And Today it Snowed

Yes, today is a snow day. Not the kind that closes school (because lets face it, its a saturday) but the kind that puts a dusting on the ground. This is the first one of the season for us and it sems really early. I don't remember having snow this early the last couple of years.

So, in honor of the first snow fall of the year, I thought I'd share so

me pictures with you...

Charlotte wasn't to

into the snow this morning. It may have been too cold for her this early in the morning! It was 7:30a

m. Plus it is currently 23 degrees (F) out. Which I've got to tell you is pretty chilly, although it isn't the coldest it

will get here! January and February will be WAY worse!!

I'm hoping that this isn't a sign of wha

t we are in for this winter. I myself am pretty sure that I am destined to live in a warm climate, and can't take too much cold weather!

I also uploaded a video of Charlotte in the snow on vimeo but can't get it to show up here...something with the code...hmmm...guess I'll have to upload it directly!

It's been a while...like 5 years!!

This is me in a former life. Yes, things do change very quickly!

Today marks the end of my first full week of school...a VERY exciting week for me. Even though I have only been in school one full week, it feels like I've been taking these classes for ages!

I know, its still very early, but so far I love everything about grad school. It is everything that my undergrad degree wasn't. The classes are small, try 15 people in a class tops! My classes are discussion and not just sitting and taking notes during a lecture. The people in my class do the homework and reading! Shocking!

Even more shocking is the fact that I am doing the reading and the homework, and going to class. For anyone who knows my undergraduate academic career, it is in stark contrast to my new graduate student mentality. I look forward to going to class. Really, I do. Rhetorical theory, I'm psyched to be there...seriously. Who thought that Plato would get me excited. I actually had a conversation with someone in my Research Meathods class about whether I considered myself a positivist...which I do. Instead of questions like, is Isis getting nixed on ANTM (America's Next Top Model), I see myself thinking things like, If Plato is so opposed to the body and wants to separate it from communication and the soul, how does he justify non verbal communication. Thinking these things is NOT normal. At least for me. But I guess it is just an example of how things are changing.

That's not to say that things are always Hunkey Dorey...I have a tremendous amount of homework to do...I'm looking at 500 pages of reading a week along with papers and postings and etc, etc. In addition, I am one of maybe 2 people in my classes that isn't a TA. Which I believe actually makes it easier for them. They aren't working full time jobs, let alone full time jobs an hour away. Add in the upwards of 20 or more hours of school work per week, and I've definately got my hands full. But my hands are full in a good way and I'm extremely thankful to have the oportunity to take the classes I'm taking. My next hurddle will be the GRE's and actually seeing if I will be accepted into the program as a matriculating student. Fingers crossed for me.

Reverting back to a College Freshman

Grad school starts in less than a week, but does that mean I need to revert back to my college freshman days? Other people my age have kids and are doing adult activities, I on the other hand am reverting back to my 19 year old self...

Case in point. Last weekend we go to the Folk Festival. Am I excited about seeing the performers and hearing new music. Yeah, not so much. My first stop, the beer tent. I have a very low tolerance for alcohol. I really don't drink that often and I'm not a huge person, so any minor amount of alcohol will have an effect on me, especially if it is hard liquor. So, what does any normal girl do while she's drinking? That's right, smoke the cloves.

This very similar to my college freshman year. Every weekend was a beer fest and along with the beer fest came the cloves. Granted I'm not drinking nearly as much as I did in college, but what are other people my age doing? They are having kids. We are one of the few couples I know that don't have children.

So, the question that begs to be answered...am I reverting back to a 19 year old? Should I be growing up and doing the "grown up things?" And more importantly, can you still live my current drinking/smoking/traveling lifestyle and have kids. And if you can't, does having a baby somehow trump all of the other things that I so look forward to doing now? Answers....please!

It's like peeing in a field!

This weekend was the weekend of demolition! Matt and my father built the floor that is going to extend into our hallway/staircase on Saturday. Then, Matt and I ripped out the bathroom and the wall between the bathroom and the old master bedroom.
The hole to the right was once a built in bookshelf/towel holder and the wall you see to the left is the one to the master bedroom.This is what our bathroom looks like now...minus the 2x4 in the middle...that is now gone! There is still more work to be done. The ceiling isn't completely out yet, Matt will be working on that tonight. Plus, the floors have to come out before the plumber gets here as well...and the new wall between the bedroom and the bathroom has to be built. The plumber will be here a week from tomorrow to get it all done. So, until then...or actually, until a couple of days after that...we'll have limited privacy in the bathroom!!

It's a MESSY job...but will be well worth it in the end!

What could I have possibly done in a former life??

