Out with the old, in with the BRAND NEW...

BATHROOM!!!

Boy do I love Troy Shafer (our amazing contractor). We left for a week at the lake with my family last Saturday the 18th and when we got home on Saturday the 25th Troy was hanging the mirror and doing a few last minute things. I found Troy on Craigslist and he did not disappoint. All we did was pick out the tile and fixtures, clean out the cabinets and Troy did the rest. We didn't do any demo, painting... nothing at all. I don't know if we'll be able to do future renovations like this but it would sure be nice! We left town with a green bathroom (3 different shades of green, mind you) and came home to a brand new bathroom... a faucet that had never been turned on, a tub that had never been bathed in and a toilet that had never been flushed! I loved it! Can you tell?

Ski school

Blake writing again: If you don't hear from the Farmer's for the next week, we're just frolicking on the water in the foot hills of the Ozarks. The Steward family's annual Lake Ouachita extravaganza commences Saturday. There will be water skiing. There will be wakeboarding. There will be wet dogs. There will be chicken foot dominoes. There will be golf. There will be naps. There will be chicken salad. And there will definitely be sun burns.


I'm going to be working on the wakeboard as I have not been able to keep pace with brother-in-law John (pictured to the right). There was a wake-to-wake jump last year that left those left in the boat feeling a little less-than manly. That said, I could be returning with all sorts of torn ligaments. Dr. Elrod, I may be returning for your services.

And perhaps best of all, we've got a little episode of "While You Were Out" going on at our house Drive. We've got a contractor named Troy Shaffer who will transform our sea foam green bathroom into something a little more updated. You will not see this color again, though I have grown to like it.

Stirring the pot: women in the workplace

No, Moriah didn't get a job refinishing furniture. The picture, however, is me lady sanding down a Craigslist-find that now sits in our guest bedroom.

Many of you know Moriah has had some exciting news. She's going to be a teacher this fall! She will take over as middle and high school computer instructor at David Lipscomb. She will do so well. The kids already know and love her. Plus, she's up with the times. No more learning about how to draw a picture of Bart Simpson in MSDOS. C:/ - boy do I miss that.

Moriah and I get into job conversations more than most. Perhaps its that my better half puts up with my gentle prodding for her to work harder. She's even picked up a second job doing design work for Otter Creek. A husband couldn't be more proud.

I'm of the line of thinking that women should be entitled to all the rights of men in the workplace - that includes equal pay for equal work. This is said with complete sincerity. And it seems workplace equality between the sexes has become a widely held virtue in the 21st century, though I know there's plenty of discrimination out there. Moriah hated being called a secretary at church. However, I still often get the impression many women feel its their right to not work as hard as their husbands. Why is that? Is it biologically programmed? Is this notion a relic of the 1950's American dream? Is it that women, even those without children, want to spend time to preparing the nest?

Before you go grabbing a caldrin to tar and feather my behind, travel down this road with me. And of the married couples you know where the woman works longer hours than her husband, don't you hear something in the back of you mind saying, 'now that's messed up.' Maybe we're not as sold on equality as we tell ourselves.

- Blake

Who? Me?

I've never been one to procrastinate, but I can't STOP procrastinating today. Really, I'm just avoiding doing school work. I only have three weeks left and I'm so ready to be done. So in the spirit of procrastinating...

I like to cook. I like to bake. I'd never made a cobbler before Saturday. We had some people over for the 4th of July (brisket, ribs, sweet tea, etc.) and we needed a dessert to go with everything else. I decided to make something that Blake really wanted which was a blackberry cobbler. To me dessert isn't a dessert without chocolate so making the cobbler was a little bit of a stretch for me. Allrecipes.com was down when I was looking for a recipe so I went out on a limb and used one from another site without any reviews. It was supposed to be Southern Living's recipe so I thought it had to be good. Blake said it was really yummy. I wouldn't know, I didn't eat any.

So... the other night Blake and I took Maverick on a walk and about 1 mile from home something blew into my eye. I immediately doubled over and started crying. I could feel it in my eye. I tried to get it out but couldn't. We stood under a street light (for what seemed like forever) and Blake tried to get the bug out of my eye. I was crying, trying to hold my eye open and of course, I recently started wearing non-waterproof mascara, so it was everywhere. We decided it was not coming out so we turned around and headed home. Blake managed to get the bug (it turned out to not be a bug, but some sort of seed) when we got home. My eye didn't stop hurting until this morning... this incident happened Sunday night. This is what my eye looked like for about 48 hours. Notice my red eye has no makeup left on it. As Blake would say, "The veil has been lifted."

This is a really boring post. Sorry about that. You can tell I really don't want to do school work, huh?