Procrastination!

It finally takes a decision to spend an evening working on my MS coursework to procrastinate on the school work to blog.  That and hearing people actually read this!  (Hi, Adam!)

Updates:
(It's been so long since December!)

During the snowstorm (when I wasn't sledding) I was furiously decoupaging (a la my table) a little something for my grandmother's 75th birthday.  She recently asked my sister and I to come up with a list of memories of growing up and visiting her house (which is mere blocks from my parents' house).  I incorporated clip art representations of the memories and photos of us into a decorative platter.  There's a small pic, glare and all, to mask the embarrassing pics of my youth.  The ribbon was something I had laying around to wrap it, but I like the addition.  It hangs on her dining room wall.  My art is spreading.

I left the Baltimore snow of the last post and had a lovely vacation in Sunny South Florida.  It's nice to visit the parents and see the gradual changes of my childhood home to the modern world.  For a while, I would drag my wireless router on vacation to freely use my computer, now they have their own!  A beautiful (Philips) HDTV finally replaced the big clunker (and bigger than mine, jealous!).  I was called over to my grandparents house to work on the problem of "My internet is slow.  Outlook doesn't work" to find that their 5 year old computer only had 256MB of RAM.  Sigh.  An upgrade to 1GB allowed Outlook to run without freezing.

It was a lovely trip and I got to have holiday dinner with both sets of grandparents and more.  Yummy ham and london broil and my signature cheesy potato casserole.  By Christmas evening the eating was over and after multiple family events over the two days I had to go out and go drinking.  I first stopped at a little Hollywood dive bar to see my high school buddy J's band jam.  He puts free music (his and mixtapes of various artists) on his site, so you should definitely check it out.   After a phone call I was rushed to Ft Lauderdale with a promise of a middle-school reunion with my two best friends of that era.  Because I allowed myself to drink by planning on bumming off of the rides of others, I had to endure a $26 cab ride to transport from high-school friends to middle-school.  Seeing the Sarahs was a fabulous time, but I definitely can not keep up with South Florida...the bars are open until 4!  I'm conditioned by Baltimore's last call at 1:30, with the bar clocks set to be fast.

(I'm currently taking a break to watch my cat tear through the house, chasing a big ass fly.  I saw it coming near me, and I woke the sleeping pet to take care of it.  The fly is big and slow so I think Gregory can catch it.  I tried, but I'm no Obama.)

After vacation, I came back and underwent LASIK surgery.  Totally worth it.  No pain in the surgery (the worst was removing the tape from my lids at the end), and discomfort the first night (I had to keep my eyes closed for 3 hours and couldn't sleep, despite the TylenolPMs they gave me).  Sometimes I still feel like I'm wearing contacts and I still reach for glasses in the morning, even though I can see the clock (which I never have been able to do).

At the end of January I took a weekend trip up to Boston.  Visiting Chris was wonderful, and we just ate and drank the town with little agenda.  We had lovely conversations about how grown-up we are (me a homeowner and him doing really well on the relationship front). And both of us at the young age of.....shhh. The hundred year-old house he rents a room in made me yearn for the comforts (and efficient heating) of my modernized home.  I can totally see myself living in Boston at some point.  And my company is headquartered up there...hmmm...


Back to Baltimore for a while, back to projects.  I'll follow this up with a couple quick posts about my recent furniture make-overs.  My current project is decorating the blue wall in the basement, then a wine rack in the kitchen (Dilemma: buy something for around $30 or attempt to DIY something for about $10?  Laziness might win on this one)  Super bowl party this weekend, so the house will also be clean, if anyone can actually get here with the 1, 2, 3? feet of snow we're supposed to get, depending on who you ask.

Snow!

That was an empty trash can.  It is now full of snow.

We had a bit of  Blizzard here in baltimore, trapping most city dwellers in their houses and off the streets.  My car (which I forgot to take a picture of) was completely covered and blocked in.  Luckily I have lovely neighbors with shovels who dug me out. 

