Awesome.


From Forbes.com:

America's Best City Parks

"Patterson Park in Baltimore, for example, is steeped in history; it was the site of Union encampments during the Civil War, and houses several unique, historic buildings. It's also full of present-day pleasures--skating rinks, pavilions and playgrounds--that connect the surrounding neighbors to the space."

Basement projects

I guess I've been too busy to blog.  I had my first successful work trip: a few days spent in the hospital (an ICU, no less) and I didn't come back sick!  (Adding to my figures of healthy days spent in hospital: 700 or so?; sick/broken days spent in hospital: 0  Good karma?)  I've also been working on wrapping up the year in terms of doctor/dentist/eye check-ups and planning for next year (LASIK!).  Also, due to the impending Ashley-hosts-first-Thanksgiving, I'm really pushing myself on getting the house where I want it decoration-wise.  Yesterday's beautiful 72 degree Sunday was spent at IKEA and Walmart buying (among other crap) winter-y scented candles and pictures and frames to fill out the last blank spaces on the first floor.  (I finally have a plan for a handsome Owl trivet I picked up from Goodwill and painted blue!)

Since I lost energy last night to actually hang things, the pics of the main floor will have to wait.  First up, the basement:

Project: Free coffee table I grabbed while buying a futon 2 doors down.

Before:

I saw potential.

After pics and the rest of my basement after the jump!

One of my favorite holidays

I'm going back and forth about which I would consider my favorite holiday.  Halloween has dress-up and candy (and aren't we all little kids at heart?), Thanksgiving is all about eating awesome food and lounging around, and Christmas has the best music and decorations (and also good food).  So I can't decide right now.  We'll call it a tie for now, but I had a pretty kick-ass Halloween, so these others better follow suit.

Pre-Halloween festivities were lively this year, with a charity masquerade party the week before and a JHMI costume party on Friday, it was all about Saturday.  I planned a party, where I always stress out a bit more than normal and have to clean and decorate.

I handed out candy for the first time as the head-of-household and while i had been warned of the roughness of our neighborhood kids, I was pleasantly surprised!  I had an awesome bowl that has a motion-sensor triggered hand coming out of the center to "grab" anyone that dares to take candy from it while cackling "Happy Halloween!!"  I let the kids reach in a take a piece--"only one! save some for the other kids!"--and loved that they were scared, then amused by the hand-grabbing action.  Many wanted to stick their hands in again to give it a "high five."  Most of the kids that came to my house were grateful and polite, especially after I warned "This is the hand of a child who didn't say Thank You!!!" Heh heh heh.

The party was a complete success with lots of lovely people in great costumes.  With extra help with cooking and decorations (housemate's friend from the UK visiting) my task list went super fast and I was still able to throw together a costume outside the typical "Slutoween" getups that are mass-produced for women.  Here's my take on "Zombie Barbie," with an itchy blonde wig, a way-too-pink dress from GoodWill (which I ripped up for effect) and my darker eyeshadows.

Quite scary, no?  When the booze ran out we hiked to Fells Point to see the mess of hundreds of drunk people in costume.  Halloween is apparently the holiday reserved for acting like an ass.  But I guess that's St. Patrick's Day too?

Here's some more pictures of the house, as its kinda the name of the blog.

Coming soon, pics of my second coffee table, and maybe some non-Halloweened pics of the house.  If I can manage to take pics, I can blog during my work trip to Jackson, MS, where I better get some Sweet Tea and Country-fried something.Woo for first work travel, but sad to miss my Baltimore life and my kitty for a week.