Giant Dirt Pile

After the delivery we set out to dig out the flower beds. I would be lying if I said it was easy to dig up so much of the grass we had put down last year and had been nourishing for so long. By the end of day one, we had the beds edged out, most of one bed dug, and a few things planted.

Half-way done

Day 2 of the first weekend of gardening continued much like day 1, digging up sod and planting more plants. Of course, we didn’t own all of the plants so we left little flags up reminding us where we had space saved for a plant.

Done Planting

By the end of the weekend we had nearly transformed our little tiny beds of flowers into nice large flower beds with a lot more variety and color. Besides a few plants here and there, the only missing was the mulch.

Fast forward a few weeks later to our next free weekend. We called and asked for 5 cubic yards of mulch to be delivered. Relative to our 4 cubic yards of soil, I’d say we got a bit more mulch than we had asked for…by 2-3 yards.

We had enough mulch to cover the front bed that swooped around the side near the A/C units, the side bed next to the garage, around both of the tress not in beds, the mum bed near the irrigation backflow, under our deck, and half-way down the hill in the resource protection are in the back! It was a lot of back-breaking wheelbarrow-full trips up and down the yard but in all, I think it was worth it.

Looking around now after fertilizing, feeding, and getting all of these plants established it looks wonderful. Only one problem that I didn’t expect, what do I do with them now… they’re getting huge! I keep wondering if I’m going to hear, “feed me Seymour” from one of them.

All Done

Adding plants around the house was not the only way we were adding some color. This past weekend we stained and sealed both our front porch and back deck. Luckily it was 92-94 the day we applied it and that it was oil-based, because that evening it poured down raining (it was only supposed to be a 15-20% chance of showers).

If you want to see a specific recipe uploaded just let me know!

Katie finally forced me to get a reusable bag to take my lunch to work in (she got one too).  I would normally take plastic bags that came from grocery shopping, but since Katie has become “environmentally conscious” and is using the reusable bags from Kroger my supply has stopped.  I think it’s all a rouse to get me pulled into her “save the environment” game.*  The lunch bag is awesome though, perfect for the geek in me.  If you don’t understand the phrase, go browse some LOLCats.

In other fun news, we are now adding our own touches to the house.  We have installed under-cabinet lighting in the kitchen so Katie can see better when she is cooking and we replaced the faucet on the kitchen sick to match the other fixtures.  I am looking into home automation using a Z-Wave system.  It looks to be a fun project.  There are also plans to do some landscaping this year as well as wire the entire house for Ethernet (this may be cancelled if Wireless N routers keep dropping in price).

There is one more project that Katie and I are working on that can’t be revealed at this time.  It is super secret.

Katie has been cooking some amazing meals recently and I do believe I should poke her to share some of our favorites on the site.  Especially the baked chimichanga’s.  I think I have fallen in love with those.  Speaking of food, I think it’s time to go eat dinner. . .a new recipe from Katie this evening.

*Katie really isn’t an environmental freak.  In fact, she is the complete opposite.

Teddy in the Snow

One issue I have noticed with some people here is that most of them don’t know about driving in the snow. I lost count of the number of people we saw out today attempting to drive but instead causing unsafe conditions for both themselves and other drivers. One car was fishtailing so badly we were afraid to pass it while it was in the far right lane — we were in the far left lane with an empty lane between us and them. It was a good thing Chase knows how to drive in the snow… they lost control, started to spin, and we stopped about 2-3 feet from their car. Then, of course you have the people who don’t clean the snow off of their cars, the people who go too fast, the people who go too slow, and the people in 4-wheel drive vehicles thinking that they are also 4-wheel stop. And to top the list, the inexperienced drivers who just don’t know what they’re doing regardless of weather.

But enough about idiot drivers and the weather. I started a new job about two weeks after Christmas, so I no longer work for one of the local universities. I now work for a local biotech company that does contract research. I’ve had a bit of a learning curve since I’ve barely been exposed to the techniques that the primary focus of my new job requires. However, I am having fun and learning a lot in the process. I suppose overall it just feels a bit odd working for a larger company (still relatively small in the grand scheme of things), although the group I’m part of is rather small (just me and my boss). As a lot of my friends and family know, I collect giant microbes. Unfortunately, since my research now focuses on whichever contract I’m working on I won’t be getting a new work-related microbe. Although I have recently acquired HIV, swine flu, T4 bacteriophage, and the plague (giant, fluffy microbes that is).