But I did not risk the weather on Saturday, instead trekking it over to Patterson Park to sled down a big hill by the Pagoda.  There were close to 50 people there, with all levels of sledding equipment from boogey boards (not so successful), to tubes, to trays and cookie sheets from the kitchen (what we had!).  As I always forget to turn the camera back on myself, I'm awaiting an upload from a friend for a pic with my face, but here are a couple nice shots:

More pics to come, and new projects too!

Momument Lighting

You may or may not know that Baltimore has the ORIGINAL Washington Monument.  While DC's may be taller and more impressive, can you climb up it (no lines to visit) for a $1 donation?  Great views of the city from the top, but it's a one time occasion for me, as those 200+ stairs nearly killed my lazy ass.

Here's a gorgeous pic from Wikipedia:

Last night I wrapped up the drama of getting old housemate's stuff out and getting the bedroom spackled and vacuumed in time to make it out to a Baltimore event: the Lighting of the Monument.  I'm not one for standing around in the cold for parades and firework shows, but this was pretty awesome.  I grabbed a few friends and hit up a great pre-party at Live Baltimore's downtown office for free snacks and hot chocolate (and $1 for Flying Dog beers or to spike your hot cocoa), walked 3 blocks up to the Monument (collecting a free 7-11 reusable shopping bag along the way.  Who knew "the sev" was so community minded and green?), and got a great spot near the show.  Despite sound issues that left most of the crowd questioning "What are they saying?", and a stage not set high enough for mortals to see the dancing Santas and whatever else was up there (but the babies hoisted on shoulders looked like they would have a great view), it was an awesome show.  A bit TOO awesome, if you ask me.  Multiple color lasers? Check.  Extended firework show? Check. Creepy intense rock versions of Christmas songs?  Super weird.  Maybe it was our angle, but the music and the explosions felt more like the apocalypse than Christmas.  

Here are some choice "OMG they're blowing up the Monument!" pics, which are sadly from my iPhone, as I suck at toting my actual camera around:

The bluish strings of lights are the Holiday lights that warranted the ocassion.  Not too impressive, but the fact that they are LEDs are!

So much smoke!

Nice.

Hiked back towards downtown after the show for a Downtown Partnership after-party with wonderfully free wine and food.  The food buffet from Lebanese Taverna reminded me that I should eat there for dinner. (Hey, if these organizations/restaurants fed and boozed me for free, they totally get a shout-out on the blog.  Keep that in mind, businesses!)  Great night with new and old friends!

Busy weekend approaches.  Interviews for new housemates, holiday parties, and other fun stuff.

Time for Change

I totally meant to do a whole "THANKSGIVING!!" post, as I hosted my first big family function at my house, and it's one of my favorite time of the year (FOOD!).  But because of the news below, I will keep it short.  Family came from Florida.  It was wonderful to see them and show off the house! We ate lots! We slept in-between. (I didn't even take pictures of the food, as my dad was in charge of it, but my Turkey was gorgeous, with herb butter packed under her skin for a nice golden brown crust!) Successful long weekend and I can't wait for Christmas!

Sigh.

Now the change.

I am now in need of a new housemate.  It's the first of the month (when rent is typically due).  Instead I got a call one of my renters is moving out TODAY.  Nice notice there.  Kinda stressed about it, as I obviously want to keep on track financially and not have to pay 2/3 of the bills and such.

Sooo....

Want to be my new housemate?

Craigslist: Share spacious Patterson Park rowhouse

And I don't think I've shared these pics yet, so here are some of the main floor:

Island in kitchen and my red motif

Looking into half bath and kitchen 

Kitchen to dining area and the stairs.  You may remember the Pagoda print on the left from here

Living room from stairs

My wall of mirrors, key hook (branches from Urban Outfitters, so cute!), mail slots, and a Bodine print of Baltimore

I love the brick reflection on the mirrors.

Okay, must clean house for tours/interviews of potential housemates (I already have like 6 decent replies, so I'm not too worried) this weekend before going to Ohio for work next week!  Ack! 

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.