HGTV has nothing on us!

Whew!! We've been really busy fixing up "the Taylor house" for sale. You know, it's funny... we're finally doing all the things we wanted to do in order to fix the place up - just in time to sell it! The only exception to that is the addition of another bathroom. I'm sorry, but we just don't have the cash nor the motivation for that right now.

So far, we've:
* Painted the outside of the house
* Painted the shutters
* Painted the window sills
* Treated the windows
* Replaced the front porch
* Added and painted railing and bannisters on front porch and steps
* Painted the front door
* Painted the living room
* Painted the dining room
* Replaced the flooring in the kitchen
* Painted the laundry room
* Painted the hallway
* Painted the sunroom
* Painted the ceiling in the guest room
* Painted and re-caulked the bathroom
* Replaced the light fixtures in the dining room, laundry room, hallway, and sunroom

We still have to:
* Construct and paint railing for back patio/steps
* Quarter-round for kitchen
* Paint house numbers
* Check paint job in sunroom (cover?)
* Talk to Mr Cervenka about sunscreens
* Load to dump/recycle
* Clean, clean, clean!!!!

Well, well... Look who's come crawling home

Last night, Kara, Adrianne, and I sat down and watched Julie & Julia. At least, I watched most of it until I fell asleep on the couch and Kara had to come wake me and take me to bed. I'm sure that the resonant snoring coming from my general direction made it difficult for others to hear the movie - so Kara's motivation in getting me to go to bed was probably not entirely selfless.

But I digress... The movie was about a tired NYC writer who decides she's going to blog her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. 365 days and 521 recipes later, Julie (played in the movie by Amy Adams - of Enchanted fame) manages to cook all of Julia's recipes and attract a pretty healthy blog following as well. While I don't intend to suddenly begin cooking, nor do I have the delusion that a large number of people will begin reading this blog, I am somewhat motivated to be more diligent with my blogging.

I dunno. Perhaps it's a slightly narcissistic view of self-importance that drives me? Perhaps it's the desire to write my experiences and feelings out, thereby allowing myself to go back later and read them more objectively and enabling myself to make better sense out of them? Truthfully, I think it's just my little way of trying to enact some small amount of influence on the world around me through sharing of my views. Hopefully, regularly writing down feelings and experiences will enable me to THINK more about my life and ACT instead of simply REACT.

I must close now, because I've taken more than the original 5 mins of work-time that I wanted to devote to this - however, we may be seeing more posts here soon. Stay tuned.

Ten days and counting

So, here we are. There are ten days and counting until the scheduled c-section. On one hand, we kind of wish that Molly will come early just to end the waiting, but on the other hand, that would probably mean an emergent situation rather than a scheduled and well controlled one. Anyway, here's to waiting and to healthy babies!!

House Divided

Okay, so it's really more like "house united". I know the weather looks horrible, but I wanted to get a picture of the new addition to the front of the house.

Bad, bad, blogger...

Okay, let me start by saying that I am a HORRIBLE blogger. It's been 9 days since Kara and I were married, and I've not blogged about it at all. Hopefully, when I get the home computer running again, I'll be more responsive in my blogs. In the meantime, everyone should go check out Beth's page (aka The Family Stuff). She has a couple of pictures up that are fantastic! Beth seemed a little on edge about shooting a wedding, because it's outside of her normal responsibilities, but I think you'll all agree that she did a great job.


Now, on to the fun stuff! Kara and I are MARRIED!! YAY!!!! We got married on Feb 21st at the Hilton on the Riverwalk in San Antonio. I couldn't have asked for a better day - all our close family and best friends were there, and although there were a few hitches, the day went very well. As you can see from the pictures, Kara looked gorgeous! Also, for those of you who have met Kara, you know that I couldn't ask for a better bride, wife, and partner to share life's experiences!! Although our families had only met briefly before, everyone was so nice and it seemed like we all "gelled" very well. I'm hoping this is the start of a long a loving friendship between all our extended families as well!