The question of the day...How does one deal with an in your face, constantly in your shit mother-in-law??

Is the answer a conversation where you calmly and logically explain to her where your business begins and hers ends? Do you take it a step farther and say exactly what is on your mind and make her just deal with it? Or do you just ignore her completely and thank god that you live 2 hours away??

This was the very dilemma I faced this morning. After sending her a nice email explaining what is goign on in our lives and how busy we have and will be for the next couple of months, my (what should I call her...oh yes...Spawn of Satan who happened to birth my husband ... SOSBH for short....) decided that she wanted to respond to my cheery, albeit bland email by telling me that we need to make an effort to stop by and see his Memere while we are on our way to Massachusetts. She goes on to say that we shouldn't be mad at her for not attending our wedding and its only a couple of minutes off of the interstate and blah blah blah...

Now, several months ago she was told explicitly that she needs to stay out of our relationships with members of his family. In fact, they didn't see each other for nearly a year because of her meddling...

So, even putting the facts aside which would proclude us from even thinking about stopping to see his Memere on the way home (She is about an hour off of the interstate and because of the hours of the kenel where we have to board Charlotte, we have to leave Massachusetts around 12pm and we won't be able to leave for there until around 8am which will give us only 24 hours in the great state) it's just not something we want to do. It has nothing to do with the fact that she didn't come to our wedding...although it would have been nice if she could have been bothered to tell us she wasn't coming! And quite frankly...I'm tired of the SOSBH constantly bringing up the people who didn't attend our wedding. We had a fabulous day! I wouldn't change it. But it is hard to have happy memories when you ha someone constantly telling you that you shouldn't.

Getting back to my original question...what is the best thing to do??

My original instinct was to send her an email back telling her that her meddling was the exact reason she has a strained relationship with her son, and it can very easily head back that way if she continues with constantly getting in our business....(The original email I had drafted to her was much more forceful and quick witted)

I also could have calmly and logically explained to her that it would be impossible to see his Memere with the time we have available and maybe another day...I suspect however that this would lead to more talking about how she is sick...blah blah blah...

Or I could simply ignore her. This is the route I chose. I will not be responding to her email. I will not be initiating contact. I will be avoiding the woman at all costs.

Did I make the right decision?? Or by doing nothing am I just giving her the message that he actions are okay??

Is this an American thing? Are mother-in-laws in other countries much more respectful of their grown children?? Or is it universal??

Making A Go of It - Grover Cleveland Style

I have recently had my Max Fischer moment and decided that just like Max (from the movie Rushmore) it is to my time to decide to be happy where I am, or just be miserable. I've decided the former.

My dilemma has been do I:

1. Stay in a well paying job with fabulous benefits but is an hour away and not overly challenging
2. Take a lesser paying job, by around 10,000, that is closer to home and more challenging

Could we survive on 10k less a year...yeah probably. It would, however, certainly cramp my style. No multiple vacations a year...certainly not to Africa! Traveling is one of the things I truly love...is it worth giving up??

So, I've decided. I'm going to suck it up where I am, soak up all of the information I can while I'm there and take advantage of the extra money and vacation time and see the world.

Good Decision??

The Renovation Has BEGUN!!

Nothing is more satisfying than seeing a part of your house that you hate slowly go away! This weekend we started the process of destroying the bathroom. My father came over and helped with the deconstruction. The wall abutting the bathroom has lost all of its plaster and we've figured out how the fixtures are going to sit in the room. Plus we now have a good idea of how we are going to have to attached the new floor. We were hoping that the beams went a different way than they did and we were going to extend the floors that way, but it never works as you had planned once you get things torn apart, so, we had to come up with an alternate plan, and I think that its going to work just fine...


I was a little unsure of how it would look in the hallway, and one of my favorite things about our house is the open staircase, but I know that I'll have to sacrifice something to have a decent bathroom. So, I guess I'm willing to give up the openness of the hallway. Plus, it looks like we may be able to make a closet out of some of the extra space, which would actually be really nice seeing as how I have NO storage in this house. But, we'll see. A closet would obscure the window in the hallway even more, and I want to keep it nice and light in there, so we'll see. That will probably be something that we'll tackle more when the bathroom is completely done.

The picture to the right shows what the hallway is going to look like after it is all finished. This weekend we hope to have the door all framed up and hopefully the plumber will be able to come over before my birthday on August 2nd. That would be a wonderful birthday present!!