As I mentioned last year, we spent last Christmas in Breckenridge, CO with Katie’s side of the family. It was a wonderful trip and we enjoyed a very white Christmas. Katie didn’t break any bones this time around. But we did have fun skiing, tubing, snowboarding, making snow angels, and just enjoying the company. You can see the pictures by clicking the image below.

Colorado - December 2008

After the festivities had ended Katie returned to her research which did not end quite as early as planned. Chase returned to work and life returned to normal in Richmond until March. In March, we experienced one of those rare winter storms that actually drops snow and it accumulated.  This rare storm gave Richmond between 8″ and 10″.  Richmond will typically start shutting down at about 1″ of snow (yeah, yeah, laugh away all your northerners) Katie luckily got a day off since VCU is primarily a commuter school; unfortunately Chase still had to work. Check out the few pictures we took.

Snow - March 2009

At the end of April, Katie finally presented her research to the Medicinal Chemistry department. And May 1st successfully defended her Master’s Thesis (For your sanity, don’t read unless you really like Chemistry :-p – -Chase). May 16th, Katie graduated from VCU with her Master’s in Pharmaceutical Sciences. Of course, pictures of the joyous day are posted.

Katie's Graduation

In the days after her defense and before graduation Katie interviewed for a position as a Lab Specialist in a microbiology lab at VCU; and in June started her first job. She’s still working there and enjoying the opportunities available to learn new things.

Also in June we celebrated our first wedding anniversary. Some people claim the first year is the hardest. We honestly didn’t notice much of a change other than some added jewelry. We hope the years to come are as equally blissful.

July we bought our first house. It’s a nice 4-bedroom, 2.5-bath, brand new house in the same area of town we’ve been living in. There are plenty of pictures up of it, inside and out, furnished and unfurnished. The dogs seem to have finally gotten used to the house and to going out on their tie-out leashes.

House

We spent our birthdays in Key West with Chase’s parents. We toured most of the tiny island and learned a lot of its history. We even saw some interesting places including the Pelican Poop Shop, Garden of Eden, and the Love Muscle House. If you want to read more of our adventures just scroll back through the posts or browse the pictures.

Florida/Key West - August 2009

We stayed home this year for Halloween. We handed out about 7 large bags of candy to the neighborhood kids. Chantel and Alex even brought over Jay to go trick-or-treating. He was Bumblebee from Transformers. It was really neat to see all of the costumes. Our next door neighbors’ 2-year-old granddaughters were a pumpkin and a lady bug. The one got a kick out of being the same as our dog Gizmo. The jury’s still out on how Gizmo felt. Of course, we decorated the house.

Halloween 2009

Chase, Katie, and friend Mary-Jane, and her boyfriend, Adam, drove down to Florida for Thanksgiving. It was a nice to get away from work for a while and just be able to sit back and relax. We spent the date after Thanksgiving at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure with Mom.

Florida - Thanksgiving 2009

This year we are hosting our first Christmas. Katie’s side of the family is coming down to visit for a few days. Mom O already made us a gorgeous wreath for our front door. The Christmas lights were up before Thanksgiving. Presents have been bought and wrapped. Now all we have to do is wait for Christmas to get here.

Christmas 2009

Once again, we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The photo gallery and blog is continuously updated, so be sure to look at it throughout the remained of 2009 and all of 2010 for updates.

Update (12/19/2009): Since this post was originally made we’ve had one of those rare snow-dumping storms hit Richmond. We got about 8-9″ of wet snow in the last 24 hours.

