Adam's 27th

Yesterday, Adam turned 27. While we were at his birthday dinner, I kept thinking how fast this year has flown. I literally feel like I went to bed on his 26th birthday and woke up and it’s September 12th again. Anyway, it’s always great to take a day out and celebrate the amazing guy I get to call my husband.

Here are some of the big moments of year 26:

- Accomplished MANY home improvement projects including: installing tile (in our guest bathroom and for our kitchen backsplash); painting kitchen cabinets; installing crown molding…and many, many more things
- Quit the job he’s had since he graduated from college
- Became a partner in a start-up with his old boss
- Said a sad goodbye to a grandmother and grandmother-in-law
- Sold his little red Hyundai
- Put up with me for another year (now THAT’S an accomplishment)

We are looking forward to celebrating his birthday a little bit more with family this weekend. Adam, I can’t wait to see what 27 has in store for you!

Summertime

Last weekend Adam and I went down to Rehoboth to take care of a few things at his parent’s beach house. It was a welcome break after busy and stressful summer. I’ve been feeling down lately about work and Adam has been working some insane hours with his new start-up. He encouraged me to take the day off on Friday and make it a three day weekend, so on Friday morning, we packed up the new car for it’s first road trip and made the 90 minute drive down to slower lower.

I spent the day on Friday relaxing with a book outside while Adam finished up some work. On Saturday, we hit the road and took a scenic drive to Bethany Beach where we browsed some of the shops, walked along the boardwalk and soaked up the absolutely gorgeous weather. That night, we went to Lewes to admire the amazing houses and ended the night at our favorite Italian restaurant. By Sunday, it was time to pack up and head back home again.

It feels like life has been moving a mile a minute for us over the past year with house projects, family events, graduate school, work, overtime and starting new jobs. Now that things are finally starting to settle down (at least for me), I’m starting to look toward what’s next for me. Even though I complained about it, after being out of school for six months, I’m really starting to miss it. I’m so thankful that I have someone there to listen to my frustrations and encourage me to try new things. While I figure out the next step, I’m going to attempt to stay positive, roll with the punches and relax while I can because you never know what’s around the corner.

Goodbye Elantra

Adam has been driving a little red Hyundai since I met him six years ago. When I first started dating him, I thought he was so cool because his car was only a year old and it had a manual transmission (ooo lah lah), plus it was bright red. Sometimes he would pick me up at my apartment, take me to get ice cream and then we would sit in the car, listen to the radio and talk with the windows down. When he graduated and moved to Baltimore and I was still in Newark, I remember working on schoolwork and looking out the window waiting for his little red car to turn onto my street.

Four years ago, when we took a family vacation to Hilton Head, he taught me to drive it so that I could contribute to the 10 hour drive (alot of people have attempted to teach me how to drive stick shift and I pretty much just hate it). When I took my turn at the wheel sometime in Virginia, there was bumper to bumper traffic, I stalled in the middle of 95 with a huge truck behind me and I was so freaked out that I couldn’t get it started again. After that, I never got behind the wheel of the Hyundai again.

Since buying the house, we’ve noticed that we sometimes have a need for a car that can haul more stuff. In January, we went to the car show in Harrisburg and checked out a bunch of crossover SUVs, but didn’t really get around to researching and test driving any until about a month ago. Last weekend, we decided to put the Hyundai on Craigslist to see if anyone would be interested. Luckily, we found a couple in Newark interested in it and yesterday, Adam signed over the title. Hopefully this weekend we’ll go pick up our new car.

Adam always says that I get too attached to inanimate objects (i.e. I was almost in tears when I traded in my Honda a few years ago), but after spending a lot of time in that car with him, I’m definitely going to miss it (and the lack of car payment).

Moving Out

The past few months have been bittersweet as my Grandmother prepared to move out of her house and into a retirement community. For me, 825 Green Lane is the only house I have been visiting my entire life. Growing up, we would come from wherever we might have been living at that particular time and as soon as you walked in, the place just felt like a second home. It’s also the last place I saw my Grandfather the way I remember him.

When we were little, we would spend hours swinging on the tire swing that hung from the huge tree in the backyard, begging a parent, aunt or uncle to push us higher or spin us faster. Sometimes, someone would set up croquet and we would all run around playing. It was the perfect yard for playing soccer, picking vegetables in Grandma’s garden and catching fireflies.

Inside, the entire family would get together for Thanksgiving and everyone would make a huge circle around the kitchen and say a prayer before dinner. You could always count on Grandma to sit down and play Dominoes, Scrabble, Rummikub, or cards around the kitchen table. In the living room, my sisters and I spent hours watching our favorite movie, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers….I’m sure today the three of us could probably recite the words to most of the songs. The baby grand piano always sat in the corner, waiting for someone to sit and play hymns or Christmas carols. Upstairs, the little plaid room had two matching twin beds for my sister, Sally and me.

When I left the house on Saturday for the last time, I had so many mixed emotions, but I am really happy that Grandma is going to be living in such a nice place with so many opportunities to do things and meet new people. I know that 825 Green Lane is just a house, it’s the people that were inside of it and the memories that were made there that made it so special.

