The New Exterior

Tuesday morning, I went for a later and longer run than usual.  Normally, I'm done running before 7 AM, but this Tuesday, I slept until almost 7 to take advantage of my one morning off of the week and not have to worry about running in the dark.  This meant I was getting home around 8 AM.  I came home and went directly to the fridge where I got a glass of ice cold water before doing anything else. 
As I stood at my counter, stretching my legs in all sorts of different ways, I heard noise in the front yard.  Mildly curious about what the neighbors could possibly be doing, I peaked out of the window.  There was the local tree service, grinding up a stump in our front yard.

So I went out to greet him, in post run sweaty clothes and messy hair.  Then I called Jim to have him come home and tell the tree-man where the trees were supposed to go.  So now, we have two cute little trees in our yard.
Since we moved here a little over 3 years ago, the exterior of our house has gotten new siding, seamless gutters, new flower beds, new trees, a railing  and new mailbox (the mail box because some punk kid knocked our first one off).
So here is the before picture..

And here is the exterior after our walk today.

From my computer it looks really crazy... I took the picture with my phone.  I'll see after it is posted if it still looks insane.  The siding is a light gray.  No more flower planters on the house. 

Rendezvous Recap

So, as I've said a few times, this is my favorite time of year in Ogallala.  I usually am absolutely in love with the Indian Summer Rendezvous.  This year wasn't much different and I completely embraced it, participating in as many activities as I could.
Thursday night we went to the opening ceremonies, where Minute-to-win-it games were played.  I'm sure most people know what that is... the TV show where people are challenged to do weird things in a minute or less.  I volunteered enthusiastically, hoping to win the grand prize of $200 in local "cash" (you can spend it at local businesses). 
I was first challenged to retrieve two pennies from the toes of panty hose, using only one hand in each leg.  Being a woodwinds player, I worked the magic fingers to beat it in record time (ha!). 

Two gentleman looked like they practiced another challenge at home... using a dry noodle to move pop cans from one table to another. 
Then all of us "winners" had to turn touch lights off by hitting them with bean bags, but if you hit them twice they turn back on.  I failed pretty miserably at that.
But I won a $25 gift card to the local jewelry store.  Of all the stores in town, I have no idea what I could get there for $25. 
Anyway.
Friday night, we watched a great bluegrass "trio" (made up of 4 guys... and a 5th guy sitting in). 
Saturday, I went on a long run and ran the opposite direction of a 5K that I found out later I could have placed really high in (bummer!).  We also went to the car show and drooled over old cars (my dad was always into old cars so I have a slight appreciation.  I want a Roadrunner.  But I would accept any other muscle car if someone so chose to give me one).  I played with some puppies being given away out of the back of a truck.  We went to the Mansion on the Hill, this historical building we have always wanted to see but never went in until this year because it's free with your Rendezvous badge.

We were invited to a wedding in the evening, which was beautiful and wonderful and sweet.
We caught the tail end of the Victory Underground Band, a family band of a dad and two sons playing some rock and roll together.  Then, we listened to a total of three songs from the main act.  I loved the band, but they were too loud for me and...
I have a cold.  So staying up late in a tent wasn't my idea of a good idea.  I can't complain about feeling sick or tired, since Shannon shared that Bob basically hasn't slept this weekend with the concerts and what not and I wasn't in charge of anything at the wedding.  I also didn't do anything yard work related all weekend long.  With a scratchy throat as an excuse, I napped most of today and took a nap Saturday.

I had a great weekend, sore throat and all.  

New Hair revealed

This haircut is Shannon approved.  This might sound a bit cheesy, but you know how important someone is by how quickly you show them your new haircut... and today, I ran across the street from the salon, directly into where Shannon was working and asked that she come see my hair.  She said "I LOVE it!", which anyone that knows her can probably picture her saying!

I LOVE it, too.  I don't know if the picture will translate well, and I might update with a more realistic photo in a few days (when a stylist hasn't made me all extra fancy).

I emailed Jim and my mom the following picture. 

In real life, it has a few more layers and that stuff by my face is bangs!  The first bangs I've had as an adult.

Anyway, there it is for the world to see.  Slightly shorter, a little more styled hair.

New Clothes

So, in a previous post (my first yesterday) I mentioned that one thing
I would share is a new outfit.  Well, I happened to be wearing it
today in celebration of it being Wednesday.  I had planned on letting
it sit in my closet until I get my new haircut next week and reveal a
"whole new me" but, well, I'm impatient.  And one new outfit does not
a new wardrobe make.
These clothes actually were inspired by another blog about fashion.
The kind of blog that is professionally done and makes money and
such-- not this glorified public diary kind like mine.  She shows her
outfit every day and talks about it.  Well, most often, she's a little
crazy and I don't care much for some of the things she wears.  Like
things in mustard color.  I don't like it in my food, I'm not going to
like it as a color choice, either.