That whole week was kind of a blur.... Kara and I went to get our marriage license on Tuesday (talk about waiting to the last minute). The people there were really nice, and we even ran into a Canadian couple who had just relocated to Texas and were filing the appropriate paperwork. Then, Thursday was all about Jason's driving because I set off early in the morning to go down to San Antonio - for some reason, the JP required us to submit paperwork in person. Then, I ran up halfway to Dallas to pick up Britten. All told, I think it was about 10 hours on the road that day. On Friday, we caravaned (spelling?) with the Relf family down to San Antonio, got checked into the hotel, and met up with all my family. Mom and Dad were so great, because they watch Britten both Friday and Saturday nights.

On Friday night Sean, Charles (aka Father-in-law), Mark (aka uncle-in-law) and I went out on the town in S.A. Of course, the place I chose was the MadDog Pub - the local British pub there on the Riverwalk. We took it easy, but had a great time merging the families. From Kara's side of the family, we had pints of Guiness and shots of Jameson. From my side, we had pints of Bass and cider. Ahhh... the blending of English and Irish!! As we were closing out our night, we actually ran into Kara's bachelorette party. Oops! It was funny because I happened to walk in right as the piano player was starting his song for Kara.

Saturday was the wedding. Of course, the girls spent all morning getting ready - doing hair, makeup and outfits. The guys got the morning off and most of us spent it on the Riverwalk. Britten and I went for a ride on one of the boats and she took about a million pictures of ducks, leaves, and other trivialties. Every now and then, she'd snap a picture of the culturally and historically significant architecture, but I think it goes to show what 5-year olds are interested in.

Stay tuned for a blog on the ceremony and reception... :-)

Cha-cha-cha... Changes...

Okay, let's take care of some adminstrative things first... I've had to print my first retraction - in the sense that I referred to Baby Joshua as "Baby Jacob". Not sure where that came from, but apparently, I was not the only one who did it so I don't feel 100% guilty. Just like maybe 85% guilty.

Now, on to more fun stuff!! Since I've last blogged, there have been a LOT of changes in my life. First of all, Kara and I are engaged! YAY!!! We're currently going to do our nuptials with immediate family only on Feb 21st in San Antonio. We're planning on a much larger ceremony sometime in the future for all our friends to come enjoy. Of course, even though this is a small ceremony, there are plenty of things for us to take care of. For instance, we're less than a month from the date, and haven't determined where we'll be having the rehearsal dinner, or what flavor cake we want, or what our first dance song will be, or even if we're having a first dance. Still so much to be done!! The good part is that we've contacted our family and (with the exception of 80) they're all confirmed for the wedding date!

The next big change is that Kara and I are pregnant! It was unexpected, but definitely not unwanted. We've talked about having a child relatively quickly, but had no clue it would be THIS quick... Kara's currently 9 weeks, so we don't know if it's a boy or a girl, but we're referring to it as "gummy bear" - because that's pretty much what it looks like in the ultrasound. I think that's a nickname that could stick around for a boy or a girl.

The picture below is from the appointment... who knew that Kara didn't like going to the doctor, getting a flu shot, and getting poked and prodded like a piece of meat? Sounds like a blast to me!!

Now, for the ever-popular "before and after" picture. Obviously, the "after" will have to wait for a while, but here's what Kara looks like at 7 weeks. What a hottie!

Work / Life Balance? What?

Ugh... This week has been crazy with work! There's a conference that pertains to me going on in Bangalore, India this week, but our travel budget has been cut, so I'm attending via con call from home. Unfortunately, when you're still in town, that means that work here doesn't stop. Needless to say, working 16+ hours a day gets old really quickly! Kara's a real sweetheart about the whole deal, but she's finding out very quickly how cranky I get after only 2 - 3 hours of sleep a night. LOL! At least I'm still state-side this week rather than being in India or Japan. That's gotta count for something, right?