As promised - pictures of presents!

Pajama top from John's parents


From John's parents


The picnic basket full of stuff that John's parents got us. The plastic bag is full of outdoor cups/plates/etc, there's also a tablecloth at the bottom.


Metroid 3! I can't decide if I like this better than Mario or not. I think not, but it's a very close second. The first person controls really ARE amazing, even though I made fun of the box for saying they were the best ever, I think they really are.


Dart board! It's up and in the cabinet already. So fun.


Lego magnets! Squee! (I did write out "HI!" with them before John got home. He thinks they're cool, too)


Off-centered picture of the sweater E got me


Ok, he's not a christmas present. But isn't he cute?

I forgot to get a picture of the pink sweater my parents got me!! Oops. It's really pretty and soft. I'm wearing it right now. I'm sure it'll make its way into a picture eventually.

Also not pictured: The awesome calendar that E's kids make us (I already brought it into work, so I didn't have it around when takin pics last night), A Goofy Movie (from my parents), A box of choclates (from John's uncle), some christmas decorations (John's aunt), the cow shower scrubby thing (R's parents) and the cow ornament (which is now the only ornament on my tree. ha. Also from R's parents). I think that's it. I apologize if I'm forgetting something that you gave me. Oh! The entertainment book (which John was really excited about too, btw) and candle from my parents.

Dining room, etc.

Well, Christmas is over and I should probably tell you all about the busy little weekend it was, but instead I'm finally posting pictures of the re-painted dining room. Mom and dad got to see it in person, and I think they'll agree it looks a bit lighter and much better in person :)



In other not-so-exciting news, my house got egged a couple weekends ago. We don't know why, it seemed to be random and as far as we can tell, it was only our house. Bummer. And gross. And smelly.



It was great seeing the family all weekend, and it was also great when John got home and we got to relax just the two of us again. Or four of us if you count the cats, who were definitely excited to see us again. It had nothing to do with the fact that they ate all the food I left out for them, though, I'm sure.

I hope everyone had just as good of a Christmas as I did - and you can look forward to me bragging about all the wonderful things I got just as soon as I'm able to get pictures of everything. Because it's just no fun talking about cool gifts if I can't show you. *nod*

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I'm done decorating for Christmas - just the nativity and tree for me. The cats had fun "discovering" christmas lights, and Myles has spent almost every minute curled up under the tree.

New doorknobs!

New doorknob
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.

John and I have been doing a bunch of little random things around the house this weekend, as usual. One of the things I did was finally finish replacing all the doorknobs upstairs. I started about a month ago by doing two, and finished off the other two. John put on all the strike-plate thingies (they were bigger than the old ones, and he had to dremel away some of the frame in order for them to fit. And put epoxy in the old holes so he had something to screw into), and so now all the doors upstairs close perfectly :) yay.

Oh, that's the bathroom door in the picture and you can see in the background that there are now TWO switches out there - one for the lights and one for the brand new fan!!! I'll take a picture of it all (the new lights are SO pretty!) once I do all the touch-up paint, because I'm a perfectionist and don't want you seeing it until it's complete.

I've also prepped the dining room for painting, but decided not to start actually painting because I'm afraid it will take more than a day, and as I'll be in CT next weekend, I didn't want it sitting around with just one coat forever.

Picture dump

Here's a small selection of a lot of pictures I've taken lately. One day I will justify the price of a DSLR and take fantastic pictures. Until then, these point-and-shoots will have to do.

Not much else going on. John's off with his friends playing Halo3, and I'm enjoying having the house to myself! I don't get that very often and sometimes get jealous of him being home all day :) I'm looking forward to getting out to Connecticut soon and VERY much looking forward to the Lantern Tour.

The pumpkin cheesecake you all missed out on! :)

Mary and Jesus

The whole Nativity set.

More of my favorite baby, Myles.

Karyn gave me this glass cow for my birthday. She had someone make it for me! It's supposed to be sitting on a poker chip, but it's kinda hard to tell. It's still really cool :)

Myles. This is what he looks like when he wants us to use the laser pointer :)

Of lights and cats and chargers and things.

