Day 320

Tonight Rick's friend Dave and his girlfriend (soon to be wife) got into town.  They're getting married on campus this weekend and crashed at our house for the night.  We took them to El Toro for dinner and ordered some giant margaritas.  I had to let Rick finish mine since I'm taking my big MBE practice test tomorrow.  Bummer.

Then I had to go to bed early while everyone else hung out on the deck.  The bar exam is ruining my life.

Day 319

Ice cream update:
It's frozen and delicious!

Day 318

We finally got around to using the ice cream maker attachment we got for our wedding.  After 45 minutes of churning it was still like soup.  The directions said it should be frozen at this point, so we weren't sure what to do.  We decided to stick it in the freezer for the night and see what happened before calling it a total loss.

Day 317

Giant lawnchair discovered on one of our daily weekly trips to Menards.  This thing has 6 cup holders!

Day 316

Last night Rick and I had dinner at our neighbors' house.  It was delicious food and we actually had a really good time (Rick was skeptical about it).

I found out all about the previous owners of our house because our neighbors have lived here for a long time.  We also realized that there is no way we can over-improve our house because there's is gorgeous.  Totally redone kitchen and family room.

Tree Update: Rick took it to the recycling center and it only cost $12 to get rid of.  He also saw a man in a wetsuit and scuba mask riding a bike with his flippers on on the way there.

Day 315

This morning Rick and I went on a walk and we met a real live adverse possessor!  Seriously, I only thought this stuff happened in bar exam questions and property class!

We were walking along and saw a guy chopping up wood and loading it in a trailer.  Rick stopped to chat with him because he thought we might be able to get rid of our wood that way.  The woodsmen was a real chatter box.  He told us all about how he adversely possessed some land from the railroad because he's been mowing it for years and keeping his extra wood on it.  He called it imminent domain, but I knew what he really meant haha.  He also told us all about his trailer house with a jacuzzi tub and motel carpet... he referred to it as the Taj Mahal. Rick decided he must not know what the Taj Mahal is haha.  Anyway, we practically had to run away to get this guy to stop talking.  It was an interesting walk.

Day 314

Tonight we went to the rodeo.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to document it.  It was actually really fun.  Our friends invited us and I think we were both a little skeptical at first, but when we found out it was BYOB we were in haha  Leslie invented the awesome Rick Ridings drinking game.  This guy sponsored the whole thing, so everytime they said his name we drank.  It was a very successful game.

We also saw the rodeo queen, who Rick said (not very nicely) looked like her horse.  We saw a guy get knocked out bull riding.  Rick saw a friend from high school.  And we saw a lot of red neck people from Piatt county.  All in all an excellent night.

Day 313

Our yard is full of lilies.  They're everywhere and so pretty.  I cut some today and brought them inside so we can enjoy them up close.

Day 312

And the tree saga continues...

So, after calling around last night and finding out that it would cost several hundred dollars to have someone clean our tree up and haul it away, Rick took matters in to his own hands and just yanked that branch down.

Our really nice neighbors lent us a saw and helped for awhile.  Eventually we got it all cut up and in piles

Today we loaded it in the back of Rick's truck (good thing we didn't sell it yet).  And we found out we can take it to a landscape recycling center for about $50 bucks.
Go us! We just saved at least $350 dollars.

Day 311

Last night during dinner there was a little storm going through.  Nothing big just some rain and thunder... or so we thought.

I looked out the back door and saw this...

This massive brach, like a fourth of our big tree, had broken off

Here's the hole it left

You can't even see our house!

It was an interesting evening.

Day 310

Our new house has some serious landscaping.  It's actually one of the reasons we liked the house so much and bought it... it has a beautiful yard.  The problem is that yard requires A Lot of maintenance.

At our old apartment, Rick was in charge of mowing and I weeded the tiny little patio area.  It never took me more than 10 or 15 minutes.  Tonight Rick went out to mow, so I decided I should go pull some weeds because our flower beds were looking a little ragged.  It ended up taking both Rick and I a full hour to weed all the planters.  It was so humid, too, I was sweating like crazy.  And then of course one of our new neighbors came over to introduce herself and I looked terrible... oh well.  

Anyway, now our front yard looks great!

Day 309

One late night experiment with electricity and about 5 trips to home depot later...

Rick did an awesome job.  We did the whole thing by ourselves and it looks amazing.  I'm so proud of us.  In total, we painted the walls, installed a new light fixture, countertop and faucet, and hung all new fixtures. We have plans to update the flooring in the future, but this was enough for one weekend.

Looking into the bathroom from the hallway.

This is actually the old vanity, we just painted it black and put new nobs on it.

