kristin on Sunday and I had a Cold Stone Creamery cake batter milkshake with real yellow cake pieces. We also cooked steak and it was delicious. It had a Kirkland steak rub on it and it was cooked almost a perfect medium. I got lucky on that one!

Crazy stuff is happening this week and I'll write about it if anything really happens!

Weekend Update

I had a very good weekend starting on Wednesday because that was my Friday! Kristin and I baked molasses and peanut butter cookies. Of course, I ate a bunch. Thursday Kristin and I headed to Iowa at about 10AM. We had made delicious sandwiches to bring along the night before so I had forgotten them. I kicked myself for that because I was really looking forward to it! In the evening we met up with my whole family and we went to a Casting Crowns and Tree 63 concert that my dad had bought tickets for. That was my first Christian concert. It was alright and I was glad we weren't sitting close to the speakers. They had a scary looking drummer who they "let loose" do do a solo and it reminded me of a Tool concert.

On Friday Kristin and I headed up to Ames to see my campus and eat all the food that I missed. I ate the West Street Deli sandwich that I missed ever so much. After that I had Pizza Pit wings and cheese bread. It was all so delicious. I also picked up some ISU MEATS lab bratwurst and ate some of that for dinner. I was in heaven that day.

On Saturday the whole family went to see the covered bridges in Madison county. We also ran into John Wayne's childhood home while on the way. After we were all done we saw a sign for "Grandpa's Workshop" so we decided to check it out. Some grandpa opened up a shop in the middle of nowhere and sold lots of wood items. The cutest little kid was there too. She seemed like she was out of a storybook because she was so adorable. We got some free knickknacks and then headed home. I felt bad for not buying anything, but there wasn't anything I wanted! For dinner, we had a massive dinner that consisted of bacon wrapped fillet mignon, grilled potatoes, broccoli, and corn along with green beans and brown rice. Needless to say, I also over ate on Saturday. The whole weekend we played a lot of games of Apples to Apples and the whole family ate it up. I was happy about it and Kristin was also a big hit with the family.

Sunday was a travel day but we still managed to go to Target, eat at Tacos Mariana's, watch half a movie, and go to the church where my dad's church was visiting and eat their food. I over ate that day too! weird. It was all fun though. I had a great trip!

My weekend in photographs

This weekend I went crazy taking pictures and I took a whole roll in black and white. I felt really good taking a bunch of pictures again.

Today was already too good not to write about

I woke up at 7:00 and had myself a bowl of Safeway blueberry cereal. Lucky for me I already had my morning planned. I brushed my teeth and headed outside for my nice cool morning bike ride. So I rode my bike for an hour. I got back home and changed clothes to go on the elliptical because I slacked off and didn't exercise on Friday. [flexes muscles] Now I'm all stronger! Then I hopped in the shower and de-stinkified myself. I called Tony and asked if he wanted to go to this Freecycle free for all event where you can find a lot of used stuff for free, no catch. Tony was busy, so then I started to rethink my plan on going today. I thought, well I was going to go by myself before deciding to go with Tony, but I think Kristin would really enjoy going. So I decided to put off going to the free for all until Sunday when I can go with her. But then my morning had a gap! What ever was I going to do?

Eventually I decided to watch a movie and then eat lunch, which consisted of the last bits of pizza rolls, buffalo chicken bites, and an Italian sausage. Well, I had successfully gotten through another 3 hours. What can I do now? I thought. I felt the sudden urge to be creative and take pictures with my film camera in black and white. Unfortunately, I didn't have any film. So on the way to the camera store, I decided that I wanted to take some pictures of my truck. So I also took my truck to the car wash. $10 well spent... My tires were dirty!

I get home all excited about all the pictures I was going to take. And on the way out of the car I hear the "ding ding ding" and I see that my lights are on so I turn them off. Then I shut the door still hearing the "ding ding" without paying attention and then I reach for my keys.... and BAM it hits me.... The car was still dinging. I had no keys! So I was thinking about how Kristin warned me that I should have a spare. And how now I had just put my foot in my mouth. To make the story even funnier. my apartment keys are attached to my car keys, so I couldn't get into my apartment. I reached for my cell phone, but I had left it on the charger! Thank goodness I live in an apartment because otherwise I'd be locked out for good! I went to the office and they gave me a spare key to get into the apartment and grab my cell phone. I call my dad and ask if he can mail my keys for Sunday delivery because FedEx used to do that. But they don't anymore I found out. So then I get the bright idea of calling the Mazda dealer instead of paying $60 for a locksmith. Luckily, they could make a key by just using the VIN! PHEW. So I got a ride to the dealer and so ended my crazy ordeal!