Was talking to mom on the phone today and she pointed out I never posted this picture... we finally got someone to put the dining room light up:



Here's some other pics I haven't posted yet, apparently. The last two pictures are of the Wiimote charger that John got me for my birthday:

Guess what Wii got? (plus real link)

Oh yes, we got a Wii. It was rather unexpected on my part, I really didn't feel I really needed one, but John got one off of ebay that was listed as being broken so he got it rather cheap... but it works fine! Which was unexpected. So now I have a Wii! It's rather fun, I must admit, but I just went broke buying games :)

Anyway, I have no idea how I messed up that link in the last entry, I apologize. Here's the real link to my article!

For fun, here's some random pictures I've taken lately:

Myles at the window:


Tree in the front yard:


Cow in the front yard:


Cow in the house:


The bell from above cow:


Have a great day, everyone!!!

I'm famous!

Do any of you read consumerist.com? Well, you should. The latest reason why is that one of MY PICTURES got chosen for one of their articles!!! (the have a flickr pool, where you can submit pictures to it and then they use those as the pictures for their articles). This article is about having to claim your poker winnings on taxes (wait, people sometimes get a net gain? hmmm... I must be doing something wrong..).

This, btw, was the first time I've submitted a photo to the pool, and it was used in an article THE NEXT DAY! I feel so cool (notice how i even get credit for the photo at the end of the article)!

yay.

I was a victim of road rage today. The incident was in NO WAY my fault, but resulted in me needing to honk my horn in order not to get smashed in to, which resulted in an older lady yelling her head off at me and threatening to beat me up. Oh well, I didn't let her beat me up, and I calmly walked away into the store... and then when the coast was clear ran out to my car to make sure she didn't key it (this all happened in a parking lot). The car was fine, I left and went to another store instead, and life is generally good.

11 days until I turn 30! And only 9 days until the big project at work - the one I've been working on ALL YEAR LONG is FINALLY over!!!

yay.

My award!

Here's a blurry picture of the award I got from work (I took it with my cell phone). The quarter is there to give you an idea of the size:



It really says:

Innovation Award
Jennifer Jacobs
September 24, 2007

The BEST part??? It's ACTUALLY a puzzle! You can take it apart and put it back together. it's so preeeeetty, too.

I'm trying to convince people at work that they need to do things for me because I have an award and they don't. Not only is this not working, I also have a feeling no one is ever going to nominate me for an award again.

(just incase you thought I was serious, I'm not ACTUALLY trying to convince people to do things for me because I have an award and they don't.)

Math Tricks

Mom - this is also for you. Found this list of simple math tricks online, thought you'd like it.

New curtains

New curtains
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.

Mom, this pic is mostly for you - I realized I never showed you what the new curtains look like IN the kitchen! Don't they look great??? It's funny how the color isn't that much different than the old ones, but I'm so glad to get rid of the plaid! Plus, I LOVE having matching ones over each window! If you go to my flickr you can see a pic of the kitchen that has both windows in it.

So, this is my week of vacation. It started off in Niagara Falls - we had a BLAST. It was just our friends Matt & Kristen and us. We played poker... and... video poker... and, well, just had fun :)

I also went on a shopping spree - I spent a bunch of gift certifcates that I had leftover from my old Yahoo! credit card. I got two sweaters, a navy button-down shirt and khaki pants from The Gap, a sweater and a nice black shirt from Banana Republic and a new pair of brown work shoes. I still have $25 for Old Navy left, too!

I found a winter coat that I fell in love with, and I really need a new one, since I kinda got a bit too big for my old one to button if I'm wearing a sweater, and I'm going to be walking to work now... but I just wasn't in the mood for spending $125 on a coat. Even if it was reeeeaaally nice.

Yesterday I got to go meet Mary - my new niece! She's very cute, as anyone who is reading this knows because I think only mom, E, and Janna read this, but, whatevs. Anyway, I was more amazed with how big Katie and Andrew are! Katie's an actual little girl instead of a toddler anymore, it's crazy. She's so smart, too. It started raining while I was there and I ran to put my shoes on because I left the windows of my car open. To which Katie said "Auntie N, you're not supposed to leave them open!"

