Working from Home is Nice

06/09/2010

Since December I’ve been able to work from home about one day a week, unless I’m really busy. And the past 2 weeks I was really busy. But yesterday I worked from home and it was nice … blissful, actually!

I woke up and realized my computer was sitting on the floor beside the bed. I worked for almost an hour before even getting up! Then I had a nice sit-down breakfast with pretty vintage dishes. I LOVE Trader Joe’s banana/strawberry yogurt. Top it off with a few just-picked black raspberries… heaven!

Plus I made a pot of tea and a few hard cooked eggs.

Side note … I have to get out this cookbook every time I make hard boiled eggs. Why can’t I just remember – put eggs in pot, bring to boil, simmer for 15 minutes. (One of the three eggs exploded because I let it boil too long.)

My home office is sunny and peaceful. I got to eat lunch with Jason. An afternoon break meant strolling around the beautiful garden to let Lucy out.

And of course, I did some work too. But my desk (on the wall opposite this window) was too messy to photograph! Working from home is the best! I dream of the day I can work from home full time. For now I’ll gratefully accept one day a week.

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Coming Home

06/07/2010

The Pioneer Woman ran a photo contest last week called Coming Home. Originally, this photo was posted in the contest called Happiness. Tears welled up in my eyes when I saw this photo of a soldier returning home from Iraq to his wife and 6 day old baby girl.

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Joyful reunion must be one of the greatest feelings God created. There is nothing else quite like the immense joy of coming back together after a separation filled with pain and longing.

Jason has been away on a tour for two weeks. (He’ll be home today – YAY!) I know two weeks is nothing compared to what military wives or even what many other musicians wives go through. But its still a long time and I’ve missed him bad. But these photos of Coming Home have helped me remember without being apart, we wouldn’t have the immeasurable happiness of being reunited.

1 Comment | Art, Family, Family: Jason | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

My Cincinnati Framily

06/03/2010

It’s been a while since I’ve used that term: framily. That what I call friends that are so close that they’re like family. Over the long weekend I went up to visit my framily in Cincinnati. This cute little bugger and his mom, who is my best friend from design school (and her husband, who I didn’t take any picture of … sorry Sean.)

Isn’t my “nephew” so cute?

I love him! It’s especially fun making him smile and laugh.

It’s always a wonderful time when I get to spend the weekend with this family.

Added bonus: they’re also in to mid-century modern design and have an awesome home. After every visit we end up bringing all kind of thrift store, vintage store and antique store treasures back home with us. (Look for that post next week!)

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Posted by mahlbrandt

A Typical Evening

05/27/2010

I imagine other people have typical evenings like this: come home from work, eat dinner together, watch some TV, go to bed.

I’m not sure if Jason and I have EVER had an evening like that. We’re always running around doing this or that … working late, running to the hardware store or grocery store, doing freelance graphic design or music recording projects. Sometimes we eat dinner together but it’s often at 8 or 9. And maybe one night a week we catch up on our favorite shows through Hulu (24, The Office, Modern Family). Our wind-down-relax time rarely starts before 11pm.

The other night I was thinking about what a “typical” night looks like for us and I decided to snap a picture of what we were both doing right before our late dinner break.

Jason was installing a new bowl sink in the guest bathroom. The teal glass one was pretty but impractical – it has about 7 chips in after 3 years. (Only one of which was made by Jason or me.)

I was cutting and packaging wedding invitation orders for my etsy shop.

Will we ever have simple evenings and neat-and-tidy lives? Probably not. That’s why I’m one good beach vacation away from a quarter life crisis.

7 Comments | Art, Art: graphic design, Art: interior design, Family, Family: Extended Family and Friends, Family: Me | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

TN52 Yard Sale Booty

05/25/2010

(ya know, like pirate booty)

On Saturday we got up at the butt crack of dawn and headed out to the TN 52 Yard Sale extravaganza with Leila and Jeremy and Jason’s mom. It’s 95 miles of yard sales; I think we probably hit 10-20 miles of it.

We found all kinds of different mid-century modern and vintage treasures and managed to spend the rest of the profit from our own yard sale the weekend before. I’ll let the pictures do the talking but I’ll just say I’m most excited about the chair I spotted from the street as we were driving past one of the last sales and the owls – just because I think they’re adorable. Oh, and the tea and coffee canisters, too. It’s so hard to choose a favorite!

It seems like everywhere we go we find Homer Laughlin Co. Gold Cortez (or Sheffield Granada Green) pieces. (above)

9 Comments | Art, Art: mcm thrift store find, Art: mid-century design, Family, Family: Extended Family and Friends, Family: Jason | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Scootin’ to Loveless

05/24/2010

Wow – what a great big busy fun weekend we had! I have lots of photos to share of our mid-century modern finds from a big string of yard sales we went to on Saturday. But first here are some photos from Friday night.

Our dear friends Leila and Jeremy (the ones that lost their home and almost everything in the flood) keep asking us to ride scooters with them.

