Painting Bathrooms, Cleaning House, and Harry Potter

Last Saturday, Kyler and I spent our Saturday morning painting a bathroom at a local school. We were there with our new church, along with other churches in the community. Like many other schools, these local ones are facing tremendous budget cuts and couldn't afford to paint some of their spaces. So Saturday morning we met up at a high school, heard a few words from the Superintendent, sang a couple of worship songs, and everyone then dispersed to different locations.

Kyler and I headed out to Whitewater Vally Elementary with our assignment: bathrooms.

While waiting for guidance, I joked to Kyler that all he had to do was replicate this mural and we'd be done. For those of you not aware of Kyler's artistic abilities--I'm not sure he could replicate even this mural.

Also, I thought it was rather funny that usually we see these people all dressed up in their Sunday's best, but when it came to painting, we saw everyone in their worst. I wouldn't have been all to sad to see this "Fight the 15" shirt from my food court days get a little destroyed.

At this school, there were a total of 16 volunteers. We made quick work out of the two sets of bathrooms while the pastor worked on painting the kitchen floor. Of course, we weren't allowed to get out of line--the pastor's daughter, who is about 7 or 8, kept coming around asking us if things were going smoothly. At one point, Kyler asked her what exactly she was doing. And her response was a great one..."I'm the supervisor. Sounds like a job you would like to be doing."

A girl after my own heart.

We finished up around 11am and headed home for a shower. Did I mention that the school had their A/C turned off for the summer and there were four adults holed up in a tiny bathroom?

Once we were cleaned up, we ate a quick lunch and fixed our attention on the TV to finish up Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows Part 1. Kyler and I have seen all the Harry Potter movies together in theater, but I didn't want to see the new one, which was Part 2, until I had a refresher on Part 1.

Then we I cleaned house. Kyler usually finds an obscure task to do (organize the stacked boxes in the spare bedroom, check his credit score, etc.) to appear busy while I clean. Like those are urgent matters...

So while I cleaned, Kyler found a credit agency that would also give us free movie tickets, just for subscribing. So for almost two hours, he set us up accounts to find out our scores and retrieve codes for the movie tickets. Meanwhile, I was battling the dryers that never finish drying our clothes.

Once I had every inch of the apartment covered in half-dry clothing, we went grocery shopping, and then Kyler decided that we were going to see Harry Potter, Part 2.

We drove through the countryside to a little town with a movie theater. And on the way, we saw some peculiar sites:

Tassling corn, already?

Strange looking barn/silos/contraption...

No wait, that's a stinkin roller coaster!

This was not on a major highway or anything. I'd compare it to 36 around our parts.

Then, I was trying to take a better picture of the tassling corn. But right as the camera went off, we were passing a field being watered...I thought a fire hydrant had busted, but as we passed we saw that it was actually a watering system.

Part of our deal for subscribing and then immediately unsubscribing after receiving our movie codes and credit scores was that we got 3D tickets!

He asked me to take this photo because he thought he looked smart...

The movie was stinkin awesome, [if you're thinking about going though, it's not worthy of shelling out cash to see it in 3D]--but since it was free, I'm not complaining. The movie wasn't as dramatic as we'd expected for the ending of Harry Potter. It's kind of sad to think that it's finally come to an end though. I'll never get Kyler back in a movie theater with me now. These were some of the few movies that we both agree on paying for to see in theaters. I know he'll never think it's worth $8 to see a chick flick, and you can bet I don't think it's worth $8 to see whatever man movie they'll come up with next. I guess I'll bank on Matt Damon releasing some action-packed film to suit both our fancies.

And that was our Saturday of painting bathrooms, cleaning house, and Harry Potter.

Hiking at Miami Whitewater

A few weeks ago, Kara and I had our first free weekend since we had arrived in Ohio. After we had enjoyed our hiking so much in Hawaii, we thought that we would see what southwestern Ohio had to offer. We decided on Miami Whitewater State Forest, which is less than 5 miles from our house. The funny part is that it is actually quicker to get on the interstate to go there, since it is only one exit away.

