Christina's Tree Huggers- Round Two

Christina's Tree Huggers Team

For the second time, Christina convinced us to get up early on a Saturday morning and attempt to make Houston more green by planting trees for Arbor Day. The last time we went (two years ago) it was raining and muddy (really muddy- I had to be pulled out of the mud at one point because I was stuck). Today the weather was much better- a bit chilly, but dry. We figure we planted around 250 trees...not bad for 10 people and 2.5hrs...

Our fearless leader thinking "Melissa put the camera away and dig"


Once again, "Melissa put the camera away and dig" :) ( I won't point out that neither Paul nor Brandon is digging at this point...maybe Paul is thinking "you really want a picture of me blowing my nose?")


Moose ready for work


I really like my gloves...they were super grippy.


Yup, Brandon broke his shovel


Greg diggin' in


Sandy delivering water


Laura grinning, despite the fact she was having major sinus issues...

Random bits

1. I like having roommates. It means I actually get to have stuff for dinner. We decided that each of us would make a meal each week. And let me tell you, they can cook :). This week was homemade mac and cheese with ham (I think it is better than Tarik's!), this fabulous chicken curry soup that Pam just made up out of her head, and I made my quinoa and black bean enchiladas. Ahh, full belly=good times.

2. My roommates are neat freaks. This is bad. I am not. I am being guilted into cleaning by their tidy and efficient actions. Bummer. (;-) ).

3. I am a dork. I just bought something for a friend and put it on the dresser for safe keeping. Five minutes later, I knocked it off the dresser and broke it. Note to self: leave it in the box.

Finally, orange wall pictures!

Sorry it took so long to post these, but my room is finally looking presentable and I finished the dresser today. What do you think?

The room and dresser pre-paint


Dresser post paint and paper



See, orange and purple DO go together :)



Ahh...so colorful. It makes me smile.

My Pretend Half-Marathon Experience

So obviously with me just about to get off the injured list, I wasn't able to run the Houston Half-Marathon this morning as I had planned. My running buddy Lisa, who was supposed to run it too, was struck with the flu at the end of this week and wasn't able to run either :(. So we went downtown (at 5am!) to cheer on her husband and several of our friends who were running the 5K, Half-Marathon, and marathon distances. It was fun watching the race from the spectator perspective, although, admittedly, I much prefer being a participant. :D

This is as close as we got...sporting our bibs...

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Melissa, Josh, and Kevin- getting ready to run the 5K!

Last post from the apartment...

Okay, I'm going to be a bit sentimental here...while simultaneously making fun of myself for being sentimental over an apartment :)...I'm sitting in my empty living room, eating leftover Chinese food, praying for this migraine to go away before packing up the cats and some odds and ends and heading to my new place. Most of my stuff is now over at Pam's, thanks to the McFerrens and the Van Wrights help today- I've got a couple of weeks left of the lease to clean and get those last items transferred- but I'm done living here.

This is the only place I've lived since moving to Texas- moving in as a wet-behind the ears college grad. It's amazing to think how much I've learned and grown over the past 4.75 years. I've been both blessed and challenged during my time here, laughed and cried, been content and been angry. Amazing how much can happen in such a short amount of time, and through it all He has been faithful to remind me of my need of Him and His faithfulness in my life.

I'm excited to move in with Pam and Claire- it's clearly God moving in all three of our lives to bring us together as roommates and I can't wait to see what He has planned for us.

So here's to another chapter...

Possessed Dresser Saga

I wrote this blog in my head while it was happening..does anyone else ever do that?

So, as part of moving in with Pam and Claire, I am using an old dresser of Pam's, which was painted with psychedelically brightly colored daisies (Pam and Claire, I will forgive for saying it looked like "me"...I am not eight years old, thank you ;-) ). So I decided to repaint it.

Two of my walls are orange. What goes well with orange? Red of course! So I started painting over the trippy daisies...briefly thinking "should I sand this first? Maybe primer it? Nah...". So the first coat of red goes on. It's more magenta than red...too close to pink. I'm not liking it. Coats 2 and 3 go on and the daisies are still making their presence know. Okay, forget this. I will sand it. So the next day I borrow a sander from some friends and start sanding...first sandpaper- too fine. I find a paper that will probably gouge the wood, but hey, these daisies are quite determined to stay put.