So, that's some new stuff that's come in the door of my house as of
late.  I also got a headlamp for running at night (yup, I am that kind
of dorky).  I feel like a gold miner, and have plans of pretending to
be evacuating a mine in order to up my pace a bit.  I don't do so well
with mind games, though, so that probably won't work.  But, at least I
won't sprain my ankle on some dark patch of road somewhere.

In other news, Rendezvous starts tomorrow with a Chilli cook-off that
Jim and I usually attend.  I am very much looking forward to this
weekend.  And, with any luck, we will have finished the flower gardens
as of tonight.

I'm sure this post was very exciting for everyone... the clothes and
talking about flower beds again.  Sorry.  I'm excited about my life
right not but I'm sure it isn't really all that thrilling to the
outside world.  One of those "you had to be there" kind of things,
right?

A Day At The Vet...

is an expensive day. 

My two little ones were due for their shots.  Here in Ogallala, it's required to have your vaccinated in order to be registered.  I need to update their registrations soon, too!  But I have to let my pocket book grow a little more before I'm willing to pay more on these dogs!

Now, getting shots is not that big of a deal in anyway.  Except for Gray.  Have you ever met someone (animal or otherwise) who seems scared of everything and it seems they have a reason to be?  Gray, our scared dog, horrified of everything, has had the worst luck.  When we first moved here, his retractable leash "chased" him into the mouth of a bigger dog and he had to take meds for the teeth marks in his sides because of it.  I felt so bad after that incident, and we no longer used retractable leashes.

He also hates shots more than any dog I have ever met.  He screams.  I mean, it sounds like screeching tires with a little bit of little girl scream with some kind of horrible pain scream you hear in horror movies.  That is my dog.  Sorry, anyone within a quarter mile radius, I'm pretty sure you heard him this morning.

His fear of the vet and shots wouldn't be so bad if he only required one shot.  But he is allergic to one of them, so he gets an anti-inflammatory shot before hand.  So, one shot.  Wait fifteen minutes.  Get two shots.  Go home.

And today, about an hour later.... another shot!

My little gray boy is usually pretty chubby, but his face started growing again.  He started to look like a bull dog.  The first picture is just as he started to swell.  The second is on the way to the vet for the second time today.  What an expensive dog!  But I'm so glad he's okay!

 My little bull dog!

Photo Challenge Finish!

At this point I almost didn't care if I finished the extra 30 day photo challenge that took me three months to finish, but I decided I better in case there is someone out in the world just dying to see it to the end.  So, here are some pictures to make that person happy.
Day 27: Building

So this is my house.  Years ago.  Before the new siding, the new trim, the new gutters, the new flowers, the trees being gone.... I'm posting this now because an updated picture is coming soon!

Day 28: Treasured Item

Grandma's Piano

Day 29: Sunglasses

These are clip on sunglasses I got last year during a trip to the Bonneville Salt Flats for the California time trials for my dad's birthday.  We all got some and Dad lost his!  Poor guy.  Then I got new glasses so these no longer fit... except!  I just realized, I kept those frames to work out in (because glasses get nasty running 5 + miles a day in them!) so I now know I have sunglasses for RUNNING. Which is waaay awesome.

Day 30: A Smile

This is a no make-up, no hair doing, no nothing day.  Which my students (coming in a half hour) will have to deal with.  Poor kids.  It's a smile anyway.

Now to some things that have actually been happening in my life.  Recently, I made my first homemade California Rolls-- they were vegetarian, main ingredients being cucumber, avacado and carrots.  I will branch out now that I have found how easy they seem to be and now that our local Safeway carries Nori (Seaweed).  Jim loved them!  I cooked the rice, and then blended some rice vinegar in with the rice when it was finished to make it stickier.  I wet the Nori (I don't know if I was supposed to or not, I completely just made up everything I did on the spot!), made a layer of sticky rice and then laid down a strip of carrot, strip of cucumber and strip of avacado, rolled it up and after refrigerating for a while, sliced them up into coins.

Things have been very busy lately here, as we are STILL finishing our yard (I promise pictures soon.  I'm actually wanting to do a before and after picture thing of the whole house as we've basically changed something about almost every room and I LOVE our house).  This week will be even busier but I'm so excited to get back to every day life on this blog and share it with anyone reading. 
You can look forward to a recap of a day at the vet for the Chihuahua's, finishing the yard project, some new clothing I've recently bought, a new haircut in the near future (A real new haircut that looks different, not a trim like in the past), and the best thing ever-- Summer Rendezvous!   Hope I've got your interest!

