House Projects

We've lived in our new house since January and have many a house project left to accomplish. Current project: painting our bedroom.

The walls had several layers of wallpaper that we removed several months ago. So we've been living in a room with bare walls covered in spackle.




That's Marley, our Boston, taking a nap. Notice we've come as far as getting the walls primed. Shawn plans to paint the ceiling tonight, then it's off to Home Depot for paint colors!

Oh, and in case you were wondering what the outside of our house looks like, here ya go:

Little Kids

My employer is partnered with a health and wellness magnet school. To kick off a healthy school year, we joined the K5-2nd grade students in their health walk at a park. Imagine the challenge these kids provided me as they endured the heat of an August afternoon, some hardly equipped to walk as their parents had sent them in sandals! Oops--must have missed that memo.

I went in to the experience ready to beat the heat and enjoy the “cute little kids” and definitely did. But what berates me is the extent to which times have changed since I was little. I was all about Strawberry Shortcake and water painting. A darling first grade boy talked about snakes being blown up in microwaves, as he saw in Snakes on a Plane. At last year’s walk, the 3rd and 4th grade girls were talking about their weight. I also heard snippets of Chingy’s new “Hey Ba-Bay”song.

Then there was the boy wearing a petrified alligator’s foot around his neck. Once he found out I was “scared of it” and thought it “really gross” he shoved it in my face the remainder of the walk. Now that’s an act I’m ok with. But the other stuff about R-rated films and singing the current rap song bugs me. It makes me wonder to what the children are exposed.

And that’s why I was so glad to spend a little bit of time with them--to hold their sweaty hands and encourage them on the walk. To push them way high on the swings and listen to their stories, while holding my shock, joy, and grief for their little lives, inside.

Confessions of a Blogaholic

I have a confession. And I'm not really sure you'll be able to swallow what I'm about to tell you. Oh, what the heck. Here it is: I just googled "what to put in a blog" and out plopped optional quizzes like "Are you prejudiced?" "What carnival ride are you?" and "Does he only love you for your body?", etc. etc. So it might not surprise you that I ended my search then and there.

Possessing limited experience in blogging and having no particular thing about me that is totally awesome (like lobbying, volunteering, surfing, or posing nude for art classes), I still hope to bring something new to the cyber table. I don't know what it is, but I will figure it out then let you know in an expedient manner.

Furthermore, I ask in advance for your forgiveness as I burglarize your cool blog ideas. Shall I start with "30 things to do before turning 30"?

An Intro

I lost hope that the website created over 4 years ago for our wedding information would ever be revived as a tool to communicate the current happenings in our lives. I have thus resorted to a similar tool, a blogspot-or whatever it is officially, professionally, legitimately-termed.

Whilst I do have the “privilege” of owning accounts at both MySpace and Facebook, I have nonetheless convinced myself that I have time to keep a blog both up-to-date and interesting.

Before I pollute my page with favorite music, books, movies, and pictures of us only when we look fabulous, I’ll first fill you in on where we our in our lives at this very moment.

We celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary on July 19th. We’ve had such a busy summer that we postponed our celebration until September when we’ll stay at Hotel Old Town in Wichita (we won a free evening in a drawing). We purchased our first home, a 1950’s ranch-style, in January, and adopted our first pet, Marley, a Boston Terrier, in March.

Shawn is a Creative at Sullivan, Higdon, & Sink (www.wehatesheep.com), an advertising agency. Westar Energy and Cessna are just two of his clients. I work in Grants Management at the Kansas Health Foundation (www.kansashealth.org), a private, philanthropic organization dedicated to improving the health of all Kansans, but my main drive is for the aging population. I take one class a semester at Wichita State University toward a master’s in Gerontology and anticipate a possible future in advocacy (or some such thing!).

We love our families and would spend every weekend with them if we could. We enjoy sleeping in, going for walks, Pasta-Roni, going to the cinema, hosting dinner dates, weekend trips, Big Brother, concerts, etc..

Guess I can add blogging to the list.