Once the plumber gets here we'll be able to start with the tiling and everything. VERY exciting. I've been waiting five years for a decent bathroom. Until you've lived with a bathroom with a sink that has a seperate spout for hot and cold water (so you can never really get luke warm water) you couldn't understand. Not to mention the fact that the faucets drip. Our shower is new, however, it was never fully level so when I use my scrubbies to clean my face, they build up in the corner of the shower. And the aweful wallpaper with some warped paisley pattern...and the dust and general grossness of it all!! I can't even describe it!!

To your left is an actual representation of the bathroom. The door to the right of the room wil have to stay because it leads up to the attic, but we're thinking that we'll do another hidden door like we did in the kitchen (a built in book case that opens like a door). We have to keep that door there unless we wanted to use a bedroom to convert to the bath, but I don't want to loose a bedroom for resale value. We don't use the attic that much, so I'm good with having to go through the bathroom to get to it...kinda weird, I know. But you do what you've gotta do!! It will be well worth the wierdness price to have something useable.

On an unrealted note, Matt is still trying to get into one of his classes. His advisor is on vacation, but he talked to a woman in the New Media department who said that one of the classes that he was going to take in Belfast because it was at night, won't count. Which doesn'tmake sense to me because it comes up in the University of Maine's listings as a place he can take it. Sometimes I think that UMaine is just so warped and are just trying to make it difficult for people. We'll see what happen tomorrow though, he's supposed to talk to his advisor then. I suspect that this woman isn't quite sure what she's talking about....I signed up for my classes though and will be entering the world of graduate school. Now all I've got to do is pay for it. Thank you TJL for tuition reimbursement!! Now I just have to submit my tuition reimbursement paperwork!!

The Fun Part of Renovation!

Yesterday was the day!!

We went out after work and pick out the tiles to match our vanity and countertop. We had picked out the vanity last weekend but needed to talk to the plumber to make sure that it was going to fit and everything. So, with the approval of the plumber, Matt went and ordered it yesterday. It is still small, but I think that it will give us some extra storage since we are going to be loosing our linen shelves when we make the bathroom larger. I'm still not sure where everything is going to go (all of our bathroom stuff), we may have to do some weeding out of the junk (which would actually be a good thing)!

We bought the countertop at Hammond Lumber as well. I think that it is going to look really nice on the dark vanity. I absolutely love the color and I knew that I wanted that granite when I saw it! We also bought a faucet very similar to that except it is in brushed nickel. I think its going to look REALLY nice! I'm very excited. My only concern is that the vanity being dark, will be the ony dark piece in the bathroom and may look out of place. Granted, we will have a dark brown/black mirror/medicine cabinet but that will be right over the vanity so I'm not sure it will balance it out. We are going to do another built in bookcase door going up to the attic so we may paint the inside of it black instead of the while like the mouldings, but I'm not sure that would look right either. There may be an opportunity to have some dark shelves over the toilet or something like that as well. We'll see.

We went and looked at a bunch of tiles yesterday and although I really wanted marble on the floors, I'm no longer sure it is practical. My parents have marble in their bathroom, but I guess it scratches and I certainly don't want that. Plus given the fact that we have animals, it is pretty likely that may happen. Plus, when we went to the store, I couldn't find any marble I liked anyway. BUT, I did find some regular tiles that I really liked. So, I think that we've got the floor and shower surround tiles picked out.

The tiles in the back are going to be in the shower and the ones at the top are going to be an accent row in the shower. The middle one is the vanity top. The picture makes the shower tiles look a little bit washed out. They are actually a little bit darker than they look. I think that it will look nice all togather. I wanted something that would be neutral and in 5 to 10 years won't need to be redone because it looks dated. I don't want to have to do this again anytime soon!! I'm very, VERY excited to get this all in and done. We are hoping to have it all finished and usable by September 1. Cross your fingers...it's going to be a lot of work!! Today begins the actual distruction of the floors in the hallway downstairs to add in some posts to hold the tub up. Pictures to come....

Happy Days Are Here Again!!

Matt has talked with his advisor at the University and it looks like it will still take him 4 years, however, he will be able to take some classes at UMaine Augusta or Eastern Maine Community College. It looks like he's going to take a majority of his gen ed classes at one of those two places and they will transfer over. So, it looks like we could potentially save a good chunk of money by doing that, which makes me much more comfortable than spending all that money at UMaine, especially for the same class. Things are looking up at the Green-Hamann's, that's for sure!! Hip Hip...Hip Hip!!

Plus, we are only around 3 weeks away from going down to Massachusetts to see my aunt who is coming up from Florida. I haven't seen her since my wedding last October, and I haven't seen Mickey since I don't know, maybe since my grandfather died and that was maybe 7 years ago. So, it is going to be so great to see him again, especially since he's had a rough time of it with the cancer (hense the reason he wasn't at our wedding).

