Saturday, November 28, 2009

Thanks.

We took a short trip (to my) home with puppy.  She did great for such a long car ride - pretty much slept the entire time.  Of course we ate some wonderful food on Thanksgiving at Pat & Barbara's.  Tyler got a chance to explore Adam's iphone but I pointed out that his recent purchase of a 27" imac quad-core significantly affects our ability to purchase pretty new mobile phones.  That morning I baked a blueberry coffee cake that turned out to be pretty yummy.  Honey spent a lot of time at my mom's house where she had a few awkward run-ins with their teeny tiny Gwen. It was wonderful to spend time, however short, at home. And to also take a few bins of Christmas decorations back to MN.

I spent a few hours taking photographs of my Aunt Evon's jewelry.  She's into making jewelry but seems to be having a tough time selling it.  I took some photos (would have been nice to have my new camera by now!) and am hoping to manage an Etsy store for her.  I'll post a link as well as some of the photos when everything is set.

Today I had many thoughts.  Those thoughts are summarized below:

i want to live near water.  big water.  calm and glassy / rough and wavy.
to have mountains / a big hill in my backyard.
i want to see rocks and moss, and trees for children.
fish for my dinner - grow all of my food.
i want to make dreams and words and music and cake.
have too many pets and lots of bare feet.
and fires.

I just finished sewing a little flower thing onto a onesie. Our friends, Matt & Lori, are having a baby shower tomorrow evening. I planned to make a bib but got lazy and did this onesie instead. I hope to have the chance to possibly make a bib before her birth on Dec. 13th. My craft/sewing room is not nearly complete and I unfortunately don't find too much inspiration or motivation while there. I tend to lose most of my inspiration and motivation while at work. boo.

On to editing hundreds of jewelry photos. Oh goodness.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Oopsie.

So much for writing an update about our trip to New York.  Goodness me am I bad at having a blog.  Maybe if I knew people read it I would be a bit more encouraged/motivated.  But maybe not. 

I have something interesting to share.  I do not want to boast about it and I am not too proud but I do suppose it is an exciting thing.  A Minneapolis organization created a new website about stuff to do in the different areas of the city.  On Twitter I read that they were looking for photography submissions.  I submitted a few neat photos taken in the city but didn't really have my hopes up.  The website is now finished and I noticed one of my photos!  I did not try hard to take a neat photo - I am not trying to say it's an amazing photo - and honestly, many of the photos on this website are not really that great.  But still.  Check it out if you like: http://www.dothetown.com/mill-district.html  (it's the first photo on the left - my mom and Tyler in the Amber Lounge of the Guthrie)

Monday, October 12, 2009

NY Adventure: Mega Bus

I will soon be posting about our enjoyable time away in the great state of New York but am unable at the moment as I am at work and should be working, not blogging... but I want to quickly post a letter that I wrote to Mega Bus. Tyler & I use the service frequently between Mpls and Chicago. We used it this past week between NYC and Rochester but had a bit of an unfortunate experience that I can elaborate on later but will share with you this letter. Mostly because Mega Bus relies on word of mouth and potential riders should know what can potentially happen!

On Saturday 10/10, I took a bus from Rochester, Ny to NYC. While waiting in Rochester the bus was over 2 hours late. Mega Bus was nice enough to contact some of the riders about the late bus but was inaccurate in their time estimate (over and hour off). Many of the riders, including my husband and myself, were extremely inconvenienced by the delay due to plans and reservations. Most of us contacted Mega Bus frequently regarding updates about our bus. Each of us was told by costumer service representatives that the bus was held up at the border and that the driver was waiting for the bus in Buffalo. Some of us also inquired about refunds or future ride vouchers due to the inconvenience but were immediately told that the issue related to the US/Canadian boarder and therefore the company had nothing to offer us. Upon boarding the bus, riders who started their journey in Toronto informed us that there was absolutely no issue or delay in crossing the border, the bus was delayed over two hours due to bad traffic around Toronto. With that information I am inquiring again if we may be entitled to a future ride voucher because of the significant and inconveniencing delay. My husband and I both speak very highly of Mega Bus and we use the service frequently however this unfortunate experience has changed our views. We completely understand the chance for delays whether due to a border, traffic, or construction; however I cannot understand the misinformation and the lack of effort on the part of Mega Bus to please and accommodate its passengers. Mega Bus relies greatly on word of mouth and unfortunately there will not be much good coming from the mouth’s of Saturday’s NYC bound bus. Mega Bus could have easily remedied this issue and received even more/better word of mouth than usual by refunding/accommodating it’s passengers who were stuck at bus stops and malls across the state of New York. Unfortunately I may have to pass up Mega Bus as a cheap and convenient way to travel when I need to arrive somewhere on time due to plans or additional travel reservations.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Shoppe & Photos

