Home again Home again..jiggity jog!

We survived the craziness of the holidays and are home safe!! Matt and I drove to Longview, TX (9 hrs) for the biennial trip home for Christmas and brought home with us a bouncing new (new to use) pump organ. It was my Grampa's and I inherited it from him. Not that he's not around any more, he just downsized and had no room for such a huge thing. It is actually much smaller than I remember, but then, I was shorter back then. A u-haul trailer and a very clever husband were instrumental in bringing it home. I am not the best at driving a trailer, but those old Best Buy skills came in handy for him. Anyhoo. We are home safe and it was a good trip. I have lots of photos to post on flikr. Ah, how I long for internet back at the house!! Merry Holidays to all!!

Merry Christmas to all...and to all some eggnog!

I know you like our new page for Christmas!! We are sending out all of our E cards for the holidays to all of our friends far and wide in the world, but the people who live in town get English toffee...It's so not a fair world. Matt and I are doing great this year, along with Freckles who came home to live with me again this May. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Freckles Saga, I (Ariana) moved to Nashville in 2000 and was living with my aunt and uncle in Hendersonville (the country! but still "Nashville") and this little freckly dog showed up in the yard to play with their dogs. Her owner never claimed her and I didn't want her to go to the pound so I became a dog mom. Weird, I know, because I am not a dog person. But I am a Freckles kind of person. So many years and travels with both country and apartment living and what was intended to be a brief stint at my parent's house in Texas that turned into YEARS, (I am so fired from being a dog mom) she has come home and lives quite happily in her hugemongous crate that we call her "house" and that takes up half of our kitchen. If we could use it as a table it would be bigger than our current one. She had her 7th birthday, along with my 30th. It was quite the shin dig.
Matt and my friend Christy planned and pulled off a huge party with a live band (talented friends playing) along with dancing, food and what else, a pinata (sorry Spanish speakers. my computer no make that nnya thing)
Many of you didn't know, but Matt and I were separated last Christmas for reasons that we have discussed at length with our therapists. I didn't even write about it here. There would have been too many questions to field. But we are happy (most of the time! I mean come on...it's marriage, not a walk in the park) and are really enjoying celebrating this year together. We decorated our little East Nashville apartment with lights and hung our stockings on the bookshelf...I think we might skip the tree this year.
So a very Merry Christmas to you all and a Happy New Year!!

Labor Day and Ernesto to boot!

Well, another year off to Southport, NC and now it's home again, home again jiggity jog. We flew into the airport at Raleigh and had to wait 3 hours for my bag to get off the plane. Matt carried on and he had his with him. There was supposedly lightning on the tarmac and they wouldn't let anyone out there to take the luggage off. Then it rained for the next 2 days and the power went out! Good thing it didn't last all the time we were there. Ernesto blew through and left the next day a bright and sunny but with wild waves. We rented mopeds for the day and drove all over Oak Island, but swimming was not an option unless we wanted to find ourselves halfway out to England. The next day we rented the mopeds again and had a grand swim in the ocean. It was lovely. Matt's dad and step-mom put us up at their lake house and we played board games every night and watched movies. Anyway, it's home again for us and to our surprise we found that it had turned Autumn while we were gone! It's been lovely ever since.

Farwell to Marina Street

Matt and I had picked out a house to buy that needed a little t.l.c. and were all set to make an offer when it was snatched away from us by some big corporation that had cash to lay down before we did. We are pretty annoyed and a little heartbroken about the whole business and I have to say that I had already assigned (in my head at least) what the rooms were going to be. I feel like I need to mourn the loss of this home to some wretched House Flipper who will come in, make a few repairs and jack up the price to something we could never afford. So please pray for us that the right house will still come our way.

Be vewy, vewy quiet. We is hunting houses.

It's either feast or famine with these posts, right? Matt and I are looking for a house to buy here in Nashville and it has not been going as well as we would hope. There are lots of homes for sale, but not many in our price range and not many that our bank will approve because of the type of loan we are applying for (mostly because we don't have a huge down payment) It's hard to leave it in God's hands when we are so very eager, but it'll work out as it should. For now, I want to let you know that we are moving our photos to Flickr.com very soon and I find it to be so much easier than creating photo albums and then publishing them on our site. It's so organized and fun! Look for the change over soon.

Dr. Wife says take 4 ibupropins and ICE IT

This weekend Matt tried very hard to get to Ohio to play air-soft with his team (the Gun Devils) and after a huge downpour, a busted radiator, and $700 dollars later, he got on the way. A great time was had by all, much manly grunting and tromping around the woods in Camo, shooting at people. Matt sprained his ankle (again, the same one he sprained not a month ago at another of these events) and spent the last day soaking up the cool summer weather (compared to here! 96 and 95% humidity-yuck) and getting sunburned. I got to play nurse when he got home, poor dear. Freckles and I had a quiet weekend and spent Saturday at the Tomato Art Festival with our friends Paul and Christy Nicholson. Christy has a great little shop online and she sold her crochet wares, t-shirts, and cool buttons with tomatoes on them at a booth at the Tomato Art Fest Bazaar.
I also have a little shop online too. I made designs that I think all my grubby hippie friends and family would like. Just for fun. Besides that, I've been playing here and there and working as the Nanny on the Go. I am spending today with a pile of kidos who are feeling a bit sicky and Matt is at home following Dr. Wife's instructions on how to care for a sprained ankle.

It's HOT and I'm tired and...humph

Hello fellow peoples. Not much to report from muggy, hot Nashville. The family is great, both Matt and mine too. Freckles is the cuteness. I swear! We are having fun hanging out with a few other couples that are really becoming our circle of friends. Who'da thought!! And that circle is adding babies to the mix, although we are not participating in that yet. If has come up a couple of times, but I (Ariana) am not ready for my body to not be my own any more. Plus I would like to take a couple of trips before we jump in the middle of that. That would be really nice. Greece, Hawaii. Just good ol' together trips, all romantic-y and stuff. But I guess I need to give the timing of all that over to someone bigger than me. Who knows what He has in mind. For some reason babysitting has dried up this month. I don't know if it's the summer or what! Not that we will starve or anything, but it has been a little stressful. Keep us in your prayers as we learn more and more about being good stewards of our moola.

News from the Slacker Blogstress

Oh dear! Where has the time gone!? We are still here and better than ever. We weathered some storms, but I know that a bunch of you folks were praying for us and we are beginning to see some sunshine this side of the darkness. Our photos are in the process of being transfered to Flicker.com and it will make it easier for us to share them with lots of folks. Please don't be intimidated by this! Change is good! I brought Freckles home from my parents after a several year stint of being a crappy dog parent and she is adjusting quite well to apartment living and I like it much better than the last time she was with me in an apartment thanks to the joys of crate training! No hidden bread loaves, no torn up papers, or chocolate chip puke hiding under rugs! She was the bane of my old roomie's existence. Matt and I go for dog walks and she likes that, but not the dog park. Heck, I'd be freaked out if people were freely sniffing my butt too!!! Thats all for now cats.
Love from Matt, Ariana and Freckles

Just Checking In...

Yes dear friends, we are still alive. I know. It gets out of control when we get going in life. No big news to report, but we just wanted to let you all know we are still here. I (Ariana) have been writing songs like a mad woman and who knows where that will go, but I love it. Tomorrow is Matt's 31'st birthday so call him and wish him a happy day.