inside our home... well parts

These are pics we took during the home inspection. They sure do like pineapples!

OUR HOME!!!!

We're so excited. We're so excited. :) We're so scaaaared! No, not scaaaared but antsy. We don't get to move in until September.

On the hunt (for a house) and a cross stitch coach

Tonight, Eric and I drove around looking at neighborhoods. We've been looking like it's our job. Hopefully, we'll be packing and getting out of this shack soon enough. We're meeting with the realtor again on Friday and Saturday.

Well, this blog is boring. Donna at work confirmed it. It's boring. Other people take fun pictures of food and such and post these kind of pics all timely. Well truthfully, that just makes me hungry and my stomach growl so I'm not going to do it here. But anyways, that's off the subject.

I just don't have the bloggin' bug in me lately, but I do have the crafty bug: www.subversivecrossstitch.com. The beginning of last week, nobody at work could teach me how to get started on my very first subversive creation which I gave to Jason and Michelle as a housewarming gift this weekend. It's the "WTF?" pattern (tame enough for my 2-yr-old niece Kyra) which of course, I never thought of photographing once it was done. (sorry no fun photos on this blog; just plain old text)

Never having attempted counted cross stitch before (maybe blindly as a kid), I needed help getting started and called JoAnn Fabrics and Michaels. Did they have anyone to help? Nope, just young folk trying to make a dime, nary a crafty bone exists in those places anymore. Soooo, with the help of Google and after typing in cross stitch Cincinnati, I found two stores: One More Stitch and Wizard Weavers. Which one do you think sounds most logical to call first? Hmmm, well that store just doesn't do counted cross stitch and wouldn't be able to help me. But Wizard Weavers, heck yeah, the lady was so cool on the phone and then, in person. Her name's Rosalia (sp?) and boy, I was timid to show this lady in stuffy Hyde Park my pattern and my Subversive Cross Stitch book. But Friday I headed on over, and the first page she flipped to was Homo Sweet Homo, and I about lost it. She sure did take it well, never flinching and thumbing through it like nothing, dryly quoting the phrases.

"'Rat Bas----,'" Rosalia said slowly and funny as ever. "'Whatever.' That's perfect for my granddaughter--she says that one all the time. 'Life Sucks, Then You Die.' Well, that's the truth," she said.

Rosalia was cracking me up!

After I got the hang of it, we sat and stitched, listening to Chopin. She was working on some dorky needlepoint with Santa and a reindeer and claimed it was for a great-grandmother's grandkid. Rosalia told me she's done one every year for this lady and says they're boring as heck, especially since the lady always likes patterns with animals.

So we started chatting and Rosalia tells me she's from Jersey. (explains the accent and the unflinching attitude) Then, some old ladies came through the door, so I casually flipped over my pattern to the blank side--only on the T and the F with my stitching, they'd have no idea what was about to come. While they were oohing and aahing over baby shoe patterns and knitted doll dresses, one of them approached me.

"What are you working on?" she asked, emphasizing "you" as if I was a professional stitching up something fah-bu-lousssssss.

"Oh nothing, it's just an inside joke," I said, showing her the pattern.

"What does that mean?" she asked with a polite, innocent schoolgirl giggle.

"Oh, you don't wanna know. It's just silly." I smiled and giggled too. (hehe hoohoo) She smiled again and then walked off. Shwoo. The coast was clear.

I'm sleepier now and ready for bed. WTF?

Bachelorette party debauchery

Soooo, there's no pics from Eric's Expo yet because I'm not a self-professed picture taker. His mom did just fine with that! Now I need to bum some pics off of her, if she'll be so kind....hehe. Thanks for taking all those pics for us mom! :)

