2014 Wrap-Up

Okay here it is, my year-in-review post for 2014. Just a few days late, no biggie. I had a lot of fun sitting down last year (err, 2 years ago? err, Dec 2013) and thinking about all of the wonderful things that had happened to me, and that I had done over the year. I got married in 2013, so I figured that was going to be the highlight of my year, but when I sat down, I got a chance to review all of the other amazing things about the year.

So of course, I couldn't wait to do it again for 2014. I didn't get married this year, but it was still pretty damned fun. Let me tell you all about it.

In January, my husband and I got to go to Washington D.C. for a conference. We turned the whole thing into a mini-vacation that we both badly needed. We got to see the National Zoo, and more Smithsonians than you can shake a stick at. (Seriously, all of the Smithsonian museums have free admission, you're welcome). We also got to spend time with my aunt & uncle who the train up from Baltimore to spend an afternoon with us at the National Air & Space Museum.

The National Air & Space Museum, and yes, it was free!

In March I celebrated my 26th birthday (and my 1st as a married lady), and got my brand new Asus laptop (it has a touch-screen & a back-lit keyboard), that I love so so so much!

In May we went to New York to dance at my niece's wedding! It was so much fun, and so beautiful, and it was a wonderful chance to get to celebrate a happy occasion with my husband's side of the family. I also got to meet my sister-in-law (who lives in Israel) for the first time. It was a wonderful time, and I know that the "new" couple is happy because.... baby is on the way! She's due this March, and I've already got plans for a baby-blanket for her!

Of course we visited the New York Public Library!

May was also the month that I started graduate school. I'm working towards getting my Master's in Library and Information Science (yes, I want to be a librarian... shocking). This is by far the single biggest thing that happened to me in 2014. Graduate school was a big decision for me (historically, school and I have not gotten along all that well), and it took the rest of the year for me to figure out whether or not it was the right decision.
Even though it's still sucking up all of my free time, I'm 4 classes in (1/3 of the way through), and I finally know that I made the right choice. (Remind me of that in about 3.5 months when finals roll around again, will ya?)

In July we went to the 43rd Pennsic War, my second one ever. We had a blast, and got to spend time with some friends who I hadn't seen in over 5 years. I'm already making lots of plans for next Pennsic, and we'll have a lot of SCA-related projects coming up over the next few months, so keep an eye out for those.

The field battle

In August we celebrated our first anniversary. It was a very special day, and of course, we spent it at the zoo.

October brought a promotion at work. I went from being a page to being a Library Assistant. I'm working in the same department, with the same people, but more hours, more money and benefits! It's an amazing job, and I love it every single day. Even when I'm dealing with "Problem Patrons".

In November my mother and I made our own Thanksgiving for the second time ever! It was a little stressful since my in-laws were coming over, but it was a lot of fun and everything came out delicious, if I do say so myself.

These are just the leftovers!

And I think that's about for big events this year. I did a lot of crafting this year, and of course, made a lot of delicious food (I'm looking at you turkey), played some amazing video games, and over-all had a blast. I don't want to talk about every single awesome thing, 'cause that's what the last year of blogging was for! Go browse, take a look. I'll wait.

In the mean time, I'm going to go ahead and get started on making 2015 just as amazing (if not more so) than 2014 was! Bye!

Pennsic 43 - Recap

Whew, what a week we've had. Or really, what an intense last 3 weeks it's been! I wanted to throw together a quick post to let you all know what I've been up to all this time, and well, here it is.

Let's start with the last week in July. It was the last week of my first semester of Graduate School, and I was finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. But with a final due on Wednesday and a final due on Thursday (both reflective papers), it was a busy week indeed. I finally got everything turned in on time, and I was done. Nothing left to do except wait for the grades to come in. Oh, and start packing for the week-long insance camping event that we were leaving for on Sunday. Finals = done, packing, not so much.

I went to a party that Thursday night that one of my co-workers threw at her (beautiful little) house, and we all played a rousing game of Cards Against Humanity. Let's just say I heard a few things I never thought I would hear coming our of my coworkers mouths! (It's a fun game, for terrible people)

Friday I worked, and then we took the day on Saturday to get ready for our week-long camping trip. I know, packing for a week's vacation in one day is really smart... Anyway, we got everything packed up and ready to go for an early departure on Sunday morning.

