Nights filled with longer hours- hey!

I spent this weekend putting up the new curtains we got (although all the curtains came in and only 1 curtain rod came in, so that was a bummer). I think they look pretty snazzy, and they're thermal or something, whatever it is called they have panels on the back that keep out the cold/in the heat. Got them for the whole house, since they were on clearance and I thought it would be silly to buy 6 curtains or something and then what if they went out of stock when I went to buy the rest?

So that was thrilling. I did put up all the hardware by myself, with a power drill and everything. Hey- ladies with power tools! Mike was busy and I was impatient so I just put them up myself. Luckily they were level and everything- I am notoriously bad at measuring and leveling. It's not that I don't have the skills, it's just that I don't do it ever because I am impatient always.

I also decorated our fireplace mantle for the winter solstice celebration that we'll be having tomorrow! Yesterday we went out and got some mistletoe, holly, juniper, and an ivy plant. We chose a log to be the yule log, and we'll be having a special tradition sun cake from Dom Bakery (which is not really where one might traditionally get it from but who said we follow tradition?). I think it will be a nice way to celebrate the season, in a way that is inclusive to all of us! Details and pictures will follow tomorrow!

It's the most wonderful time of the year

I'm very excited for the house things and the sustainability things that are going on in my life right now! It's good to feel like you're making a positive contribution to the health of the world, even if it is in your own small way! And when the things you are doing can also coincide with house projects, even better! Also, when crappy things happen like break-ins and broken water heaters, you have to focus on positive stuff.

We finally replaced our back door today (see above!), with a door from Lowe's, made by Milliken Millworks. Milliken is a fairly local company (factories in Sterling Heights, MI, Cincinnati, OH and somewhere Pennsylvania), which is great, and most of their doors are EnergyStar or at least a lot more energy effiicient than the door we used to have. Lowes really walked me through the whole door-selection and buying process- if you ever need to get a new door for some reason, I would endorse Lowes as a good place to go!

Also got our new water heater in last week... it's not an energystar one per-say, but it will be a lot more efficient than our previous one that was 20 years old! And I set it on medium-low, because we don't need to have scalding water.

Yesterday, I met with a neighbor who is interested in helping me form a Neighborhood Watch group, and he had some great ideas. He also has tech-saavy web skills that I lack, and some mad martials arts skills, which would both be assets to any Neighborhood Watch type of group. This was a timely meeting, because yesterday one of my backyard neighbors got broken into- their front door was kicked in! This is maybe the 8th or 9th recent break-in in this area, which is unfortunate and ridiculous.

Today I am meeting with another neighbor who seems to be really involved in sustainability efforts here in Ypsilanti. Every time I looked up something about recycling or gardening or urban farming, her name came up! I finally just emailed her and said, "Hello! I think you are invovled in everything I would like to be involved in. Can you share with me?" Luckily she did not think I was a huge weirdo, and we are meeting tonight to talk about urban farming, and the Transition movement in Ypsilanti!

I've also continued mapping out what I want my edible gardens to look like in the spring. I'm going to try to put together a price estimate of the total cost to build the raised-beds and get the plants I need, so I can start saving money now!

The Master Gardener program starts in January and I am so so psyched for it. I want to call the MSU-Extension office every day to see if they have our study packets yet. I've really missed schooling and active learning in a classroom setting, and I'm looking forward to returning to the classroom and learning about a subject that is near and dear to my heart: plants, growing things, and the earth!

WOO!!

I got into the MSU-E Master Gardener Class!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More information to come soon :O

SAF '09!

Ypsilanti does a cool Indie art fair twice a year called Shadow Art Fair. The most recent one was yesterday, and I really enjoyed it! It has a bunch of weird alternative art things, from a bike-powered film (which was an image of a winter ride through town) to reindeer poop on a stick, there is a greater variety every year of weird things to look at and buy. The event is held at the Corner Brewery, and this year the "brewing rooms" for lack of a better term, were set up with a bunch of old counch and chairs and tables, etc so people could hang out, drink beer, etc. I enjoyed the event very much, although next year I'll need to go earlier because we went around 9:00 and it was packed to the gills, which makes it hard to actually see any art!

After the SAF we tried to go the Tap Room, but it was super-packed so we ended up at Keystone Underground martini bar- which turned out to be pretty awesome!  It' under J 'Neils Mongolian BBQ, and I had checked out the space before it opened but I'd never been before. It had a really great atmosphere, the music was electronica which is not my absolute fav but I liked the DJs, and the martinis are only $5 on Saturdays! There were some very exhuberant dancers there, which was pretty entertaining. Overall, a great time. I will definitely go back again.