Day 25 and Day 26

Day 25: Purchased.
I couldn't resist the cute little sixteenth note on the front of this bill fold.  This is as girly as it gets with me and I love pulling this out of my bag every time I pay for something.  So cute!

Day 26: Small Object
Okay, this is not a small object, but I need some help and the leaves are small, so you can consider them small objects, right?  This tree is growing through our fence.  Now, if you remember I mentioned a tree int he front yard that has to go.  We are looking to purchase three trees for the front yard, but maybe, just maybe, is this tree worth transplanting?  Can anyone tell me what kind of tree this is, if it's good to grow as a possible shade tree and any other tree information you can share? 

In other news, we are still completing the flower beds.  This project, since we can only spend about an hour a day on it a few nights a week, has taken for.ev.er.  I am so ready to have a finished yard.  I am so tired of dirt and bugs and stuff.  And I"m pretty sure that all of this yard work is the cause of a recent break out-- something that annoys me since I'm old enough these shouldn't be happening anymore!

The last one is because... well... he's just cute. 

Picture Challenge Days 22-24

Day 22: "Fav" Memory.  I think if you are going to shorten the word favorite, it is usually done as "fave" not "fav", but what do I know?
This isn't necessarily my favorite memory but when trying to find something that reminded me of a pleasant memory I automatically thought of my oboe.  I was a clarinetist from 5th to 8th grade.  I was progressing quickly but wanted something more so I started borrowing the schools oboe at my mom's request (I didn't know what an oboe was until my mom suggested I learn it-- thanks, mom!).  I took a few lessons with Mr. Dragoo, my band director at the time, and even got questioned by the DARE campus cop about my reed (apparently oboe reeds look like something you could smoke and I had one dangling out of my mouth at the end of the school day.  I took the school oboe home for the summer to practice so I could play in the high school band with it.  I took lessons with Nancy, my private instructor through high school.

At this point, my dad worked three and a half hours from home.  He got a small (really, really small) apartment in Pierre, SD to live in during the week and would come home on weekends.  I know he always felt bad about leaving us for the week but we all hated Pierre so we refused to move (sorry, anyone who likes Pierre.  We aren't into fishing, or wide open spaces... or the capitol building).  I really knew he was feeling guilty when he came home one week with this bran new wood Yamaha oboe.  I was so proud and scared of this thing that I brought it to an outdoor concert to show Mr. Dragoo, but had it and it's case wrapped in blankets and all sorts of precautions. 

Day 23: Any kind of animal.  This black pup is Chevie, our neighbor dog.  She comes home on weekends with her master who works all week in some other part of the state.  When she is home, she runs the neighborhood... okay, so really she just runs our yard.  She likes to say hello to David and sniff around our garage.  She also knows that we are dog people and will without a doubt love her unconditionally when she visits.  So she comes over for some pats on the head and a play with David and then we send her home.

Day 24: Random.  I'll take this picture opportunity to talk about my Labor Day weekend.  The random thing I saw this week was a puffy leaf.  After falling off a plant in the yard and laying on the ground all night, this little leaf puffed up and looked kind of strange.  When it popped it made the same sound as those fun packaging bubbles that I still get excited about.

The leaf fell to the ground because we are still working on re-doing our flower beds.  We are closer than ever (I would hope we wouldn't be getting further away!).  We had Reba come over and show us how to transplant flowers so our flower beds look a little more pleasing and so we wouldn't kill anything in the process.  Tonight, after a flute lesson, I will be laying weed fabric down over our largest flower gardens and Jim will be laying down the landscaping timber.  Next step-- rock.  Then we're FINALLY done with the flower beds.  Then it's tearing down the dead tree and planting three new ones... then it's the back yard...

Today, as part of our weekend, the cycling club, of which I am now a part since I purchased my scary road bike, road to Paxton and back for a pancake breakfast.  Here is everyone but me coming into town.

My butt didn't even hurt!

I again apologize for this blog being put aside.  I will do my best to be more frequent in my posts for those of you interested in my random life.  This ridiculous and failed attempt 30 day picture challenge will be over soon before the Indian Summer Rendezvous, which is my FAVORITE time of year here in Ogallala.  I plan on talking up my small town for a while surrounding those awesome events.  I will also be showing some before and after shots of the house, since we have completely changed the whole house it seems.  I will also, hopefully, be posting some more crazy stories of my small town life and talking about some of the amazing people I am blessed to be around daily.