Once again, I have failed on keeping up with the blog! We have actually been very busy lately, so we have just forgotten to keep everyone updated! This is going to be a short life update on what we have been up to since the last post.
On the weekend after the successful dinner party that I posted about, we took a day trip to Santa Cruz, which is a beach that is like 30 minutes from our house. It is a very interesting place, that is VERY touristy. There is a boardwalk that is about a mile long and pretty much has a year round state fair type thing with rides and games right on the water. It was a good place to see once, but it was SO crowded and kind of dirty and touristy, so I think once might be enough for us. There are some other, more low key, beaches around Santa Cruz that we will most likely go to whenever we need our beach fix.
On the Sunday after the Santa Cruz trip, I woke up feeling TERRIBLE with a really bad sore throat and body aches. I pretty much stayed in bed for several days until I went to the doctor and got an antibiotic. It took me around a week to fully recuperate. Of course, as soon as I started feeling better, Scott started feeling bad, so we were sick and not doing too much for about 2 weeks.
However, right when I was starting to feel better, and Scott hadn't fully started to feel bad, Sophia and Matt (the people we had invited over for dinner) invited us to their house for dinner. We ate some yummy kabobs, homemade grilled pizza, and bananas foster at their house and had a great time!
The next week I started my first week of work at a store in Fremont, which is about 30 minutes away. It was good to get out and start working, but it was definitely an adjustment. Many things are different in California than they were in Mississippi, so I had to relearn different ways of doing things! I feel better now that I have gotten a little bit accustomed to working in a pharmacy in California.
While I was working, I FINALLY received the letter from the California Board of Pharmacy that allowed me to sign up for the NAPLEX (the pharmacy board exam) and the CPJE (the California pharmacy law exam). I will be taking the NAPLEX on Friday, September 4th, and the CPJE on Tuesday, September 8th. So until then, I have time off to study, study, study! Which is exactly what I will be doing, so I can pass and finally be a real pharmacist!
We did take a study break this last weekend, and we went for a walk at the Dish on Saturday afternoon. The Dish is the place that I went walking with Heather that is over by Stanford and has BEAUTIFUL views of the entire bay area. It was nice to finally get out and get some exercise and enjoy the beautiful day.
On Saturday night, we went out with Matt and Sophia and several of their friends to a country bar. It was very ironic going to a country bar in California, but it did make us feel a little at home :)
When we got back from the walk, we were talking about how great the weather is here, and how we need to find something to do to get out in it more often. We decided that we should take up golf! This is perfect since there is a course right by our house, we are both beginners so we will be learning together, and it will be something fun to do to go outside and enjoy the day! So on Sunday, we had our first lesson with the pro at the Shoreline Golf Course. We had a really good time! He gave us several drills to practice and told us to go to the driving range several times to master the drills before we sign up for our next lesson. We are really excited about our new hobby and can't wait to get back out there and hit some balls!
On Sunday night, Sophia and Matt came over to our house for dinner and to watch True Blood, a show that we all love on HBO.
All this week, I have been spending most of my time studying. Today I went with Heather to the Dish for a walk and then we went out to lunch afterward. We are planning on another morning walk on Friday, so I am excited to have someone to exercise with!
Sorry this was so much at one time! I miss everyone and love you all! :)
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
Successful dinner party!
So yesterday was a crazy day! It started by me waking up and deciding to do laundry, so I grabbed the landry basket and started down the stairs. Of course I slipped on the first stair and the heavy laundry basket dragged me down the entire flight of stairs!! To make matters worse, I was also holding a full glass of water which went ALL over me!! Haha...great start to the day! Today my rear is not feeling so swell and I also think I somehow managed to hurt my shoulder falling down the stairs? Not really sure how I did that...maybe the arm that was carrying the laundry got yanked? Oh well, hopefully it will be feeling better soon!
On Wednesday night my wish for us being motivated to tidy up and hang pictures came true! We picked up the pictures I had sent off to be printed and went by Michaels and WalMart to look for frames. We ended up finding some good frames at WalMart that were much cheaper than the Michaels frames, so we went with those! I call the wall across from the table our Oxford wall because the collage of frames are all Oxford pictures and the picture over my desk is a Larry Wamble print that was a wedding gift and says "We may not win every game...but we ain't never lost a party". We also hung my van Gogh painting over by the kitchen. Here are some pictures...