Ready to Go

Always a Little More Stylish

We went on two different trails in the morning - the Timber Lakes trail and the Badlands trail. On the Badlands trail, we saw an awesome sight - a red-tailed hawk sitting about 15 feet above us in a tree. After waiting there for a few minutes, it decided to swoop away, and it was incredible to watch gliding through the trees.

Mr. Hawk

On the second trail, I did not bring my camera or backpack, but we saw an owl sleeping in a tree at about the same distance from us as the hawk. After Mr. Hawk could not help us with our pressing question, we had to see if Mr. Owl was as smart as everyone thought he was.

Blast! That impatient Mr. Owl! The world may never know....and he owes me a Tootsie Pop.

Mallards

There is also a lake in the center of the park, which we walked around and saw some ducks. This one below has a little bit of a duck-mullet. Business in the front...party in the back.

View of the Lake

After checking out the park pretty thoroughly, we decided to get our new picnic box out and enjoy a picnic. The park had a lot of picnic areas, so we settled down in one, had some lunch, and took a nap. It was the end of a great adventure!

Trying Out Our New Picnic Set

Fixing My Computer

I am writing this post from a resurrected computer for the first time in over a month. After four years of school, my reliable Dell decided that it had enough. Early in March, I began to notice my computer was acting up a little bit, and after hearing Mom's photo disaster (which turned out to be less severe in the end), I decided to buy an external hard drive to back up everything important.

So, as the computer was on its way out, I was somewhat prepared for its departure. However, after it had died, I did not realize how frustrating it really was to not have it. It is not that I was desperate for a computer - we have Kara's Dell laptop and our iPad - I just was frustrated that I couldn't use mine.

I took my computer to get a free diagnostic done, and the lady at the counter told me that my hard drive had failed. I asked her if they had hard drives there to sell, and she said yes. Then I asked her how much it would be for them to install one. She said it is $60-$80 for the hardware and $200 for the service. Hmmmm.....I might as well buy a new computer for that price. So, I decided to take my very limited computer knowledge and do it myself. I bought a new hard drive (with 2x the space as the original) online for around $50, looked at a few Google articles, and took the plunge.

Before the Operation

When my hard drive arrived in the mail, I was excited to get started. Kara was.....well, not nearly as excited as me but put up with my little hobby. Needless to say, I had computer parts, screws, and CDs everywhere for the adventure.

Out With the Old

In With the New

Since my Windows CDs were upgrades, I had to install XP, the Vista, then Windows 7 

In the end, I was successful and learned a lot. Hopefully, my computer will survive for a few more years!

Full-Time Employment

As of June 20th, I became a full-time employee! After the whirlwind of graduating, getting married, honeymooning, and setting up house in a new state, I began my first job at Hill-Rom. And no, this is not the casket company. Hill-Rom manufactures and sells mostly hospital beds.

On my first day, this lavender rose and a cute little sign welcomed me to the Finance staff and to my cube. During the first week of work, I spent a lot of time on the phone with IT trying to set up and gain access to all the databases I'll need. I also spent a lot of time talking to HR because no one (including myself) knows who I am. Because I just got married, they set up my email address with my new married name. But for paychecks and benefits, I had to use my maiden name (because I still ain't got it changed). Needless to say, everyone was confused!


The second week, I did a lot of watching and replicating. I am taking over the responsibilities of last year's new hire. I would watch her run reports, take pretty-darn detailed notes, and then go back to my computer to try to end with the same numbers as she did.

The third week, I went through a lot of meetings with marketing people of the products that I work with. So these meetings were a lot of fun because I actually got to see the products in action and even try a couple out.

And this week, I'm finally starting to get into a routine...well at least Monday was routine-ish. I'm definitely on a steep learning curve, but it's all brand new and exciting (and best of all -- not school. Sorry Kyler).

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Don't get me wrong, I loved our wedding day! But just two weeks after ours, and the recent memory of everything that went into that big day, it was so wonderful to sit back and enjoy someone else's.

A very late Congratulations to Ryan and Mikka!