All I want is a photo

I promised a follow-up post with pictures, so here goes!

Deck:








These aren't the most recent pictures, but you do get a nice look at the back of our house--way better than that dark green we had before!

Bobby Flay:








By the way, J gave me a hard time about not mentioning the other part of his Anniversary gift to me--a woven tote-bag/basket full of awesome goodies that he won at a golf tournament for me (he argues that the basket is a "fiber"). Stay tuned for pics of the roses and dance lessons that I now have gift certificates for!

Yesterday, we visited Kelley Farms (you might remember our visit last year) with the KSDAR Junior Club and had a great time traipsing across Henry Clay's face, as well as scaling the haybale mountains (J and I chose different "mountains" to climb...).














Then, we took another turn at babysitting (our last adventures in babysitting were chronicled in this post). This time, we hung out with four month old Chelsea, the daughter of a couple we attend church with. Chelsea, who was described by her parents as a "hands-on baby", was simply adorable, and we had a great time with her! J, it turns out, is the ultimate baby whisperer and was a great hand at getting Miss Chelsea to sleep and at giving bottles. Fortunately, I was pretty good at keeping her occupied between naps and enticing after-bottle burps and spit-ups, so between the two of us, we survived and kept her alive (and dry), too!

That's it for us this week. In between work and other obligations, I'm working on October/Halloween decorations around the house and working on decorations for a party at work next week, so I'll try to post those pictures soon. We hope you're enjoying your autumn (even if it is a little cooler, a little earlier than usual!)!

Title: Picture This, by Blondie

Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door...

Tap, tap...

Tap, tap, tap...

Anyone out there? Probably not, and we'd understand. According to Blogger, we've not updated since mid-August, so that's nearly sixty days of nothing-ness from the Meltons. Rest assured, though, there's been plenty of activity around here!

First up, LOTS of unfinished projects. Not for lack of trying, mind you. I mean, we've been working on the deck since before Independence Day, but it's still not finished. In fact, our most recent attempt to get it done (painting the trim-work) was mostly washed away by a heavy rainstorm before it had a chance to dry. And by "away", I mean onto, and then through, the plastic sheeting covering the newly painted decking. I've given up on "just getting it done" and accepted that my new palm sander and I will be spending several days sanding down the trim before I can try again to paint the trim. After that, we'll have to get another coat on the decking to cover all the blue that had no problem sticking to the wrong wood.

What else? Hmmm...cabinets in the library? Still not installed, but at least they're hanging out in the right room.

Bathroom reno? No closer to getting started on that one, though the dripping faucet is now a steady stream of hot water, so I'm starting to feel guilty about not just fixing it.

Kitchen re-do? Oh, you haven't heard about that one? Yeah, it's my new dream, but I've promised J not to start on it until I've finished the other projects first. Hopefully we'll make some progress soon, and I'll actually be able to post some pics of finished projects.

What else? Well, J and I are still on the running kick (or at least the thinking about running kick), and are planning to run the Black Cat Chase in Frankfort on October 30. I'm definitely looking forward to that one, and I hear they have good tee-shirts, too! I'm just over a third of the way to my weight loss goal, and J has just started his own weight loss journey, so I expect we'll stick with the exercise thing a little longer.

Best of all, we celebrated our Two Year Anniversary on September 29. As my dad said, this might stick! For those of you interested, Year Two is the Cotton anniversary (traditional, not contemporary), and J and I did our best to stick to the plan. He gave me three new flags to fly in front of our house (not cotton, exactly, but fabric just the same), and has promised more as the months pass. I'll post a picture of October's flag and the wreath I made to go out front with it soon. Keeping in mind J's new-found interest in cooking, I went off-theme and bought tickets to see Food Network Chef Bobby Flay. Bobby was fantastic, and J got some great ideas, which he promptly came home and tried out. While not using his actual anniversary gift, a poly-cotton blend chef's apron that declares him to be the Melton Point Chef (apparently, he's afraid of getting it dirty...).

So that's the last couple of months in a nutshell. We'll try to be better, and hope that you're sticking around for it!

Title: "Knocking on Heaven's Door", by Bob Dylan (or Guns N Roses, depending on your generation) (chosen for the knocking on the glass of the computer screen...kind of obscure, I know.)

Running just as fast as we can, redux

For those of you who read with any regularity, you know that in June, J and I resolved to run a 5K. If you don't remember, you can read about it here. We used the Couch to 5K plan, though we weren't quite as regular in our workouts as the plan would suggest. Regardless, despite setbacks and occasionally falling off the workout wagon, we did finish our 5K this weekend!

Since we weren't consistent in our workouts, we hadn't built up to running the entire event, but we did run over half of it in a jog-walk-jog-walk-jog fashion. In addition, we finished in 46 minutes (well, I finished in 46:00; J finished in 45:59), and I was happy with the 15 minute mile splits for a first attempt. (Can you imagine if I'd turned in that kind of time in high school? I'd have been booted from the cross country team in a heartbeat!!)

Anyhow, our next goal is to run an entire 5K, and to do so in 40 minutes. We'll be continuing with the Couch to 5K plan, picking up where we left off to keep working toward running the entire thing. We're looking at the Black Cat Chase in Frankfort on October 30 to meet that goal. Stay tuned, and keep us accountable!

