Getting ready for the holidays...

Shasta was pretty proud of the tree she found.

Putting up lights... the tree was pretty tiny, until Jim built it a booster seat.

So pretty!

Sadly, though she found the tree, her holiday spirit did not extend to wearing antlers for long.

Fall in Virginia

Fall is the best.  

 Oak hickory forests here in VA turn a beautiful yellow and brown and the light illuminates the leaves when the sun comes out.

We often go to the battlefield to walk the dog.  Jim's on the phone with his parents.  This is totally normal Shasta behavior while we're on the phone.

Pie!

New bed!

In a burst of desperation, we bought a bed!  Our old bed was not conducive to sleeping anymore, so we purchased a bed - a queen size bed, which is bigger than our previous full size bed.  

Sadly, the bed didn't fit up the stairs.  The mattress fit, but not the box spring - so we followed the instructions we found on the interwebs and cut the box spring in half.  That was fine, for a little while, but it didn't actually support weight well anymore. 

So we built a new bed!  

First comes the framing with stained boards...

Then we added slats!

It looks good all slatted up!

Legs were the next step.

And there it is!  A finished bed.

Looks good with the headboard we made last year.

Puppy tested and approved!

Random images from our lives recently....

Bathtime for her dirtiest kitten!

We made bread. It came out weird, and with brussel sprout eye stalks.  Delicious, right? 

A hard day in the sun...

Who's actually in charge in this house...

... is amply clear from this picture!

Shasta's bad week

So Miss Shasta had a rough week last week. It started out fantastic for her-she got to sleep in a hotel room with a bed all to herself. Seriously, very little makes her more happy and excited. It started on the road to Iowa we think...

Here's a picture of her in seventh heaven.

Alas, thing went downhill from there. On Thursday she was minding her own business outside and got attacked by another dog! Luckily, the other dog just seemed interested in her hindquarters, so she didn't get any life-threatening injuries, but she did end up with 25 staples in various cuts.

Here she is after we got her home that day (the tears are mostly from the aftereffects of the anesthesia, but they're still heartbreaking!).


Since then, she's been on antibiotics and anti-inflammatories, but that means she gets cheese everyday, which is good from her perspective, and all of her cuts seem to be healing fine, which is good from our perspective. Unfortunately, not all of her cuts are completely healed yet, so she's gotta have the staples in for the deepest for another two weeks (we got them all out, but that wound re-opened, so they had to put new ones in). We say "unfortunately" too because this means she's gotta be "quiet" (vet's word) for that time. Heh...if you've ever met Shasta, quiet is not in her repertoire really, so we're in for an interesting couple of weeks. But at least she's back to her normal chipper self!

...just, wow

I was looking for an image to illustrate how different cultures view particular species differently, and I was going to focus on the very friendly example of dogs (which are adored in the US and despised as unclean in other countries).

And I knew that black dogs were harder to find homes for once they're in the shelter (that's part of the reason we picked Shasta). But holy crap, really???



What do all these puppies have in common? And what does that say about us?

New Year, New Projects

2012's been off to a rip-roaring start! After a hectic end to the semester, we had a great holiday and have gotten back into the groove of things here in Virginia (Steph protested me calling it "Ol' Virginee"). We've gotten a lot of work done on the house, including getting our office set--complete with a refurbished morris chair (thanks Mom and Dad!). I have to say after our green chair adventure of last summer, fixing the springs and adding new cushions seems like a walk in the park! We even have all of our books unpacked finally, and our 3rd bedroom is all set up for guests. We'll post some pictures soon, but in the meantime here's some other miscellaneous ones:

Morning is probably my favorite time of day in the house (Steph too!) Here's the view from the kitchen a lot of the time (sunrises and sunsets are absolutely gorgeous here).

Kitty enjoys the morning too...
...and sometimes she shares with the dog. Cutest. pets. ever.
I just thought this was cool. You can see the envelope of steam around the egg before it rises up and off. I also enjoy pushing the french press down in the sun. It's the little things in life :)

Best buddies

We think they finally figured out that the other one is warm.

Big update

Long time no post. Sorry, to the four of you reading this blog. We've been really busy. We've been teaching and designing curricula and grading and furnishing and painting and unpacking and gardening and job applying and research and in general not sleeping much or posting much.

We took this weekend off, though, and that felt amazing.

So FINALLY at long last here are some pictures!


Us, our puppy, and our signed house documents!!

Our house number :-)


Our real estate agent left us a bottle of champagne on the mantel. Here's our gorgeous awesome living room.

Unpacking's been a process. For a while, we had boxes on the puppy's chair and so there was only the couch for all of us to sit on.


I can't believe autumn's almost over. It's a gorgeous season here in VA.

Buddies

Come in all shapes and species....

