Happy 100th Birthday, Pitt News

The last weekend in October was Pitt's Annual Homecoming celebration.  DH and I are both proud Pitt alums but as I think is probably the case at any incredibly large university, it's harder to get excited about a big, general event because so much of the collegiate experience for students at large universities are the little sub-groups that students create for themselves.  At smaller schools you can go to a homecoming event and feel relatively confident that you'll see at least a few people that you know.  But at Pitt events, it's extremely likely that you'll show up and not see one single face that you recognize unless you planned to meet up with people.

For us, our biggest subgroup was being part of The Pitt News, the university's student newspaper.  This year marked the 100th anniversary of the Pitt News being in print, and so Pitt's Homecoming theme was loosely centered around the student newspaper.

The Cathedral was all lit up and the pumpkins spelled "Homecoming"

 

We had never attended a Homecoming event before, but we decided that this was going to be the year if we were going to go.  Besides, it was free so we figured that we had nothing to lose than a little time.  We had low expectations so maybe that's why I so impressed.

View from the second floor

First of all, the Commons room was all lit up and decorated for fall.  Right at the entrance there was a Pitt News table and we immediately saw people that we knew.  It took us almost half an hour to meander our way to the back of the room where the free drinks were!  That's right, free drinks and free food.  It may sound childish, but drinking an adult beverage in the Cathedral felt downright scandalous, and I loved it.

I ran into people that I haven't seen in ages, including the person who hired me for a job at the Pitt News on the spot when I went for my interview simply because he liked me.  I often think about the "ifs" in life - if I hadn't gotten that job that day and instead was employed somewhere else on campus, I would most likely never have met my now husband. 

Did I mention how much I loved free drinks in the Cathedral?

Wearing my Pitt gold glow necklace - DH refused to wear his blue one

Some of the nationality rooms had blown up images of some of the front pages from the last 100 years of newspapers.  The quality of the reproductions was horrendous and for the most part all of the images just looked like big black blobs, but the idea was nice, and we spent some time walking through some of the rooms, particularly the room that held the papers from the years that we worked there.

Here's what we didn't know - free drinks usually mean limited drinks, and when I excitedly acquired two more drink tickets (each person was given two at the door) I was disappointed to learn that there was only red wine left.  I pretty much HATE red wine.  But it was free, so I took two and went back to share with others. 

After the festivities in the Cathedral ended, we decided to go to our favorite bar/restaurant in Oakland, where we met up with a few of the current Pitt News staffers.  DH asked the question that he had been dying to ask:  "Do we seem as old as older Pitt Newers seems to us?"  Basically, "Are we as weird and boring and lame as those other people?" (They knew who we were talking about.)

They were kind enough to say no, but there's nothing like a Homecoming event full of 18 to 22 year-olds to make two almost-30-somethings like us feel our age.

We Ran The Lights! Well... sort of

On Wednesday morning I remembered that the Run The Lights event at Hartwood Acres was tonight.  Hmmm... what's a girl to do?  Wednesday morning was something of a hurricane, with crazy wind and tree branches everywhere.  Would I really want to run in that?

I e-mailed my sister that afternoon to see if she was still interested in going.  Turns out she was not.  Shoot.  So now I either need to make the decision not to go or try to convince my husband to go with me.

Thankfully he made that decision for me.  He agreed to go with me as long as I was with walking instead of running.  I was ok with that.

So we headed out shortly before 7 p.m. and arrived around 7:20 or so.  It was then that we both realized that this is event is waaaaaaay bigger than we had ever imagined.  We had to wait in line just to pull into the parking lot.  Then we had to be directed by at least a half dozen police officers who were directing traffic until we were finally pointed to a parking space.  Phew.  I'm happy to report that that was the worst part of the evening.  I was majorly regretted my decision to do this when we were sitting in traffic for 15 minutes prior.

So we loaded a school bus and headed to Hartwood.  Once off the bus we gave a monetary donation, got some jingle bells, and utilized a really nasty port-a-potty that was so dark it was only usable thanks to the flashlight app on the Droid.

And then we were off.

First, I will say this - after walking through the lights at Hartwood Acres, I can't understand why anyone in their right mind would want to drive through them instead.  Walking through them is such a better experience.  You can see everything without having to crane your neck to look at your window.  You can hear the music.  It's a more all-encompassing experience and I highly recommend.

That said, Hartwood needs to extend this event to two nights instead of just one.  There were SO. MANY. PEOPLE. there.  It was ridiculous.  Some people were trying to run (it's called "Run the Lights" after all) but the majority of people were just walking.  And by "walking" I really mean taking a super leisurely stroll.  The path is really just a one lane road, so a family of 5 walking side by side can easily fill the entire path.  On top of that, many sections of the course were two-way traffic meaning that usually meant that only 3 or so people wide in either direction was appropriate unless you wanted to run into someone.