New light fixture, and old mirror painted black.  There's actually a giant rectangle cut out of the sheetrock behind the mirror.  We think it was maybe for a medicine cabinet, but its pretty small for that, so we have no idea why it's there. Anyway, we're probably going to upgrade to a new, bigger mirror eventually and will be able to better center it over the sink and still cover the hole... or maybe we'll just fix the hole.

Close up of the new granite countertop we got a steal of a deal on, and our new faucet.  Rick picked out the faucet all on his own... he did a good job!

Day 308

Today we are tackling the hall bathroom.  It only needs a few minor cosmetic upgrades, and we're going to do all the work ourselves,  hopefully for cheap.

Here are the befores:

This floor is a yucky yellow color.  The picture doesn't do it justice.

Please note Esther's lovely needlepoint above the sink.

The old vanity light.

Day 307

We're getting really good at wall-paper removal.  Rick as started referring to himself as the "Wall-paper Whisperer".  We ripped down the ugly picket fence wall paper in our master bath in no time tonight.  We also finished mudding and taping in the hall bath so we can paint it tomorrow.  It's getting a full renovation this weekend.  Mostly out of necessity since Esther took all of our towel bars... who does that?  I'd say those were definitely fixtures (using my bar review knowledge... holla) and not up for taking.

Anyway, we whipped all that out and still had time to watch whale wars and drink beer.  We're awesome.

Day 306

Sometimes I feel like all we do is go to Home Depot...

Tonight, we bought curtain rods, which I'm actually really excited about.  With the other half of my tablecloth I made a curtain for the kitchen windows.  Rick is pumped because this means we get to take down the shutters that are currently on those windows.  (I'm hoping to find a cool craft project to reuse them).  So, here are the new kitchen curtains.

We've ordered curtains for the living room, but they're back-ordered, so we just went ahead and hung the curtain rods in there so they're all ready to go.  We also got new curtains for our bedroom, which I am thrilled about, not that I ever get to sleep in anymore, but if the opportunity arises... I'll be ready.  That reveal will have to wait because our bedroom still needs some major work.

Day 305

Tonight we went...

Toilet lid shopping!  Who knew there were so many options?  Rick got really in to testing the no-slam toilet lids.

day 304

While I was in KC this weekend we had some time to waste between the ceremony and the reception, so Katie and I went to target to get a wedding present.  While we were there I found a table cloth on sale for $6 that I knew would be perfect for some projects.  So far, I've made a little curtain to cover up the weird, empty space under our tv.

Rick's not a huge fan, he thinks it's baby blue... it's not, it's more of an aqua.  But, I figure it will be good motivation for him to build some shelves to go under there.

Day 303

Today is Rick and I's 10 month wedding anniversary!  I was talking to my dad on the way home from KC yesterday and trying to figure out a good time for him to come visit.  I mentioned that we were booked for most of August and one of the weekends was our Anniversary, and I don't think he could believe it either.

I can hardly believe this year has gone so fast.  This has definitely been a year of big milestones in our lives... marriage, graduating and now buying a house.  But, I wouldn't want to do it with anyone else but Rick.

Day 302

After a very short night of sleep, and some hilarious sleep-walking/talking happenings with Katie and Katie I headed back to Champaign.  There was another reason for my trip back to KC... my car was there.  When we moved, Rick drove the U-haul and I drove his truck, so my car stayed at my sister's for a couple of weeks.

It was a really long drive back by myself, but I'm pumped to have my car back.

Day 301

Today one of my good friends from high school married one of my friends from college.  This was the reason for my trip back to KC and I was so excited to see everyone at the wedding, sort of a mini-high school reunion.   I also invited one of my best friends from college to be my date and let Rick off the hook on going to yet another wedding.  We go to a lot of weddings and have 6 on the schedule for this year (unfortunately there's no way we'll make it to all of them).

They had a perfect day for their wedding and everyone had a great time!

Matt and Katie, two of my very best friends from high school.  And Matt is about to become a dad!

Day 300

After an exhausting long day and a seriously delayed flight I finally made it back to KC.  I left Champaign this morning at 7am.  When Rick dropped me off at the airport he commented that he thought might flight might get canceled because there were big storms headed to O'hare.  Sure enough, as I was boarding my flight out of Champaign I got a voicemail saying my connecting flight was canceled.  Not cool.  I seriously considered just getting back off the plane and staying home for the weekend, but the flight attendant assured me I'd be able to get on the next flight out.

