Polo's First Ball

We picked up a tennis ball today for Polo. It's a little big for him, but we loved watching him play.

Welcome Home, Polo!!

Michael and I have each wanted a dog for several years, but we always agreed to wait until we were married so we could raise him together. Once we got married, we decided to wait until we got a house with a yard. Once we were in the house, we wanted to wait until we finished painting and felt a little more settled. After much waiting, we decided to take advantage of this three-day weekend to get serious about a dog. We have been checking out Petfinder.com for possible adoptions and the Columbus Dispatch classifieds for pet listings for the past few weeks. Today, we took an unsuccessful trip to the humane society and then checked the classifieds again. We found a new listing for Golden Retrievers (my dream dog!) born July 24th at a price that was so good we had to call. Once we learned that all the puppies were still available, we left right away. After driving an hour and a half south of Columbus through miles of cornfields and farmland, we finally arrived at the right address. We played with three different males, picked our favorite, paid and headed home with huge smiles and full hearts. We finally found a puppy to call our very own. We named him Polo.

Polo's birthplace

Playing with Polo

Heading home together

Polo's new home

Tuckered out from a long day

Fingerprint Failure

I went in to the Dublin Schools District Office today to get fingerprinted, again. As a teacher in Arizona, I was required to get an FBI fingerprint clearance card. Interestingly, these expire. I don't know for sure, but my best guess as to the reason behind multiple fingerprint checks isn't because anyone's fingerprints change but because our criminal history might. Teaching is not the only profession that requires fingerprint clearance, and my guess is that all of us have to have this joyful experience repeated as long as we work in public service or with children. Maybe I'm not a criminal when they hire me, so they better check again every few years and see if any juicy tidbits show up during the background check.
Despite going through the process of getting fingerprinted three times before, today's experience was entirely new. The first and second time I went to a school district office in Arizona and had the traditional ink and roll fingerprinting. The third time I went to a police station in the Chelsea area of New York City. Though the environment was quite a change, I still inked and rolled. Today, I discovered that there is new technology (gasp!) that can scan my fingerprints right into a computer. Unfortunately, the computer can decide that any given scan isn't good enough, and my fingers failed. After scanning the right four fingers, the left four fingers, and the two thumbs together, the computer labeled all of them as "poor." The woman scanning my fingers was very nice about it. We tried again, then put on Cornhuskers lotion that was supposed to help the prints show up better. Nope. I washed my hands and tried again. No go. More lotion. Strike five. Another woman came over and tried to help apply appropriate pressure to my fingers as I pressed on the scanner. Finally, they put me out of my misery and said I should go home and moisturize my hands like crazy and come back on Friday. I felt guilty that I had failed at getting fingerprinting and then frustrated that technology trumped me once again. For all the advances that it brings, technology must bring twice as many headaches.

Before and After Bedrooms

Moving into the house has definitely kept us busy. It's hard to believe it was only nine days ago. I have since painted the banisters and two bedrooms. Today I am working on the living and dining rooms. We don't have any furniture for them yet, but I'm plowing through all painting projects while I can. On Saturday, Michael and I went to Ikea in Cincinnati and got a desk, chair, and a table for behind the loveseat. We're picking up a couch and loveseat for the family room tomorrow evening. I'm so excited! A few photos to show what we've been up to:

Master bedroom (before)

Master bedroom (after)

I don't know what happened with the camera, but the wall is all one color despite what it looks like in the picture.

Bedroom 2 (before)

Bedroom 2/Guest room (after)

Bedroom 3 (before)
Bedroom 3/Office (after)

Painted the fireplace (sorry, Mark)

I debated long and hard about this decision. I looked at countless blogs, design and DIY websites searching for painted fireplaces and researching the pros and cons. It came down to three main points: 1 - I'd like to eventually remodel the fireplace anyway, 2 - the bricks were not really in very good shape or great looking to begin with, and 3 - I thought the white would contrast better and fit better with our plans for the rest of the house. A few before shots to refresh your memory:

the finished look

It was a tough, time-consuming project, but Michael and I are both really happy with the result. I also spent a day this week painting the master bedroom. The new color looked a lot like the old color when it was wet, which had me worried, but it dried quite differently. The original was a neutral beige-ish color with peachy undertones. We chose a neutral beige-ish color in the brown family. You can kind of see the difference in this picture. I had not painted the edging yet, so the original color shows near the ceiling.

Day 1 and 2 at the house

Little by little, we're making our way into our new home. Movers were supposed to arrive at 8am on Monday to get the last of the former residents' stuff. I drove over around 1pm with a carload of boxes thinking I would have the house to myself. Low and behold, there was a mix-up with the movers, so Mr. FR (former resident) and his daughter (little FR) were still there waiting. As eager as I was to get going on the house, I tried to be understanding of their situation. Little FR made it easy. She reminded me of a brunette Dakota Fanning at 8-years-old, telling me in a very grown up way all about her new room at the new house and how she was tired of the old room with its bright purple walls and painted dragonflies. (Don't worry, little FR, we'll paint over them soon!) I left the boxes in the garage and headed back to the apartment as I felt awkward hovering. I drove back around 4 and saw the moving van in the driveway, so I kept driving to a nearby park and waited another hour. By the time I was alone at the house, I only had ten minutes before Michael would be home from work. All we had time to do was put our paint samples on the wall, hook up the dehumidifier, and clean the laundry room (I scrubbed the floor on my hands and knees to prepare for the washer and dryer).

The top two colors were potential grays for the kitchen. The three blues below were contenders for the family room.






Little FR left us this adorable note on our sidewalk:
On Tuesday, I got to the house about 7:30am and spent the entire day painting. We picked Porcelain Shale (Valspar) for the kitchen and Celebration Blue (Valspar) for the family room. I didn't quite finish with the blue today, so I'll be wrapping that up tomorrow.

kitchen before
kitchen after

family room before

family room (almost) after

I'd like to paint the fireplace white but haven't settled on a shade yet. More to come. I need to rest now :)

Columbus Crew

This week I read Literacy and Longing in L.A. by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack. I picked it up from the library because the main character is a major bookworm, so I thought I could relate, but I really didn't like it. The characters were flat and/or underdeveloped and the plot just wasn't that interesting. I also read Stephen King's Misery though and loved it. Even though I typically prefer literary fiction over commercial fiction, I thought the book was better than just a suspenseful page-turner. It also had deeper, philosophical elements to it that I found intriguing. I'm also looking forward to renting the movie.

I had lunch with two of my new girlfriends on Friday at Mimi's, which was lovely. On Saturday Michael and I joined three other couples for a potluck dinner at one of their homes, and then we all went to a Columbus Crew (soccer) game. I had never been to a professional soccer game before and didn't think I would enjoy it, but I had a great time. Columbus doesn't save all its spirit for the Buckeyes, there was a great crowd cheering on the Crew to their 2-0 victory against FC Dallas.

our own Columbus crew after the game