Parties and Parades

This weekend our very good friend Liz came to visit for two reasons, my birthday party and Harry Potter. She, Sarah, and I all went down to Barnes & Noble Friday night so that we could be among the first to get our hands on the seventh and final book of the Harry Potter series. While we were there we had a lot of fun perusing the bookshelves, playing Potter trivia, and checking out all the Muggles dressed up in wizarding wardrobes. We got our books and read for a few hours that night. I got up early the next morning (thanks to a barking Gilmore) and read some more to catch up with Liz. I determined this weekend that I am not a super fast reader; I'm not terribly slow either, but Liz literally doubled my pace. We read most of the day Saturday and all day Sunday, which sounds like kind of a weird way to entertain out of town guests, but none of us could put the book down. Liz finished Sunday afternoon; Sarah and I read into the night and we both finished Monday night (we did stop to go to work). I'm not going to tell you anything about the book, but if you haven't read all of the Potter series yet, do it. If you enjoy fiction ( I know not everyone loves it) but these are really great, well told stories. Anyway, I'll let you enjoy this lovely picture of the three of us at the party on Friday night.

Saturday we took a break from reading to go out to dinner for my birthday. Matt and Amanda met us at Teak in Mt. Adams for sushi and afterwards we met up with some more friends for drinks across the street. It was a really nice, low-key evening spent with some of my best friends.



Tonight was the 115th annual Norwood Day Parade and my staff at work and I walked in the parade, waving at our friends and customers as their children begged and screamed for candy. Sarah and Gilmore joined us and we had a lot of fun. What better way to spend your birthday than walking up "Main Sreet" with everyone cheering and waving.
So that's how I celebrated entering into the last year of my twenties. Reading, eating sushi, and a parade!

Birthday Recap

My birthday was so much fun! I had a great little family party Tuesday night with yummy food, including homemade chocolate cake and raspberry chip frozen yogurt. And I got great gifts, including a Tommy jacket and lots of other goodies from Dad and Candy, and 3 Coach purses from Kevin and anyone who sent me money. The Coach purses were from the outlet, so I got a leather everyday bag (the Chelsea field bag in pebbled chocolate brown leather), the tan mini-signature bag (for times when I want something a bit smaller) and a matching wristlet (for times when I really want to pare down). So thanks everyone!

We arrived for the midnight showing of Harry Potter at 10, and Newport ended up selling out 14 theaters! The movie was great, but it was equally cool to see all the teenagers so geeked about Harry. Normally, something like that would be very uncool, but they were so excited, all dressed up like characters from the books and yelling back and forth.

Wednesday, we drug our tired butts to King's Island, which turned out to be perfect. There literally were no lines for anything. We were only there for 3.5 hours and managed to ride The Italian Job, The Vortex, The Beast, bumper cars, Adventure Express, Top Gun, The Backwards Racer and Son of Beast. Honestly, it's harder and harder to ride coasters and run around the park all day as we get older, so I was glad that we could squeeze so much in so quickly (this 32-year-old still had it in her to keep her hands up on The Beast, though!).

Thursday, my staff took me to Jalapenos for my birthday lunch and decorated my office.

In other news, I got a new stereo for my car that allows me to play my ipod directly through it. I can control it with the stereo and everything, which is so convenient! I'm also feeling a great sense of accomplishment after completing 3 freelance assignments this weekend--a 30-page proofreading assignment, a 40-page proofreading assignment and an article about couples sharing household chores. Now we're off to dinner at Bob Evans with Katie and Casey!

An Evening With Ellery

Back in March, Sarah and I, along with several of our very good friends, had the privilege and the pleasure to attend a live performance of Ellery, the musical duo who also happen to be very good friends of ours. It was amazing and I've been waiting to blog about it until you could see for yourself, so here it is. Click above to see a preview and click here to order your own copy on DVD. Also, PBS will be airing the performance in August on several networks throughout the country (Cincinnati, Dayton, and Toledo for sure). It is not to be missed so order your copy today and be sure to check your local PBS listings in August!
They are awesome!!

Checkin' In

I know I haven't posted much lately. I've been busy with the usual: freelance work, work work, and all the stuff in between. I've been reading the last three Harry Potter books (4 through 6) to refresh my memory before book 7 comes out July 21st. I've already pre-ordered a copy to arrive that day. So I've been reading in all my spare time!

I don't know if I already mentioned this, but lately I've been doing a lot of freelance proofreading, which I love. It's dull, but it's second nature to me. Plus, I don't have to interview people and I can do it when it's convenient for me. I charge hourly, so it's very straightforward. Of course, I can't turn down the writing assignments if they pay well, but I find them to be a colossal pain when I'm already working full time.