Today, John made me breakfast and I've watched TV and played nintendo all day. It's been great :)

Black and white Moo

Final picture
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.

This is what I do when I take a break from working, cleaning, and putting together desks ... play with photos.

Actually, lately my biggest "fun" project has been been obsessively organizing my iTunes and creating playlists.

On a side note, John and I are going to Niagara Falls with a group of his friends in a couple weekends (mostly so they can all gamble), and after that I'm taking a weeks vacation... we don't have any set plans, but we do want to go somewhere just the two of us for at least a night. Other than that, the plan is just for me to NOT have to work and perhaps finally paint the dining room, living room and guest bedroom (I've had the colors picked out for a while but still haven't painted). And perhaps visiting E's new kidlette, which should be here by then :)

New desk for the office!

Finished desk!
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.

Another big purchase we made recently was a desk for the office. Well, I guess this is a purchase I made, not we. But anyway. John helped me put it together. You can see the entire process (that took a total of 2 hours) on my flickr, but this is the final product. Complete with the new lamp that John convinced me to buy because it looks so good :)

After: Washer/dryer! Against the wall!

After: Washer/dryer! Against the wall!
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.

Check it out! It took over a month, and a lot of work between John, his dad and I, but we finally got the basement looking pretty darn good. My favorite part is pictured above - the washer and dryer actually NEXT to each other ... and against a WALL! I can't believe I lived so long with them in such a crazy situation.

Anyway, you can check out the whole basement before and after pics (John's work area is pretty impressive if I do say so myself!) in my flickr Project: Basement 2007 photo set.

On a depressing note - my trip to Vegas was cancelled. I hate this stupid project I'm on. I haven't done anything "cool" all year because of it. Unless you count working 14 hours/day cool. And I don't. I did get some good free baseball tickets out of it, though. I need a vacation, though!

Anyway, check out the previous two posts for some new purchases we made recently!

New Purchase #2

New Poker Table
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.

We got this for quite a steal off of Craigslist. It's SO much better than the half-a-ping-pong table we have been playing on. We had our first weekly game on it last night and everyone else loved it too. The cats love to lie on it, though, so there's cat hair everywhere, so we're going to try and find a cover for it... which is sad because one of the reasons I bought it was because of the colors - it actually looks GOOD in the room instead of your typical bright green/black tables.

New Purchase #1

Fire Pit
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.

John and I bought a fire pit after we realized it was something we'd both wanted for a long time. This was actually a fairly cheap one from Lowes, but it's perfect for us. You can even put the top on it so that it looks like a little table instead of a pit, and it comes with a cover to protect it from the elements. I like it a lot. (yes, I know, we shouldn't put a firepit on a deck. shuddup.)

My feet in the pool

My feet in the pool
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.

I was able to visit my parents in CT a couple weekends ago. It was a much-needed break from work - where I was working 14 hour days, and 18 hour weekends... *shudder*. The best part, of course, was the pool.

More pictures from the trip (including pictures of the kitchen/bathroom in all its water-damaged glory) can be found on my Connecticut 2007 photoset.

Also, notice I just made four posts today with pictures. it's the easiest way to post images from flickr, so don't miss the other posts!

myles sleepy

myles sleepy
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.

I recently uploaded a couple cat pictures, and this was probably my favorite (of Myles)

When I tried to fix the brightness it got really washed out, so I made it sepia. This makes the picture look artistic instead of bad. I'm smart.

A rare picture...

A rare picture...
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.

John Smiling. You may never see this in a photo again, so I had to post it.

(sorry he looks so red. the lighting on the picture was really bad and when I brightened it up it made him look kinda lobsterish. Oh well. He's still smiling)

Reds/Indians game in Cincy

Before the game
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.