The sanding commences...the paint melting into globs under the friction from the sander follows. Okay, forget all of this! Bring on the paint stripper. So the next day (oh yeah, there is a reason the title of this blog has the word "saga" in it), I bring over my paint stripping items (yeah I have those handy :))...EXCEPT... the stripper is about two years old and is quite glutinous in consistency and about doubly potent fume-wise. Oh well, I'll try it anyways. An hour later, I am on the road to Home Depot to buy more NEW paint stripper :).

Application of the strongest paint stripper know to man commences. Massive scraping action and falling globs of paint follows. At this point, I really do think the fumes were affecting me (I did have the garage door open, thank you very much)...I couldn't stop giggling...I kept stepping in the gooey paint globs and sticking to the garage floor and the paper I had laid down to keep the globs from getting on the garage floor, my gloves were sticking to the dresser, various spots on my arms were burning from the spattered stripper... seriously, if someone could see me now...

I doused the possessed dresser (I'd decided that it liked its paint and was laughing at my attempts to depaint it...either that or someone anodized the stupid thing) with the turpentine based after wash...more fumes...more giggliness. Enter roommate Claire who listened wide-eyed as I proceed to berate this "free" dresser at about a million words per second (it was the fumes talking, really, even I can't normally talk that fast!). The dresser won last night's battle.

So today, I proceed back over to the house to once and for all conquer the dresser. Using a paint scraper, I decently rid the dresser of its rad-hard coating...meanwhile breathing in some dust...I notice just how many layers of paint I am taking off...I start wondering how old this dresser is...lead paint...what are symptoms of lead poisoning again? All I can remember is that if you strike a knife against a bone that belonged to a human with lead poisoning, it will spark (thank you MacGyver for cluttering up those 3 brain cells with that knowledge). I'm not volunteering any of my bones...

Ha, told you this was a long one! So anyways, paint is mostly removed and any paint bumps remaining will give the dresser character. I put coat one of paint on. Oh, I decided to go with bright purple instead of red. It's looking awesome and will go well with the orange. Promise. And it will look like a grown-up's room too :D. Pictures will follow this weekend.

Oh and I think I only killed about 4 million brain cells in the process...

Know-it-all Status

So, I'm in chapter M of the Know-it-all book. I was a tad annoyed with the guy for awhile, him being all bumptious and stuff, and he saddened me with what he gleaned from the Britannica description of Ecclesiastes, but I've moved on and have a few great tidbits to share...

First off, it seems that I am retaining some of his knowledge from Britannica. For instance, the other day, I friend likened me to Professor Frink from the Simpsons (hush- no comments please)- and as I am completely unfamiliar with the Simpsons, he sent me a list of quotes from Frink. One of quotes mentioned monkeys going berserk...and my brain gave a little "ding" there: I learned from the Know-it-All in the B chapter that Berserkers were Nordic soldiers who went into battle naked, so to really be "beserk", you have to be naked. I just find it funny that it was a quote from the Simpsons that made my brain ding. (Tangent: never EVER thought a blog of mine would mention the Simpsons).

Secondly, the Know-it-All tells a cockroach story. He squashed one with the K volume of the Britannica. I for one can appreciate a good cockroach story.

Thirdly, I learned a new dorky word fact. I like words a lot, and how they are used. I even earmarked the page because when I read it I thought "I'm going to blog about this". So here it is: A captionym is a word who's meaning changes when it is capitalized. Such as Herb and herb or Polish and polish. Isn't that cool?

And fourthly, although somewhat inappropriate, I find the following tremendously funny and give props to this guy's wife for still loving him.

He sent her flowers (after the mentioned she was becoming an encyclopedia widow (due to his exorbitant amount of time spent with his nose in the books) with a card that read "These flowers are bisexual, but I am straight and I love you". (humor explanation: most flowers are male and female (i.e angiosperms). Chuckle...chuckle.