Sandy

I think this is my new favorite picture of Sandy.  Chad took it recently and it just really captures Sandy's personality.  She LOVES to sleep in our bed and almost always takes the warm spot on my side when I get up.  She also likes "helping" me change the sheets and tries to stay on the bed the whole time I take the sheets off and put new ones on.

This is not the best quality picture, but Chad took this one of me and Sandy snuggling one morning.  She doesn't sleep with me like this all the time, but I love it when she does!

This one is of Sandy looking out onto the deck.  She loves to soak up sunshine any time she can!

House Updates

In December we bought some new bookcases from Ikea for our office/library room.  We have a LOT of books, so getting these bookcases helped a lot and now all of our books are finally out and available.  We also got new throw pillows for the living room.  Our original pillows were wedding gifts almost 14 years ago now, so they were definitely in need of replacement!  Here are the pictures of these two recent house updates:

Our new bookcases and reading chair (soon to be recovered).

Our living room with the new throw pillows.

Feb. 11-13 Snow Days

The Charlotte area had a HUGE snowstorm between Feb. 11-13.  At our house we had 10" or more of snow over the course of three days.  I can't even remember a time when we had snow for three days straight!  I only ended up working 3 hours that whole week, which was a really nice and unexpected break.  Since we had so much snow the roads were pretty bad.  We were able to get out Friday afternoon and the main roads were clear, but back roads were still pretty bad.  One of our neighbors got stuck trying to come back into our neighborhood Friday and Chad ended up having to pull him out of a ditch and pull him up the hill onto our street.  I'm SO glad Chad's truck is 4-wheel-drive, because without it we wouldn't have been able to get out either!  Here are our pictures from our three days of snow:

Feb. 7-9 Wilmington Visit

My Grandmother started off 2014 by falling on New Year's Day and breaking her hip.  She had broken one side a few years ago, so this was the other side.  Thankfully, she didn't need a full hip replacement this time and only had to have pins put in.  My Mom came back to NC to help her once she came home from the rehab center after her surgery.  Chad & I came to visit them the weekend of Feb. 7-9 and while we were there Chad did a bunch of small repairs around my Grandmother's house.  I'm very thankful that not only does Chad come along with me to Wilmington when my Mom comes home, but he genuinely enjoys spending time with my Mom and Grandmother too.  And he loves to help my Grandmother do any repairs to her house that he can.  Here are some pictures of our visit with my Mom and Grandmother:

February Cat Pictures

Now that we have one of the bedrooms in our house set up as a guest bedroom with a queen size bed I'm always surprised that the cats don't spend much time on that bed.  They generally like to be wherever we are and when we're not home they are usually sleeping on our bed.  I was working on some stuff in the spare bedroom and while I was in there both cats came to hang out on the bed.  It was the first time they had both been in there on the bed together so I got a few pictures of them.  Sandy's fur really stands out against the turquoise color of the paint and the bedspread.

January 29, 2014 Snow Day

I was wondering if we were EVER going to get any snow this winter.  We've had plenty of super cold days with the highs only in the 20's and even had a few nights of record low temperatures of 8 degrees!  But, no snow until January 28.  I was supposed to work until 8pm that night and they were calling for snow starting in the afternoon.  The library preemptively closed at 4pm and right as we closed it started to snow.  I had no problem getting home since it wasn't sticking to the roads yet, but apparently between 5-10pm there were 500 accidents in the Charlotte area!  Thankfully the next day the libraries were closed and it was so nice to get a snow day even though we didn't get much snow.  Here are a few pictures from our snow day:




My Mom sent me this picture of a snowman at my grandmother's house. They mostly got ice so they had to "cheat" with a stuffed snowman decoration!

January Coupon Savings

I LOVE to save money with coupons.  It seriously gives me a thrill and makes me very happy!  One weekend in January there were a lot of really good sales going on, so on a Friday night Chad and I went out to dinner then went to two grocery stores to save some serious money.  That was our "date night" dinner and grocery shopping!  But, we got everything pictured below for $46.80 and SAVED $60 - I think that's worth going to two grocery stores (both within 5 minutes of our house)!

Chad's New Blanket

Chad has created his "man cave" in one of the rooms in our basement.  He likes to watch movies down there because the room can get completely dark even during the day.  I'm not much for watching movies, so he's got a great place for watching movies now.  But, since it's still winter and our basement isn't connected to the HVAC system it can be a little chilly now.  He asked me to sew him a new fleece blanket that he can use when he's watching movies in the basement.

Here is Chad holding up his new camo fleece blanket.

However, the cats think all blankets must be for them!

Here are Roxy and Sandy hanging out on Chad's new blanket.

January 2014 Cat Pictures

Here are some cat pictures to start off 2014:

Sandy and Roxy snuggling on my lap on a cold January day.

More snuggling on my lap on our snow day January 29th.