Spring Fever

With the weather getting nicer, it has been hard to stay indoors and focus on studying lately.  I have a major case of spring fever.  We had some really nice weather that completely melted all the snow.  I am dying to get outside and work in the yard.  But instead, this is where you will find me most of the time:

Spent some time this evening with the dogs out in the yard.  Izzy has been confined to the upstairs level for the past 10 days, as we had been dogsitting for Justine and Kelly.  She sure had a "bee in her butt" and enjoyed running around the yard.  We decided to push our luck and put the awning and cushions back on the outdoor swing.  Wanna bet it snows now?  hahaha

We finally bit the bullet and decided to quit sinking money into our older cars.  We sold the Passat (in one hour, no test drive or anything.  Gotta love Craigslist!).  Skott got an amazing deal on this Hyundai Tiburon.  Great deal.  Great warranty.  Good gas mileage.  Low miles.  It will be nice to have something reliable for his daily commute to work.

Meanwhile, I am still "enjoying" my daily walks to school.  I really do it because I want to/need to.  I honestly don't mind the walking part, as it's along the river most of the way -it's just the 30 lb backpack I am carrying that bothers me!  After two plus years of my car constantly blowing air I finally took it to the shop (yes, the fan is always on high.  You can make the air hot or cold, you can direct it where you want it to go, but you cannot ever make it stop).  So far it has been there for three weeks :)  but hey, good incentive to keep exercising!  We plan on getting our bicycles out this weekend and ready to go for the season.  Can't wait.  I am so ready for spring.

Hola!

I mentioned before that my Spanish 102 class is ALL in Spanish....  Well, last week we started learning parts of the body and to practice, the professor told a story, describing a monster in Spanish.  We had to quickly draw a picture based on his instructions.  He was going pretty fast but I am sure I never heard him say anything about arms (brazos).  So here it is, my spanish monster with lots of hair (mucho pelo), three eyes (tres ojos), four legs (cuatro pieses? guess I better review this one!),  a big mouth (boca muy grande), two teeth (dos dientes), a small nose (nariz pequeno), one ear (un oreja), and a small stomach (estomago pequeno).

I think I will stay a Biology major :)   this drawing stuff is not for me

The Stairs

We saved one of the biggest projects for last.  Ugh.  The stairs.  They are steep and narrow.  We hated the carpet but weren't really sure what to do instead.

Skott pulled the carpet off and the accompanying 1 million staples. 

Nasty-ness in the crack at the bottom of the stairs:

After spackling, sanding, and more spackling, sanding

We lived with the stairs like this for quite awhile as we tried to decide what to do.

We finally decided to just paint them, and add a "no slip" grit for the bases of the steps:

(both of these pics are actually the same color, just in different light)

Then we stenciled a pattern.  The first pattern wasn't turning out like we wanted.  So we repainted and started over with a different stencil and different paint. 

The finished result:

And keep in mind:  the entire time I am saying "we" here...... I actually mean "Skott".  He did all the work.  Every last bit of it  :)

I love my CoffeeHound

Feeling really grateful for my wonderful husband!  He is my rock through all of this craziness.  He is always there for me with a listening ear and most importantly, he always finds a way to make me laugh and feel better!

The perfect sized coffee mug for Skott

Anyone who knows us, knows we absolutely DESPISE Starbucks and how it has bastardized coffee. We always said we would rather go without if it meant having to drink Starbucks (and that's saying a lot!).  Normally, restaurants like to flaunt the fact that they serve Starbucks crap so we are aware.  When we were up in Duluth a couple months ago we had breakfast at a super nice restaurant.  I thought something was "up" with the coffee- it tasted dry and burnt.  We joked that it tasted as bad as Starbucks.  We decided to just choke down our cups and find espresso later.  About halfway through our cups, we heard the waitress tell the table next to us that they serve Starbucks.  I had to capture Skott's reaction....

 

One more funny picture.  Same Duluth trip.  (On a side note:  I am sure glad that we can make our own fun cuz there's not too much you can do in Duluth in the middle of December!)  Way back last summer I went to the cities after work with some friends and we went to a park and had some beer that was so amazing.  I kept telling Skott how excited I was to have him try it.  We never could quite justify the price tag when we were in the area.  While in Duluth, we came across some and decided to go for it.  We blew $20+ on eight cans (2 different flavors).  I don't think there are words to describe the flavor of this one (obviously NOT what I had tried during the summer).  The initial flavor was like licking a pine tree, or better yet, one of those nasty fake pine smelling trees for your car.  This was followed by grapefruit.  And then dry heaves.  Yes, it was THAT bad!  We kept one can.  It will make a great white elephant present.