It's really exciting to live in a place where there are a variety of things to do, all within walking distance, which is the case in Ypsilanti. Yesterday reminded me of that. We walked from our house to downtown, got some holiday shopping done, had lunch, picked up some groceries, and then walked back home. Then we came out later for the art fair and for Keystone and that was all in like a 2 mile radius. Maybe even less!

Rest in Peace

Dear water heater,
You lived a long full life. You were brought into this house in 1989, and here you are, 20 years old. You are leaking inside and will probably flood our entire basement soon. It is time for you to go. Thanks for all your hard work and hot water.

Why did you have to break now,

Arika

I would love it if we didn't have to file an insurance claim or buy a new appliance for our house for the next 6 months or so! Yesterday night Mike and I drained out the water heater completely, because I was panicking that it would flood overnight, since it is on it's last leg. I don't even think it has any legs left!
A nice, helpful water heater guy came out this morning to inspect out water heater. The only unhelpful thing is that we had to fill up the freaking tank again so he could confirm that it was broken. Hey... it's leaking water everywhere. I think it's most definitley broken. And we're going to have to drain it once more this evening- Can't think of a sexier date than emptying a water heater.
BUT some of it (a small amount) is covered by our stupid home warranty, so we only have to pay for installation pretty much. Which is still a lot. I asked the nice helpful guy, from Fairlane Plumbing, about energy efficient water heaters, and he pretty much debated the validity of energy efficiency. I don't have another $60 to pay a different company to come out and replace this- I think we are going with what this guy is giving us unfortunately. Oh well. He was nice and straightforward, so we will give him the benefit of the doubt.

I think it is true that there is pretty much a huge gap between a tankless and any tank model, so when you compare the tank models, the differences there probably look pretty small. I just wanted an EnergyStar one so it might qualify for the tax credit thing but I don't even know about that anyway.. We reaaaally wanted a tankless water heater, but they cost like $2,5oo (including installation). I don't have that kind of money.. or any money right now as a matter of fact.

So tomorrow brings a new day, and a new water heater.
On a lighter, unrelated note, here is a happy picture of me and Helo and Athena! The kits are getting HUuuuugGGe!

back in the saddle again!

Wellll,my house got broken into, so that has delayed writing for some time. Basically all my electronics got stolen, so if you're reading this, house robbers, I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING OF VALUE LEFT TO STEAL.

That being said, since I still enjoy blogging, I wanted to get back into the swing of things- although now it is winter-ish in Ypsi! It's been harder to eat local because I am essentially a fruititarian (with a lot of pasta and cookies on the side), but the Downtown Ypsi Indoor Farmer's Market has been a big help- it's every two weeks now instead of every week but they have mouth-wateringly appealing selections of local veggies! I bought my "holiday" wreath from the FM, and the Pecan pie and rolls that I brought to Thanksgiving. So Thank You, farmers, for allowing me to bring delicious food to the holidays without cooking!

I applied for the Master Gardener training program put on by the MSU Extension office in A2... I would be so so so psyched to do that program! Here's a link:

http://www.msue.msu.edu/portal/default.cfm?pageset_id=28838&page_id=140178&msue_portal_id=25643

While I don't have a lot of gardening experience, I am really excited about it and I think this program would give me the tools to share my passion for the earth and the enviornment with others, which is what I'd really like to do!

So cross your fingers for me, three people that read this blog :)

ALSO, I have decided to help start up a neighborhood watch group here, because I am tired of all these break-ins, and I want to feel safe and secure and confident when I walk around my neighborhood (and when I'm in my house!). There used to be a Neighborhood Watch group here but I guess it fizzled out. I am determined to re-fizzle it!

I also spent a good 6 hours measuring out my yard in the back to make a gardening plan for next year! I've set some goals and I think all in all, it will be pretty awesome. I will share more soon!

I think that is all for now..

keep safe out there folks.

No Impact Project

I just signed up for the No Impact Project, which over at the Huffington Post. I've been following Colin Beavan's blog No Impact Man for the last year or so, and when I saw that he was helping to encourage a No Impact Week I figured it would be a great opportunity to do some of the less-impactful things I've been meaning to do!