(yes, I'm saying Cincy because I can never remember how to spell the full city name)

A while ago I met up with Mom and Dad to go to the Reds/Indians game at Great American Ballpark. Before the game we walk through the Red's Hall of Fame, the highlight for me was seeing the exact same Pete Rose poster from Sports Illustrated that we had hanging upside down in our basement forever there in the Hall of Fame. The lowlight was seeing a magazine add that had Pete Rose (and others) in their underwear. *shudder*

You can see all the pictures (including the ones mom wanted of Tony Perez stuff) here: My Reds/Indians photoset

Stolen goods

Well, I haven't written for a while. Mostly because my laptop recently got stolen.

I park in a parking deck downtown. On the day in question I was going from work over to John's house, which was literally 2 minutes from the parking deck, so instead of going home to get my laptop and change of clothes, I threw them in my laptop bag. Because I have to walk a block and half from the parking deck to my car, I didn't want to carry that bag alone with my work laptop and purse into the building, so I left it in the car.

Obviously, at the end of the day, they were gone. No damage to the car (my windows were cracked, I'm guessing they were able to reach something in to unlock the doors that way - the alarm would have gone off, but who pays attention to alarms anymore?). The goods taken: the laptop, a change of clothes (my favorite pants and an awesome tanktop that Jen Morris gave me), my Nintendo DS and all my games for it, hairbrush, deodorant, and the stuffed Yoshi John gave me for my birthday. Plus the bag itself is worth $70. I filed a police report, but haven't heard anything about it (not that I expected to). I called my insurance but my deductible is $1000 and everything stolen was worth barely more than that, so no point in making a claim.

Anyway, that was reason number one I haven't written for a while (had to buy a NEW laptop, which is SO incredibly nice... except it has Vista on it, which I hate). The other reason is that my time has been consumed by John moving in.

His dad came and helped us fix up the basement enough for him to move is store down there, and then we spent an afternoon moving his most important stuff into the house (ironically the day AFTER my stuff got stolen - so the day it was stolen was the LAST DAY I'd ever have to bring it in to work). He's now moved everything in and things are going well - he definitely motivates me to keep the house clean, and we have a great deal where he cooks me food and all I have to do is clean up. I'll take it!

His friend Josh is moving at the end of the month to Columbus. It's the first time since John started college that he won't either be living with Josh or have him right down the road, so it's weird for him... and I've become pretty good friends with Josh myself, so we're not looking forward to him leaving.

John's birthday is exactly a week from today! The weekend after that we go to his friend's wedding (this time finally one that I feel I actually know! how exciting!) and the weekend after that I'm flying out to CT to visit the 'rents. Yay for swimming in their pool!

and THAT is what's going on.

kthnxbye

New windows

After - new windows, sans screens
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.

It's been a while since I wrote in here, I apologize... life has been quite busy lately.

At the end of May I finally got my new windows installed. It was quite the investment, and I was glad to see them finally installed! I took a bunch of before and after pictures after the first day, but then nothing after that, because the whole point of the new windows was to get ones that looked exactly like the old ones, so the after pictures weren't all that exciting :) You can see all the pictures, though, here. There's a great picture of the front of my house as a whole (with old windows) in that set, too.

Right after I got the new windows, John's parents delived an old sofa and love seat to me. Old to them, NEW TO ME! I haven't had an actual full-length sofa since moving out of Ted's house, so it's been SO NICE to lie down on one when watching tv. They're flowery and not my style, so I got a GREAT red slip-cover for them (the loveseat one is still being delivered, it can only be purchased online) here's a picture of the sofa - with the new throw pillows, the new rug, and (of course) Yoshi!

The most recent project has been tackling the basement. I'm trying to clean it out for John's impending arrival in the House of Moo. I have FINALLY packed up all my stuff into the rubermaid-like containers and moved them all into the "room" in the back corner of the basement. What an improvement! The Christmas tree is the only thing that's still out in the open, and that's only because I haven't found a container big enough for it yet. John's bringing over a Shop Vac tonight so we can start sucking up lots of dirt and dust and his dad is coming this weekend to help with plumbing/electrical (We want to try to make the drain so that water can actually slope INTO it, which does seem like the purpose of a drain, no? And we need more outlets down there if John's going to be working down there).