We have fun festivities planned for my birthday this week. Tomorrow, Mom, Katie, Casey, Gran, Tim, Art and Pam are coming over for a cookout and cake. (Art and Pam, Matt's parents, just moved here today from Pennsylvania so they can be closer to Matt, Katie and Casey.) Then at midnight, Kevin and I are going to see the 5th Harry Potter movie (that's the first showing!). Wednesday, we both have the day off, so we're going to King's Island. We both earned free tickets when we worked at the park to help out Save the Animals Foundation last year. I keep telling people I'm having a "little kid birthday," LOL!

This cracks me up every time!

What Have I Been Doing

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been doing a lot of stuff around the house, so I thought I'd give you a couple of details. Here are some pictures of our basement, which has been the bulk of my busy-ness. After we had the "flooding" (which quickly drained away and dried out. This has happened about three or four times to us) I decided that it was time for me to repaint the basement walls and the floor. So I decided to do this while Sarah was at the HOW Conference. Like most projects I choose to tackle, this one involved about 130 "prep" steps that I was not really anticipating. I usually like to just start a project with the step that will get me to the final product, but I'm learning that it really doesn't work that way. I had to scrape off all of the loose paint on the walls, ceiling, and floor, sand everything down, wash everything, wash it again, vacuum, and then all of the other little projects that come up as I'm moving things around. So I didn't actually get into any painting until the second day of the project and painting a basement is a lot more involved than painting a bedroom. With all the pipes, uneven surfaces, wires, and on top of it all had to do all of the trim! Usually Sarah and I work as a team on this stuff, but I was on my own (I owe her a lot of credit for everything we've done together, trim is the hardest part!).
So as hard as I worked on my own, I didn't get everything done while she was gone. I had to save the floor for the next weekend. While she was gone, I also refinished the kitchen sink; which was another tedious, multi-step process. I felt bad because the sink required 5 days to cure, so when she got home on Wednesday I had to tell her that we couldn't use the sink until Saturday. But that's all over and it looks much better than before.
The pictures of the basement don't really do it justice, you'll have to stop by and see for yourself. We did some reorganizing along with this project and I ended up moving my work area out into the garage, but I think that works better. When I'm making a mess I can just sweep it outside!

Yay for The Fray

I know it has been a while since you've seen a post from me, but I had to let you know about our amazing evening Tuesday night. Sarah and I drove up to Indianapolis with our very good friend Liz Truitt to go to an outdoor concert downtown, showcasing three bands, two of which are currently among my absolute favorites, OK Go and The Fray. OK Go is best known for their "treadmill" music video. Check out the link on You Tube, it's pretty cool.
But The Fray was the headliner and they were awesome. They've had some pretty big hits that have had a lot of radio play but I really love every one of their songs. Check them out as soon as possible. They played a few new songs for us and this is one of their last shows for a while, hopefully they'll get a new album out soon!
I'm planning to make it out to a few other shows this summer, probably with Liz, who is my guide in the world of music discovery.
I've been pretty busy with work and some other projects lately, I'll try to get some updates on things around the house for you soon!

HOWCon Rocked!

Our tired crew got home from the HOW Conference late last night. We had such a great time. The Hyatt Regency was such a great venue, the program was super strong, the party at the Georgia Aquarium may have been the best in HOW history and everyone seemed so pleased. Our honorary staffers, who help us introduce sessions, were all great pals so it was fun to catch up with them. The food at the Food Studio and South City kitchen was fabulous. And did I mention that closing party? Seriously, if you ever get the chance to go to the Georgia Aquarium, don't pass it up. We saw the coolest stuff there. Here are some photos of our trip. And just so you're not confused, the party was called the "Descenders Ball," so everyone was supposed to dress as something type-related.

Hi from Hotlanta

I'm down south for the HOW Design Conference in Atlanta. Everything's going great! I got a sweet suite (I really don't need all that space, but it's cool), we had a fabulous dinner at The Food Studio last night, and sessions are off to a good start.

The End of an Era

Today is senior art director Tricia Bateman's last day at HOW. Bryn, Tricia, Megan and I have all worked together for 5.5 years. And Carmen and Susan have been part of the HOW team for nearly 3. That's a long run! Here's a shot of all us HOWgirls, minus Susan, who left early before we could rope her into a photo. Three cheers to Tricia and her new job at a cool design firm in Northern Kentucky!