The challenge is a week long and each day focuses on a different area of Impact:

Sunday: Consumption
Monday: Trash
Tuesday: Transportation
Wednesday: Food
Thursday: Energy
Friday: Water
Saturday: Giving Back!
Sunday: Eco-Sabbath

Here's a link to the No Impact Week Guide:

http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/noimpactweek.pdf

Pipe dreams (or nightmares)

I had an exciting weekend as far as home improvement projects go this weekend!

Outside:

• The plants I orderd from Hartmann Plant Company in Lacota, MI came in!


• I dug up a space for the blueberry plants along my fence

• I accidentally uncovered a huge pipe that I mistakenly dug out of the ground..




• Planted 3 blueberry bushes
  
• Planted 5 raspberry plants




• Put some decaying leaves in the compost bin to add some "brown"
  

Inside:

• Painted another coat of red in the basement

So projects are coming along nicely! If anyone is looking to get local(ish) plants and you live in the lower penninsylua, Hartmann's Plant Company is local! I don't know if they're very into organic practices (at all) but they are at least plants grown in Michigan. Sometimes you have to pick and choose! Here is their website:

http://www.hartmannsplantcompany.com/index.html

I found out that they sell Wild Ginger plants which is WAY exciting because that's what I want to use as ground cover in the Pit of Despair! I've been looking for it, but I couldn't find anything that was grown in Michigan!

Woo! :)

Making progress...

saucy!

Well, the applesauce turned out well! As usual, we severely underestimated the amount of applesauce that half a bag of apples makes.

Oh well!

We got two quarts of out it.. not that bad. We still have a half bag to do tomorrow, as well as 3 pie pumpkins. I think I'm going to make homemade pumpkin pie filling and then freeze it for my Halloween party! That way I won't have to be baking pumpkins and peeling them and food processing them on the day of the party haha!

mmm mm applesauce!

the Grape Jelly Debacle

So grape jelly..


Not so easy to make. Of course, when canning, Ashley and I never follow the directions to a perfectly. In fact sometimes we are quite liberal with our canning freedoms. But that is completely beside the point!! ..right?

:)

We didn't have a cheesecloth, or a jelly bag thing or really any of the technical items needed to make jelly. But we did have concord grapes! So now we have grape soup-juice. But we're hoping if we magically let it sit overnight and try to boil it some more, that it will turn into jelly.

I think that sounds probable.

This is why I should stick to cooking. You can make shit up when cooking, and things still turn out pretty good usually.

We ended up making some attempt at jelly, and then I showed Ashes how to make my not-yet-famous-Butternut Squash soup. But it's really more of a stew. Basically you throw a bunch of stuff into a pot and then it tastes good. See- that works with cooking! So we cooked 3 pints and 1 quart of that.

I'm also cooking some apples now that will eventually be applesauce! a huge vat of applesauce.


yummm! Hopefully we'll have a few quarts of that. I might run out and get some pint jars. I just don't think a quart of applesauce is too practical. I'll never eat that fast enough before it spoils.

BUT a really exciting thing was that now that our compost bin is set up, we could compost all of the food scraps from canning!! See below:


Apple cores and peels, grapes skins, grape seeds, the ends of the squashes, etc. Very exciting. Before, all that stuff just went into the garbage! Now it can go back into my garden.... eventually.

Good morning!

So- I ended up getting some flowers and mulch on Friday. I always have the problem of perceiving accurately how many plants I need to fill an entire area. I always end-up buying about 5, and most of the time 5 plants is like nothing when it comes to a garden. But I was trying not to spend a ton of money, so I ended up being conservative Friday as well. I got:

2 Wild Bergamots
5 Rudbeckia
2 Foxglove Beardtounges
2 Golden Alexanders


I planted some in the back garden, and added the foxglove beardtounges and some of the rudibeckias to the front garden. Also got mulch, but got way less than I needed, of course. So will need to venture out and get some more- weeds are growing like crazy!

:) Here's who I woke up to this morning:

Last planting of the year

Tomorrow I am stopping by the Recycle Ann Arbor to pick up some mulch for my garden!!

I think I'm going to get 2 yards of mulch, which is just $30 at Recycle Ann Arbor- great price! They said 2 yards is about 8 lawn bags full, which should do me for the fall at least. I'm going to cover an area that Mike cleared over the weekend, behind that crazy fence-full of waist high plants that used to fill our garden space.