Whenever there was a clearing in the opposing traffic DH and I would jog around the clusters of slow walkers, then go back to walking until we caught up with the next cluster of slow people.  It was sometimes annoying, but we actually got a better workout since we don't usually incorporate short jogs in our normal walks together. 

We decided to skip the free cookies, hot chocolate, and coffee that was offered just after the Hartwood mansion.  After all, I skipped my CCAC exercise class to do this, so there was no way that I was going to negate my workout by eating more calories!

We finished in what felt like record time.  My general thoughts on this experience are as follows:
1. Do this at least once in your life - it's worth it
2. Go early or go late - do not go right after dinner

And, well, that's pretty much it!  It's so much cooler to walk through them than to drive, your donations go to charity so you can feel good about yourself, and you get a workout. Of course, it's not happening again until next year, but mark your calendars now!

(Or don't... since the date for next year hasn't actually been determined yet.  I've failed.)

Happy Turkey Day

I hope that everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving.  We went to my hometown for the first time in a long time, and it was nice to not be the one cooking the turkey. 

Instead, we were in charge of mashed potatoes (which we almost failed epically at - seriously, how do you fail at mashed potatoes?) and rolls, which were amazing, and looked like this.

Then I was the proud winner of this turkey mask.

But when it came to a vote as to who was a better turkey, my sister won.

Oh well, I can't win them all. 

We had a good time, spent with family and food and drinks. Probably a few too many drinks given the state of my head on the drive home the next day.  So needless to say, by the end of the evening I felt like this.

But it was all worth it.

The four day weekend was much needed and definitely enjoyed.  I can't wait until the longer Christmas break in just a few weeks!

The Big 3-0

It's no secret that our thirtieth birthday is just around the corner.  Considering that our birthdays are only two weeks apart, there's no real sense in trying to "surprise" each other or have a separate celebration for this one - too much strain on the friends and family.

So, now the questions is: "What should we do for our 30th birthday!?!??!"

For months and months (maybe even a full year) when people ask what we're planning for our 30th (because apparently we MUST be planning something!), DH would jokingly say: "Bon Jovi and Smash Mouth."


We hear we might actually have a chance at getting Smash Mouth to play at our party.


If we wanted them to.

Which we don't. 


But ever since Bon Jovi announced that he'd rather play at the Consol on February 11th instead of our birthday party in late January, we've had to figure out a plan B.

Because Smash Mouth is NOT our plan B.


So I need some feedback - what should we do?  Here are the current ideas that we're throwing around.


Option 1: Small gathering at our house.  We can park about 12 cars in our driveway, as long as no one needs to leave.  As long as people carpooled, we could probably get at least 30 people here, if not more.

Option 2: Big gathering at our house.  We'd had to work out the logistics of where people would park and how they would get to the house, but we have a lot of space in our house and so the idea of throwing a big party at our place isn't totally out of the ballpark.  On the flipside though, do I really want to plan a big party at our house?  Planning, set up, clean up... ugh.  Could be a pain. 

Option 3: Rent a cheap venue and throw a big bash. Some place with plenty of parking. Invite as many people as we want. We'd provide some adult beverages and perhaps get some appetizers but nothing overly fancy.

Option 4: Reserve a room at a restaurant or bar, invite anyone who wants to come and do a "pay your own way" sort of deal, for food, drink, etc.

Thoughts?? Other ideas??? Please vote for your favorite option in the comments section below - this is only two months away so we need to start planning!

Two Rooms in Two Weeks

This past weekend we completed the second room in our home renovations project.

And we are definitely ready for a break after this one.  My feelings about completing two rooms in two weeks can be summed up with two words - too much.

Here is the spare bedroom "before:"

Notice the total lack of overhead lights? Well, actually, you can't notice them in this picture, since the ceiling isn't in the shot.  But trust me - there are no overhead lights.  Most of our rooms in this house don't have overhead lights, and that was one of the major reasons we wanted to do these renovations so bad.

So DH drilled holes in the ceiling, which not only created massive amounts of dust in the bedroom...

...but it created dust throughout the entire house.

See the white specks in the air? 

But then there was light!

And so we started to paint.

And we painted some more.  No need to go into a ton of detail about this - if you've ever painted, you know how that goes.  But I can tell you that the color is called Gobi Desert, and that we decided to go with more neutral tones (compared to the bold color we used in our dining room) because we figure that the bedrooms may change in their purposes and what they contain, whereas we're pretty sure the dining room will always be the dining room and will always just have dining room furniture.  We didn't want to commit to a life of having to deal with a certain dramatic color scheme if we wanted to do something as simple as buying a new comforter. 