This picture is the overview of the wall. I think I could have gone a little bigger on the pictures and frames for the collage, but we had already bought and hung everything, so I think Scott may kill me if I go out and reprint pictures, buy new frames, and make him measure and hang a whole new set of pictures! The perfect alignment is definitely Scott's patience and need for perfection kicking in! It definitely took lots of measurements and working with the level to make that happen!
I'm not sure if you can really tell what these are, so here's the descriptions from top to bottom.
Faulker on the bench from on the square, Bottletree Bakery, Walk of Champions, Speed limit 18 sign from on campus, Rowan Oak, Ajax door
We had so many more great shots that we wanted to include but these were the pictures that we liked the best and thought looked the best in the frames.
This is a close up of the Larry Wamble print that is hanging above my desk.
This is the picture of the van Gogh print that is hanging right outside the kitchen.
I think that having pictures on the wall really cozies the place up! It feels a lot more like home now that the walls aren't so bare! And I really like that we were able to use pictures that we had that actually mean something to us and make them look great without spending much money! :)
So yesterday I spent most of the day preparing for dinner. I went ahead and prepared everything so that when they got there, all I had to do was pop things into the oven! For the appetizer I made Mrs. Thrash's cheesy corn dip. They LOVED it...as everyone does!! For dinner I made Scott's mom, Donna's, spicy shrimp and rice casserole with bacon wrapped asparagus, salad, and garlic bread. And for dessert, we had homemade ice cream cake that was tiramissu flavored with Kahlua, coffee, and vanilla and chocolate ice cream! Everything was very yummy! All the prep work that day really paid off since everything was ready so I didn't have to spend all of my time in the kitchen!
We really like Matt and Sophia! Matt was Scott's mentor last summer when Scott was working for Microsoft as an intern. They just got married last year and are around our age. We got along great last night, and have already started talking about taking a trip to Napa soon!
I also enjoyed getting to use all of our new wedding gifts for the first time! I LOVE all of our Juliska pieces! They look so pretty together! Here is a picture of our set table.
It makes me so happy! I love all of our choices and how great they all look together!
Well today is back to the books, but I thought I would give a quick (or not so quick) update on how things went last night! I told y'all I was going to work on blogging more often!
On Wednesday night my wish for us being motivated to tidy up and hang pictures came true! We picked up the pictures I had sent off to be printed and went by Michaels and WalMart to look for frames. We ended up finding some good frames at WalMart that were much cheaper than the Michaels frames, so we went with those! I call the wall across from the table our Oxford wall because the collage of frames are all Oxford pictures and the picture over my desk is a Larry Wamble print that was a wedding gift and says "We may not win every game...but we ain't never lost a party". We also hung my van Gogh painting over by the kitchen. Here are some pictures...
This picture is the overview of the wall. I think I could have gone a little bigger on the pictures and frames for the collage, but we had already bought and hung everything, so I think Scott may kill me if I go out and reprint pictures, buy new frames, and make him measure and hang a whole new set of pictures! The perfect alignment is definitely Scott's patience and need for perfection kicking in! It definitely took lots of measurements and working with the level to make that happen!
I'm not sure if you can really tell what these are, so here's the descriptions from top to bottom.
Faulker on the bench from on the square, Bottletree Bakery, Walk of Champions, Speed limit 18 sign from on campus, Rowan Oak, Ajax door
We had so many more great shots that we wanted to include but these were the pictures that we liked the best and thought looked the best in the frames.
This is a close up of the Larry Wamble print that is hanging above my desk.
This is the picture of the van Gogh print that is hanging right outside the kitchen.
I think that having pictures on the wall really cozies the place up! It feels a lot more like home now that the walls aren't so bare! And I really like that we were able to use pictures that we had that actually mean something to us and make them look great without spending much money! :)
So yesterday I spent most of the day preparing for dinner. I went ahead and prepared everything so that when they got there, all I had to do was pop things into the oven! For the appetizer I made Mrs. Thrash's cheesy corn dip. They LOVED it...as everyone does!! For dinner I made Scott's mom, Donna's, spicy shrimp and rice casserole with bacon wrapped asparagus, salad, and garlic bread. And for dessert, we had homemade ice cream cake that was tiramissu flavored with Kahlua, coffee, and vanilla and chocolate ice cream! Everything was very yummy! All the prep work that day really paid off since everything was ready so I didn't have to spend all of my time in the kitchen!
We really like Matt and Sophia! Matt was Scott's mentor last summer when Scott was working for Microsoft as an intern. They just got married last year and are around our age. We got along great last night, and have already started talking about taking a trip to Napa soon!
I also enjoyed getting to use all of our new wedding gifts for the first time! I LOVE all of our Juliska pieces! They look so pretty together! Here is a picture of our set table.