Then I am stopping by the Native Plant Nursery to chat with Greg, who owns it, and to buy some plants for that back area. I am psyched to get a whole little area done(ish)!

The plants (pictured above) are some of the ones I'm going to get. New England Aster, Wild Bergamot, and Echinacea! It's shaping up to be a very purple garden from the looks of it! :)

Thank god for family!

Whew! just coming off of a LOong long weekend of home projects! Whenever my parents come to visit, we always have to have activites planned for some reason- by the time they get here we've usually got a full weekend planned! They're so experienced with house stuff too, which also makes it easy to schedule a million little fixer-uppers to do!

We worked on the yard this weekend- we put mulch on the front beds and then we edged-out a border for what we want the backyard "pit of despair" to look like. We have an area to the right of the garage that slopes downward and is covered in complete shade by a huge Norwegin Maple tree. Right now not much is growing there but my hope is to get some shade and drought-tolerant ground cover in there that is native to MI!

We also weeded and clear some additional beds in the back that were looking a bit scary!They were pretty prairie-like, which is cool, expect that area in going to be part of my edible gardens now! Here's a before:

Once we clear the garden, we smothered it, using about 8 sheets of newspaper, and then we put some half-composted leaves on top. I'm going to leave that mixture on there until the spring, and hopefully the garden will be all awesome and weed-free by then! My aunt and uncle own a farm, and they gave me some llama poop to use as compost/manure- I hear it really helps plants grow strong!

My dad also helped us sand down a few things that needed sanding, like our dining room table, and that cool canning cabinet I'm going to be using to hold all the food I put up for the winter!

Painting is coming along well. Here's what we have to finish up still:

• finish the Basement Bijou Red (Behr) and Radiant Sun (FreshAire)
• paint the bathrooms (1 upstairs, 1 downstairs) Treasured Jade (FreshAire) and Radiant Sun (FreshAire)
• paint the hallways Radiant Sun (FreshAire)
• paint the Mudroom Radiant Sun

I think I'm just going to wait and clear the beds for the Raised-bed gardens in the spring. I don't get the paper so I don't have any newspaper to smother the grass with anyway- so I guess I'll just dig it up in the spring?

Other than that, I have apples left to can sometime this week, and I'm thinking applesauce, applesauce, applesauce!

Urban Homesteading

Ashes sent me a wiki entry on Homesteading-

"Currently the term 'homesteading'^[1] applies to anyone who is a limb of the back-to-the-land movement and who chooses to live a sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle. While land is no longer freely available in most areas of the world, homesteading remains as a way of life. A new movement, called 'urban homesteading', can be viewed as a simple living lifestyle, incorporating small-scale agriculture, sustainable and permaculture gardening, and home food production and storage into suburban or city living."

I think this is roughly my goal. I'd like to produce some of my own food, turn most of my yard into either a) gardening space for growing food or b) native plant areas that mimic (somewhat) what plants might naturally grow here. I also am trying to eat "seasonally" or with seasons in mind. Of course, that's not as easy as it sounds. It doesn't even sound easy! But here's some of the things I've been working on:

• Trying to choose previously owned, sustainably-made or re-purposed furniture whenever possible. All that we bought new (furniture-wise) for this house was our bed frame and that was made by company that re-plants a tree for each one it uses, and uses parts of Rubber Trees that are going to be disposed of!

• Shopping at the farmer's market, Ypsilanti Food Co-op, or Whole Foods/Trader Joe's. That's where I get 90% of our groceries

• Canning and preserving food that is in-season now for the winter, when it will be unavailable

• Had my own community garden plot this year!

• I try to support local businesses whenever possible, whether its buying furniture, buying food, buying art, etc.

• Hope to transform my yard and leave only about 20% grass. The rest will be raised-bed gardens and native plant areas!

• 90% of the household products I buy (toilet-paper, cleaners, etc) are organic or non-toxic

• Used No-VOC paint (FreshAire from Home Depot) on most of the new rooms we painted!
  

In general, I try run everything I buy by this test: Is it either local or environmentally friendly (it's hard to find both!)?

Anyway that was a rant! Just meant to post some pictures of our latest canning adventure: Butternut Squash soup, Apple and Ginger Marmalade, and Apple butter! Yum!

Picture update

Wanted to post finished pictures of the kitchen and dining room, complete with stuff in them :)

Here is Mike, (he's always posing..) in the kitchen!

