Miscellany Monday

This past weekend was a blast.  Besides going to shoot hoops at Rupp (which again, I promise will be its own post with lots of pictures once hubs sends the photos to me), we ate like fools.  Friday we went to Pazzos. I tried their Garden of Eatin' veggie pizza, and it was delicious. It may be my new favorite pizza there. 

Saturday morning I volunteered with the Habitat For Humanity ambassadors to do paint bulking.  In what I think is ingenious, Habitat is now taking paint donations of latex-based paints.  They are able to re-mix these paints and sell them. Plus, they are selling the old cans for scrap metal.  Overall, you don't have to go through the hassle of disposing of your paint and Habitat makes money--a win/win for all. 

Once the paint is donated, Habitat sorts the paint by color family.  We decided to bulk the earth tones, so we began opening those cans of paint.  Interestingly, paint can go bad--really bad.  Old paint can begin to go putrid and smell disgusting.  I'm talking I-choked-on-the-smell-and-almost-vomited-right-then-and-there disgusting.  I don't think I have ever smelt anything worse. 

Here's a glimpse into just a portion of the bad paint we found.  Clearly, bad paint can't be used, so we have to dispose of that paint and try to salvage the cans for scrap metal.  

 

Once paint passed the smell test, we had to mix it up because it had been sitting for a while. We used power drills to agitate the paint.  I am telling myself that the lighting is bad because hopefully I'm not really that red and my hair doesn't really look like that.

Joe and Kevin pouring the paints over the shifting screens and into the drum.

Once the paint was ready, it was poured into a large drum with 4 paddles that stir all the paints together.  

Toa cleaning out the empty cans.

The empty containers are then filled with sawdust and scraped by hand to remove all the liquid paint. The cans were then crushed so they are ready to be sold for scrap metals.

Once the paint was done mixing, we got to name our color.  We decided on "Awesome Oatmeal" because, well, it's awesome. We made 45 gallons of Awesome Oatmeal, which is now on the shelves at the Habitat Restore. 

On a completely separate note, Cam's mom flew in town for the weekend so on Saturday night we went to Jonathan's for Cam's birthday dinner.  Okay folks, this meal was one of the best meals I've ever had. I've even been to Jonathan's before, but his current menu is my absolute favorite. If you go, definitely get the fried cheese grits with banana pepper sauce. Delicious. Every person loved their entree and were practically licking the plates clean.  For dessert, we got the caramel pound cake and bourbon ball cake. Both were amazing. Top it off with Cakebread wine--best meal of my life.  

Thus, if you have something to celebrate or are just willing to fork over money for good food, definitely go.

Tomorrow I'll do an update on the house--yes, it is still on the market. Hope ya'll had a good weekend!

Happy Birthday to Me :)

As an extra special birthday present, I get to go back to school today.  It is actually bittersweet as it's my last ever "first day of school."  Being there until 8 pm tonight isn't so wonderful though...

Once I get home, I plan on celebrating with Gigi's cupcakes and a glass of wine, snuggling up with hubby, and watching the snow fall as Auburn whoops up on the ducks (let's go SEC!).  Boring I know, but we went out for drinks with our friends this weekend, so spending a night in is the perfect way to relax.

 I'll take the whole tray, please!

Happy Monday and happy birthday to me :)

Weekend Recap and Happy Birthday Mom!

I clearly win the award of most awesome weekend. I spent the entire weekend (and day today) writing my seminar paper (a requirement to graduate). 38 pages later, my first draft is done. Be jealous, I know.  

I took a quick break yesterday to have lunch and go shopping with my mom on her birthday.  She's such a great woman--I have been so blessed to have her as my mother. 


We went to church and Saul Good's for lunch.  We then made our bi-annual trip to the Talbot's Outlet.  If you are in Lexington and haven't been, you are missing out because they have fabulous prices for work-style clothes. 

Hope you all had a more interesting weekend than mine! Don't forget, the CSN giveaway ends in two days if you haven't already entered.

Brand New Baby Boy Cuteness

The post every one loves: the baby pictures. 

Yesterday was a double birth day--not only was our nephew Noah born--but my cousin, Shannon, gave birth two weeks early to her baby boy, Parker. 

Double the fun on the same day :) 

Now for your viewing pleasure, tons of brand new baby boy cuteness: 

 

Our nephew, Noah

Our other nephew, Brady, meeting his cousin, Noah

My cousin's baby, Parker

Close up of Parker

Happy Birth Day Noah!