Snow December 2009

]]> http://www.alixblog.net/2009/12/06/another-year-of-memories/feed/ 0 http://www.alixblog.net/2009/08/01/home-sweet-home/ http://www.alixblog.net/2009/08/01/home-sweet-home/#comments Sat, 01 Aug 2009 12:07:30 +0000 Katie http://www.alixblog.net/?p=148 Well we moved into our house July 14. We’re getting there unpacking. A few boxes of magazines that need to be put away (the bookcase will be here from Ikea via Mom O tomorrow). Some winter clothes to be packed into a storage bucket and out of their cardboard box. Then we’ll be finished unpacking. We decided to refinish the old furniture for the spare bedroom so we’ve sanded it all down, followed by primer. Some of the pieces have their final coats of paint done, the rest are in their first coats of primer. Hopefully, I’ll get the second coat primer and the first coat of paint on today. Then we still need to finish setting up the office. Nothing has been hung on the walls yet in our office. So we still need to hang shelves for my microbes, bulletin boards, diplomas, etc. In the meantime I finished fixing our curtains so they fit our windows better. Why waste the time trying to find fabric, cutting them straight, then sewing them if I can buy cheap ones for $15 and just slightly alter them?

Mom and Dad O are coming down tomorrow to help with the landscaping. I am so clueless about what to put where and what needs how much sun. All I know is those stupid bushes that are in front of the house are tiny now but will grow huge and they put them way too close to the house. Therefore, they will be moving to a side or the back. Flowers will replace them in the front. And eventually we’ll put a tree in the corner of the lot up closer to the stop sign. The wooded edge in the back will be cleaned up and given a nice line and left wooded. I’d rather not have to go through the work of cleaning it out. And sometime in the next month we’re planning on getting sod and an irrigation system put in.

On a side note, I had to renew my license this year so I waited until after the move to fill our the renewal application. The new ones are so much different than the old ones. The dates and signature are raised on both sides. There’s a picture on the front and then a picture in a clear window. Luckily since I just got my picture taken last year when I changed names they used that picture!

In the meantime, in preparation of our move out of our apartment we’ve starte packing and repainting the walls. Chantel’s old room is back to white primer instead of the blue that it has been for 3 years. Everything in our office has been disassembled and removed. It’s been taped up to prep for bringing it back to primer next weekend. So we’ll have to say good bye to the orange and maroon. After that all we have left to repaint is our bathroom. We still need to pack about half the apartment. It’s getting there, slowly but surely. The more we pack the more we get excited about the concept that we’re going to be homeowners in less than 2 weeks. My only question is when did I actually grow up? I don’t remember doing that.

Besides that Chase and I found a house that we really like. Our offer was accepted, we have had our home inspection. Now w’ere waiting on the appraisal and the underwriter. We’re hoping to close at the end of the month. It’s this really cute transitional house in our area (only about 10 miles from our apartment). We’ll get the pictures up soon so everyone can take a look.

Refraction
Noun
Physics
1. the change in direction of a wave, such as light or sound, in passing from one medium to another in which it has a different velocity

After a few days of pondering life in general, I have gathered a good idea of what is going on and it relates to the word above.  I have never been good at metaphors, but I am at least going to try.

Life is like a wave.  Waves typically travel in an up and down pattern and does life.  You have your ups and downs along the way.  Each of our waves has it’s own amplitude, some of us go up real high and them come down real low while others is pretty shallow.  The question is, what happens when the wave is refracted?

In the terms of physics (as stated above), when a wave is refracted, due to passing from one medium to another, its velocity changes.  When the velocity is different, the wavelength also changes.  If life is like a wave, then the medium upon which refraction can occur could be considered a major life changing event.  Life could then become a crazy ass roller coaster ride with steep ups and downs or maybe it just smoothes out and everything is easy sailing.  Of course, all that could be reversed in an instant.

The problem people need to learn is that refraction isn’t a bad thing.  It’s just a change of pace.  No matter what happens, you need to learn to deal with this changes and the outcomes that they bring in a positive way.  If everything is looked at from a pessimistic point of view, you are likely to hurt or anger the people around you as well as yourself.

One thing we have both learned in the past few years is the easiest way to hurt or anger those close to us is to not listen. And by listen I don’t just mean the hearing process. But actually understanding what is being said and why it is being said. Not only that, but to listen to everyone; to obtain all viewpoints on a situation to have a more accurate understanding of what is happening. Too often it seems we get so caught up in our own realities we fail to see how our realities affect other realities.

