The Basement: Bathroom - Check!

It was a busy weekend here at the Barrick abode. Bobby and I spent every waking minute together, which was awesome and so much fun! At 8am on Friday morning when he suggested we get started on the basement, I looked at him... then looked at my belly... then looked at him... then got up and went to the ladies room.

After my doctors appointment that morning, we stopped into Lowes and were, of course, greeted by name and the obligatory comment, "Oh! When are you due?!" I waddled down the aisles after Bobby: plumbing, carpet, tile, paint. Then came home to Killian, who was jumping up and down at the front door, each time pulling down bits and pieces of my nice boxwood wreath. Awesome.

By noon, we finally rolled into the house and ate lunch. I stayed upstairs to clean up while Bobby started working in the basement. Really... not even 5 minutes after he mosied down the stairs, I was passed out on the couch for an afternoon nap. Every once in a while, I'd hear my name being called... but sleeping was more important. I am 40 weeks pregnant, you know.

2:00 rolled around and I went downstairs to check on things. I have to make sure I keep an orderly house, after all. Things looked in great shape, and it was time to paint. Yay! The previous week, I had recycled 2.5 gallons of half-used paint we had from the rest of the house. I took it on myself to be creative and mix my own color. Bobby had his doubts, but to my surprise (and his), the color I came up with turned out almost EXACTLY like the color I had originally picked from Pottery Barn! Yay for saving $45 a gallon on no-VOC Benjamin Moore paint! The bathroom was painted, and I was then named Queen of Cutting In and Baseboard Painting. Bobby did the rest. When I went back upstairs, this is how the bathroom looked:

I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the house. I'd get distracted by one mess, then begin organizing something that belonged in another room, and get started cleaning up a mess in THAT room. A very inefficient way to clean, but my office and business files all got organized, my bedroom and bathroom got cleaned up, our "junk drawer" now has much less junk, and Killian has about 10 pounds less fur. By around 9:00pm, I went downstairs to find the bathroom in this condition:

WOW. Can I just say that I love having a husband that is a perfectionist and shares the same vision in home decorating as I do?? So, by 9:30, Homeboy could barely make it up the stairs because he was so exhausted. I almost had to pull him up with the Shop Vac just to get him in the shower. Don't worry... I let him sleep in the next morning...8am sure does come fast!

So now, we can officially check off the biggest hurdle in the basement: the bathroom. Done and DONE.

The One Where He Turns 27

Happy Birthday to Bobby:
My Groom
My Love
My Best Friend.

It's been only 5 years since you came into my life,
but I look forward to spending the rest of this life
knowing you, encouraging you, supporting you, teasing you, playing with you, and loving you.

Happy 27th Birthday, B! (Oh, how I love this picture of you below!)

Happy {Belated} Anniversary!

...to US!

It has been two beautiful, romantic, humorous, adventurous, silly, relaxing, crazy years since that 30th day in June. Bobby and I celebrated the best way we know how - good food, good wine and lots of sun at the beach. We had fun rambling off the things we've spent the past two years doing: new apartment, lots of experimental meals, assigning chores, long walks and bike rides, car trips, more car trips up to Baltimore, new cameras, make-shift work shop on my kitchen counter, lazy dinners out, surprise lunches at work, dancing in the kitchen, cooking out, LOTS of baseball games, iPhones, decorating the Christmas tree, getting "snowed in," and BUYING A HOUSE!



I can't wait to spend many more years with you, B. Thank you for encouraging me to document our lives through this blog to be able to look back one day when we're all old and wrinkly!

Just Because

Just 4 short years ago was the first time Bobby and I met... you can read our "abridged" story here on the night we met. Thanks to my sister, I never would have found my hunk-y engineer. The picture above was taken a few months before we got married. He was practicing for this (the face of our pastor's face is priceless):


Just thought I'd let ya'll know! Hope you're having a nice week! Thank goodness for 4-day weeks...

Happy Birthday, Hubby!

September 17, 1982

Today marks 26 years of one man's life. One man who plays so many roles: husband, son, brother, friend, leader, colleague, confidant, provider, encourager.

When you first meet someone, do you evaluate all of the roles they play in life before you develop a relationship? Probably not. I was an 18-year-old girl, a new freshman at the local community college when I went out to dinner one night. Confused about the world and where I fit in it, I drove the long car ride from Severna Park up to Towson to meet my older sister, Christina, thinking the whole way about where I was headed. Perplexed and undecided, I fumbled out of my car carelessly, not realizing the fate that would meet me at 7:30 p.m. that October night inside a Bill Bateman's Bistro. I looked over the vast sea of people, all swimming in their own personalities and dramas. I found my sister at a table with this guy in a chunky winter sweater, heavy silver glasses, dark, curley hair and a smile that instantly melted my cold and tired heart. There was a genuine air about this guy that made me like him right away. As he lead my sister and me in conversation, I stared intently at him thinking of what more made up this person. Where was his heart? Where was he going in this life? Is this just a front?

After beating him in a wing-eating contest that night (it was Monday night - all you can eat wings), I left feeling overly stuffed, intrigued and discontented at the same time. Overly stuffed because I had eaten a ridiculous amount of chicken wings. Intrigued that I had met and (what I thought) dissected this man's personality. Discontented that I had to return to my reality after my 45-minute car ride home.

Over two months later, I was headed up to UMBC to study for my final exams. I called Christina to have her meet me for dinner, but she was busy. "Call Bob," she said. "Who?" I got an intense feeling in my stomach almost instantly, but why? "Ok, fine," I thought, "I haven't talked to the guy in a few months, but whatever. We had a good time then." Christina called him and told him to meet me at the library that afternoon. After about 30 minutes of severe procrastination, someone tapped me on the shoulder and did that lame joke where they pretend not to be there. It was Bobby. He sat down and was so comfortable, which put me at ease, after all, he still was almost a stranger. After about an hour of childish school-kid flirting in the library, we both realized we weren't getting any work done! I was floating about a mile-high from all the butterflies in my stomach when he finally said, "Wanna get out of here?" All of a sudden the scene from Top Gun started playing in my head where Maverick and "Charlie" ride off into the sunset on his morotcycle and the song "Highway to the danger zone" starts blasting. Not really, but I did feel like we were in a movie right then. I was whisked off to the local Olive Garden in a little, silver Ford Echo to have the conversation of my life with my future husband, although I didn't know it at the time.

It's been almost 3 years since that night. We've had countless conversations since and I'm still just getting to know this 26-year old man. However, what I see of him so far makes me the proudest "18-year-old girl," girlfriend, wife, best-friend, work-out buddy, kitchen-stadium competitor and companion. Happy Birthday, B, my studly compliment.

My cute Eagle Scout doing push-ups on top of the mountain.
First dating... headed to a friends' wedding.
Practicing for our wedding kiss - this is how he kissed me on the day!The most handsome guy at my cousin's wedding a month before we got hitched.
The happiest day of my life.

Honeymooning in Mexico... and the smile that melted my heart.

Portrait Assignment

So in order to practice our photography "Skiiii-lls," our assignments are meant to get us to move around and be creative.

To be creative, I've blended some of my graphic design "Skiiii-lls" into the mix to really just make that extra effort for that 'A!' I used to hate it when my Mom said that to me... Cue: **Eye Roll**

I still haven't quite mastered my little "Rebel" of a camera yet, but I'm getting there!

What do you think?? (Sorry Bobby, I know you will be mad at me for this one. Thank you for being such a good sport!)