Here is the fabulous dining room table and chairs, which needs to be sanded down and re-stained... boooo. but it looks nice from far away! We added that bamboo shade to the windows too and I really like it! Also put the plants back on the built-in buffet.



Things are progressing! :)

Office almost finished! Woohoo!

So yesterday we blocked out the whole day and used it to clear out, clean, tape, paint, and then decorate the office! This was a project a long time coming, so we were glad to get it over with! We ended up painting half of the walls Radiant Sun and half of the walls Northern Pear Tree (might look familiar from the dining room...)

I think it turned out great- The green really compliments our futon! We're thinking about taking off the closet door and making that built-in bookshelf nook instead- I think that would be awesome!

Here are pictures!


Mike posing, ready to go :)


Halfway through...


Finished office!!


Desk is a little big, but that's ok..

Dining room done! Planning gardens :)

Finished painting the dining room yesterday!! Took us a few days because we kept falling asleep at like 10pm instead of painting :)

But we got it done! Here's some pics on the left:

I think the color (Northern Pear Tree, FreshAire paint) really highlights the woodwork that we really like! When we put on the first coat, I had paint buyer's remorse, haha, which I always seem to have after the first coat of paint, that "this is pretty gree-eeennn!" feeling. However, I think it looks pretty awesome. What can I say? We have a colorful house now!

Our goal this week was to get the office and the dining room painted. So hopefully we can knock out the office on Saturday or Sunday. I am really tired of taping already. If I never had to see that blue painters tape again.. I would be a happy girl.

Looks like I won't be too happy any time soon haha!



I had a really cool guy come over from the Michigan Native Plant Producers Association name Greg. His business is called the Native Plant Nursery, LLC in Ann Arbor. He came over and gave me some ideas about how to incorperate native plants into our front and back yards, and what native plants might go best where, since I am a gardening virgin.

I am so excited to use some of his ideas. I ordered a book from Amazon called, "Landscaping with Native Plants of Michigan", by Lynn M. Steiner, and that just got to my house a few days ago. That has been a great resource because it has pictures of some of the plants that Greg recommended! I think I'm going to try to get all the beds ready for ...composting or biodegrading or something? I don't know what the word is, but I am trying to replace some of the grass in my lawn with native plant beds, and then I'm going to use Ashley's raised-bed expertise to make one or two more beds for my fruits and veggies. I'd really like to grow a lot of my own produce!

Here's a list of some of the things I'd like to plant in the edible gardens:

Roma tomatoes
Raspberry bushes
Blueberry bushes
Strawberries
Peppers
Zucchini
Squash
Onions
Lettuce
Carrots
Herbs

Here are some of the plants I'm thinking about for the non-edible gardens:

Flower(ish) beds-
Columbine
Echinacea
Lupines
some kind of Phlox
Wild Geranium
Woodland Sunflower
Coral Bells
Beebalm (Wild Bergamot)
Foxglove Beardtongue
Little Bluestem
Indian Grass

Groundcover for the "pit of despair" next to the garage-
Creeping strawberry bush/Wild strawberry maybe
Flowering spurge
Cinquefoil
Black-eyed Susan
Pennsylvania sedge
Wild Ginger
Virgina creeper

I'm so excited!

All this planning has tired out the kitties- :)

Kitchen and Mudroom remodel

Kitchen and mudroom tile is finished! Here is a before pic:

We ended up being able to use the $20 tile that my mom gave us (the yellowish one thats in the mudroom), and then we just picked what we thought was a complementary beigey tile for the kitchen. Jim (Mike's uncle who did all the work!) thought we were short a box of yellow in the mudroom, which is good because he started to think about how he could sub in a few of the beigey tiles and came up with this pattern- which we loved! So even though we found the missing
box o' tiles, we decided to have this pattern any way,
to help "connect" the two rooms.

We still need to seal the floor... I hope that will be
happening today. When I say that, I mean I hope i have the energy to do that today.

Overall I really love the tile that Jim put in.
He did a great job! Here are some after pics:

If you live in the Southeastern
Michigan region and you are looking for someone to help out with home projects, Jim Jakubowski is a great doer of stuff!

see info-
Next project- Paint the kitchen & mudroom!
We decided to go with a yellowy color called... something Daffodil. Since we are using No/low VOC paint, our color options were a little limited. We really liked most of the FreshAire paint colors from Home Depot, so we decided to go with that line of paint. I might paint the mudroom first, because a) it will allow me to feel like I am accomplishing something and b) then if I do not love love love the yellow, it will not have to go in the kitchen.