It’s really not fun at all. But since we know they’ve been through a lot lately, we always agree to go along for rides whenever they ask.

And we pretend we’re having fun. You know … to be polite.

I think they’re hoping that we have so much fun that we buy our own scooter.

Those stinkers! We don’t have money for a scooter right now!

Stop trying to tempt us! It’s not going to work!

Friday we rode out 20 miles to Loveless Cafe and ate all kind of delicious Southern cookin’. Again, totally not fun at all but we’re willing to do our part to help Leila and J get their minds off of their situation. Cuz we’re such good friends …

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Our Garden – May 2010

05/20/2010

May is a beautiful time of year. I feel so blessed to have such loveliness around my home and my wonderful husband who loves to garden (and is teaching me to love it too.)

4 Comments | Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation, Family, Family: Jason | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Babies

05/11/2010

Tonight my mom and I went to see the movie Babies. On the way we talked about babies, getting pregnant, cooky baby names. It was a funny girls night. I wish my sister could have been with us!

The documentary was cute – lots of oohs and awes and chuckles at baby antics. If you delight in watching babies play and learn and interact, you’ll enjoy watching this. There is no plot or dialog so it’s tempting to keep whispering back and forth about this antic or that observation.

The style of documentary reminded me of March of the Penguins (I’m one of the few who enjoyed that movie and didn’t fall asleep watching it.) I’d recommend it for what it is.

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Hope is Rising

05/10/2010

I took this picture because I was going to write a reflection on the kind of week I’ve had, based on the contents that I’ve been accumulating in my purse (rubber coated work gloves, bandaids, augmentin for dog bite injury, receipts for groceries, cleaning supplies and tools for our friends, medical tape, iron supplements, journal of thoughts on scrap paper, disaster area supplies list …) but the explanation of these items would sound like complaining. Perhaps discouraging.

And I was going to share about each of these photos

… something sad about my friend sorting through her drying photographs

…and why my husband is sleeping on a bare mattress

But the truth is, though it was a very difficult week, things are looking up around here. Energy levels are returning, the sun has been shining, smiles are back, there are blessings all around and plenty to be thankful about. The pain is not gone but there is a new level of joy coming. We’re going to be OK down here. 🙂

Thank you all for the prayers and encouraging words!

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Posted by mahlbrandt

More craziness

05/06/2010

I’m tired of typing and retyping this story so I’m going to copy this from an e-mail I wrote Tuesday. In short, Lucy was attacked by 2 pit bulls who got loose Monday morning. In trying to rescue her, while the owner was trying to get control of her dogs, my right hand got cut, punctured & bruised and my right knee got scraped up. Lucy is miraculously unhurt. (Seriously, this must be a miracle!) and I’m confident my hand and knee will be fine in a few days. It could have been so much worse. Thank God it wasn’t!

Here’s long story of what happened. Our friends Leila and Jeremy live down the road and around the corner from us. Their house was slowly flooding on Sunday. J is out of the country but on his way home now. We helped Leila on Sunday get out some of her most important items out, move most of the cars/scooters out before they got flooded, etc. Sunday night at 11pm the water was just about at the foundation line (but several feet deep in the yard). Monday morning when I woke up I decided to walk Lucy down to their house to see how things had changed. The water had come up about 4′ and stayed that way most of yesterday.

Right after Lucy and I got down to the edge of the water a neighbor’s two pit bulls got loose out of their back yard and starting charging at Lucy and I. The owner was in her front yard. She yelled “Pick up your dog!” as she took off running after them. In my 2 or 3 seconds to react I decided that picking up Lucy would probably result in me being knocked down by the two dogs that probably each weigh as much as me. They just sniffed for a second and then started jumping on her and biting. It was so scary. I just kept yelling “No! No!” at the dogs. It was probably only a matter of 30 seconds before the owner got her dogs under control. I was trying to pull Lucy away. She was trying to pull her dogs back and at one point, as I tried to pull one of the dogs off of Lucy my right hand made contact with teeth.

I scooped Lucy up right away. Another friend and neighbor was there and I asked if I could put Lucy in her car so she could take us somewhere. Right about that time Leila and her brother Nate pulled up (coming to check on the house). I asked them to take us back home to survey what had happened. Blood was dripping and I was sure Lucy had been cut somewhere. I mean – I could see the dogs mouths around her – I was right there! But we couldn’t find any cuts or puncture wounds on her anywhere. Besides being in shock and pooping and puking for a few minutes, she seemed totally fine.

My hand stopped bleeding pretty quickly and within a few minutes my parents came over and my nurse-mama cleaned me up and bandaged up my hand. I also scrapped up my knee pretty bad on the concrete. This morning Lucy and I are both pretty sore and moving a little slow but she still seems to be fine. My fingers are a little bruised and swollen and I’m taking antibiotics to prevent inflection. It could have been so much worse and I really think it’s a miracle that Lucy is OK. I’m confident my hand will be fine in a few days.

5 Comments | Family, Family: Lucy, Family: Me | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

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