Okay so, before we continue, I should take a minute to tell you where we went. Remember like a million years ago, when I posted about going to some crazy event called Pennsic? Yup, we did it again! Actually, my husband's only missed 1 year in the last 10, but this was only my second time going. And we both had an absolute blast!

We got to spend time with old friends and (to me at least) new friends. I got to meet a lot of the people that I've been hearing my husband talk about for years, and they were all exactly as I had imagined them. Wonderful, fun, funny and charming people.

I could go through a day-by-day re-cap of everything that we did at Pennsic, but I don't want to bore you. I've already put my family and friends through that kind of torture, and I don't want you nice folks to have to suffer through it as well. So let me give you the condensed version.

Sunday: Un-packing, setting up the tent (which leaked the whole time, greeting people, then a night of amazing performances.

Monday: Field battle, then our first classes of the week (including one by a teacher who I remembered well from 5 years ago). Then we actually got up to the archery range to shoot our War-Points.

Tuesday: It was a fast day, so we planned ourselves a long schedule of classes, which we more or less stuck to.

Wednesday: We went to a bit of East Kingdom Court (it ended up lasting 4 hours) and then: two words, Midnight Madness! Shopping at all of the merchants! We had a blast wandering around all of the different stalls and buying way more stuff than we needed.

Thursday: More classes, then cooking all the things back in camp (including Creme Brulee on the open fire). We ended up staying up until 2 in the morning learning how to make a bow-string.

Friday: Our last day in camp. We went to a class, then packed up and helped take down the camp site. Drove home, and that was all she wrote.

We had an amazing time, hung out with friends, attended some very interesting classes (Like: Historical Uses of Poisons, for one), and made some cool things.

Not to mention got some cool things. Check it out:

A bunny fur and some beautiful hand-spun yarn

All these leather scraps for only $2!

And some lovely linen to make a few nice projects out of!

Pennsic was a blast (I think I've said that before!), and I honestly can't wait to go back next year. But in the mean time, life moves on. Back to the grind!



I'll be back next week with another Librarian's Corner, so stay tuned!

Oh Yeah, We Built Night-Stands!

So, remember that SUPER SECRECT project I've been babbling on about for ages now? Well, it's done! They're all done! What are they you ask? Why, night-stands, of course!



 

This one's mine :)

Now, I don't have a picture of it (I should, really) but up until now I've been using an empty box as a night-stand, and I cannot tell you how many times I've knocked the damn thing over trying to turn my alarm off and had all of my things go flying. Grr. Very frustrating.
So  way back in December my husband and I decided to rectify this grievous error by making ourselves a pair of matching custom night-stands. Easy, right?

Well it was actually pretty darned easy, just a bit time consuming, but I'll get to that later. In the mean time, let me should you how we made that gorgeous night-stand from this pile of wood:

 

 

Now we absolutely have to give credit where credit is due. The original plans for this night-stand come from the amazing and talented Ana White. The night-stands are adapted from her Narrow Cottage End Table plans. But wait, there's more credit to be distributed.

When I first had the idea to build our own night-stands, I immediately consulted with my personal friend, Google. And he recommended a blog called Attempts At Domestication, where they were hard at working building their own night-stands. They had already done the hard work of adjusting Ana's plans to fit a night-stand instead of an end-table, and as you can see we borrowed extensively from their design. (We adjusted the height and such, but really... we're thieves, plain and simple). We also took to heart their suggestion of investing in a pocket jig and well, we couldn't have made this project without it, so thanks!

Okay, now back to our project. We had a pile of wood all cut and ready to go... so what to do net? Assembly, of course! We busted out or brand new Kreg Pocket-Hole Jig (at ~ $40, easily the most expensive part of the project, but totally worth it), and got to work!

First up, we put together the pieces that would become the sides of the night-stands. As you might be able to tell from this picture, we opted to make both night-stands at once. This is because we both needed night-stands, and because we're very lazy people. I knew that if we didn't make both at once, that second stand would never get finished.

Ta-Da, sides are assembled!

Next up was to put the entire "base" of the stands together. This includes the sides & back, and the drawers.

