Job!!!

Posted on 14 April, 2012 by Karie| Leave a comment

I have neglected this blog for far too long, but I swear I have a good excuse. No really, its a good one. Well, not quite good enough for over 2months of no posting, but its still pretty good.

I got a job! I’m am working at one of the biggest natural gas companies* in the state and I am loving it. It is the accounting department and I am dealing with the volume of gas coming out of the gas wells. It is interesting and I am learning a lot. Great thing is that I feel like I am actually putting my math degree to use.

The only downside is getting to work at 7:30am. I am so not a morning person so its taking me a while to get used to it. But I am making it with lots of tea and a early bed time. Which is half the reason I have neglected the blog. The other half is that after all day looking at the computer screen the last thing I want to do when I get home is sit at another desk and stare at the screen some more.

Everything else is good – I have my own office (no door or window, yet ;) ) with a cool computer set up and printer (is it sad that I am excited to have my own printer?). My coworkers are great and happy to answer my never ending questions.

I promise to be better about updating. I haven’t heard from too many of you back in MD so I hope all is well. I miss you all!

*I won’t name where because I am sure if I do I’ll have to have a huge disclaimer about how my views don’t represent the companies, etc. Legal babble that I don’t want to deal with on here.

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Bathroom Renovation! (sorta)

Posted on 1 February, 2012 by Karie| 2 Comments

I want to start this post with a picture I took a few evenings ago and never posted.

This is why I love Oklahoma

Now that I have that out of the way we can talk about what Austin and I got up to in the bathroom over this past weekend.

The bathroom in question

It is the only bathroom in the house and it was in need of a bit of a face lift. We started with the idea of just sprucing up the vanity. We ended up doing a lot more than just that.

The first thing that went was the counter-top. It was almond colored with gold sparkle swirls through it. Maybe that is someone else’s cup of tea, but it is certainly not mine.

Busting out the counter-top

You know how on DIY shows they show people taking a hammer to their walls/floors/counter-tops/whatever? I have to tell you that it is one of the most satisfying things you can do. We only busted up the counter-top but it was awesome. I highly recommend everyone doing it at some-point (just make sure you have something to replace it with).

We then removed the vanity and found this under it.

Eww

We then sanded the vanity and drawers down before spraying them with a primer and then a final coat of color. We used Rust-Oleum spray paint and it is amazing stuff.

Austin spraying on the final color coat over the primer

 

Putting it back in place

After this we got the counter glued down and Austin hooked up new faucet.  We dusted everything down, called it a job well done and relaxed on the couch.

We lived with our slightly new bathroom for one day before deciding we hadn’t done enough. So after a trip to Home Depot for some handles for the vanity and other odds and ends for the room,  we tore the bathroom back apart.

The morning was spent putting the handles on as the screws had to be countersunk to compensate for the extra thick fronts.

The new handles

We then stripped everything we could out of the bathroom and painted the walls. We had a can of white primer lefter over so we started with that. And you know what? It looks really good with just white primer. We might just leave it at that. If we do decide we want to paint it again, at least there is primer on the wall already and we (most likely) will be keeping it a shade of bright white.

Austin spray painted the frame to a mirror that hangs on the opposite wall of the medicine cabinet the same color as the vanity.  I don’t have a before picture of it (imagine it in a dark green color), but this is after:

Freshly Painted

You can also see one of the two new switch plates we put up.

Then we were done! It only took about 1.5 days total to do and it was worth every minute of it.

Before and After

I will admit it is not 100% done. I have some caulking to do around the tub and shower to just freshen it up and keep everything sealed. However it needs at least 24hours to dry before you can get it wet, so I need to plan out when I am going to do it.

I hope this inspires you to freshen up one of the rooms in your house. :) You can see more pictures over in the Image Gallery (follow the tab at the top of the screen).

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Every Saturday at Noon

Posted on 23 January, 2012 by Karie| Leave a comment

I am not sure how many of my friends and family have ever lived in an area with sirens to warn of on coming bad weather, but this is a first for me.

They test the sirens every Saturday unless the temperature is below 32degrees or there is threat of sever weather.  So if it is a warm Saturday and the sirens don’t go off, you might want to be a bit worried.

I thought I would share what I hear every Saturday at noon in the back yard. The track is about 3 minutes long and you might need to turn your speakers up (my phone is not the best recorder).

There are different sirens around town. This is an older one by the high-school just down the road from us. The video is quite loud, so turn your speakers down for it. These are more common around town and you see them everywhere (so it seems). I think they look like a piece of candy up a tall pole. :-P

Just wanted to share a new experience (for me that is) with all of you. Here’s hoping we only hear them at noon on Saturdays in 2012.

 

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Long Overdue Update

Posted on 17 January, 2012 by Karie| Leave a comment

I went back home for Christmas and didn’t really touch my computer for the two weeks I was there. I’ve been back in OK for a week today and I am finally organized enough to post again.

