New Girl On The Block

Rob, the Craigslist afficionado, has struck again.

I think the rampant string of buy-sell-buy-sell may finally be at a stopping point -- for now.

Meet the newest addition to our family. She is still nameless, although we've received numerous suggestions of an appropriate nickname of Lexi.

welcome to the family, newb!

We're still working on the name.

Whilst Rob was working out the final deal on that little gem, Sydni and I busied ourselves in the grass by a nearby church, where she was ready to show me exactly how well-rounded she is:

We stretched. Playing is now an activity that, according to Sydni, requires extensive preparation. This is called the cross-your-arms stretch. Who knew? 

♥♥♥♥!!

We tumbled.

We laughed. A lot.

happy girl

Since she just started school, I figured I'd give her a pop quiz on something she learned this week: addition.

It's true. This little chicky seems to be too smart to handle sometimes.
And most importantly, we hydrated. ;)

sticker-clad chickadee

Overall, I don't think we can complain. We have a new set of wheels in the driveway, two wagging pittie tails curled up on next to us and a kindergartener who loves life.

We're pretty happy.
Hope you are, too!

xo | cmd

Breaking Even & Bye-Bye, Boat!

Oh, the power of Craigslist.

dun dun dunnnn...

Over the years, I personally can attest to the convenient wonder that is Craigslist. Buying and selling online was never really my thing; throughout high school, many people I knew used Ebay. One guy I dated in HS bought a car off Ebay, and traveled something like 6 states away to go look at it before he bought it. I remained skeptical to the whole idea of committing myself purchase whatever it was, from some random person. I mean c'mon, I'm a 90's kid, and if you want to gauge our range of adaptation, think about this:

Kids born in the 80's are probably the last generation of kids whose baby pictures weren't taken on cell phones.

Mind blown with that one, a bit.. mine at least.

Anyway, I hit college in the "big city" of Cincinnati, and was introduced to all kinds of things, including Craigslist: An online community of buyers, seller, renters, wanters, givers and takers who were all... local? So I could drive 15 minutes to a mall to meet someone selling an ipod, rather than blindly buying it online and risk being severely disappointed? Sign me up.

Everyone's a newb at some point.

I started relying on Craigslist for my first point of search whenever I'd decided I needed a bigger-ticket item. There are of course horror stories from both buyers and sellers on Craigslist, so I am still to this day grateful to have been fortunate and fruitful after my repeated usage...

I found a roommate on Craigslist. She turned out to be awesome, and we're still friends today.
She and I found our apartment on Craigslist [it only seemed fitting...]. 

with trisha! 2008 & 2014

stella bella!

I bought a car off Craigslist. Sure, the fuel pump had a seizure and died just a couple weeks in, but reading up on Saabs after that, I realized that was probably imminent, and went on with life.
The next several places in which I lived were also from Craigslist, along with countless other random things: appliances, a snowboard or two, skiis, cell phones, laptops, cameras, camping equipment, etc.
I even had a few pets over the years who came off CL. My little rescue love Stella is herself a CL ad, answered by moi.
I counted myself a Craigslist aficionado.
And then I met Rob. No, I didn't meet him on CL, haha..

Where I thought I was a guru at positioning myself on Craigslist, Rob blew me out of the water: Cars, trucks, boats, motorcycles, rental houses and a lot more than I would've probably ever felt comfortable dealing with over Craigs. Sure, people buy/sell/trade things all the time; what Rob does that I don't get is to somehow manage to squeeze every. single. penny either into or out of whatever it is. I love it!

Today was one of those bittersweet days. We said goodbye to the big red lug of a boat that Rob bought around this time last year. Rob decided to list it a couple of months back, but was biding his time waiting on the perfect bid. 

hitching it up to its new owner :(

Of course, it always helps to remember that bidding farewell to one just means that we're now in full-fledged quest for the next one..

whoa.. haha

Rob's madly scouring Craigslist again now, with his eyes set on a couple of potentials. One of them is in MO, where we'll be this weekend.

Oh! I also almost forgot to mention - CONGRATS to my team at work! We've broken even, just after a year! That's a HUGE accomplishment for a new office, and I couldn't be more proud to have been a part of that effort. It's the up-&-up from here! :D

We of course celebrated with lunch, which was decidedly at Trio Bistro in Kenwood. I felt like I'd been there once before, but I still can't put my finger on when, or with whom. Either way, the food was delicious and it was great to have all of us together to celebrate such a cool achievement! 

thai flatbread

proscuitto flatbread

Yum! Congrats again to my awesome team. We're pretty awesome, in my books :)

I think this is gonna be a good week!

xo | cmd

Weekend Wrap Up

There were four girls total in my bed this morning, and we all seemed to wake up right around the same time. I wanted to capture the moments, since we had plenty of time before church. Technically, we even got Mr. Rob in the picture too, since he's in that picture there in the background [Sydni pointed that out!] I wouldn't mind waking up to these faces, this way, every single day (:


waking up happy [minus one, but soon]

my favorite snuggle buddy♥

she's got them wrapped around her finger.. haha

I finally convinced all of us off the bed to get the day rolling; at church, the lesson of NEW was starting, and let me tell you, it was a home-run sermon. If you have time & want to hear it, by all means, LISTEN HERE (:!! I was hooked for the entire message, and I am thankful that I've found a church family on which I may be landing, permanently.

"new"

After church, it was off again to the new house to drop off more stuff, followed by one more run of items before the weather again began to decline. It's supposed to hit a low of -8 or so tomorrow, and by the end of today, we could tell it was already well on its way.

That didn't stop a determined Craigslister from coming out to our place to buy and pick-up Sydni's bed that we were selling. It was a great bed for her, but we're upgrading her to another one, and from what I understand, we just sold this to a family who truly needs it way more than we do. And that makes me feel good.

Sydni and I cleaned up some more before settling in for a weekend-ending movie night with Despicable Me. I promised her we'd watch the second one again whenever we have the chance, but tonight we had some good laughs with the first one.

movie night fun!

And tomorrow is again Monday..... that thing that keeps happening every week ;)

Good night, for now!

xo | cmd

It's An.. EPIC.. Friday ;)

TGIF!
This week has felt so off-kilter since I was off work for the first few days. I'm back from Illinois now, too, and even though it's only an hour's difference in time, I feel like I have no idea what time it is. I'm just glad it's Friday.

Today ran its course as Fridays typically do around here: work, the customary Friday lunch [Panera, yummm..] & a gracious dismissal a half hour early. I'm pretty excited; there's a few big things I want to accomplish this weekend, and now that Rob's Ohio-bound moving mission has been postponed to next weekend due to the weather, I'd say this is just about right.

I started the weekend off by crossing off some of the big ticket items I had listed for sale on Craigslist. This whole moving process has proved useful in prompting a cleanse of sorts, both for Rob and me. A few weeks back, we hauled a few pieces of his household furniture to Goodwill and sold some others, and today I checked off some of mine. It looks like this new place is going to be stocked with some new accessories, too :)

Between the move itself and Craigslist, Sydni and I [I wouldn't dare discredit all her.... help... haha] are starting to clear out a massive amount of space here. We took the opportunity tonight to snuggle up on the floor with the pups and watch Epic.

epic (:

Tomorrow we decided it will be Mama & Syd's date day together; it's been a little while since just she and I had no agenda for an entire day. I'm excited!  Hopefully this cantankerous weather holds off for at least a couple more days. Fingers crossed. For now, we're here nestled in with the meatballs. Happy weekend!

movie night (:

xo | cmd

... The Packing Continues......

We were cavemen today. It was still pretty bleak outside, so today was day 2 of dark-dwelling in the joy... *coughcough... of packing up a house. We definitely made some progress though; our next step is to get some of this stuff listed for sale on good old Craigslist.