A couple of quick side notes.  I’ve heard that at least one person took our last post personally.  It was never intended to inflict harm in anyway.  The purpose of the post was a to allow people to have a insight into what Katie and I have been thinking for the past month or so.  We needed some time to take a step back and look at our life together. I have partially edited the previous post.

The other note, most of the pictures from Katie’s graduation and some recent pictures of the pets have been uploaded.  I’ll add the remainder when we get them from mom.

Now that Katie has finished up school and graduated (Yay Katie!), we’ve had a chance to step back and take a look at our life and the direction it is going.  No one is truly ever sure of what their future holds for them, but I think we can influence it by the actions we take and the people we interact with.

Truthfully, if there has ever been a time for me to question the direction on which my life is going and whether I’m at the right place, doing the right things, surrounded by the right people now is it.  Really I shouldn’t just say my life, since I have to have Katie’s best interests in mind too.  We are one now. . .we are the Chatie!  Anyway, this has all stemmed from a particularly nasty email Katie and I found in our inboxes this morning from a “friend.”  The details of this message are going to remain only with the people who it concerns, but it is the main reason for all of our reflections this morning.  This isn’t going to be a rant attempting to chastise this person or anyone else,  I am better than that.

One big thing that we have realized is that only the ones that truly love you or are considered “true to the core” friends can be fully trusted with anything.  These other “people” out there just misconstrue and fabricate things for the betterment of themselves.  My mother basically put it that I have lost my innocence.  This could quite possibly be true.  I mean maybe we have been putting to much trust in these people, this definitely hasn’t been the first time it has backfired, but most likely it will be the last.  Next time, we won’t be able to be caught off guard.  We will learn to choose our friends more wisely and distance ourselves from the ones we feel don’t match with us.

That brings up my point of who Katie and I have surround ourselves with.  I’m starting to question if they are the right people.  Yes we get along with them, we have good laughs with them, and generally enjoy each others company.  It comes down to the drama that is caused, apparently by Katie and I in some way or another and we don’t even know how.  It is like these people thrive on conflict and since Katie and I are typically passive about it, they get angry at us.  Maybe Katie and I should just ignore everything that’s going on around us and let these people learn the hard way that we aren’t doing anything to harm them.

The other point is we have to look out for our future family and ask ourselves questions about these people.  Do we really want our children around jobless and seemingly unmotivated people?  Do we want to take our children to parts of the town that aren’t the best because these friends chose to live there?  Do we want our children around people who help run a business where part of it’s sales are related to a borderline illegal activity?  The problem is, if we try to answer these questions now what happens if we are wrong.  What happens when the jobless friends get jobs and/or degrees or the other friends move to safer areas or the business model changes?  We lose friends, but is this a sacrifice we are willing to take?  In reality though, it is any real concern if we are around these people or what they do away from us?  They don’t try to influence they decisions and ways of life on us and we try not to do it to them.  I am thinking the best course of action is to confront this questions IF (and looking back on it, that is a big if) there is ever a problem that arises from it.  Life’s too short to worry about these things right now.

I feel as though I have made the right decision with my career paths, but Katie is questioning hers.  She hasn’t been able to find a job yet, but it is still early in the search.  I think the thing coming down on both of us the hardest is family asking questions that are none of their business.  For example asking her how much pay her future job holds (money isn’t everything people!) and how long would it take her to get her Pharm-D degree (hello people., a pharmacist is going to be replaced by a computer in the next decade anyway).  Katie is happy with her choices and you people should support her with whatever she does.  I am very grateful for our friends supporting her throughout her entire schooling and job search and not questioning her moves.

In closing, maybe Katie and I aren’t fit to be where we are.  Maybe we need to be around more “yuppies” (god I hate that word) like us.  Maybe we need people around us with college degrees, who live in the suburbs, and sit around sipping a glass of wine on the back deck.  Maybe we don’t.  Maybe we are fine with the people we are with now.  It sure does make it hard to tell when one wakes up, walks over to their blackberry and sees an e-mail that destroys trust and presents an ultimatum when we were only trying to help.