It makes me so happy! I love all of our choices and how great they all look together!
Well today is back to the books, but I thought I would give a quick (or not so quick) update on how things went last night! I told y'all I was going to work on blogging more often!
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Another long life update!
Sorry it has been so long since you've heard from me! I'm not sure what I have been doing, but I have been staying busy! I've gotten into a bit of a routine lately. I usually wake up as Scott is leaving for work, start some coffee, and eat some breakfast. After breakfast, I usually do whatever housework needs to get done, go work out, and figure out what we're going to have for dinner so I can get the meat out of the freezer to thaw. Then it's usually lunch time, so I make some lunch and relax and watch some TV while I eat. In the afternoon I usually study, write thank you notes, and run errands until around 5ish when I get ready to start cooking. I typically have dinner ready when Scott gets home around 6ish, and we eat dinner, and then watch TV or hang out until bed time! Haha, I can't believe we have already settled into this routine, but its actually really comforting and I like it a lot! :)
However, the routine is about to change! I met with Emmanuel, my Wal-Mart district manager, last week, and we got me put into the system and all ready to start work! Until I get licensed, I am going to be filling in wherever they need someone, so I will be going to several different stores in the area. As of right now, my first week will be August 17-21st (Monday-Friday) from 10-7. I'm excited, but also nervous about starting work out here! I've gotten pretty good at this whole house wife thing :)
Last Friday I met the across the street neighbor, Heather, when I was out studying. Later on that afternoon, she and her husband, Ben, came by the invite us over for dinner on Saturday. Unfortunately we had already made plans with one of Scott's coworkers to go to a movie on Saturday night, so we had to decline :( However, we did go over to their house later that evening and drank some wine and talked with them for a few hours!
On Saturday night, Scott and I met one of his coworkers to go see Funny People. It was an interesting movie...not really what we were expecting. It kind of had some slow depressing parts, which was kind of weird since it was advertised as a comedy. All in all, it wasn't terrible, but it certainly was not in my list of favorite movies. After the movie, we were supposed to meet up with his wife, Sophia, who had been in San Francisco all weekend. However, since the movie lasted so long (almost 3 hours!) and she got home later than she expected and was tired, we decided to postpone to another time.
On Sunday, Scott and I went to a church down the road. We first tried out this church the Sunday before, but there was a guest speaker that Sunday, so we decided to give the actual preacher a try. We had decided to try out this church because we had read good things about it on Yelp.com (a common place to go to see reviews of different businesses, etc.). I know that's a weird place to find a church, but when you don't really know people, it's the best you can do! Everyone had raved about how great the church was, and it was also just down to street from our house, so we thought we would give it a try. The first Sunday we went was the one with the guest speaker. We were not really into the guest speaker, but decided to give it a second try to hear Pastor Paul, who everyone had raved about on Yelp. It wasn't necessarily bad, it is just not really what Scott and I are looking for. It's a very charismatic church and kind of feels more like you are listening to a motivational speaker than a preacher. It was nice that we were able to walk there, but I think we will be looking for other options in the coming weeks.
Today I had my first outing with a friend! Heather, the girl from across the street, called me yesterday and asked me if I wanted to go walking with her today. We went to this place called "The Dish" that is over in Palo Alto right next to Stanford. It is a really neat trail that wanders for like 3.5 miles over hills and you can see the entire bay area below...it was gorgeous! I'm really glad that she introduced me to it! We also took her little girl, Bella, who is 6 months old. I'm new to having friends with babies, but Bella is a great baby and loves to go on walks! We're looking forward to hanging out with Heather and Ben more often!
Tomorrow night we are having Matt and Sophia (Matt is Scott's coworker that we went to the movie with) over for dinner! I'm going to be working on planning out what we are having tonight, so I can go by the grocery store tomorrow and start cooking! I'm hoping that this will motivate us to tidy the place up a bit! My newest project is for the big empty wall next to the table. I edited some pictures I have from favorite places around town in Oxford and on campus, and made them all black and white and am having them printed as 5x7s. Right now my plan is to frame them in black frames and do a collage type scattering on the big wall. We'll see how it turns out!
I am sad to report that my geraniums that were so pretty in one of the previous posts are struggling at the moment. :( I'm not really sure what I have done to them...I am doing the same thing I have been doing the whole time. I usually water them daily and pick off the dead buds. At first when I picked off the dead buds, new ones would start to bloom very quickly, but now they aren't really coming back anymore. I bought some Miracle Grow yesterday and gave them some of that, so I am hoping that maybe they were just hungry. Please let me know if you have any idea what I might be doing wrong or need to be doing! They don't look quite as pretty in front of the house with no blossoms!