I have a few (new) vintage item listings up in my etsy shop. Please go look and buy.. [bymyelf.etsy.com]

Also, if you go to our "Pups" page you can view many many new photos of Honey Pie Pie.

Weekend

Tyler's family came to visit us this past weekend. They helped us get some work done, mostly in the yard. They brought some yummy food to eat. They even brought an ice cream maker. Tyler & his mom made Vanilla Ice Cream on Saturday night and I made Kiwi Sherbert on Sunday night. I now want an ice cream maker - quite badly. They also brought their dog, Pippie. Pips is full grown but the same size as Honey. They seemed to have a great time wrestling each other and destroying a fluffy toy. : ) I'll have to post some photos of the action.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Monday, September 21, 2009

Oops

So much for starting a new blog. Let's give it another go...

I believe this will be a blog about us (tyler&emma) but will be maintained by me (emma).

Since the last post we haven't done a great deal of work on the house.. We've been busy with a new addition to our family.. a puppy! I will upload photos today. Her name is Honey and we adopted her from the Animal Humane Society in Golden Valley on Sept. 5th. She's lovely.

In house news.. We unfortunately had to invest in a new roof. Going into the process of owning this home we knew the roof was not in great shape - the previous owners bought the house foreclosed in an attempt to "flip" it. The roof was part of their improvements and whoever did it had less knowledge about roofing than Tyler and I do and we don't know too much. The flat porch over our eat-in-kitchen developed a leak. Luckily we got very little rain this summer so it didn't present itself as a problem very often but boy did we get stressed out when rain was in the forecast. Looking forward we didn't want to have a water/ice issue in the winter so we had some folks come out to give us quotes. Due to warranty issues (and the unfortunate state of the rest of our roof) all three contractors said they can fix the entire roof or nothing at all. If we both didn't work full time I would have been more than willing to delve into the flat roofing project myself however that was unfortunately not an option. We took a deep breath, choose a contractor, and now, after some contractor related hiccups, we have a new roof. I have to add.. the roof reminds me of chocolate and due to the unique shape, pitch, and roll of our roof, it looks as if we have a giant Hersey's Kiss sitting atop our home. Lovely! :)

**FYI** We opted to go with Sela for our new roof and due to a huge lack of communication and a few information mix-ups we wouldn't recommend you use them. Sorry Sela, we had high hopes!

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

National Night Out

Today we're both home sick. We had the same strange tummy symptoms yesterday and have woken up today with head colds.. or something. I recently woke up and I hope that I start feeling better soon, as tonight is National Night Out.

I'm excited about the event because we don't know many of our neighbors yet and this will be a great chance to hang out on the parkway and meet some people from our community. The purpose of National Night Out is to promote stronger community and a intolerance to drug and violent activities as well as a better relationship with local law enforcement.
National Night Out, Minneapolis

I took a few photos of our house yesterday which I hope to soon send to Stanley Galleries so we can get some more beautiful antique lighting. I hope to get around to putting those photos here so we can share our progress. Yay!

Monday, August 3, 2009

Our Blog

I thought we could give this a try.. as you suggested.
Questions, comments, conversations, ideas..
We could include progress on our new home as well, if you like.