Image is a print I found on Etsy a while ago and saved and now can't remember the seller. If you know whose it is, please let me know so I can credit them...

 

Our newest nephew are here--with ten fingers, ten toes, and in good health. Welcome to the world Noah William! Cam's sister, Amy, and her husband, Bryan, will be such wonderful new parents. We are so thrilled for them and can't wait to meet little Noah! 

Birthday Weekend and Girl's Get Together

Sorry for the double update, but it all is clearly too much for one posting. Apologies in advance.

C and pup both had birthdays the weekend. C turned halfway to old (or 25 in layman's terms) and pup is now 3.

My favorites playing dead in bed on their birthday.

His dad and stepmom, who live in TN, came in town to celebrate (likely just to celebrate C's birthday, but we won't tell pup that). C and I cleaned around the house before they came, including the dirtiest part of the house: our bengal cat. She literally often refuses to clean herself, and honestly would smell awful if she didn't get regular baths. I laugh that C, the biggest clean freak of a husband I could think of, would own the filthiest cat. Luckily, she likes water so it's not a big ordeal.

On Friday night, we cooked at the house. Everything turned out well--except of course what I made. Who knew that mashed potatoes take over an hour to heat up in the oven if they were in the fridge beforehand? Clearly not me because I served freezing cold mashed potatoes. But, lesson learned. Oh well. Everything else was really good.

Saturday morning I went to a great get together with the girls at Buddy's. It was great to see and catch up with the girls I already knew and fabulous to meet so many sweet ladies. We will all have get together again some time soon! After our meeting, I met up with C and his family at Drake's to eat lunch and catch the second half of a certain game that shall not be mentioned. At least Kansas lost as well, right?

After lunch, C's brother, who works in advertising for Rupp, took us to the holy grail of college basketball itself for a behind-the-scenes tour. As you are probably aware, C and I met at UK and bleed blue, so this was super neat to see all the different parts of arena without having 24,000 other crazy fans around.

Shot of Rupp as the floor was being laid and C and I on the floor.

C, doing the John Wall while "dunking" on the UK goals before they were put back onto the floor.

C in the doorway of the locker room. The giant wall-sized blood bag is my favorite advertisement in Rupp.

That night eight of us went to Euro Wine and Tapas Bar in Nicholasville for dinner. C has been talking about trying to for a month now so I figured his birthday was the perfect time.

I initially made reservations on Friday night without a problem,but then remembered that no one else could eat meat since its Lent and we are Catholic, so I called to switch the reservation to Saturday. I called almost every night they were supposedly open throughout the week and no one ever answered or returned the two voicemails I left. Sketch.

We made the drive to Nicholasville with fingers crossed and a backup restaurant in mind. Luckily, they were open and informed us that they just have policy of not answering their phone or checking their voicemail. We ordered almost every tapas on the menu and C and I really enjoyed the restaurant.

Everyone's dinner, including pup's, was lip-licking good.

This morning we had a fabulous breakfast at Doodles. None of us had been and it is nice to finally have good breakfast-style place in Lexington. I'll admit, I'm still partial to Wild Eggs in Louisville, but Doodles was a great find. Doodles is an eco-friendly and locally grown, which I really appreciate. 

C had a wonderful birthday. Not only did he get to spend it with his family, he received a set of 8 Wusthof steak knives, serving pieces of our silver, a statute of a jockey for our living room, a needlepoint flask, a bottle of Chimay, and much appreciated money.

I loved the card I got him since I am a democrat and he's more conservative (and grumpy about paying taxes):

Next best gift: a signed John Wall jersey from his brother that we will get framed.

But he loved the present he got himself the best: A CAR.

You read it right. He traded in his truck and bought himself a car. I love the car and have made him promise to keep it for at least 4 years. He's a serial car trader-inner (seriously, he's had 8 cars since he has been driving), so we will see how that works out. But so far we love it.

Much love,

Lauren

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my birthday. We actually celebrated last night with Kristin (and her dog, Lucy) being in town--Cam bought us champagne and a Graeter's ice cream cake (by far the best: chocolate with black raspberry chip ice cream). Then we went to Seki, a small sushi place here that was awesome sushi. We went downtown to a piano bar after that, and then ended the night the best way possible: with my favorite late night pizza.

It meant so much to me that Kristin came in town and spent the day with me--she is a fabulous friend. AND, I am THRILLED she is moving to Lexington in March. I absolutely can't wait!