Househunting is...

a bit like hunting unicorns. Apparently houses don't exist.

I didn't think we were looking for something so rare. A three bedroom (but 2 is ok) with 1 1/2 bath (but 1 is ok) with a yard, in town, and at an affordable price, without being a wreck, is apparently a bit too much to ask for...

We saw a house on Friday that we are super interested in. It's in the perfect location, big back yard, lots of room for garden and for Shas... but I just don't think we can do all the repairs it needs. I don't even think we could get approved for a loan for this place. It needs a new roof, new electrical, a new heating/cooling system (it has a steam boiler and radiator system now, but it's in serious need of repair, and ideally it should probably be upgraded to a heat pump), a new kitchen, a bathroom renovation, refinished floors, repaired walls, and that doesn't count things like painting and making the house your own... We can do non-critical repairs (moldings, paint, refinishing floors, updated kitchens and bathrooms), but we're not electricians or plumbers!

...

We've been busy lately! My 7th grade and college classes are done, and so I'm just working on a lab manual now (and trying to get data from my collaborators from my phd work... and applying for jobs)! Jim's got two grad classes left to manage, and then he's working on the undergrad semester.

Jim saved a box turtle yesterday from being hit by a car. He is now the hero of turtle-dom.

This poor worm somehow ended up between the double panes of our windows. He, unfortunately, passed away when the sun became stronger.
I built a stool! Jim's teaching me to use all his tools. And soon they will be MINE. We painted this green. Our next project is a bed for our bed. A wooden one. With a headboard.

We went to the Apple Blossom Festival in Winchester. It's a huge festival, with a never-ending parade (two, actually - we only went to one). There were elephants in the parade. I sort of feel like while I love seeing elephants, this is not appropriate for them...

The pink poodles (a standard and a miniature) were among the most popular events in the parade...

Pretty cake. Not as tasty as I'd hope - made this for Easter, which was very nice- Jim's parents came down and it was lovely.

Shasta's now 3 years old. We still lie and say she's about 8 months when she's acting badly. Which is less and less often, now... Here she is, with her birthday present.
Old tractors look like things out of kids stories. This one was beautiful!

It rained and rained and rained. Then it stopped, on Thursday, and the rainbow came out...

Rain, rain go away....

please don't wash our road away...

It's raining really, really hard. We're supposed to get more than two inches of rain today. Poor Shasta, who hates the rain, has been refusing to go to the bathroom while she's getting rained on, so she's been antsy all day. To give you a hint about how much she hates being rained on, her leash clasp slid off her collar while we were taking these pictures, and being the lab mix she is, she took off for the wilderness - we ran inside to drop off the camera and find some treats to bribe her with, and she bolted in the open door behind us. Last week, when it was merely drizzling, it took more than two hours to catch her and bring her in when she bolted out the door I had stupidly left open.

This is why our house is on stilts.

Our neighbor's yard...

Our other neighbor's yard...

This is the border between our yard and our neighbor's yard.

To really show you, watch this:




and this:





Gotta say, though - even though we're probably going to wash into the lake in the next hour or two, at least we've got green leaves, spring flowers, and this rain, while drenching, is taking place in 70 degree weather....

Cape Charles II

This is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. It's an unbelievable feat of civil engineering - it's 17 miles of bridges punctuated by two 1 mile long tunnels over the Chesapeake Bay. We came over to Cape Charles at night, in windy conditions, and the wind was buffeting the car. We could see the spray and the waves over the side of the bridge, and it was quite an experience. Going back towards Norfolk, the sea was much calmer, but it's amazing to drive on the bridge - you can only see ocean all around you, and it feels like it never ends.


By the tunnel closest to Norfolk, there's a little rest stop where you can pull off and they sell food and souvenirs, and there's a fishing pier for fishermen. We stopped so we could see the container ship going over the tunnel we had just passed through.
Me with my eyes closed on the beach of Cape Charles....
The sunset from the bed and breakfast we stayed at. It was amazing, and considering we got in on a cancellation, a fantastic deal!
These are sunken ships that act as breakers for the waves at the Kiptopeke State Park. From the Virginia State Parks website, "These ships were an emergency response to a critical shortage of maritime cargo ships in World War II. Operated by merchant seamen and a naval armed guard, they carried all types of war supplies throughout the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

The nine McCloskey ships off the park’s shoreline were sunk to provide a breakwater for the Virginia Ferry Corporation’s ferry service linking the Eastern Shore to Norfolk. Today, they provide visitors a glimpse into the past and fishermen with fishing opportunities." Very cool!

In addition to all this, we walked through a field of goldenrod in the State Park that was full of hundreds of monarch butterflies! I've never seen anything like it. Perhaps they were migrating south? It was amazing!