My Name is Nikki...And Other Stuff.

Last night, I saw 9 Parts of Desire. Beautiful. It's basically monologues of Iraqi women, but in the end, all the stories seem to cross into each other and you have a hard time separating yourself from the characters. I was near tears numerous times and really thought I was going to totally lose it near the end. It really left me speechless. Definitely see this if it comes to your area. I may do another blog post later on this, but I think I will need a few days to gather thoughts on it, and I'm not sure if I will ever come to any conclusions.

The fall schedule came out at school, and looking at classes, I was a bit worried because a couple of the studio classes I needed were scheduled for the exact same times, and I'm to a point where I can't afford to just slowly take them in, since 90%of what I have left is studio work. It made me worry about the drawbacks of being in a small art dept. that simply doesn't have enough students to fill classes each semester. I was brainstorming all these other options, like taking classes at another school at the same time, and then transferring in some studio work. Anyway, my worries were cheerfully resolved after I met with the dept. head. She basically registered me into my own little section and will let me work on my stuff outside of the normal scheduled class times. After the meeting instead of worrying about being at a small dept., I was extremely happy with a small dept. who can afford to know me by name (actually, let me get to that later), and bend over backward to accommodate me. I would never get that kind of flexibility at a bigger school. Just another reason I am loving this place compared to the institute. It's a whole other culture. I just highly doubt many other schools would be so accommodating and individualized.

Anyway, about being known by name at a small school....well, it's sort of true. The dept. head keeps calling me "Nikki". I am not sure how to correct it. I've said my name to her before, but I know that she hears the "Nikk" part in my last name, and then also sees the spelling, and in her mind, it registers as "Nikki". I don't really care, as long as she knows who I am, but it could be embarrassing for her to be calling me that when everyone else knows my real name... I've been trying to find a good time to correct it, but it's not come up yet, and I'm worried the longer it goes, the worse it could get. But, I don't want to correct her in public and embarrass her...but then I'm not really sure what to do. And I totally understand where she got "Nikki" - I've got N's all over the place, and a "Nikk"...visually and audibly...so I can see the mistake. But, I'm just not sure how to correct it. I feel like I already should have corrected it long ago the first time I heard, and now it's all gotten out of hand. But, it's one of those things where the first time or two I heard her say it, I was listening really hard, thinking "Did she actually just call me Nikki or did I mishear?" And like I said, I don't really care if she calls me that. My name gets so butchered anyway and I'm used to not being called by my real name, but I'm more concerned about the embarrassment factor that could happen to her. And now I just don't know what to do!

Anyway, with all this spring in the air, Jesse and I both get an itch to do home improvements. We got a new oven. New to us, that is. It's a used smooth top, but with some elbow grease, baking soda, and ammonia, it cleaned right up. We sold our old stove, so now we have all white appliances in the kitchen, which looks much better than the random black stove in the sea of white. We also have made back all of our money from the screen doors we bought at the auction. Sweet. The auction is becoming a slight addiction for Jesse, and he has thus been banned until all of the crap is out of the garage. He came into the office this evening and declared to me "I've become Papa!" (Papa, his grandpa, "collected" lots of random items...) His most recent auction purchases (and I don't even know all of them) are these two huge fan units, a couple ladders, a box of honeycomb-like plastic (I asked "What is that?" when he showed it to me, and he happily replied "I have no idea!" - in his defense, he does have a couple ideas of what he is going to do with it), and some other random stuff, I don't even know what all is out there. Anyway, so Jesse is banned from partaking in all auction-like actions until further notice.

The pergola is up, just needs to be painted. And do you know what else is up? My daffodils!!!! In just a couple weeks, I'll have full on tulip/daffodil/jonquil mania. Plus, once the pergola is painted, I can plant a vine to grow up it. I'm still anxiously awaiting the sprouting of my seeds. Nothing yet, but it hasn't quite been a week, so it's still early. None the less, I am anxious. Spring is finally here!!