I arrived in Chicago and got in line to talk to the ticket agent about a new flight.  Turns out the problem was big storms in KC, not Chicago, and they had (allegedly) canceled all flights to KC out of Chicago for the whole day.  This is was the very rude, not nice ticket agent told me.  She booked me on a flight to Houston that didn't leave until 5pm, where I would catch another flight to KC getting in at 7pm.  Really, not cool.  When I asked if I could get on stand by for an earlier flight directly from Chicago to KC she said there were none (liar).  I was super frustrated at this point, but the ticket agent obviously wasn't going to be helpful, so I decided I'd just go to my new gate and ask someone there.

When I got to the new gate there was a huge line to talk to the ticket agent.  I figured I had 11 hours to wait until my next flight, so I might as well stand in line. As the line moved forward I could tell this ticket agent was just as haggard and swamped with people trying to get on flights, so my hopes were not high.  Just as I was next in line a new agent came out and summoned me to her computer.  I explained the situation and that I just wanted to double check that there were absolutely no earlier flights.  She tappity tap tapped (isn't it weird how airline ticket people always look like their typing 4 pages worth of stuff, you'd think it would just be a couple of clicks to look at the flight) and said the most wonderful words I'd heard  all week... "Here's your ticket on a direct flight to KC that leaves at noon."  I was in shock.  I asked her again to make sure I'd heard correctly... yep, direct flight, leaves in two hours, not standby.  I seriously wanted to hug this lady (and go back and scream at the other mean lady).

So for the next two hours, I hung out and got a ton of studying done, shared my phone charger with some guy and boarded my fight to KC

Day 299

Here are some pictures of our living room all put together with the tv mounted and the new paint.  We have a lot of empty walls that I'm not quite sure what to do with.  We're also planning to tear two of them down in the semi-near future, so I'm not feeling to motivated to decorate them quite yet.

This wall between the kitchen and the living room is coming down.  We have big plans for the kitchen.

This back wall is going to have french doors going to the office.  It's a really tiny space, so hopefully that will help open it up a lot.  Currently the door to the office is right across from the front door, so we're going to wall that door in.

Day 298

Today in bar review we had a live lecture.  Normally we just show up and watch pre-recorded lectures, which is super annoying considering I paid almost $3,000 for it.  But, considering this is pretty much the final hurdle between me and a real, grown-up job I'll do whatever it takes to pass.

Anyway, our lecturer today told us we should aim for failure +1 on the bar exam, which I thought was hilarious because it's so true and because it's a math joke, and we're lawyers.  Rick even thought it was funny.

Is it sad that this is pretty much the highlight of my day? All I do is study.  It's lame.

Day 297

Frasca covered all of our moving expenses to Champaign, which was awesome.  It also meant that we got these moving boxes essentially free, but since we don't plan on moving again for a long, long, long time, we figured we shouldn't bother keeping them. I'd heard of people having success selling moving boxes on Craigslist, so I thought I'd give it a try.  

Sold! For $15 dollars!

Man, I love Craigslist.

Day 296

I mastered the bus today!  This is very exciting, because I was really nervous about taking the bus to class. I've never had to take a bus anywhere before, so I was worried I would mess it up and miss class.  I looked up the schedule, which was very confusing, but thanks to google maps (and Rick) I got it figured out.  Then I read the "How to ride the bus" section of the website just to be sure I didn't mess it up.

I have to walk about 2 blocks to the bus stop and I left waaaay to early and ended up waiting for like 20 minutes at the bus stop.  Then we got out of class way early and I didn't know when the next bus came, so I decided to just hang out at the bus stop and one came really fast, so that was good.  Overall, I'd say it was a success.

Day 295

We painted the living room today, and Rick got his tv all set up on the wall-mount.  We pulled down shelves, to find wood backing, which we pulled down to find wallpaper, which we pulled down to find really messed up sheet rock.  This house is full of fun surprises haha

Day 294

Our next big project was to paint the living room.  Esther was big into needlework and displaying her needlework, which means that their were nail and tack holes in about every square foot of every room or our house.  So after a lot of mudding and sanding we're ready to paint.

Picking out paint colors is serious business.  And it's really hard.  After much debate we've decided on a color for the living room, Stepping Stone, and a color for the master bedroom, Pewter Charm.  I can't wait to paint and start putting things back together.

Day 293

Rick and have slowly been meeting all the neighbors.  We've discovered that one set of neighbors is particularly... interesting.  After a trip to Home Depot we returned home to see this....

A little family badminton game going on.  What you can't tell from the picture is that they have mowed a badminton court into their lawn...boundary lines, service lines... the whole thing.  These people take their badminton seriously

Day 292

Yesterday after we got the U-haul unloaded we completed our first DIY home-improvement project...

Now you see it...

Now you don't

Removing the ugly scallop trim over the kitchen sink.

Day 291

It's house-buying day!!!!!!!!!