After that I had a bunch of fun taking pictures. I only took 12 shots so a special somebody had better be ready to be photographed in artistic black and white on Sunday ;)

Movies, Molasses, Marklar

Friday was the start of my movie marathon weekend. Well I only saw 3 movies, but that is more than normal! I went to see the Simposons Movie with Tony, Kristin, and her friend. It really didn't seem all that exciting and it seemed like just another episode to me. But I guess after writing a show for 15+ years you start to run out of ideas. It really is one of those movies you should see in the dollar theatre but not shell out the money for the full-price ticket. It was really short, but I was glad because we ended up going to the 11:00PM showing because of random scheduling mix ups along with people going to the wrong place and having to find the rest of the group. Before the movie I had a great piña colada at Bahama Breeze. And before that, I had cooked the chicken saltimbocca for Kristin and Tony to try. Even though I burnt the chicken it was still moist because of how it was cooked and everybody claimed to like it! Kristin even had a second piece (2 days later).

On Saturday I watched Cruel Intentions with Kristin. I remember liking that movie back in the day and I still do, although I have a more jaded viewpoint on the way love works now and I have a hard time believing that somebody could fall in love with another person in a matter of weeks. The movie still showed that you could change for the better and in the end, you'll get killed for it. It's those life lessons that I so adore! (sarcasm)

Molasses Cookies

Blueberry pancakes started the day on Sunday. Kristin came over to make them with me. We put the heat on too high though so they either burned or were slightly undercooked between the blueberries. Next time I'll do better, I swear! We also tried making a recreation of the Walker Brother's flapjacks by adding a lot of extra water to one pancake. It was thin, but it just didn't have the same flavor. I think it was most likely the pancake mix we were using because I remember having a slightly undercooked pancake made at the YMCA with very similar flavor. Walker Brother's probably adds a couple of secret spices to their flapjacks and I bet that's what made them taste so good! Later in the day I watched the Rocky Horror Picture show with Kristin. It was a weird movie, but I had to watch it because people referenced it all the time in college. I really don't know what was so awesome about it though. It kind of reminded me of Clockwork Orange, which is a very very twisted movie. You don't want to watch it.

While watching the movie, we made molasses cookies. Kristin has loved these cookies since childhood, and I really am starting to like them too. While making the cookies, I learned that Cracker Jacks are actually molasses flavored, and not just some crappy caramel flavor like I had thought as a kid. Anyway, Molasses cookies are delicious spice cookies made out of a bunch of tasty spices including, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and of course, molasses! These cookies get my stamp of approval! They kind of remind me of ginger snaps, and I probably have eaten them and mistaken them for ginger snap cookies. I've eaten 10 since making them last night. Good thing we made small ones because I'm sure I'd have eaten more mass-wise if they were bigger!

new living room!

Before:
After:

This last weekend was great for many reasons, the most important for my daily sanity being the re-stylization of my living room. On Friday Kristin and I went looking for frames for a couple of my black and white photos to put up. I was happy with that small change, but fate would lead to more changes on Saturday. We were about to go out for something or other and we drove by the dumpsters in my complex and we saw that somebody had thrown out some old furniture. We both noticed that there was a very sturdy looking bookshelf/entertainment center stand sitting out there so we decided to do the switcheroo and throw out my broken black entertainment center that took up my whole wall. I never really liked that thing, but I got it because it was $20. I broke it during transport and made it look even worse, but hey, I just got out of college. Nobody in college had good furniture, so I didn't think twice about it. Over the past year and a half I realized that all my friends with jobs and their own places had nice living room furniture and slowly, I became upset with how cobbled together my living room looked. It still isn't perfect. But now it is a lot better, that's for sure.

The new entertainment center is not nearly as imposing as the last one and it it relatively symetrical, which makes my eyes happy. Since there was a big open space in the wall where the entertainment center used to cover, I decided to hang my aunt's painting of a Grecian church and a painting from Jamaica in the blank space. Now there is a nice symmetrical triangle on that wall too. Yay for symmetry! Kristin suggested that I put the wavy mirrors I bought on the wall vertically, so we did that also. It left a big space over the couch so I printed out some digital pictures I had taken and framed them too. Problem solved! Now I am happy with my living room for the time being. The next thing I'll replace is that saggy futon I have. But that's for another day...

My friend James came into town this weekend also. So I went down to Chicago on Saturday and Sunday. I really enjoyed going back to the city. I'm also glad that it reminded me how much I'd rather prefer to stay in the burbs because of all the traffic and parking issues. If I didn't have to drive or commute 45 miles to work, I'd totally enjoy the city though!