In the meantime, here are some bachelorette party pics from Christine's cam--I still haven't gotten my Amish camera pics developed, but I think Christine did a fine job. Besides hitting the town for the night, Jules' surprise weekend at O.U. consisted of a scavenger hunt, which although my team didn't win (Becky, Christine, Lyndsey, me), I'd have to say we had more excitement. We came in contact with a very drunk soul in the middle of our sunny afternoon hunt--no, drunks weren't on our list to find. Anyways, we found him curled up on a brick paved walkway in the middle of campus. After some nudging and talking to, he was able to get back on his feet again, and we pray he made it home safely.
Lyndsey asked him, "Where were you? B-dubs?" (he had B-dubs matches next to his hand which also barely held crumpled up bills and his cell phone) His answer? "I'm getting my masters." Wow. That was the running joke of the night at the bars. Let's go to B-dubs and get our masters!
Highlights of the weekend: blue sky, nice cabin in the woods, Christine's cooking (unbeatable chicken salad-her own recipe), watching Julie open presents, bar-hopping--finally finding one that would accomodate Natalie (she forgot her id; we all felt so young again!), watching the college kids party it up, meeting Julie's friends, Natalie and Lyndsey; sis-in-law to be Melissa and sis-in-law Cindy; and catching up with Christine and Becky!!

Tech Expo 2006

The Tech Expo's coming fast. The pressure's on since Eric's winning poster design was found out at work. Now the higher ups have knowledge of when and where and that Eric's involved. A little over one more week left, and the fam's coming to view his 10 by 10 ft massive undertaking. (the size of his space to show off his building design) Is that an exaggeration? Eric does tend to super size things in his mind. Sounds cool though doesn't it? For more on the Expo click here: http://www.uc.edu/cas/expo/

Chloe's slow death, by french fries.

For a brief period of time Chloe lived with Eric and Brett; Eric had graciously taken her in since my dad's allergies got the best of him. Going through Eric's old pictures I came across these. Now I was guilty of giving Chloe people food from time to time, but whole french fries? She was also tormented with cheese stuck to the fridge at dangerous heights for an aging cat. And what would she do? Jump til she grabbed that cheese.

Don't be throwin' bills at me!

I (Jill) was in this pictured traffic, 30 mins. late to work this morning. I didn't actually make the pic since I can't find my big red Lumina, but I did get to see the crime scene which included a van with a bullet hole in the driver's side window. Rapper T.I. performed at Bogart's in Cincy last night and made some homies really mad. It's not too hard to make homies mad. Just throw some dolla' bills into a packed sea of homies and expect to get shot on a major highway, no less. One guy in T.I.'s posse didn't make it, maybe he was the bill throwin' fool. I pity the fool. Check out www.Cincinnati.com for the rest.

Easter with the fam' up north.

Dana with her loot from us- some clothes, one of which was too big. Shucks!
Dad, Dave and Dana opening their b-day presents. All three were born in April, a happening month.
We gave Dad goodies for his new bike, a light and mirror.
Sweet!
Dave poses with his ladies man shirt-the other shirt was too small. Double shucks!
Easter fixings.
Up north, we hunt for Easter rocks in the yard.
Dana was the lucky winner, discovering this biggie in the front yard. We were playing catch when she came upon the top of the rock. The boys dug it up much to the dismay of Dad, who luckily hardly ever gets mad. All I did was pose. Brian actually tried to use the tool I'm holding, which didn't help much.
Penny looking like a bad dog.
Pop with the b-day cake. It matched his shirt nicely.
Nan and me being cozy.
Great action shot.

Happy Dana.
Gram and me.
Penny looking for shadows.
Dad took a pic of his feet.
Dad and Mom took a cute shot of themselves.
Eric guzzling relish.

Easter baskets!

Mmmm, Easter consisted of good home cookin': quiche, ham, twice baked tatos, all kinds of goodness. On Friday, we shot some hoops in the driveway and played knockout--loooove that game, even if Dave uses his height to an unfair advantage. Ahem, shooting over people's heads before it's his turn to shoot. :) The Phelan men worked wonders on my car-the air now blows cold- ahhhh! (actually, Pepboys took care of that, but they did fix my tire rod, if I remember that car part correctly-is that what that was? Eric just informed me that the correct term is tie rod ends.) Saturday was b-day time, and on Sunday, church was packed. We were asked to bring down the offertory (bread and wine) since we were standing in back. Luckily it went better than the last time the Dapores were asked to bring the offertory to the altar on Easter. Many years ago on that day, we had accidentally started walking down a bit early, and the priest made it quite apparent, waving his hands furiously and mouthing "Noooooooo." What a nice priest he was. Anyways, on Sunday Dana and I hunted for eggs in the house. She beat me since she knows all the secret hiding spots. :)