I'm really not sure that a blog is a reliable means of marketplace transactions, but after it was all said and done, here's a couple of the bigger ticket items up for grabs at his place: 

china hutch [background dog not included]

matching couch set (:

And that, folks... is pretty much the epitome of what happened today: laundry, cleaning, sorting through 5 years of papers, receipts, etc [that is probably my least favorite part whenever I move; Rob shared that sentiment today] and boxing up everything from a few of the different rooms in his house.

And now, we're both in desperate need of a shower and in absolutely no shape to be seen in public, soo.... with that being said I'm gonna wrap this one up and relax for a little while.

We're gettin' there!

xo | cmd

ONE MORE DAY!

I'm totally spent.

Craigslist did its due diligence again today; I picked up a microwave for the new digs after work and got that, along with the rest of the kitchen fully assembled and in working order. The dishes are clean, shelved, and the appliances are all in their respective nests. Gosh, I love new used things (:

newest addition to the kitchen (:

The bathroom is clean, put away and ready to go, too.

It's been a long day.
TOMORROW............

recognize anyone?? ;)

^^ That's a screenshot Ali sent me a few months back, that I'm not sure I shared yet. If so, for the sake of repetition, sorry. If not, well, let's just say we had a goooood laugh over the fact that:

1. Ali was Google searching "Ginger Lumberjacks," but more and most importantly,
2. On that third row down, third picture from the left, is definitely a fluffed up, goofy shot of Rob, that I took one night at Bindy's.

I have no idea how that made it onto Google as a qualified image for that search, but it's still funny. The point of it though, is that that certain ginger lumberjack, in all of his not-really-a-ginger awesomeness, is coming to visit me for the weekend, starting tomorrow.

I. Am. SO. Excited!
Now cross your fingers it doesn't rain on Saturday; City Flea & camping with M&B, here we come!

xo | cmd

Dinner with Dawne

Work didn't yield much interesting news to share with the class, so I'll just fast-forward to the fun part of my day.

When Joe and I left Cincinnati, one of our biggest regrets was leaving behind our in-home daycare provider, Mindi. She was the first and only daycare Sydni had attended up to that point, and we loved everything about it. In our eyes, Mindi had set a standard for daycare that we were nearly certain we wouldn't be able to find anywhere else. It wasn't much of a concern for a little while; I didn't get to work immediately after our relocation, but the time came for me to go ahead and make the transition back into Express, at the local office here, and thus Sydni would need somewhere to spend the day. 


dawne [on the right]
love her. :) really do!

 We weighed our options, and decided to try out the on-base in-home daycare program that was offered to enlisted families. We matched ourselves up with a gal, but after a few months, it was simply too taxing mentally to keep up with unreasonable requests [such as, the supposed mandate to at least offer my child milk even after we'd specifically requested she not for a few days]. It seemed that each time one of us arrived to get her, there was some unecessary bit of advice or rant to be offered. They fell eventually on deaf ears, for ours were honed into finding the quickest possible remedy to what had become a real headache.

There's no doubt in my mind that a God-intervened thing took place when I found Dawne through a Craigslist search for in-home daycare. This is just another testament to my faith in Craigslist; Mindi had been a result of Craigslist digging back in Cinci when I'd first started with Express, and we couldn't have been more thrilled. It only took a few short weeks for me to connect with Dawne, and after just the initial conversation, I was pretty sold on the whole thing. Once Joe and I had the chance to visit her home and meet her, we were entirely certain this was the best move. We jumped, and I am SO, SO, SO glad we did. She is amazing!

With Joe being out of town, Dawne and I figured it was time we got together and did dinner. We decided on Texas Roadhouse [hello, sweet potato] and met there with Sydni this evening to grub and have a conversation lasting longer than the 5 minute standard each time I pick Sydni up after work. I realized tonight how very blessed we are with Dawne and everything she does for us and for Syd. She loves that kid almost as much as we do, and I have no doubt in my mind that she's well cared for whenever we leave her [even for the overnighters, which we've done!].

We've since returned home and Syd's down for the count. I'm about to follow suit.....

Joe gets home tomorrow.
JOE GETS HOME TOMORROW.
HALLELUJAH.

*can't wait!!

xo | cmd