Film: Our Sleepy Dog

Katie, Barkley & I went to Fryman Canyon again today and we had another great time hiking through the hills. One of the best parts about our little family outing is that Barkley sleeps so well when we get home. Here is Barkley trying very hard to keep his eyes open but can't.
We love our little pup!






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Great Logo Design

I really love this logo because once you look at the symbol long enough it jumps out and surprises you. Simple yet effective.






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The Automated Lawnmower

Growing up I always despised mowing our family's yard. Looking back I should of complained less but I hated doing it. As I paced back and forth I would day dream of the day when I would either own a riding lawn mower or buy one of those state of the art robomowers that would cut your yard automatically! I have always been fascinated with robotic lawnmowers and still hope to own one one day but until then I love what this guy designed using a stack, a rope and a self propelled mower.

Film: Building the Farmhouse Bed

The final video...

Final pictures coming soon.

Film: San Diego

Katie and I spent the weekend in San Diego visiting her close friend from ACU. Chelsea and her beautiful baby girl accompanied her husband, Patrick, to a math conference. We enjoyed our time together and had fun exploring San Diego's great museum area.

I shot everything on my iPhone and edited the short film on my iPhone as well. I tried laying down a soundtrack but it was too distracting during the interview portions...

A Great Commercial

I so often despise commercials but every now and then you get a really good one. This pedigree commercial is fantastic. I love how it makes you want to adopt.

Simply Shakespeare

1) Last week an opportunity came about that I thought would be fun. 2) Then I didn't want to go. 3) Then I really didn't want to go. 4) Then I had to go anyways. 5) Then I was SO happy that I did and was a little giddy at the event.

Here's what went down:
1) My department had extra tickets to an event called Simply Shakespeare-- an annual event in its 20th year hosted by Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson. It's a live reading of a Shakespeare classic- this year it was "Much Ado About Nothing", my favorite! They invite their actor friends to participate, and it's mostly off-the-cuff and highly entertaining. Lots of assistants went last year, so I requested two tickets, for myself and Matt.
2) This year it was a smaller venue and we didn't have as many tickets, so I couldn't bring a +1.
3) Then I found out that only a few assistants were going, along with a handful of agents. AND the event was on the same evening that I had planned a "Life Unexpected" finale night with a couple of girlfriends. In all honesty, I'd rather go with Matt to events, so I told them to give away my ticket. (These tix were in high demand in the company.)
4) My colleagues literally laughed when I told them to give my ticket away... I believe their exact words were, "Hahaha, LOL, oh Katie, yes you are going, you need to go, you'll love it." So I canceled my girlfriend plans (Matt, btw, was also excited about watching the LU finale) and made plans to go to Simply Shakespeare instead.
5) When I arrived at the venue, it was much smaller than I expected. The theater holds about 300 people, and my seat was on the 4th row. When I sat down, one of my favorite assistant friends was there, so I immediately was relieved that I knew someone. I opened my program and lo... and... behold... I read that included in the musicians for the evening would be.....

SARA and SEAN WATKINS

Formerly of Nickel Creek, but still some of my favorite artists. I love Sara's most recent solo album and I've had Sean's "Fiction Family" album in my car CD player since last fall. I literally became giddy when I realized that they were playing.

If could go back and choose some times in my life to live over, this would be one of them. It was such a fantastic event- I laughed, I cried from laughing so much, I was in heaven listening to the Watkins, and sitting 20 feet away from Tom Hanks acting on stage isn't too shabby. Here are some of the people that were part of the act:

Can anyone name all of these stars? What a fantastic event and truly an LA experience that I will never forget... if only Matt could have joined me. :)

The Bed... update

Well the Farmhouse Bed is almost built. I have a few more screws to add and lots more sanding but she is lookin' good. As I work on the bed I can't help but think of all the times I helped my dad work on carpentry projects... Well I was probably more of a problem then a help but dad never made me feel that way.

