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.

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).

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.

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!

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.

I have been helping her put up trees, untangle miles of lights (someone needs to invent lights that never tangle or burn out), and decorate.

Here are some pictures from a few different places. I didn’t take pictures every tree I helped put up.

One of the first places I helped at

The front window

The top bow on this tree is not quite my taste, but I really like the rest of it

Some days I helped her out with just refreshing office flowers and others did the trees. I will admit liked working with live plants over fake Christmas trees

Flowers that I arranged

We were right in the middle of downtown Oklahoma City and got a good look at Occupy OKC. Which was rather small and sad, really. The campers have been kicked out by now.

The small Occupy OKC camp

There was an office building who requested 38 poinsettias. That was an awesome trip the nursery. There was one entire greenhouse with nothing but rows and rows of the flowers.

So pretty

After a long day of fluffing Christmas trees or putting bows on poinsettias, it is always nice to head home and just relax.

Awesome Sunset

Last post was of Thanksgiving but I did talk about an awesome desk I got. I found it on Craigslist a day or so after we got into town and we picked it up that Sunday. Austin’s mom lent us her pickup truck and off we went. It was about a 45 minute drive from the house on some back roads, really very pretty.

The desk was at a farm and the had a sign out front advertising fresh eggs and goats milk. In hind-sight, we should have gotten some eggs while we where at it. The family was very nice and the husband helped us load it in the truck. They also had an adorable black puppy running around that they offered me. It was tempting, but I kept my head and said no thank you (he was so freaking cute though!)

On the way back we stopped at a local winery we saw a sign for on the way out. It was a small little place  and the owner talked to us a bit about the different wines he produced. We tasted a few and left with a bottle of white something or other. I’m not a drinker at all but this was actually really yummy.

The back label on our wine

Then it was back home and time to manhandle the desk into my room. I should mention at some point that the whole reason I loved this desk and wanted it is that it looks very similar to my grandfather’s desk. The other neat thing about it is that on the underside of one of the drawers it has “US Department of Mines” and the name and office number of the person who had it.

The desk right off the truck

The desk after some steel wool and polish

You can bet that I have cluttered it up by now with a small table lamp and my papers&pens. Now just the small issue of getting a chair. I am currently stealing Austin’s desk chair when he is not using it. I’ve been looking on craigslist for another, but have not found anything I care for yet.

I turned the parade on in the background while putting up a few Christmas decorations. We are not going to buy a Christmas tree, real or fake this year, so I have turned one of the live house trees into a make-shift Christmas tree.

Our Tree

After that it was time to turn our attention to the food. We ate at Austin’s mom’s house, but where put in charge of the turkey and a dessert. No pressure, right?

Austin decided he wanted to deep fry it and with some borrowed equipment from the neighbor we were ready to go. He rigged up a ladder over the frier so he could safely lower the bird into the hot oil and not risk hurting himself.

For added safety, I wanted to make sure he had something fire proof on. While he didn’t put his race suit on, he does have a fueling apron so he donned that. And really, whats the point of having an apron if it is not fire proof?

Bubbling away

After 30 or so minutes it was done and we hoisted it up and out of the oil to cool.

Mmmm. Can we eat it now?

The day before I made pumpkin cheese cake muffins (recipe found here) and with those and the turkey in the car, we headed over to dinner and procceded to stuff ourselves with our amazing turkey and all the other yummy things to be had.

There was lots of sharing…

Wilbur and Homer

Well, maybe not that much.

Tsk tsk Homer

Now we are spread out on the couch and about to pass out from all the good food in our bellies. I hope your Thanksgiving was as awesome as ours!

P.S. Maybe on second thought I want a snack. There is some turkey left over in the fridge…

So we unpacked on Friday. Here is a shot of the car all loaded down.

And here is all the stuff that came out of my car (minus my overnight duffel bag).

Note: the daybed and rocking chair in the back were in the house, I didn’t bring them in my car. The best part of all of this? All of that fit in the trunk and back seats and none of it came over the rear head rests. There is a lot to be said for using sweaters/socks/etc for packing material.

And this is my car unloaded. Comparing the loaded and unloaded car, it really did well and the back end didn’t drag all that much.

I added up our gas receipts and mileage and did some maths. In total we drove about 1400miles and used 44 gallons of gas. Our average mpgs was around 32 but I manged to do an amazing 39.6mpgs at some point. And remember this is with a loaded down car. I would love to know what it would have done with just two overnight bags and not a room full of stuff.

With that, I am all moved in and slowly taking over the house with my things. I have my room set up and already got an awesome desk off craigslist that I will have a post on later. With thanksgiving tomorrow (and being in charge of the Turkey – eek!) I’ll have to post on the food too.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!