Pretty Pretty Bang Bang

This weekend Steve and I are tackling our biggest home improvement project ever. We’re tiling the bathroom floor. I should say not only tiling, but ripping up the old subfloor, installing new subfloor, taking off all the old trim (and possibly replacing it), improving the closet space so it has new shelving, and then tiling the floor. What brought this on is a leak last fall that resulted in a soft floor and the crappy linoleum being damaged. Thanks to our almost-former neighbor Paul we have a bathroom just four houses away we can use while ours is torn up. Thanks Paul!

Stay tuned for all the drama. Tonight we’re removing the trim pieces. I’ll have pictures posted later. Anyone know a good marriage mediator? We just might need one on retainer for the next week!

I’m having a very Flashdance kind of day today. I registered for a welding class at OTC which begins in a couple of weeks. I’ve been wanting to learn to weld for a couple of years now and the opportunity arose recently. My friend Sarah is taking it with me.

Now I just have to find some scissors to cut up my sweatshirts…

It’s now the 4th day of January and I’m noticing that many of my neighbors still have their outside Christmas lights up. Ok, so maybe they haven’t had time to take them down over the last holiday weekend, but do they still have to be on? If you haven’t had the chance to take down your lights, do everyone the favor of at least turning them off. Christmas is over.

My mom now has a blog so I thought I’d take this opportunity to welcome her to the Internet. Stop by her place and see what she has to say!

I think most of us tend to reflect on the old year as soon as the new one starts. It’s human nature to want to correct past mistakes even if it means making them again in the process. My biggest mistake of 2006? Letting myself get lax with my eating habits. I fell off the wagon and now comes the painfully slow journey of getting back on. Now, dieting is probably the biggest New Year’s resolution made and broken, but this isn’t really a diet for me. It’s about getting some food structure back into my life and not eating everything that isn’t nailed down. As fate would have it, today I received an email asking me to return to Weight Watchers online with no set-up fee. It was a sign so I took that road. Steve and I are working on an 8 week schedule that will lead up to our anniversary. The plan is to buy new outfits for ourselves (in new sizes) in Kansas City and wear them to our anniversary dinner.

I started my morning with a weigh-in. I’m at my highest in almost three years. Yup, time to face the music before I have to increase my entire wardrobe by a size, or (gasp!) two. Wish me luck!

I hope your New Year’s Eve celebration was fun and memorable. Since Steve had been sick, we hung out at Kevin and Valerie’s house watching movies and eating pizza. Not bad, but not exciting. As we enter 2007, I thought I’d take a moment to look back at the highlights of 2006. Here they are, in no particular order:

• Attended class at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in March. Steve drove me to Gatlinburg, TN, spent the night, drove home and did the same thing a week later to pick me up. Now that’s love, people. My experience at Arrowmont was amazing. I spent a week doing nothing but working with metal all day. It was creative, fun and inspirational. I hope to return again this year for another class.

• I turned 40! Thanks to Steve and my sister, I had a great party with all my friends. Turning 40 was a bit scary (it sounds so old) but I’m over it. Besides, everyone says I look much younger and I feel younger so that’s what really counts.

• I became an aunt again. My sister and her husband create the cutest kids! Lydia is such a sweetheart. She’s really coming into her personality now that she’s almost 1.

• I lost my job. On July 31, I had my last day of employment at AdBuilders. About 6 weeks later, the business closed for good. It was a sad situation, but I needed to get kicked out of there and spend more time creating jewelry. While I hated to see the business fail, I’m really glad I was let go.

• I became a juried member of Best of Missouri Hands. This made me feel like a legitimate artist and introduced me to a whole new group of artists around the state.

• Steve got a new job - hooray! He’d been wanting to leave Nuvox for some time and an opportunity arose at Dazzee, a local Cisco engineering company. He’s now received several certifications in the industry. I guess the best way to sum up his job is that he’s a professional geek!

• I went back to school - again. After leaving AdBuilders, my friend Sarah suggested I take her fall class at MSU. I learned raising and casting. While taking a fall class was stressful during my busy holiday season, I loved every minute of being in the classroom. I’ll be taking another class this spring.

• As the saying goes, “Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.” A “silver” friend of mine turned out to be silver-plate and her true color came through at the beginning of last year. The experience made me appreciate my “gold” friends even more. I also welcomed new friends into my life with Mick, Carrie and Paul.

• We took a trip to Chicago. For the last couple of years we’d been talking to our friends Duane and Prudy about traveling together. In November, we all drove to Chicago to see the King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum. While the exhibit was a bit underwhelming, the trip was a blast. We all got along so well and discovered we’re very compatible travelers. That’s a rarity.

• My business expanded. At the beginning of the year, I was in three galleries. Now, I’m represented by six in three states. I have three here in Springfield, one in Parkville, MO, one in Des Moines, IA and one in Memphis, TN. Woohoo! Looks like I need to hire some studio help.

• Steve and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary. And they said we’d never make it…

Happy New Year everyone. May your 2007 be wonderful.