the perfect distraction...

Apparently my mom knows my weaknesses for creatures of any kind because yesterday she sent me a link to a live webstream of an eagle's nest. wow. There went my productivity.

I immediately tweeted it on twitter and have since had the greatest amount of retweets or RTs that I have had to date using the micro-blogging software. (This is a good thing, feel free to clap.) I also spent some time watching how many viewers were following the neat live stream. When I first visited yestrday morning, there were approximately 440 viewers, between 12 and 1pm, the feed piqued at 1,200 viewers! This morning, as of 9:12am there are 557 viewers, I think the eagle's are gaining popularity!

I felt the need to write about this because I think the fact that scientists/researchers are using web technologies for studying/viewing purposes is awesome! I only wish the CBC site had some kind of posting functionality so that experts could pose reasons for some of the eagle behaviors. IE the different calls, the reason why the 3 small ones seem to be 3 different sizes, etc. I took a few pictures over my short observing timespan and JUST MISSED a picture with both mom and pops (I was sorely disappointed.)

Mostly I just enjoy hearing the sounds of the woods while sitting inside and working. It's very soothing and I'm excited to keep checking in as the little guys grow.

Watch out, she's watching you!












__________________________________

UPDATE! Got one! Mom and Pop Bald Eagle :-)

Graduation Invitation

Just posting the invite I made for J's graduation. Exciting, at the new house and everything. :-) Only a few days left... lots of prep still in the works!

New Carpet!

New Carpet!
Originally uploaded by lynndro

YAY! Holy progress! As J said, "this has been a huge payoff weekend." The picture here is as of Monday, 4/27. Carpet was installed this morning. I haven't seen it in person yet but I'm so excited that I can hardly stand it. Although... the colors don't look right at all in this photo (IE the back wall is orange).

This weekend could not have been completed without the help of Adam and Megan, (you guys rock)! Because of their time and effort we were able to paint AND prime the whole house! We were just hoping to get through priming and hopefully have the loft painted. It's exciting to see the place really come together like this.

I've posted pictures on Flickr but I'm going to take some more because I don't feel like they are a good representation of the HUGE success!

Meet the New Neighbors... of sorts...

As the snow has melted, J and I have got to see more and more of the yard behind the new house. We knew it was decent sized for being on a city block and we were excited at the possibilities of fencing it in for the pups.

In the last few weeks, a surprise of sorts has come out of the house buying adventure and the pictures below portray our new neighbors...

Yep, headstones. Who would have thought? I certainly had not considered the possibility of having headstones in the back right corner of our yard, but behold! We checked with the real estate agent and she thinks the stones don't come with any organic remains, but it makes you wonder nonetheless.

At first it was quite a shock and I was a little (ok a lot) weirded out by the prospect of having headstones in the backyard. But after raking and spending some time with the attention-grabbing icons, I've had a little change of heart... Now my interests are piqued and I have more curiosity if nothing else for the names on the stones. The area is full of the last name Peltier and I'm half tempted to open up the phone book and have some heart to hearts.

Last week we started some seedlings inside and are planting an array of fruits and veggies for the garden, of notable mention would be the pumpkins. It seems there is the perfect little incline directly behind the headstones for a pumpkin patch... and I'm thinking about getting a bat house too! All the comforts of Halloween, year round. :-)

Day 2--Snow on April 21

Day 2
Originally uploaded by lynndro

Yesterday I was unhappy, today I am dismayed. Seriously? AND it won't even stop snowing long enough to walk to and from buildings to cars and vice versa. I feel like Paddington Bear in a brown rain slicker -- but I wish it was yellow!

AND there is a winter storm warming in effect until 5pm.

According to the National Weather Service Office in Marquette, this is a new record for the area. On April 20th in 1982, 10.6 inches of snow fell. Yesterday we recorded 12.2. Go Team?

Today on campus...

Snow in Hancock...
Originally uploaded by lynndro

I woke up this morning to this view outside my backdoor. Yes, I was a bit surprised, slightly saddened, and ultimately hoping I was still asleep. On Friday the temperature was 70 degrees and the sun seemed to be here to stay, but alas, we were punked.

The most interesting part of this snowy dusting, was walking on campus this morning. I got here at a time when most students were in their first class but there were still a few meandering about on the sidewalks. I noted, no one walked in a group and there was that all too familiar silence that snow seems to bring. Since we are a friendly community, I noticed that everyone I passed made eye contact with me, but no one muttered "hello," or "good morning." The look seemed to be somber disbelief... and that, my friends, was the mood on campus this morning..

Bluebird skies and dancin shoes!

The past two days have been absolutely gorgeous in the copper country. Suprisingly, I haven't been drug under a bus by the amount of work I have yet... staying on top is always a chore when the weather starts improving. I have a feeling it will also effect the ability to attract helping hands at the house this weekend but we've had such great help thus far that there can be no real complaining.

My dad took off today, headed back downstate for awhile. He really helped the house come together with working the structural beams and framing in most/all of the windows. THANKS DAD!
This picture makes me happy. that's why I posted it. I should have more home updates after this weekend.

J's (unofficial) official graduation is in two weeks!! Meaning that he gets to dress up and look important but still has a ways to go in writing his book.

Well, back to the grind for as long as I can today. It's proving to be quite a challenge with the sun taunting me!

Bathroom in progress...

Bathroom in progress...
Originally uploaded by lynndro

Thanks for all the feedback on the design options. Last night M and I rocked the bathroom wall. It took awhile to get things adjusted, we used a projector to display the tree on the wall and then modified from there. Overall this design resembles option C the most but the curve near the bottom isn't quite as pronounced. We also took out some of the crazy branches to make it look less busy and intimidating.

Tonight I plan to touch it up a bit but the hard part is over and M did all the hard work of removing the pencil marks from the wall. Now we just have to cover up a few unpainted spots and that will be one room finished... with some big ones still left...

Cast your votes, please! :-)

Options... here they are. This is my bathroom wall. If you'd like to see more photos of the bathroom, jump on over to my Flickr page. For sanity's sake, let's call the options A, B, and C, respectively. :-)

A:

B:

C:

Mom's new logo

What do you think of this one?
Originally uploaded by lynndro

I'm designing a logo for my mom's business, Bayside Custom Canvas, specializing in custom boat tops and other canvas needs. This is what I have so far. Still tweaking the idea a bit. For the general feeling, do you feel that the "b/boat" idea is clear or are you lost with the "ayside?"

color is still coming...

Painting a house...

Wow, now there's something I hadn't planned on quite yet. The remodeling is moving quickly and I think it's time to consider what type of paint should go on the walls.. Hopefully the drywall will be completed early this weekend and will be followed by an intense session of mudding, tapeing, and sanding!

I love colors... I think sometimes that I overuse color and forget how great using white can look... especially in my designs. But, having grown up with white walls, I think I want to add lots of color to the walls of our first home.


I stopped at Sherwin Williams on the way home the other day just to view what they have to offer... This is the already-picked color palette that I like the most. I'm not opposed to mixing and matching and I will probably be doing some of that too but I thought this might provide a good base. Thoughts?

I'm currently leaning toward the Tigereye on the East wall and the Basket Beige on the North and South.
So that's my really, really bad 3d interpretation... and the colors aren't quite true. They are both deeper and provide a "richer" feel, or at least I think so. The other palette colors, like the dark brown, will hopefully be the wood furniture color (table, chairs, shelves) and the teal color would be more for accent. Or at least that's how I'm picturing. The real conundrum then is what to do with the bathroom.... any ideas?

Going on the wall.....

Found these images on Etsy today. I think they are going in the new house... too cool...