Home

The front pergola has been going up this week. I'm pretty excited about it and have been looking into some vines that I can grow up it. It also makes me very excited to do the back one. Jesse is so handy.




This is the "after" of the kitchen cabinets...though my "before" is apparently on the other memory card, so I don't have it right now.



While Jesse was working on the pergola, I got my seeds in, which reminds me that I need to go check them this morning and maybe water. I also tried to clean up the backyard a bit. Our ornamental grasses needed to be cut back for spring, so I got those done. Abe helped. His latest thing has been "jungle Abe" where he likes to go crawl in between the grasses and then he will peer out at us from behind them. It's really cute, especially right now since everything is still brown and he looks all camouflage. Anyway, unfortunately, I had to cut back his hiding spots, but he made sure to supervise while I was doing so.

Exciting Discoveries!

I just discovered igoogle a few weeks ago (well, technically, Jesse discovered it and showed it to me.) Can I just say, this website has revolutionized the way I surf the internet and saves me hours? I have all of the blogs that I check regularly feed into it, so now, instead of typing in each url, I can just go to one spot and see if anyone has updated. Plus, no more time spent sitting in front of the computer thinking "now what other sites do I check?" Anyway, I can also see my gmail from there, so I'm really thinking about switching from my hotmail account and using gmail as my primary.

Another very exciting discovery has been the wealth of thrift store/rehab/good deals places information that Jesse and I have recently been obtaining. Jesse's friend introduced him to the Habitat ReStore, which is like a thrift store for construction goods, along with the occasional brand-spanking new items. Just one trip there has already saved us over 100 bucks on screws and hardware for our pergola.

Also, another friend of ours told us about "the caves". They have an auction each week and it is so totally random you wouldn't even believe it. We went on Thursday for the first time, and as you walk through, this is how it goes: to your left, there's a pallet full of mayonnaise packets...to your right there's a 55 gallon drum of who knows what solution....behind you is a paddle boat...in front of you is a solid mahogany door...so random. Jesse and I bid on a number of items, and ended up winning one lot. We got a (small) pallet of doors. We had been wanting to put a new door on the front of our house, and priced at Lowe's, we were looking at 200 bucks. Well, we bid 61 bucks on this pallet, and got the exact door we were looking at (actually, we got 3 of them), and then a number of screen doors. Sweet! As for the extra doors, we've had a few people tell us that they need/want doors, so we will be able to get rid of them. And, we checked out another store someone told us about, which is also totally random (actually, this store is run by the same people as the auction), and Jesse got some wiring stuff and I got a necklace and earrings for a dollar. Man, I love a good deal. Anyway, with all of these new places for home goods, it's actually becoming quite feasible that we can do things at our house that we didn't think we could afford anytime soon (such as replacing windows or putting up crown moulding). Very exciting stuff I tell you!

Other exciting news...the kitchen cabinets are painted!! Whoo hoo!! (I have pictures that I'll post later.)

Anyway, that's the big excitement around here lately. Today is the last day of my spring break, which has unfortunately turned out to be insanely busy. Such is life I guess.

Oh, and for anyone who cares, that Estee Lauder makeup - totally worth the money. I'm sold.

Photos and what not coming later.....

Visits, School, Work, and Day Planner Adultness

I'm sitting in the living room, the dogs are outside, Jesse is in bed, and everything is quiet. It is a good time to unwind from the week, which had lots of exciting things in it, and also lots of busy things in it.

It was midterm for me at school, so I had portfolio reviews, got loaded up with projects to be done over the break, and also had my online finals since it is the end of the eight week semester. I felt overwhelmed with school stuff that piled on this week, but overall, I am still really enjoying it. Funny, psychology was so important to me, and keeping the credits I had and making sure I got a minor in it and this and that was such a big thing to me, but now I don't really care. Sure, it's still interesting to me, but compared to art, I'm not really so concerned about it anymore. I may still get a minor in it, but it won't break my heart if it doesn't work out either. What a funny journey, only to get right back to the place I started.

