wil and kris (and gracie and ava)

…of baseball on the tv and me fending for myself.

no it’s not that bad, as i am happy to just relax. today was an interesting morning. i was *almost* a fully legal starbucks employee today…had the apron, wore the dress code, served the pastries…just no paycheck. (i got $7 in tips though!)

wil’s store agreed to have a booth at a “fall fitness festival” for a grand opening of a nearby ladies fitness center. (bizarrely enough, the fitness center looked like it has been there for a decade or so, so i’m not sure if they revamped or got a new name or something?) i helped him and our friend/his coworker laura man the booth from 8-1…serving free stuff: brewed coffee, pastries, hot chocolate, and bananas. i really hardly did anything, except act like a barista and pretend like i knew what was going on…but unfortunately for the fitness center, there were hardly any people at the fair, so the morning consisted of most of the people from the different promo booths walking around visiting the other booths to all get free stuff from one another. (i don’t know how well it was promoted, and it was in a parking lot behind a movie theatre, where the fitness center is, so not great for drive by traffic).

not to be negative though- it was a nice morning. we’ve made the fantastic transition to cool fall weather, so it was perfectly crisp out, where the warmth of the sun made you feel toasty and cool at the same time. so great. laura’s husband came by halfway through and sat with us, which was nice because the four of us like to hang out outside of sbux whenever we can. we were entertained by a singer songwriter who performed next to our booth, and then watched ever so often when they did aerobics/weight class demonstrations out in the middle of the fair with the hip hop blaring and the lady giving instructions on how to do squats over the loudspeakers. also, one of the vendors was a ‘booth free’ business…a lady that just walked from booth to booth with her ADORABLE great dane (that was a perfectly behaved, off leash, so mellow, therapy dog) with brochures for her doggy day care/grooming/boarding place. i kept visiting “gilda” (who was wearing a full size tshirt) a few times, and watched her from afar. around lunch time, the man making some amazing pulled pork hooked us up for half price sandwiches. yum. and the most exciting part was that i won a free 90 minute massage in the raffle…so stoked for this because massages are one of those luxury things in life that are so awesome, but something i would never spend the money on. and 90 min! woot!

i played my role well, and convinced everyone there i knew what i was doing…i helped wil and laura take everything down when it ended and headed home (wil had to go straight to work to then work at the store for another 7 hours, yucky for him)…i can’t imagine for him but i was pretty tired when i got home…no sleeping in on a saturday morning, talking to lots of people and relaxing in the fall weather for a few  hours all combined to make me a very mellow sleepy girl when i got home. so i have zoned out on the couch while wil watches the red sox attempt to come back and win another game in the series to not get knocked out.

i don’t know what it is, but i have become obsessed with midcentury furniture.

maybe i’ve been watching too much mad men, but all the sudden, i cannot get enough of that retro, danish, streamlined, warm wood, 40’s-50’s-60’s finds…

wil and i have decided to cut back our spending (we hardly spend any as it is) just to be more frugal and try and be smart with what we do pay, but i still am sifting through craigslist to see what i can find. i was too late on some amazing two tier side tables to refinish for only 20 bucks a few weeks back, and i was only a few hours late today on this really cool desk for 50 bucks. (i hate calling on craigslist things, but i probably could have had this if i had called, instead of emailed, since i emailed about an hour after the listing went up and got no response, but found out it was sold when i called about an hour ago)

i really feel like i don’t want to buy new cheap things anymore, but instead find some awesome cheap old things to revive or refinish (if necessary) to have in our home.

it really didn’t help that this last week, i was in atlanta with my boss to go to the design center and a huge antiques market. this market, is two ginormous warehouses full of vendors that come from all over to sell antiques. we wake up at 5:45 (4:45 nashville time), and walk around while most of the booths aren’t even there yet or are just setting up…if we go any later, all the good things are gone! but for alcott, we are looking for entirely the opposite of my taste for my own home. french and italian pieces from europe from the 1800’s…interesting chests, gilt mirrors, sconces and lighting from ancient churches and homes, etc. we have vendors we frequent, a handful with thick french accents as they tell you what little village they got that particular piece from.

anyways, every 4 or 5 booths though, something catches my eye, and it seemed like this month, there was an abundance of great mid century finds. one booth had an amazing pair of chairs with curved wood arms and a rusty tweed fabric. oh so great…in alcott’s terms, they were a good price…for me not so much. but i saw so many side tables, chests, nightstands that were within reach (like a pair of nightstands for 200 bucks!). i wished my strongest of wishes i either had the money or had a place for them.

seeing these midcentury things, only makes the desire stronger…and unfortunately, i have a few blogs that i have come across that i frequent… this one being my favorite. she makes me wish i lived in an older bigger city, because every few posts or so, she has a picture of something amazing that she found on craigslist for a great deal. our nashville one just doesn’t have much of a variety on cool vintage things…and if so, they are snatched up before i can get to them like the last few things.