I kinda had a "i'm turning into my dad" moment as I was sanding on the headboard in our garage. I had brought Barkley with me just to keep me company but he kept wanting to peek out of this little hold in the dry wall to see the ally but the
hole was covered in cobb webs. Thinking that there might be poisonous bugs I told him no! He stepped back a few feet, sat and looked up at me as if he was saying, "please dad." I again told him no. He reluctantly accepted. I realized that sometimes we know whats best even if they do not. :)
Anyways... as I was working I kept thinking upon my past of my dad the carpenter and my Grandpa the carpenter.

As I think upon my childhood with them I can always remember the smell of sawdust and their workshops. Grandpa's was a shed like shop in his backyard and Dad's was a concrete floored area behind his office at ACU.
The bed is coming together. I think Katie and I are going to finish the building part of it tonight and then start painting tomorrow night. We're kinda hoping to have it finished by Saturday because we have some of our friends from homegroup coming over and we want to show it off... hopefully it'll look good.

Handy Matty

Having a husband who is not afraid of power tools is pretty awesome. I love being able to point at something and say, "Can you make that?" and the answer is yes. And come to think of it, he actually doesn't even own many power tools and he still gets the job done.
I added the link on my sidebar for Knock Off Wood, because I find myself visiting her site each day. I'm already starting to look around our apartment and think about future projects. Below is the bed we're currently building-- NOT our bed, but an example picture from the website. We're also painting ours white and "antiquing" it, though we're planning on making ours more of an ivory than stark white. We'll see. That's the part I'm most nervous about. (If you click on the pic, it will take you to the plans we're using.)

(NOT our bed.... just an example of what ours will hopefully look like...)

I'm going to do some test painting on some leftover pieces of wood before we do the real thing. So... any painting advice anyone?

Film: Farmhouse Bed Version1

Well... I haven't posted any videos lately because I have been very busy with trying to sell alot of our stuff on craigslist including my beloved camera. It is a great piece of equipment but getting old and heavy. There are many newer and cheaper cameras that do so much more then this camera could ever do.
Also, Katie and I have decided to build a bed. We have been looking off and on on craigslist for the past year with no great success so we decided to build our own. Katie follows another blog called knockoffwood.blogspot.com and we are using Ana's plans from her website to build a potterybarn look alike bed. We still have alot to do to finish the bed but you can watch this timelapse video of us building the headboard and a portion of the footboard.
enjoy.

Good Friday, indeed.

Half day at work today. 3.5 hours until I get to go home to my favorite boys. We get to wear jeans and sandals on half-days which makes me soo happy!

We are dog-sitting this weekend for a family with a pool. It's way too cold to swim, but warm enough to layout. I could fit in very nicely with the cast of Twilight right now, so if you need me around noon tomorrow, you know where to find me.

I've got some major sinus-aches right now, so I stopped by my favorite S*bux this morning on my way in for my usual- non-fat, no-whip, Cafe Mocha. Mmmm. But they had some samples out of their new dark cherry mocha frappuchinos. I. AM. IN. LOVE.

On Sunday we're having our 3rd annual Easter lunch, 2nd annual Easter picnic. Our first Easter Sunday in LA, we had a bunch of Matt's LAFSC classmates over for lunch after church. I attempted to bake my first ham, then sent Matt to the store upon coming home from church to find a burned ham in our oven. Then last year we invited everyone to an Easter picnic after church, where I did NOT attempt to bake a ham. But... I think this is the year. We're having another Easter picnic, I am going to successfully bake a ham. And it will be delicious. Amen.

As most of you know, I have a house-husband right now. It doesn't pay very well, but the benefits (for me) are pretty great. Last night I came home to a home-cooked meal, a clean kitchen, folded laundry and some cash due to Craigslist sales. Sometimes I leave him with a list of things to do and he never complains. He's my favorite.

Tomorrow is tax-day in the Maxwell house. A day I have been dreading. Last year we handed over about $500. I started using Turbo Tax yesterday and when the amount we owed reached $2,700, I decided to stop and call H&R Block. It really makes no sense to us, because we both claim only 1 deduction on our forms. And most of our friends get back at least $1k each year. So we're just gathering up everything and headed to HRB tomorrow. I might take a barf bag with me.

Happy Easter weekend to everyone. Wishing we were home with family... but grateful that God has been so gracious in providing us with family here in LA with whom we can proclaim and celebrate, "He is risen. He is risen, indeed."