Anyway, I also started my new job this week, which is the one that I was so excited about possibly happening a few weeks ago. Yeah it happened! I'm doing office work for an interior designer and his partner, and it has some decent potential for some creative work as well. Plus, the hours are flexible, and I really like these guys. God's just piling up those blessings lately.

And this coming week is my spring break, so no classes, which means we can finally paint the kitchen cabinets. I plan to get them sanded down on Monday and all ready to go. Once that is done, we are hoping to start in on our pergolas, and of course, it's March, and last frost date here is early April, which means seed planting time!!! I think I will try to get in the lettuces, spinach, and snap peas this week. Can hardly wait!

In other exciting news, I got a day planner. This is the first time in my life where I actually have a need for one. Especially now with the job, whose days and hours vary. This is really funny, because I have been married for 6 years, and I am on my second mortgage, but the purchase of a day planner has made me feel more like a real official adult than anything else in my life.

Anyway, I saved the best stuff for last in this post...as many of you know, Jesse's mom was here this past week (so she got to enjoy the full-on stressed out version of myself - ha!). I at least got to spend some time with her and Jesse yesterday after school stuff had calmed down. We went out to dinner, which was quite tasty, and as usual, I am about five pounds heavier from her visit. (She always brings a load of candy from the great north!)

Here are some photos of the visit, and when I have some time, I have a short little video clip to post for Trae on another day.

Wednesday evening my mom came down and Jesse and his mom cooked dinner for all of us (lasagna - yum!).

Thursday morning, I had class, which happened to be at the Nelson. Jesse and his mom dropped me off, and explored around while I was in class. Not sure what all they did, but these are some of the photos I found on the camera from that morning.







And finally, after putting together our photo album a few months ago, I realized how very few photos we have of anything except us and the dogs, so I had to get one last one in before the visit was over.

Almost Six

It is almost our sixth anniversary, which means we have been together almost seven years. Weird! We did lots of debating about what we would do to celebrate. I didn't realize it at the time, but we picked a great date for the wedding, because every year on our anniversary we have tax refund money to spend. Jesse has the weekend off. I have no idea when we actually had two days off together in a row last...possibly vacation last fall? Whatever the case, it is nice. Today we went down to the Nelson-Atkins, (an art museum), because I needed to check out some things for school. Then we went to the Habitat ReStore, which is awesome. Basically, a thrift store for construction goods. We picked up what we could for our anniversary present, which is going to be two pergolas - one in the front of the house and one over the back deck. Tomorrow we will go to Lowe's and pick up the rest. Funny how Lowe's has become our anniversary celebration place of choice! I know it doesn't seem romantic or what you should traditionally do to celebrate an anniversary, but I am not really into expensive wine and white linen tablecloth dinners. I'd much rather spend the day dreaming about home projects and future house ideas and then spend the next few weeks working with Jesse to make something cool. Plus, after it's done, we can enjoy the summer marveling at our hard work. It's like a whole season of enjoyment, rather than some fancy dining experience that only lasts two hours. Every once in a while, that is alright, but definitely not annually. I guess every couple finds what works for them and what doesn't, and remodeling is definitely a hobby that Jesse and I share, so why not enjoy it together on our anniversary?

Anyway, here are some photos...thought it was about time...


Just inside the Nelson...



Taking some notes...


Just outside the Nelson...


These shuttlecocks are famous. (B&W because the camera was set on some funky setting that I was having a terrible time color-correcting.)

It was so nice today. When we got home, we sat out back and Horton got to play in the hose. If you hold it up high, he tries to bite the water right as it comes out. (Although sometimes he gets too close and gets your hand instead...ouch!)


Me and two of my favorite boys...

Abe looks big here...

Horton helped me frame out the photos...