 

This involved a lot of clamping, and much use of our (by now) beloved Kreg Jig. It wasn't super easy and seemed to take a lot longer than it actually did, but we eventually got the base of the night-stands fully assembled.

We opted not to go the drawer-slide route, and instead just tacked a piece of scrap plywood onto the bottom of the stand to serve as a drawer runner. It actually worked pretty well (after a coat or two of some candle-wax) and was certainly easier. Considering how small our drawers are, and the fact that so far I've just got my kindle and my glassed in mine, I'm pretty happy with that decision.

The next step (that we actually did first, shhh!) was to put together the tops. Again, our Kreg Jig was invaluable here. It allowed us to assemble boards flush to one another without any screws or nails showing at all.

Look Ma, no screws! Well, none that you can see at least.

I realize that for some reason, I don't have a single picture of us assembling the drawers themselves. Weird, because I'm usually fairly obsessive about documenting every step, but what can you do. I promise you that we did in fact build drawers. Here, you can see them in this picture:

 

There's everything drying off in our storage space after receiving a first coat of paint/stain.
Now I should mention that one of the reasons that this project took us ~3 months to finish is the fact that we don't have a good work space in our apartment. My husband has a nice "shop" area, but it's at his parent's house. Which meant schlepping over there whenever we wanted to work on these. Add in my husband's full time job, my two part-time jobs and the fact that we had a VERY cold and snowy couple of months, and well... you can see how things just took a bit longer than we were expecting.
So when it was finally time to paint and stain, we jumped at the chance to take our night-stands home and work on them (we've got a small balcony and a drop-cloth, perfect for this task).



Our beautiful stained night-stands :)

The whole project took a bit longer than we wanted, but the cost came in at about ~$75, and that's for both night-stands. I actually have a break-down of how much we spent on each block of wood, but I don't want to bore you more than I already have. The Kreg Jig was ~ $40 and worth every penny. And I didn't document this very well, but I think that we spent about $20 on paint, stain and polyurethane. All in all, a pretty cheap project, and certainly a lot cheaper than buying night-stands at a place like Art Van (where we got our amazing, but very expensive bed).

So that's about it, our night-stands. We're thrilled to have them, and we both had so much fun making them that we're already onto the next project! I won't keep you guys in the dark this time though, I'll go ahead and tell you that we're using another Ana White design to make a kitchen table for ourselves, since we uh, still don't have one. So stay tuned for that!



Painted, stained and assembled with matching drawer-knobs.
And don't they look beautiful with our anniversary art hanging over them?

So what have you guys been working on lately? Any cool DIY projects? I'd love to hear all about them in the comments!


And P.S. Go check out www.ana-white.com and www.attemptsatdomestication.com both amazing blogs, very inspiring and well worth the read!

Projet Sunday 3-23-14

It's that time again folks! Time to re-cap yet another amazing Project Sunday! And it's been a pretty productive one, if I do say so myself!

We slept in a bit, as one is wont to do on a Sunday morning, but immediately sprung into the spring-cleaning spirit. I had decided that I was going to tackle a few problematic areas of the apartment today, so while my husband worked on cleaning our snake's cage (which badly needed doing) I vacuumed the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen.

Then we got to visit with a friend who just got back from France, and do some grocery shopping with them. Yes, this is what we do for fun. We needed to go, they needed to go, it seemed like a good idea. And... check out what they brought back from France for us (okay, mostly for me):

It's from a French medical text-book, can you tell?

Isn't that sooooo cool? I'm going to have it framed and you know I'll share some photos of the finished product!

Next on the agenda we had to decide if we were going to stay home to work on the NAME OF PROJECT REDACTED FOR SECURITY REASONS, or wander down to the university where my husband works to help the Steel Bridge team that my husband was captain of for 2 years running (and since competition is next week, they badly need all the help they can get). In the end we decided to stay home and work on the TOP-SECRET project, and I'm so glad we did because some other friends stopped by and we had an amazing visit! :o) I love getting to see our friends, especially ones who live far away, whom we don't get to see often enough.

After that, I ran off to do some actual work (super fun, I know) and gave my husband time to just relax. When I got home we got to finally put the almost finishing touches on the PROJECT THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED. So that's a good thing. We're like, 98% done at this point, and I swear that I'll have a really big post all about it when we're done.