I did some work outside today too. Could not figure out how to get the lawnmower going but I DID get the weedwacker going! :) So I did some driveway trimming and wacked some of the weeds
on the front walk. Looks marginally better- how satisfying!

running on empty

Well we are all moved into our new place! I suprisingly remembered to take a few before and after photos, so I could remember what the house looked like before we improved it/made it worse :)

So far, since August 19th, we have done these improvements:

• Cleaned the whole house
• Painted Sara's room
• Painted our bedroom
• Painted the living room
• Cleared and re-planted the front garden beds
• Cleared out the back garden area
• Trimmed the front trees
• Trimmed the apple and maple trees in the back
• Cleaned out the gutters on the roof, and used the compost for the front gardens
• Ripped up linoleum in the kitchen and mudroom
• Tiled the kitchen and mudroom
• Got TV and internet installed

Next up for the month of September are:

• Paint the office
• Paint the dining room
• Paint the kitchen
• Paint the mudroom
• Set up the office
• Buy a new water heater
• Set up composter
• Sand down dining room table and re-finish
• Set up dining room

That's not too bad.. right???

There are two kitties that can't WAIT to run around in the basement and the kitchen! Every time I open the dining room doors (where the "construction" is happening) the babes try to squeeze through like crazycats!

I'm finding out that homeownership is a full time job.

busy weekend!

This weekend was Mike and my anniversary, so we shlepped to A2 to a bed and breakfast to get out of the house for a night- It was fun! The inn-keeper? reminded us of Ruth Fisher from Six Feet Under so that made it even better. It was nice to have a saturday off with Mike. We walked into A2 and went to Shalimar, our favorite of fav Indian places, went to TTV, and then got some Mo Mo Tea.

Missed the little kitties! Sara stayed over on Friday, and Ashes and I pickled green beans on Friday- they look pretty awesome :) Was a beautiful, fun weekend- nice balance of friends and family and kittens!

I was thinking about all the cool stuff that is going on in my life, and I wanted another way to share, besides Facebook, and talking in a monologue to people for hours. I've started a few blogs before but I always write one entry and then I forget to update.. ever again.

Since this is not topic specific, maybe I will update more?

This has been a very busy year for me, and it's also been one of a lot of fun and loving and learning and doing stuff! Doing-wise, I graduated with my Masters in Social Work, Mike and I got married and we got our own apartment for the first time! I have a pretty great job at Girl Scouts that I like too, which is nice after 500 years of school.

There are a lot of activities that I began to get into this year that I have really enjoyed; canning (with Ashes!) eating local food, having a community garden, learning about seasons and what food grows when. I think these help me to feel more connected to life and like I am becoming more of an "informed consumer", and maybe also less of a consumer!

Jen and Jesse have been great friends to me, especially this year- it has been great to see so much of them and I hope we can continue to see more now that they have moved to A2!

There are also a few big things coming up that I am very excited for; starting my position as a Commissioner for the Human Relations Commission for the City of Ypsilanti, buying our first home right near downtown Ypsi, living with Sara again (and maybe Shana) and being a pet owner!!!

I've also had a chance to reconnected with some people this year that I fell out with a bit during my last year at Eastern. That was a really stressful year for me, and I kind of ignored almost everyone and just tried to plug through and get done. Luckily, Sara, Shana and Ashes still like me. I've really liked being able to get to know Ashley more during our canning adventures, getting together with Sara, and spending almost ALL my time with Shana, although now Shana moved and left me :)

I'm really excited to live with Sara. Sara might not know this, but she is one of my favorite people. I haven't made the time to see her like I want to and like I should. It should be a LITTLE bit easier to see her when she lives in our house! I think it will be nice to have a Sara-friend to come home to and spend time with, and I'm looking forward to getting to know Sara even better. Ultimately, I'm hoping our cats could date.

and the most exciting thing right now- KITTIES!!!!!! We are taking care of two baby kitties; Helo and Athena. One of our friends' friends found them on her doorstep, when they were about a week old! They are sweet little lovies. I was NEVER a cat person- I always had dogs and fish and birds and rats and turtles and birds growing up, haha, but never cats. But our cats are the sweetest little kittens I've ever seen. They're loving and friendly and it's really fun to see them develop personalities and grow up with us! I already have an unhealthy attachment to them, and Marie might have to fight me to get Athena from us when she's old enough.