*sigh*

i just told wil a few minutes ago… “i’m bored”…not very often do i get tired of the ordinary routine, or run of out things to do, but today is one of those times. while wil watches football, i’ve just been sitting around kind of trying to keep myself occupied. i’m currently in the internet phase that once i check my email, facebook, flickr and the blogs i frequent (that sounds like a lot, but i can sift through them in a snap!), i am done and have no desire to really float from site to site, so i didn’t want to just waste away the afternoon on the computer.
but wil directed me up to the office and told me to write a blog entry.

so here i am. and while sitting here drumming up thoughts, i realized today was a dog day. every once in a while, not by any planning, we’ll have a day that seems to give a lot of attention to the girls. today started with an accidental late wake up, so we missed church (and deciding to go to the 6 o clock service) and lazily got ready. we’ve been having an unseasonably warm october, and today was really pretty to say the least. we had to go to wil’s store for him to do a quick deposit thingy, so the girls got to come with us.

they had their fair share of strangers wave to them as we idled at stoplights, and they watched the happenings of the starbucks/kroger parking lot from the car while we sipped coffee and i ate some oatmeal in the back section of wil’s store (ooo! secretive!)…sidenote: the oatmeal, btw, is really yummy for all your starbucks customers…since the dog park is down the street from wil’s store, we told them we’d go there for a social run around.

as nice as the weather was, there weren’t too many people there, and the dogs weren’t too active. we haven’t been to the dog park in quite some time (definitely not as convenient as the franklin one we could walk to), and it was slightly disappointing that we caught it at an off time. the girls still had fun, and it’s interesting to see their age really affect their activity level…within 25 minutes or so, ava was already laying down in the grass next to us.

eager to get back to his football, wil decided to take all his girls home, so we loaded back into the car once again and made the drive. a quick stop through the walgreens drive thru was great for gracie and ava though, since they got treats from the nice lady behind the glass.

they were exhausted once we got home…even though they didn’t run around at the park all that long, they are just as silly in the car (ava bites the wind), so i think the excitement of the car ride and errands pooped them out. trying to find something to do, i decided to make some dog biscuits. it seemed easy enough to have all of those kind of ingredients on hand…some flour, oats, beef broth and bacon proved to achieve a biscuity kind of thing in a little dog boney shape, so we’ll see what the girls think when they cool down (i’m hoping they like them…these dogs usually eat anything, but ava all the sudden got bored with her food).

hopefully they’ll just sleep the rest of the afternoon…ava is currently spread eagle on the futon…not very ladylike. but right before i came upstairs, they did want to say hello to the internet world:

we need something non controversial on this blog again. not that politics are bad in any way, but something that requires less thinking, i say.

actually, we are excited to host the presidential debate on tuesday (we as in nashville, not we as in me and wil…’welcome to dinner mr. obama and mr. mccain! we apologize for our crazy horse-dogs…’). it’s actually at wil’s old school, and it’s kind of neat that of three debates and the whole country, one is here in our neck of the woods, in the building across from wil’s old dorm.

they’ve had the event center fenced off for a few weeks for preparation, and last night while buying some snacks at the ghetto gas station across the street, we saw the center lit up like day time with huge banners and pristine planters. kind of crazy.

i haven’t decided if i want to try and be out and downtown just to be part of all of the excitement (even though i know you probably won’t be able to get even within blocks of the whole campus), or just stay at home and actually watch the debate in my pj’s…our friend mike says he just ‘wants to be in the vicinity of history being made’ (coming from a history major, mind you).

we’ll see…but that actually was not what i intended to write at all when i sat down here at the computer…my mind hasn’t been able to stay on course very well recently. wil is sitting down stairs just coming home from work, so i’ll make it short so i can say hellow and hang with him, but i just wanted to say how happy i am it is fall…the leaves are starting to change, the nights and mornings are cool with perfect afternoon temps, and the mums are gracing everyone’s doorsteps (including ours, yay!). i hope to get some pretty pumpkins again and maybe grab my teeny box of october decorations out of the attic to disperse throughout the house. yipee for fall!

and i also am excited for a new haircut…i keep going shorter and shorter the last few times i get it cut, and this is by far the shortest. it’s been chopped off the back and it’s really refreshing. why are new haircuts such a big deal on affecting your outlook on life? everything just seems to be happier with new bangs swept across your face? that is…assuming you like how the cut came out…

wil got his hair cut in the last week or so too…but his never seem to be a drastic change. : )

mom and dad are gone, after a great visit…and i didn’t take a single picture…the camera never even came out of the bag (i don’t know, i just haven’t been very photographically inspired the last couple weeks…), but i slightly remember mom taking maybe one picture at a festival, so hopefully there is a slice of proof of their existence out here.

wow, that was the biggest run-on sentence if i’ve ever seen one before. it made very little sense- sorry.

well, the visit was really nice; a balance of some fun things here and there with friends, and bumming around the house, with dad helping wil with a project or two and mom cleaning way too much. oh and the boys got a couple rounds of golf in also. it was fantastic having them here, i was really missing family prior to their arrival, and knowing that i’m flying back for a quick weekend in october, made saying goodbye not too difficult this time.

love you mom and dad.

p.s. yes, we ended up getting gas btw…it’s slowly trying to return to normal and has gotten a bit less crazy around the gas stations.

this might be one of the most unique things i’ve ever experienced…. no where in nashville can we get gas.

right after hurricane ike our gas prices immediately jumped up a dollar overnight, but for reasons beyond my knowledge, pumps are closed up and empty all over town. i’ve seen images of a big tanker on the river with “gas delivery to nashville” on the news, and ever so often, a gas station that is lucky enough to get a truck of gas has hour long lines blocking the roads in every direction of people trying to fill up. i have no idea when stations will get gas again…

it’s very odd to wonder if we’ll have enough gas to go to work in the next few days…

***as of about 20 minutes ago…

the parents as here, the parents are here!

(imagine me saying this while running around a gas station with a phone book in hand)