Whew, I guess that's about it for this Project Sunday, but that's a lot right? We worked our little buns off, but had a really lovely and amazing day, full of projects and friends. What more could we possibly ask for? Spring temperatures above freezing? Nah. Who would want that?


Hey, how did you guys celebrate Project Sunday? Working on anything interesting or fun? Tell me about it in the comments!

DC Day 2

Yesterday I had my very own wild and crazy D.C. adventure! My husband was stuck attending meetings and such all day (we're technically here for him to attend a conference), so I was on my own.

The first thing I had to do was finally figure out how the Metro works. I bought one of those SmarTrip cards I was telling you guys about at a drug store, and took it down to the closest Metro station to put some extra cash on it. Now I had $18 worth of Metro fares and all of DC to explore!

I wanted to get myself downtown as quickly as possible, and I was lucky that the train I wanted happened to be at the platform just as I arrived, I hopped on, and my adventure started.

My first stop was the American History Museum, which again is run by the Smithsonian, and as such is 100% free to visit! I saw so many amazing exhibits that I'll admit, I was more than a little overwhelmed. Usually when I go to a museum I like to learn as much as I can about the different exhibits, but I was so overwhelmed, I just tried to take it all in as best I could.

I saw an exhibit full of boats and planes and cars called American on the Move. Next up was something called FOOD, which was, surprisingly enough, about food. Specifically, about how food has changed in American in the last 50 years, and how that in turn has changed our country. But the absolute coolest thing about that exhibit was this:

Isn't it beautiful?

That is Julia Child's kitchen. As in, her actual kitchen, which she donated to the Smithsonian in 2001. How awesome is that? I couldn't stop starring!

Next up I went to visit the Star Spangled Banner (the flag that inspired the song), which I had seen on my last visit to DC, almost 14 years ago. I saw another exhibit on the lives of the Presidents and First Ladies, and then I took a trip through time in an exhibit called American Stories. This exhibit was full of classic icons of American culture, like Dorothy's ruby slippers and...

My favorite frog!

There was actually an entire little display on puppetry in America, but I'll be honest, it kind of creeped me out...

I spent a few hours at the museum, and even though there was a lot left to see, I knew I had to head out to the zoo! I told you I'd go back to the National Zoo. There was just so much that we didn't see on Sunday, and I knew that at least one more trip was going to be in order!

I tired to spend my time visiting the animals that I didn't see on Sunday. And even though I spent another 2 hours at the zoo, there's still a lot I haven't seen!

Although I did visit the Asian Trail, and see this adorable Red Panda. I also spent some time with the Elephants, which we hadn't really gotten a good look at on Sunday. I made stops at the Ape House and the Reptile House, which were both lots of fun. Apparently, there's a sort of sky-line that connects the Ape House with a research building called the Think Tank. The line (which the zoo calls the O Line) is for the apes to swing across back and forth between buildings. How cool is that?

Also, while I didn't exactly go into the Bird House, I did wander around the outside of it, where lots of beautiful birds were exhibited. I saw Greater Rheas and Kuri Bustards and these lovely but very very loud flamingos. I had no idea that flamingos could be so loud!

And that was about it for my wild and crazy D.C. adventure. I had a wonderful time exploring the city on my own, and I would love to do it again some day, but for the remainder of this trip at least, I'll have some company. My husband is done attending the required meetings and such and will be joining me in my future explorations. We're actually meeting up with some relatives of mine who live in the area, and the plan for today is to hit up yet another museum or two!

Stay tuned!

DC Day 1

Hello everyone! My husband and I are in Washington D.C.! Isn't that exciting? Well, it's exciting for us, maybe not so much for you.

Anyway, my husband is here to attend a conference, and I decided to take a few days off of work so that we could make a little vacation out of it. (Also, I didn't want to be in a different state than him)

And because I'm excited/happy, I wanted to share some details with you guys. So here's a summary of our little trip so far.


We flew in to BWI this morning,

took a taxi to the hotel, and since it wasn't yet check-in time, we decided to wander around for a little while.

We tried to take the Metro, but uh... didn't work out so well. We were planning on picking up two $35 "1 Week" passes. But we couldn't figure out how to work any of the machines in the Metro station... So we asked someone to help us out. We were told that in order to get a 1 week pass, we had to buy a $10 SmarTrip card (with $8 worth of fares on it) and then we could put the $35 pass on it...
But uh, the only machine that sold SmarTrip cards was cash only... and didn't give change. So uh, no.