Also please email me (ppblackburn@gmail.com) or comment here if you have any good recipes that I can make ahead and freeze or good crock pot recipes! I am trying to gather some of these so we can still have food when I am not here all day to prepare it!
I'll try to get a little bit more regular at blogging! I'll report back on how dinner and the picture hanging goes!
However, the routine is about to change! I met with Emmanuel, my Wal-Mart district manager, last week, and we got me put into the system and all ready to start work! Until I get licensed, I am going to be filling in wherever they need someone, so I will be going to several different stores in the area. As of right now, my first week will be August 17-21st (Monday-Friday) from 10-7. I'm excited, but also nervous about starting work out here! I've gotten pretty good at this whole house wife thing :)
Last Friday I met the across the street neighbor, Heather, when I was out studying. Later on that afternoon, she and her husband, Ben, came by the invite us over for dinner on Saturday. Unfortunately we had already made plans with one of Scott's coworkers to go to a movie on Saturday night, so we had to decline :( However, we did go over to their house later that evening and drank some wine and talked with them for a few hours!
On Saturday night, Scott and I met one of his coworkers to go see Funny People. It was an interesting movie...not really what we were expecting. It kind of had some slow depressing parts, which was kind of weird since it was advertised as a comedy. All in all, it wasn't terrible, but it certainly was not in my list of favorite movies. After the movie, we were supposed to meet up with his wife, Sophia, who had been in San Francisco all weekend. However, since the movie lasted so long (almost 3 hours!) and she got home later than she expected and was tired, we decided to postpone to another time.
On Sunday, Scott and I went to a church down the road. We first tried out this church the Sunday before, but there was a guest speaker that Sunday, so we decided to give the actual preacher a try. We had decided to try out this church because we had read good things about it on Yelp.com (a common place to go to see reviews of different businesses, etc.). I know that's a weird place to find a church, but when you don't really know people, it's the best you can do! Everyone had raved about how great the church was, and it was also just down to street from our house, so we thought we would give it a try. The first Sunday we went was the one with the guest speaker. We were not really into the guest speaker, but decided to give it a second try to hear Pastor Paul, who everyone had raved about on Yelp. It wasn't necessarily bad, it is just not really what Scott and I are looking for. It's a very charismatic church and kind of feels more like you are listening to a motivational speaker than a preacher. It was nice that we were able to walk there, but I think we will be looking for other options in the coming weeks.
Today I had my first outing with a friend! Heather, the girl from across the street, called me yesterday and asked me if I wanted to go walking with her today. We went to this place called "The Dish" that is over in Palo Alto right next to Stanford. It is a really neat trail that wanders for like 3.5 miles over hills and you can see the entire bay area below...it was gorgeous! I'm really glad that she introduced me to it! We also took her little girl, Bella, who is 6 months old. I'm new to having friends with babies, but Bella is a great baby and loves to go on walks! We're looking forward to hanging out with Heather and Ben more often!
Tomorrow night we are having Matt and Sophia (Matt is Scott's coworker that we went to the movie with) over for dinner! I'm going to be working on planning out what we are having tonight, so I can go by the grocery store tomorrow and start cooking! I'm hoping that this will motivate us to tidy the place up a bit! My newest project is for the big empty wall next to the table. I edited some pictures I have from favorite places around town in Oxford and on campus, and made them all black and white and am having them printed as 5x7s. Right now my plan is to frame them in black frames and do a collage type scattering on the big wall. We'll see how it turns out!
I am sad to report that my geraniums that were so pretty in one of the previous posts are struggling at the moment. :( I'm not really sure what I have done to them...I am doing the same thing I have been doing the whole time. I usually water them daily and pick off the dead buds. At first when I picked off the dead buds, new ones would start to bloom very quickly, but now they aren't really coming back anymore. I bought some Miracle Grow yesterday and gave them some of that, so I am hoping that maybe they were just hungry. Please let me know if you have any idea what I might be doing wrong or need to be doing! They don't look quite as pretty in front of the house with no blossoms!
Also please email me (ppblackburn@gmail.com) or comment here if you have any good recipes that I can make ahead and freeze or good crock pot recipes! I am trying to gather some of these so we can still have food when I am not here all day to prepare it!
I'll try to get a little bit more regular at blogging! I'll report back on how dinner and the picture hanging goes!
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