My definition of home is wherever Donald is. This is the sole requirement, but don't tell him that. (There are certain amenities that I have become accustomed to having...)
When I first saw this house three years ago, I instantly fell in love. Since it was a foreclosure, many things were missing, but I had a vision. I knew that it was destined for greatness. The vaulted, beamed ceilings in a room full of windows facing the lake was breathtaking. I still feel that way. It never gets old waking up here. We have worked tirelessly to make it our own, and now, everywhere I look, I see things that I love.
Although we love this home, we've decided move to the other side of the lake. Donald's parent's purchased a house there, and when the family gets together for fun on the lake, we're never truly all together. Still, we have finally finished all of our remodeling, and I am thoroughly enjoying it while we still live here.
Here are a few pictures of everything we've accomplished!
Closer view of the countertops.
Ok, so this part didn't require any work. It's just our cove :)
It's not all hard work. We still make time for fun!!!
I love photography! Unfortunately, many times I leave my photos filed away on a hard drive somewhere, never to be shared. Occasionally, I lurk through and enjoy them, remembering the moments when I captured them, but even that doesn't do them much justice. I like to shoot in raw, and time constraints don't often allow me to edit them as I should. I try to keep retouching minimal, depending on the type of subject. Still, I like to make sure the lighting and white balances are to my taste and make the occasional adjustment, trying to find my style. The end result is that I don't publish much of my work.
Lately, I've found myself on a new mission to comb through photos I've taken but never touched and share them. This mission, as others, may be short-lived, but experts say putting things into writing helps you bring them to fruition. I plan to keep it realistic (unlike the massive photo collection I have... seriously... it's insanity,) but whenever the urge hits me, I'll try to prepare a few to throw out there.
To begin, I rediscovered these photos I took in Aragon, Georgia of the old mill and its surroundings. This began as a quest to find old photographs of the town for my father-in-law's store, but even though this town has a historical society, original pictures are surprisingly scarce. The folks that do possess the types of pictures we were looking for aren't exactly reading my Facebook posts. The pictures I did find were mostly low resolution scans, not so great for print quality. I decided to go with a different theme and take some photos of the ruins instead. This was a scary operation, as some local birds really had it in for me and decided to spastically zip by my head intermittently... Ha! Still, it was fun, and here they are! (I threw in one of a duck from the nearby pond for good measure.)
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Snow, ice, and more snow...
This week entailed taking another adventure to Birmingham in the snow in, none other than, the Legendary Purple Dragon.
The long ride has it's perks... Now that we've been there, we know where we're going to eat. Oh, yeah! We really shouldn't have to ride as far as Birmingham to find something this good!
When we returned from our feast, we found Jazz here. Apparently, when you take her out of the house, she forgets what a bed is, so clearly, the table was the only logical option.
And then, there's the sleepy, next-day ride home. Yes, I napped and left Donald to do the boring drive alone. There's something about Donald and Rock competing for the loudest snoring that makes a girl lose sleep at night. I earned that nap!
We made it home safely, and now, we are all camped out on the couches in front of the downstairs fireplace. More snow on the way, they say...
More than all the adventures in the snow, today, I am overjoyed. No matter the cold outside my doors, it is no match for the warmth I feel in my heart. Today is a good day.
Firstly, it never snows here. The snow always hangs around north of us. Occasionally, it will snow south of us just to make the school kids mad, but it NEVER snows. At least, not enough to stick to the roads, and only an amount to warrant a snowman made partially of dirt. Of course, on the day I have something to do, we get the worst road conditions from snow since the blizzard of '93. For that, I would like to apologize to everyone, as this is all clearly my fault... Ha! Not only did I have an appointment, it was an appointment in Birmingham. Did you catch the news? Yes. I was in that!
We had passed abandoned, crashed, and overturned vehicles on the way there, even watching someone spin about five donuts before saving it, but we had it fairly easy until this point. Sure, it was slow because the roads were already covered, but this took it to the next level. It was clear that this was going nowhere for a very long time. It took a little over an hour to make it to the end of the guard rail you see ahead, and that's when the adventure began.
Everyone else who had been on that interstate probably ended up stuck there for the next couple of days. We didn't fare much better on the side roads, but at least we had more options. Every detour we took gave us a new reason to turn around and find another detour. For those who have never been to Birmingham in bad weather, it is actually quite hilly. After encountering a neighborhood hill so steep that we had to drive on the grassy shoulder to avoid sliding down it, we decided to stick with the next semi main road we encountered even though it wasn't moving much. We didn't want to become one of the vehicles in a pile at the bottom of some random street, especially since we saw a few drug deals going down. Scary! At this point, I started to wonder if we'd have to spend the night in the truck. We were in the middle of a long stretch of road with no stores in sight, only housing, with cars as far as the eye could see ahead of and behind us and new idiots blocking oncoming traffic on the small, two-lane road every second. It had taken us 4 hours to get to Birmingham. Our hotel was only about 7 miles away, and we were stuck in endless traffic. There was no way we could walk that far with our luggage and the dogs in what was now, most assuredly, solid ice. We'd have to wait. I'll spare you some of the other details of survival, but another four and a half hours of waiting got us to our hotel. The wrecker services were our salvation, moving the abandoned buses, eighteen-wheelers, and piled cars out of the roadway.
Once at our hotel, we soon discovered it was being remodeled. Nice.
Day 2 of our outing consisted of requesting a room on a different floor because the smell was so overpowering, it was impossible to breath. They were very accommodating, and as you can see, all family members were immediately satisfied. La Quinta, you're alright.
Another perk of our location was Okinawa. NOTHING was open (with good reason), but these guys were there and kept us fed. Yes, we had Japanese for lunch and dinner. You'll hear no complaints out of this girl!
As you can see, the ones who did manage to make it to La Quinta didn't always get there unscathed.
Our saving grace, was this...
This is the truck I named Barney because it was a huge purple dinosaur. We bought this Tahoe for next to nothing with the transmission sitting in the back seat. Donald hauled it home and put it back together, and with over 275,000 miles on it, it simply refuses to die. It's our only four wheel drive, so we decided to take it. We only slipped once because the crazy person in front of us put on her brakes on a solid ice exit ramp. Even then, Barney guided us safely through the ditch and back on the road with no incident. Donald has since upgraded Barney's status to "The Legendary Purple Dragon." Here's to you, Legendary Purple Dragon, missing wheel caps and all. You are a Cadillac in my eyes.
In addition to the snow excitement, we've had plans for months to see The Black Jacket Symphony perform Led Zeppelin's album "Houses of the Holy" and their greatest hits in Chattanooga, TN. It was sort of a birthday trip for Donald and so fun! We ate at Sticky Fingers, and another trip to Chattanooga may be in order just to eat there. It was wonderful!
The show was also no disappointment. These guys are amazing, and they brought the house down. One guitarist, Bryan Gibson, really stood out. Just wow. If he were a one-man band, I would buy tickets. That being said, this whole crew was full of stellar musicians. Note for note, you won't hear a better live performance anywhere. The Tivoli is a pretty great venue too.
And if all this wasn't exciting enough, my kitchen is still under construction. Today, as I'm writing this, is Donald's 36th birthday. He has a free pass from me to take the day off, but the first thing he does is get up and get to work on pouring the final countertop.
Jazz is not a fan of the noise of the air gun, and thus, is my shadow.
Another casualty of kitchen remodel- dishes. This is me giving up. I will let them soak here and wash them in the bathroom sink, I suppose, since we are running out. Sigh... At least the end is in sight, and my sweet birthday man is on it!
Lastly, here are some additional pictures of our eventful week.