One of the interesting things that you might not know about Hartman's is that the Hartman way of painting includes no blue painting tape. At all.  You simply buy an expensive edger brush, lie on the floor with your head mere inches away from the baseboard, and you create a perfectly straight line using only that big, bulky brush.  Oh, and curse softly under your breath when you make a mistake but quickly fix said mistake with a damp tissue and a fingernail.  I now have a new skill that I can add to my resume - Master Edger.

By 10 p.m. on Sunday night, we were finally done.

This is the rug that we had in the dining room short term

I absolutely hated that rug when it was in the dining room.  In fact, I had major regrets about it's purchase at all (we had a $200 store credit that we needed to use by a certain date, and so we purchased this rug for $250 and then stored it for over a year.)   But in this room I actually like it, and it looks great with the bedspread that you can see in the first picture (although the bed won't in this room once we're done.)

We finally have overhead lights.  I was initially skeptical about putting recessed lights in these rooms.  For some reason recessed lights seems really tacky to me.  I also wasn't convinced that these lights were worth all of the work that DH was putting into them.  But we bought really nice, really expensive light covers that softened the harshness that I associate with recessed lighting, and DH is the one who did most of the work anyway, so I think I'm sold.  I wish there were other lighting options for us - namely, ceiling fan lights - but unfortunately our ceilings are way too low for anything like that.

The hard work for this room is mostly done, but we still need to sand and pain the closet doors (short-term project) as well as refinish the floor and paint the trim (long-term project.)  Additionally, we need to think carefully about how we put the furniture back in this room because we want to set this up to function as both our office and our spare bedroom for the short-term so that we don't feel obligated to finish the next room in such a short amount of time.  I think we were pretty much ready to bite each others heads off by the end of this project because we felt so rushed and so on edge about the whole thing. 

I definitely want to continue this renovation project, but we need to start taking the tortoise approach, instead of sprinting through like the hare. And, I have a book that I'm only half way through that I started six weeks ago.  I need some "me" time.  I'm so glad the holidays are just around the corner!

The Way We Roll

We're well into phase 2 of the house renovation project - converting the current spare bedroom into the new office and giving it a facelift in the process.

Its Saturday night, and we left a Thanksgiving themed party at 10:30 so that we could come home and put a second coat of paint on the ceiling.  Some people might call us lame, or perhaps dedicated, or maybe even crazy.  And I'd probably have to agree with all three of those descriptions.  But that's ok, that's just how we roll. Literally and figuratively.

Ha ha!

Wow. Yeah, I'm definitly lame.

How in the world, Part 3 - The Garage

Picking up where I left off oooohhhh so long ago...

(Need a refresher? See Part 1 and Part 2)

While I was slaving away in the dining room pulling up staples and tack strips, my husband decided that exact moment was the perfect moment to reorganize our garage.

The back of the garage cleared out and ready for new organizational methods

Don't get me wrong, our garage needed some major reorganization, and I absolutely do see the value of having a thoughtful arranged garage (especially since we don't have an attic and our garage is our only storage.)  But I did not agree that the garage need to be organized on this particular night, at this particular moment.

Which is why I have no "before" pictures of the garage.

Also, dogs are great for many reasons and for many things, but dogs are not particularly helpful when you're in a small, cluttered space where you're trying to move things around.  But we're working with storage, right?  So we decided to "store" the dog temporarily while we moved some things around.

Have I mentioned that we have the most tolerant dog in the world?

I'm not really sure what all went into this project (remember? I'm still upstairs in the dining room...) but I do know that it involved building new shelves, moving storage totes to the new shelves, organizing our smaller shelves into categories such as "car care," "electrical," or "gardening," and then filling in the gaps with our heavy machinery and large number of full five-gallon gas cans.  (I have never felt more country bumpkin than I do right now after writing that last sentence.... lordy....)

Yeah, those cans are all full

And then it looked like this. 

Can you tell that I wasn't particularly excited about this project?  I can't think of anything exciting to write about it, other than I love that my duck road sign made it into two of the four pictures in this post.  It was a gift from a past boyfriend and even my now-husband admitted that it was too cool to get rid of.  We just pretend that I always had it...

I admit that the garage does look a whole lot better and I'm glad that my husband is happy.  I just wish we could have done this project together on any other night of the year other than the night that we had just torn up our dining room carpet and I was freaking out about exposed nails in the floor.

Oh well.  Live always has a way of working itself out....