Family Pictures

Here are a few Thanksgiving pictures at my parents' house. We had a really great day. I love this time of year...peppered with days off work and time with family!

Progress!

After a lovely Thanksgiving with family, (thanks, everyone, for a great day!) and a nice day of relaxing, Mike and I are spending the weekend on the floor. We are so ready for this physical reminder that we are making progress. Friday, we spent the day securing the concrete backerboard to the subfloor, today we did a dry lay of the tile, and tomorrow we hope to set the tile in mortar. Here are a few pics of the day's events, including one of me, very happy.

Can sleep through it all....

Did they eat too much at Thanksgiving? Are they trying to block out the noise of a tile saw in the house?

Nope...it is just the life of a dog!

Gratitude

I love Thanksgiving. Not only is the food divine, it is a deliberate time of year to give thanks. What can one say about living in a country where a day of thanks is a national holiday? I thought I would write my list of what I am thankful for this year:
1. My family, Mike's family, and Mike. My friends. The boys. All bring so much joy to me and life would not have the same meaning without even one of them.
2. Mike's good health. I need not say more.
3. A work environment in which I love to wake up and get to everyday. Good colleagues, a beautiful campus, where going to church in the middle of the day isn't strange.
4. Working with my brother. It has given me a chance to get to know him other than a sibling. He is a really good guy.
5. Books and bookclub. Getting together with the girls is something I look forward to every month. We have an amazing synergy as well that makes us want to get together even without a book to discuss.
6. Danskos. For my increasing bunion pain, these shoes are the way to go.
7. A house, regardless of how many projects it generates; I would rather have a home to remodel than no home at all.
8. Netflix
9. Colorado. It is just such a nice state in which to live. But I am also thankful for having options of other nice places to live.
10. Physical abilities: To hike, to run, to walk...to see so I can read and watch movies, an intact mental state so I can enjoy all the above.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Enjoy your day.

Thoughts on the green revolution

Thanks to Al Gore we can all become environmentalists. I have thought about ways I can be greener than before. I do struggle with the "becoming" part when I have to give up daily conveniences. For a while, I was going to take public transportation to work. It would take about 50 minutes each way, but I was willing to do it at a time when Regis covered RTD passes. Then, they discontinued that full benefit and so my interest in public transport died. The thought I would spend 100 minutes a day commuting instead of my 40 minutes a day commuting AND it would have to come out of pocket seemed like an unattractive option. So, I continue to put carbon into the air on a daily basis. I am trying not to consume as much as I did before. Instead of buying new clothes or shoes, I ask "do I really need that?" and end up not clothes shopping. I try to recycle as much as I can, and I feel like I get away with throwing all sorts of things into our purple bin. So I guess that is good. But, since Mike and I have started the kitchen I feel like a real green offender. We have bags of kitchen trash that we take one by one out to the garbage...we wash out paintbrushes and buckets in the sink downstairs, we use plastic cups, plates and forks because we don't have a kitchen sink to do dishes. I like to think that I am at least countering my contribution to the landfill by saving water and not doing dishes....but who am I kidding? I did join a very cool website called GenGreen.org It is a company out of Fort Collins that is trying to connect people with the green revolution. Perhaps this will give me some motivation for finding creative green solutions. I suppose it is all about pushing me out of my comfort zone and looking at things in a different way.

Cool new stuff

My friend Jenn told me about a very cool website called www.pandora.com It is a music website where you type in the name of an artist and it will put together a mix of music by artists of the same genre. It is a great way to have a whole day of streaming music as well as find new music! Best thing...it is free!

Another cool new thing is this polyurethane glaze that Mike bought for the cabinets. It gives the cabinets a lovely sheen and will be great for long term maintence. (Can you tell I have been working on the house all weekend?)

A new old thing...lunch at Stella's Trattoria on 32nd. My friend Tricia and I went there last week and I had a mouth watering veggie sandwich on foccacia...she had this delectable toasted cheese and tomato on thick country bread...on a day off I could imagine this with a glass of crisp white wine.

Another new old thing...Eddie Vedder's version of Hard Sun. I love the vocals and the tune. For some reason it gives me a chill down my spine when I hear it. That is the kind of music I love.

A little bit of estrogen

Mike came back last night. It is so good to have him home. Even after a few days away for a work trip, I miss him. The house is quieter, the bed colder, the dogs more demanding, and my sense of responsibility becomes non-existent. So, it was good to see him walk through the door last night and give him a big hug.

Although, when Mike is gone I get my estrogen kick. I always tend to schedule events with girlfriends during these trips. Sunday I walked with Jen at the park, Monday I went to Meg's, Wednesday I went to dinner with a past co-worker, and last night I went to book club, the queen bee of estrogen. It is great to be able to rekindle that female connection. But it is always great to get Mike home again.

Three's a crowd

So ditch the old cranky guy in the middle, will ya?

It may not look like much, but I tell ya...

...It is a heck of a lot of work. Don't ask us now if it is worth it. Ask us in January. Mike thought prior to starting the project that we would be laying tile about now...it was that kind of optimism that got us into this project in the first place. Two weeks after starting, this is where we are now. Note above I said January...yes, that is when we think this will be done. But all that aside...the cabinets turned out beautiful. The kitchen looks lighter and bigger. These pictures are what will drive us forward, drive us into madness...yes...but also to the end result we hope for.

The importance of good conversation

Wednesday I finished up with a book discussion group here at Regis. We met four times and had an online forum that ran throughout the two months. We discussed the book The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profits by C.K. Prahalad. This was a group comprised of some very cool people. Nancy Fell ran the group. She is a teacher in our MNM program and does a lot of consulting work for businesses and non profits. Other members included Damon McCleese, the ED of a non profit arts organization and a teacher in the MNM program; Beth Parrish, a former marketing exec at Proctor and Gamble as well as a teacher in the UG Business program; Meg Thames, an teacher in the MBA program, among other great people. The focus of our discussion revolved around can business, non profits and government collaborate together in ways to help the poor (or "bottom of the pyramid") create sustainable solutions to bring themselves out of poverty. The book itself gave remarkable examples of how different companies and visionaries changed their business processes to help the "BOP" become more self sufficient. As a group, we came to the consensus that collaboration is key to help the poor create systems in their communities to become self sufficient. We tied in sustainability because as climate changes, the poor will most likely be the most adversely affected. Thus, we concentrated on the notion that collaboration must occur to combat climate change as well as help the BOP market become sustainable. It was a great group and I will miss our meetings for sure.