Sorry Metro, maybe we'll use you tomorrow.

But luckily, our cab driver told us that our hotel is only "a few blocks" away from a zoo. A zoo you say? Sounds cool! Turns out that "a few blocks" was more like a mile and a half (though it was a very pleasant walk in the 50 degree weather!), but on the other side it turned out that the zoo was The National Zoo! Which was easily the best way I can think of to spend a few hours.

Dama Gazelle

The National Zoo is run by the Smithsonian, which means that it's absolutely 100% free! So there's no reason not to go. When we got to the hotel there were about half a dozen people hanging out in the lobby waiting for check-in time. Why would they sit there and wait for 2 hours when there's a free zoo a short 20 minute walk away?

Baffling, really.

Cheetah

The zoo has elephants, and lions and reptiles and even a Giant Panda (though we didn't get to see it). There's so much to see, no one could possibly cover it all in the short time that we had.





We wandered around the zoo for about 2 hours, and only saw about half of it. At that point we were starting to get a bit tired (after a morning of travel), and we had a mile and a half walk back, so we decided to call it a day. But we saw so many amazing animals and such cool educational tools, I can't wait to go back!

And go back I will. Tomorrow my husband has to spend all day at his conference, so I'm on my own. I'm planning on swinging back to the zoo and then maybe checking out a museum or two!


Stay tuned!

2013 Wrap-Up

I've been thinking about doing one of these end-of-year posts for a while now, and I've decided that if I'm ever going to do one, 2013 is the year to reminisce about. In more ways than one, this has been the best year of my life.

I know that I haven't blogged much this year. If anyone out there still follows this blog, you were probably surprised to see me again, I know I'm sort of surprised to be here. But blogging has had to take a back-seat to all of the other amazing things that have been going on over the last 12 months.
Let's recap, shall we?

Last December I quit a job that I hated, and that was sucking all of the life out of me. Immediately afterward, I felt liberated and free. I called my mother as I was driving home that day, and I was giggling when I told her: "Well, I quit my job!" It was such a difficult decision to make at the time, and then afterwards I was literally asking myself what took me so long?

In March, I started working at the local library. This has been my dream job since I was a wee little thing. I started out as a page (shelving books all day!) and have since gotten a job working for the circulation department. The pay's not great, but like I said, this is my dream job. I love what I do, I love the place that I work at, and I love the people I work with. That's more than most people can say. This job has also prompted me to make a very big decision.
Are you ready?
I'm going back to school! I'm going to be applying for graduate school to get my Master's in Library Science and hopefully become a librarian one day!

In August I got married to the love of my life. It was easily the most wonderful day ever. We got married outside in front of all of our friends and family. We had beautiful weather, and wonderful guests and even got to dance to some Beatles. What more could anyone want? This has easily been the high-light of my year, and of my life. My husband (and I really love saying that) and I recently celebrated 6 years of being together. I can't wait for the next 6 years, and the 6 years after that, and then the 6 years after that. I love you Puppy. :o)

I've also been a lot craftier in the last few months. I've gotten back into my crochet and my knitting (though not always successfully). I've even posted a pattern of my very own creation. I've been putting my ravelry account to good use, and actually finishing projects that I've started. I've been making lots of scarves for my friends, I've been knitting dish-cloths for our kitchen and I've even made my very own knitting needles! It's been a crafty year, and I know that we're going to keep it up in 2014. Right now my husband and I are working on an awesome and amazingly cool project that I can't wait to share with you all. More to come!

There's also been a lot of delicious home-made food and treats that I've experimented with this year (like Chinese food for Christmas), but I haven't really been blogging about it, or keeping tabs on it at all. Hopefully that'll change next year!

And last but not least, I've been reading ALL THE BOOKS! There will be a post on this topic shortly after the new year, so I won't waste too much of your time on it now. But let's just say that working at a library has put me back in touch with my ravenous appetite for books. I've read more this year than in the last two combined. And I have the numbers to back that up.


So I think that just about wraps up 2013. What a year. It's easily been the best year of my life, and I can't wait to see what 2014 will bring!


See you all next year!