On top of all that, I've been putting in a number of 10 hour days at work and working on the weekends...we had a HUGE deadline on June 11 (last monday) and I was the ONLY person on my project to meet the deadline! While that's definitely Yay for Me, it also means that "Oh, Jennifer's done, and now all these other people are behind, so... Jennifer can pick up the slack" *sigh* It's a never-ending job. It's nice feeling valuable, though, and I definitely like being busy more than I like sitting around with nothing to do - it's hard for me to remember those days now!

I need to get the pictures off the camera of my trip to Cincy with Mom and Dad to see the Reds/Indians game (including going to the Red's Hall of Fame)... I think I have various other pictures on there, too... like pictures of Mac and Cheese with broccoli in it... I'm not sure what possessed me to take that one, I think I just like food to much, the sad thing, it's a SERIES of pictures... before it went in the oven... when it came out of the oven... when I put it in a bowl to actually eat it... mmm... now I'm drooling... and I just ate lunch!

Silly (bad!) kitties.

I'm not sure if I ever talked in here about the incredible mess that the cats created the other day. I still don't know what caused it, though I have my guesses. Here's all the pictures on my flickr account.

Silly kitties.

FYI - going to visit Kade this weekend. He's home from the hospital, did I mention that? He's actually talked to John on IM and called him on the phone. I also found out that Jimmy Buffet found out what happened and sent him every single album he's ever done (autographed) and posters, too, I think (autographed)... he also got a bunch of stuff from John Travolta... ever since he did that Ladder 49 movie, he's been donating a bunch of stuff to injured firefighters.

New Chandelier

New Chandelier
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.

I was trying to describe the new chandelier for the dining room to mom and I don't think I did a good job.

We still haven't installed it for fear of asbestos-lined wires, but we might take a look at it tonight, so here's a pic of the box. It's REALLY pretty. yay! :)

Crazy Myles

Crazy Myles
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.

I love this pic. Myles was trying to climb up my windows... he better not try that with the new ones! They get installed starting May 30, it's going to take 3 days to get all 20 windows done. 20 WINDOWS! And that's not even ALL My windows. Crazy.

I was watching a show on HGTV last night about the top 20 things you can do to improve the value of your home (#1 was new siding, if you cared, but there's no way I'm replacing my beautiful wood siding) and #11 was replacing windows! Woo!

I'm still going back and forth on turning the family room into a master bedroom. I'm leaning towards NOT doing it one day. First of all, I don't want to price myself out of my neighborhood. Second of all, it seems kinda silly to have four bedrooms in a small(ish) house... basically there'd be TONS of more bedroom space than living space. Maybe that's fine, but... meh.

Anyway, what I do want to do is spiffy up that downstairs bathroom and make the doorway in from the family room instead of the wall it's on now, and then put a pantry there (so that the door to the pantry would be directly in front of you when you walk in that book door)

Looks like John's probably going to move in when the lease is up on his house (end of August, we think... we can't remember when he moved in), so the ebay business will probably take over the family room, but I'll also be getting some extra money via rent from him (yes, I'm making him pay rent, everything gives me this strange look when I say this. I don't care if he's my boyfriend, he can't live for FREE!) and I want to bamboo floors in the family room to get rid of that nasty carpet. The cats found a spot where they could start ripping it up, so now it looks even WORSE than it did BEFORE. I'd love to have NO carpet in that entire house!

The parrot and Katie

The parrot and Katie
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.

I was able to drive out to Pittsburgh on Saturday to go to my first baseball game of the season with Elizabeth, her family, and dad. As you can see, the parrot visited Katie (actually, he came up to see the couple that got engaged a couple rows in front of us during the game). There's more pictures from the whole trip - include the hat Dad bought me - below.

I can't figure out how to add more than one picture from my flickr into one entry automatically, so... sorry for the multiple entries.

My Sister's family

My Sister's family
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.

More Pittsburgh at dusk

More Pittsburgh at dusk
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.

Pittsburgh at dusk

Pittsburgh at dusk
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.

Grandpa's being silly.

Grandpa's being silly.
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.

Andrew

Andrew
Originally uploaded by Cutiemoo.