Week-and-a-Half Wrap Up

I overheard a student the other day explain what the SCAD acronym stands for -- sleep comes after death. And while I recognize that there is a common tendency among students to glorify the struggle in order to make it all worth it, I have to admit that there is some truth in what they said. For instance, the above shot has nothing to do with home-repair (tricked you); it's actually a moment from our adventures in building a kiosk in our dining room.

This is how we celebrated our five year anniversary -- in the dining room, drinking coffee and stapeling shingles to a piece of plywood. Below is an iPhone shot of our labor of love. Nothing says "happy anniversary, sweetheart" like a scaled model of an interactive-touch-screen-kiosk about the Georgia State parks.

Notice I said "our" labor of love -- I fully intend to request that Jeff's name also be put on my diploma.  I've estimated that about a month has gone by without any work being done on the house, and yesterday marked SIX MONTHS since we signed. Time really has flown by, and we are anxious to get started again; but in the mean time, here are a few shots from the last week-and-a-half.

 

Oh, and apparently all of the madness rubbed off on the littlest member of our family, Chance. He was at the vet for four days last week with a stomach virus. I'm happy to report, however, that he is healthy and back to his usual tricks.

We leave for Parris Island tomorrow night to see Jeff's brother graduate from basic training. He's officially a Marine, and we can't wait to celebrate with him. We'll be back this weekend -- with photos.

Love,

Ryan

Bird

Jeff and I met for lunch today and the first thing I said to him was, "When did your beard grow back in?" Apparently, I haven't looked at his face in a week.

There are a few faces, however, that I have been seeing a lot of lately -- and those faces belong to three of my classmates. The four of us have two classes together this quarter, and we are the only four people in both of those classes. So, needless to say, we spend every single day together, and we have been meeting every single weekend to work on the collaborative midterm project that I mentioned here and here -- and I have to confess: I am pretty much in love with them forever.

A hard deadline and a common goal will bond any number of people together; but add to it a lot of coffee, and the compulsive nature of four design students [with an unhealthy appetite for approval], and you've got the makings of a beautiful and long lasting friendship.

Honestly, they are pretty much the only people I've had a real conversation with in about five weeks, so this is all I have to show for myself right now. Several of the following shots were taken by other members of the group. So, in keeping with my academic life, this post is somewhat of a collaborative effort:

That last one is me getting my model on for Caio. He told me I looked like Taylor Swift, which pretty much sealed his fate as my favorite person for life.

Here's to ampersands and Georgia Parks and beer and coffee and exacto knifes and t-squares and bird.

Jessica, walk out from behind that camera and join the group shot, um-kay, thanks! 

Midterms are over on Valentine's Day. See you on the other side!

Ryan

Almost-Vegan

This post is in honor of Lauren and Matthew who bought me the Forks Over Knives cookbook a couple of weeks ago. Yes, they are possibly the most thoughtful people on the planet. Love and thanks to you two! 

On Friday night, I attempted to make vegan white bean chili from scratch. Spoiler alert: I ended up ruining the vegan component by dumping a handfull of mozzarella in the bowl before I ate it, but it was a pretty decent effort.

I diced almost-all of the vegetables by hand and minced some fresh garlic, while simultaneously talking Dad through a complicated iPhone procedure. So, Lauren, that's why my the onions aren't all in perfect squares -- I can almost hear you gasping right now. 

I cheated by adding canned tomatoes and pre-packaged vegetable broth. Don't judge me.

 

I rinsed the beans (yes, I added black beans to my "white bean" chili), and noticed there was a rogue kidney bean in the mix. I don't know about you, but I am going to go out on a limb and say that is some kind of good luck:

And then I mixed it all together, and let it cook:

The result was nothing short of ah-mazing. I am attributing much of the success to the lemon juice and lime zest:

Oh, and the cheese, of course.

Here's to eating almost-vegan-homemade-chili alone on a Friday night and writing a blog post about it. Procrastination is a beautiful [and delicious] thing.

Ryan

Weekend Wrap Up

It is getting to be that time in the quarter where I eat, sleep, and breathe school. While we did not so much as pick up a hammer this weekend, we did make a trip to Fort Yargo -- the purpose of which was to gather images for an upcoming project. Here are a few moments from the day:

Here's to a productive week, and may "R.O.T" never end up on any of our tomb stones.

Ryan

Weekend Wrap Up

This lovely-three-day-weekend was something of a circus at our house. Not surprisingly, we worked on a myriad of random projects and didn't finish a-one-of-'em. Apparently, we are just not a "one-room-at-a-time" type of couple. I've decided that we work in phases, and that we are in the process of finishing Phase One; a metaphorical [and somewhat literal] sweep of the entire house.

Since I have no final reveals to share, I thought I would just give an overview of some of the projects we worked on over the last three days. The one I'm most excited about is my office; Jeff painted the ceiling "Persimmon Red" -- it's not finished, but here's a sneak peek:

Jeff also gave an extra coat of "Powered Brick" to the formal room, and I continued to work on the trim-that-never-ends:

I also painted the front door gray one night when Jeff was at work. It's just a first coat, but I kind of love it. In the coming weeks, I'll take the door off of the hinges, paint the final coat, add new hardware, and photograph it properly -- but for now, here's a shot to give you an idea of where we're at:

Oh, and perhaps my favorite project from this weekend is the guest bedroom curtains. We found them in the attic when we moved in, and I was this close to throwing them out -- but Mom encourage me to save them. They look to be from the late 50s or early 60s, and I'm pretty sure they were custom made for the guest bedroom windows specifically. Mom and Dad surprised us by having them dry cleaned as a Christmas gift, and I finally got around to finding some hardware that would allow them to hang properly. The only problem is, I underestimated how much hardware I would need - so, er, I was only able to complete one window this weekend. Here's a peek at the fabric and the rigged hardware: 

Custom curtains are no joke, people.

In other-more-nerdier-news, Jeff is knee deep into his aquarium adventure. This weekend, he started the process of cleaning and assembling the tank:

Oh, what is that you say, you didn't know Jeff was into this sort of thing? Well, he is, and we are about to have a 90-gallon-salt-water-reef-tank in the man-cave to prove it.

To be fair, underneath all of my eye rolling, I am super impressed that Jeff even knows what any of this stuff is; no less, how to make an entire ecosystem grow inside of it. 

Random fact: Jeff also served as my muse for a project that I'm working on for school:

So yeah, on top of painting and hanging curtains and cleaning out a pump system in our carport, Jeff also did some hand modeling this weekend. What a trooper. 

More on all of these projects to come. Happy MLK Day, all!

Ryan