Title: I think we're alone now, by Tiffany

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

I've been a little down this week, and I'm guessing that it has more to do with the fact that I haven't run in a week and a half than with anything else. (Though it could be the lack of comments on my last post, I dunno...)

In an attempt to break the funk yesterday, I ran by a flower wholesaler after work and purchased half a dozen sunflowers. They did cheer me up a bit, but I decided that they just didn't fill up the base I put them in so this afternoon, I dropped in for more flowers and some filler, too. One dozen sunflowers, tree fern and some berries that I didn't catch the name of made for a fabulous arrangement, and it looks great in my tree vase.

I'm still not sure what caused the funk, but finding a way to be creative and work with my hands has certainly lifted the gloom. I'm pretty sure J won't mind the cost in exchange for a happier wife!

Title: My Favorite Things, from The Sound of Music

Just a fine and fancy ramble to the zoo

After a long July (hereafter known as the month of Adventuring Alone), J and I were happy to kick off August with an adventure together on Saturday.

While in Louisville attending a seminar on Project Citizen a couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Louisville Zoo and saw their Sky Trail High Adventure Course. We were too busy that day to try it out, but I was intrigued. Later that week, I received a coupon for the Louisville Mega Cavern, a new tour operation of a former limestone mine beneath Louisville. Because they are conveniently located just a couple of minutes from each other, I convinced J that we should visit both before moving on to the Low Country Boil and Birthday Parties that we were scheduled to vist last night. J, who has personal experience with my fear of not being in control (sometimes mistaken for a fear of heights), jumped at the challenge to see me in action on the Sky Trail.


I don't have any pictures of me on the course, but here are a couple of J (he was taking my picture with his cell phone and we haven't uploaded those yet). I did have one brief moment of fear before stepping onto the first challenge component, but that diminished as I learned to trust the harness, ropes and steel structure! We had a great time and spent about 45 minutes navigating the course. I would highly recommend the Sky Trail to anyone looking for a fun adventure. You do have to pay twice (once to get into the zoo and again to get on the Sky Trail), so plan to stay for a couple of hours to enjoy the zoo, as well!

After a quick jog through the zoo (because we'd paid for it and I didn't want to let it go to waste!), J and I zipped over to the Mega Cavern. Tours there last about an hour and 15 minutes and leave every 30 minutes, so the wait is never too long. The Mega Cavern that started as a limestone mine is now the largest office building in the state of Kentucky (at 4 million square feet) and houses all of Kentucky's back-up salt for the winter; document storage facilities; RV, boat and antique car storage; MGM storage of original movie reels (including The Wizard of Oz") and many other businesses that benefit from the steady underground temperature of 58 degrees. Along the tour, we also saw a mock-up of the fallout shelter that was housed there during the Cold War (50,000 Louisvillians were invited to stay in this largest fallout shelter in Kentucky in the event of nuclear war) and an earthworm farm. Because the tour is conducted on trailers towed behind a jeep (they call it a tram, but I've been on enough hayrides to recognize the technology when I see it), all ages can enjoy the tour, and we saw several families on the tour.









In all, we had a great day and enjoyed our adventure to kick off the month. I'm afraid that I'm looking at a busy autumn work-wise, so I'm not sure how exciting the blog is going to be for our readers, but please check in periodically. I'll try to keep you all up to speed on our activities here at the Melton Point!

Title: At the Zoo, by Simon and Garfunkel

Time keeps on slippin', slippin'

July is shaping up to be a long month for J and me, and it seems to be a bit of a habit to be so (you might remember that I spent half of last July out of town). We spent the first weekend of this month prepping our deck for a little remodel. The deck was powerwashed, old and rotten boards replaced, and finally sanded. We picked out and purchased new paint (and were reminded by the not-at-all helpful paint guy at Lowe's that you should never paint a wood deck. Where was he when the previous owners bought the paint in the first place?).

And then we left town for a week. My mom and I had a great time in Washington at the 118th DAR Continental Congress (national conference) and J had a good weekend of golf in Tunica with his buddies D and E. Unfortunately, the deck-painting fairies did not visit while we were gone, and we came home to the same fully prepped, but not yet painted, deck.

This week was spent catching up at work, so nothing was done to the deck. Not a big deal, except that I'm leaving again tomorrow for another week, and we are hosting a judge from Russia for a week the week after that. I spent last night and today prepping the house to play host, and J spent the day putting the roof on a Habitat house here in town. No work on the deck, though. Maybe the first weekend in August?

In good news, I'm finally able to post pictures of my living room. I last posted a picture in April when we received my grandmother's living room furniture. It took a couple of weeks to determine that no one we knew wanted our old furniture and another couple to schedule a pick-up with the Habitat Re-Store. I still need to find slip covers for the chairs and couch, and eventually will paint the room, but I'm pleased with this for a while.

Title: Fly Like an Eagle, by Steve Miller

Happy Birthday, dear J

I just wanted to post a quick public Happy Birthday to J, the best husband a girl could ask for!! Special thanks, as well, to his buddies D and E for giving up their weekend to spend some quality time with J--poker, golf, and a long afternoon of work on our deck, followed by some great steak and sushi made for a great weekend! Thanks guys!

Title: Happy Birthday song