Additionally, we had another plumbing guy come over today and he gave us a quote of $1,000 to do the plumbing in the bathroom!!! This is fabulous news, considering the other guy wanted to charge us $4,500. Granted this new guy isn't going to take out the cast iron pipe (unless needed). Plus he also said that he only needs like a week's notice and he'd be able to come in and do the plumbing, which means that it is very possible that we might have the bathroom complete before we start school back up, which would take a load off of both of our shoulders! He also did some heating work at my parents house so he is a known quantity. Very, VERY exciting!!

PBR - Hold back your jelousy!!

So, in an effort to move past our issues, we decided to go to the slots with Pete and Michelle and see what all the buzz was about. So, they met us here at the house where we initiated them into the South African liquor club. Matt, Michelle and Pete all had a shot of the 50% alcohol with hot peppers in it. I on the other hand refrained from it. This is the liquor that we bought at a store on the side of the road. Side story, we get to this place and I'm looking around and they sell a lot of aloe there and other stuff. The store itself was quite odd, when you walk in it was like a convenience store, then you go back into the back of the building and to your right there was a place to sit down and have a snack or something to drink and to the left was a little cubby type place with some aloe products and some other gift shop type of stuff. In between the two was a shelf with some liquor on it. So, I'm looking around at the aloe (and I did end up getting some) and our tour guide Jonathan comes and tells me to come try something. I walk over and there are a bunch of people from our tour group there and they are doing shots. He tried to talk me into doing it but I know my limits. I'm not a shot girl, especially if I'm getting on a bus and driving god knows how much longer. So, I try it and decide that it is too hot for me. Matt however, comes back from the bathroom and does a shot. So, we decided that we needed to buy some.

Back to today. So, they all do a shot. Michelle first. She quickly found out how hot is was....

Matt and Pete fared much better....

So, after that we walk down to the slots....I swear I have never been carded so many times in my life! We end up going to the "Epic" buffet. Which if you ask me was a lot of money for something not so great. The food was alright but I thought it was cold and overpriced. But, we eat dinner there and then go and sign up for the players club...essentially the rewards club for the casino. There I learned that my license expired nearly a year ago (it will be a year August 2nd). I really had no idea! Who looks at their license to see when it expires!! I also got a teeshirt for signing up, who can argue with a free teeshirt! Plus, whenever we go in, we get free drinks, all except the booze.

So, we sign up and then hit the bar, where I get my PBR!! I'm not a beer snob by a long shot, so I really can't tell the difference, and lets face it, I've got a little bit of WT in me so it comes naturally! Oh yeah, and they also had live music which was fun, but they were singing country which I don't listen too, so I don't know the words which makes it less fun for me when I can't sing along. But we played the 5 cent slots, and the penny slots and the 10 cent slots. Pete and Michelle won I believe, a total of around 60 dollars or so. Matt and I on the other hand, lost it all!! I was however, up 15 at one point but I kept playing and I lost it. But it was a lot of fun and I had a good time. After a couple of PBR's though, I was a bit tipsy and ready to go home. So, we all made our way back to our house and watched some youtube. This probably sounds pretty sad, but it seems like this is usually the way things end up with us and it actually is fun.

Good News Turns Ugly

So, all of the good news that we got yesterday, IE Matt being accepted to the University of Maine has gone bad...

We find out today that NONE of his classes from his associates degree will transfer over to UMaine because the University says that it isn't a Regionally Accredited School. So, the two years that we had anticipated him being in school has now turned into four and will cost a total of $40,000!! Insaneness!! How people afford to go to college I don't know. It's so frustrating, he finally gets accepted and now I don't know how to pay for it.

Now we are faced with a dilema, do we spend the money and hope that it will lead to him getting a better job...or do we say screw it and not do the college thing at all.

On top of all this goodness, we get a sorta quote from a plumber who says that he wouldn't feel comfortable redoing our bathroom because he thinks that it would probably not make code. Lovely. Now that leads to another question, do we spend a lot of money and make the bathroom larger and add a tub, or, do we leave the layout of the bathroom as it is, a 3/4 bath and just update the fixtures. This would leave us with only the one bathroom and no tub in our house at all. Later we could always convert our porch into a bathroom, but that is going to require the big bucks...!! I'm not sure what the decision is going to be, but the whole school thing is definately going to come into play.

I want both...

Is it selfish of me to want it all and be angry that I can't? I don't have a horrible life. We both have decent paying jobs and have had the ability to travel. We lead decent lives, but yet I'm still not satisfied. I want a new bathroom with an actual bath tub, I want Matt to go back to school full time, and I want to be able to go on atleast one vacation where I leave the country a year. Is that too much to ask?? Really??