Bookcases are DONE!

Well everyone, I am happy to report that at long last our lovely bookshelves are finished! Backstory: we bought these bookshelves and our tv stand at an unfinished furniture store last spring, and decided to stain them ourselves. I finished the tv stand right away, after which I realized from experience that it was harder and more time consuming than I imagined, and so the dreaded bookshelves sat... and sat... and sat some more, until finally we got it together and just did it already! Sanding, conditioner, two coats of stain, and two coats of sealant later... finished!

I was so happy with how they turned out, and it is great to be able to look at the three pieces and realize (a) we did that and (b) we saved a lot of money!

Here they are...

Visited Schermerhorn! Also, I can die now.

Tonight Ben and I randomly got an invite to this thing at the Schermerhorn from our friend Carolyn. It was the first ever induction ceremony for a new Nashville institution, the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum. I went for one reason only, which I will tell you about in a minute, but let me just say it was such a great night!

For the purposes of this blog, I did in fact visit the Schermerhorn, which is the new symphony hall here in Nashville. It is a stunningly beautiful building and it was a real treat to actually go inside - up until tonight I only ever drove past the lovely grounds. Here is the inside of the concert hall:

Plus, random fact, a guy from my church and his company did all the wood floors throughout the building. Great job Bill!

So the Schermerhorn was lovely, and I'm checking it off the list! To find out why I can now die a happy woman, visit my other blog at http://amyelizabethjames.blogspot.com.

Works in Progress

Okay, some updates...

French Fries - This is going well, so far I haven't missed them too badly, except the other day when we got Chick-fil-a. I confess I stole one of Ben's fries. Just one!

Bookshelves - We are so close... just one more clear coat to go! I will post some pictures soon.

Salad - I wasn't going to officially start this one, but I might as well because I have been eating a good number of salads recently. I was inspired by trying and LOVING the delicious Quesadilla Explosion salad at Chili's. Just look at it!

It is beautiful and tasty. Anyway, obviously I can't afford to be eating out every day, so I started making my own with lettuce, cheese, a few tortilla chips, and fajita chicken strips. Mmmm!

X-Files - Man I stinkin' love this show! I used to watch it when it was on in the 90s with my dad - he would monitor if he thought a particular episode was too scary. Now I am watching it by Tivo-ing repeats on TNT and Sci-Fi channel. I think I may actually want to invest in getting all the seasons on DVD. Seriously, if Ben can have all 11 seasons of M*A*S*H, I can have 9 seasons of X-Files. Anyway, I think I am getting close to the end of Season 7... I'll keep you posted!

That's all for now!

French Fries!

Oohkay, November is going to be the month without fries! This will accomplish #5 on my Health list. But, I must confess, today I accidentally had about 5 french fries from my Chili's take-out order before I realized what I was doing. I then promptly scooped up all my fries and gave them away to my preggers coworker Shanna. So I figure that good deed makes up for the 5 accidentally-consumed fries.

So once again, starting NOW, November is the month without fries! I gave up fries once before, for Lent, and kept it up for a few months after. It was a good thing, to be sure. Pretty much any time I ate out, it forced me to pick a different, usually more healthy, side dish.

So long, my delicious friends. Who knows when we shall meet again!

About this list...

Okay, fine, I'm a total copycat. A few friends had started these 101 in 1001 lists and I was intrigued, both as a person who loves lists and as a person who has goals.

Thus, I decided to create a list. And it took me months, literally months to do. I tried to keep everything fairly reasonable, because I sometimes have troubles with follow-through when I get too lofty with my goals ("I want to be a size 4 by Christmas!" "I'm going to paint the whole house this weekend!"). While some of the items on this list might seem too simplistic to you, trust me, they will take work on my part to accomplish.

So I present to you, dear reader, my list. My deadline from today is July 20, 2010.

I will try to chart my progress every other week or so... starting right now!

Here are the three items that I accomplished between creating and posting this list... I figure they still count!

We got the Wii! We got the Wii prior to our annual birthday party in August, and it was delightful! The fun never ceases.
Went to Cards game at new stadium! Heather and I went to St. Louis in September and we saw the Cards play - they won the game, woo hoo!
Watched all our wedding videos! Ben and I just chilled one night and watched all the videos, which we hadn't seen in the two-and-a-half years we'd been married!