I flew back on Dec. 20 and caught a 6:25am flight. Which meant leaving the house at 5am and getting up around 4am. Never again. But it did provide for some very pretty shots of the sun rising.

Sun coming up right after take-off

Very Pretty

It took me three flights to get home. Oklahoma to St. Louis. St. Louis to Ohio. Finally Ohio to Baltimore. Lucky I only had to switch plane at St. Louis.

I was so wiped when Mom & Dad picked me up that I fell asleep on the way home and then crawled into bed once we got back to the house.

The next day we celebrated my Mom’s birthday and I made a homemade chocolate cake.

Happy Birthday Mom!

On Christmas Eve we made sugar cookies. Well, I really wanted to make sugar cookies and I got Mom and Dad to play with me for a bit.

Dad really got into it

Raggs wanted to help too

Christmas day was great and we spent the morning in our pj’s opening gifts. I think this is one of the best pictures of the morning.

Raggs being silly

Dad and I took a few days to sort out some of his old family pictures and start getting them into albums. I found something really cool while we were working:

My Dad's ticket to the 1957 inauguration

The back of the ticket

He said he was close enough to reach out and touch them. How awesome is that?!

I flew back to OKC on January 8th.  Thankfully it was a nonstop flight (even if it was delayed a bit). However, it felt like it took forever to get there with no stops in between to break up the flight. But after spending 3 days in a car driving from MD to OK, I am not going to complain over a 3hour flight to cover the same distance.

Sunset

I usually like to fly during the day just for the great views, but coming in over Oklahoma City at night is gorgeous. I wish I had gotten a picture but at that point I had to turn  my phone off.

I brought more things back then I took and one of my favorite things was this mixer my mom found for me at the shop she manages.

My 'New' Hamilton Beach Model G Mixer

It may not be a Kitchen Aid, but it works as if it was brand new. The only thing I really am missing is a dough hook. We learned the hard way that those beaters are not kind to dough and it will just climb the beaters. However, it makes awesome chocolate chip cookies.

It is also heavier than all get out and it took my Mom’s expert packing skills to get it into my luggage and under the weight requirements (one of my suitcases started out at 61lbs and we got it down to 48 by lots of rearranging between the other suitcase).

Then more recently, on Sunday we went over to Austins Moms place to hang out and ride four-wheelers. It was a great afternoon – especially considering these past few days have been sunny and in the 60s-70s.

Part of the field we were riding in

So here concludes my long overdue post. One of my new years resolutions is going to be to try to keep more on top of my blog. Here’s to keeping that up!

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Holiday Lights

Posted on 18 December, 2011 by Karie| Leave a comment

First note of this post is going to be to wish my Mom a very Happy Birthday!!

Today there was some really cool stuff going on in downtown Oklahoma City for the holidays season and Austin and I went down to take it all in.

Our first stop was the Mid-Continent Life Insurance building which has been turned into the Oklahoma Heritage Museum showcasing all the people in the Oklahoma Hall of Fame (do all states have these?). The building itself is beautiful and the exhibits are nice. Too many TV screens for me where you have to sit and watch a short movie at each ‘section’. I like being able to wander and look at physical things.

The Museum

From there we found our way to the Oklahoma City National Memorial, the site of the Murrah Federal Building bombing in 1995. One of the most striking things for me was The Survivors Tree. It is an American Elm tree that estimated to be at leas 100 years old. It survived the bombing and most of its limbs being blown off.

Still alive and thriving

In the children’s section there are over 5,000 tiles that kids from around the nation painted after the bombing. This is one that really got to me.

The tile

From here we went down to Bricktown, the entertainment side of Oklahoma City. It used to be the site of the city’s warehouses, but has been turned into a really cool place to walk around. We first stopped off at Bricktown Candy Store where they had a wall of cool candies and another of unique sodas.

They also sold gelato which got me excited.  It was not as good as what I had in Italy, but it was still yummy. Austin had key-lime-pie gelato and I had vanilla&honey. While we ate we looked at the candy and sodas and played a game of checkers (which I won).

After some more wandering and dinner (ribs – yum!). It was finally dark out and we could really enjoy the lights.

The center tree (with some lights out - oops!)

A stretch of road in the city is called Automobile Alley for all the car dealerships that used to be along the road. The buildings that are there now stretch Christmas lights down the side of the buildings. I couldn’t get clear pictures of it in the car, but I did get a video.

The last place we went was the Myriad Gardens. It is an awesome tropical garden in what amounts to a very large tube. They have lights that constantly change color, hence why the background in the pictures is always changing.

The outside of the Garden

All of the pictures from today can be found under the Image Gallery tab at the top. I am slowly uploading more pictures to it so you can see more than the few I choose to put in the actual posts.

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