Ch-ch-changes

A couple months ago, Adam called me from the airport when he was on his way home from a work trip in Austin, Texas. His boss, he informed me, was planning on leaving the current company and starting his own business. He asked Adam to join him as one of its founders. As he told me about this new opportunity, I couldn’t help but think that we had just gotten settled in Newark with our house the way we wanted it and the bank account back to where it had been before we wrote the check for the down payment. We were enjoying life, settled into jobs and done with grad school. I was happy in the routine daily life. Why does it always seem that when you’re just getting comfortable, something changes?

Adam and I discussed this opportunity for hours, researching what it would mean for him and for us as a couple and a future family. While he was still happy in his job, he wasn’t sure that it was leading him where he wanted to go. From the beginning, I was worried about stability of this new position, as well as the fact that there is a chance this idea could fail. I was focused on the negative aspects of the opportunity, while he was dreaming about all of the future possibilities.

A few weeks ago, my opinion started to shift when I saw how excited Adam was about this new adventure. I realized that I have to trust his judgment and know that he would never purposely do anything to jeopardize our stability. He deserves to be challenged in his career. So, after five years in his current company, he is switching gears and becoming one of the founders of a new start-up.

We know it is going to be a crazy year, but we’re looking forward to all of the opportunities ahead.

What I've Been Up To

Yet again, I have neglected the blog! Over the past month, we have been busy with work, spending time with family and getting the house ready for the summer. I also apologize for the lack of pictures!

The weekend following the tulip festival, Adam and I completed a mini master bedroom makeover. We painted over the poop brown color with a lighter tan and bought some new bedding at the Pottery Barn outlet. Pictures to come!

The first weekend of May, we celebrated by nephew’s 2nd birthday. My sister had worked so hard to make the party special, and of course, the birthday boy was as cute as ever.


For Mother’s Day, we invited my Mom and Adam’s Mom down for lunch. It was a beautiful day with great company. I am so incredibly lucky to have both of these women in my life.

My Grandma is in the process of selling her house, so the weekend following Mother’s Day, Adam and I headed up to Philadelphia to help out with that whole process. While Adam and my Dad painted one of the bedrooms in her house, the girls went over to her new apartment to pick out kitchen things and paint colors.

We kicked Memorial Day weekend off with the Third Annual Crab Fest at my sister’s house. It was fun to sit out on the porch, enjoy the nice weather and crack some crabs. Sunday and Monday were spent on a few house projects, including painting the office and adding crown molding.

We are looking forward to relaxing this summer, including a few weekend trips to the beach. Hopefully, there will be more blog posts to come!

Tulip Festival Bust

Last weekend, we went to the beach for the first time this year. Adam and I both took the day off on Friday to enjoy the beautiful weekend weather and go to the Lewes Tulip Festival, which I had been looking forward to for a few weeks.

We arrived on Friday morning and headed over to Lewes with his parents. I expected to see thousands of tulips (just like the website describes) however, we soon realized that the tulips had all bloomed a few weeks earlier because of the hot weather. The dissapointment didn't last long and we still walked all around admiring the old houses and gorgeous gardens.

I might be too young to be thinking about retirement, but Lewes might be on the list.

Recipe Rut Solutions #12 and #13

While I don't have pictures of me actually making these two recipes, I can tell you that we've made them multiple times and they are some of our new favorites, whether we eat them in the same meal, or separately. Adam originally made the orzo dish for our anniversary dinner and we first made the pork glaze on New Years Day on grilled pork, however, we've since realized that it's much better when done in the crock pot.

Orzo with Roasted Vegetables

Brown Sugar and Balsalmic Glazed Pork

Both recipes are really easy to make and both are great the next day for lunch! The orzo can be served hot or cold, and last time we made it, we actually threw in some shrimp and made it a meal by itself.

Blue Plate Special

Since we moved in, I’ve been debating what to put over the sofa in the family room. The room has tall vaulted ceilings, so I knew I couldn’t just put a dinky looking picture on a very large wall.

For awhile, I thought I was going to do something like this with some antique plates:



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I never actually got around to looking at or buying any plates, so when I saw big red shelf at my favorite little antique store at the end of Main Street in Newark, I jumped at the chance to buy it with the idea of putting it above the couch and switching out seasonal decorations. However, I still thought that the little shelf alone would be dwarfed on the huge wall. The solution: some antique plates on either side!

Luckily, I share my mom’s love for antiques and decorating, and she bought me a beautiful blue plate that dates back to the 1890’s. Of course I made Adam hang up my shelf as soon as I got home and then I jumped on Ebay and Etsy and managed to snag three more coordinating plates to flank either side of the red shelf.

Here is the final product:

Finished Kitchen

We had our granite counters installed two weeks ago tomorrow, but I haven't had time to post about them until today. Everything went smoothly with the installation, and we are really happy with the outcome. I'm sure we will enjoy this kitchen for many years to come. It is safe to say that we are pretty much done with big projects for now. We are planning on relaxing throughout the spring and summer and maybe working on some smaller things around the house.

See that little owl on the island? Adam and I saw that while we were in New York City for my birthday and he surprised me with it today!



A view from the side:



A little comparison from what it used to look like to today: