Home Resources Binder

This is one of a series of posts that mysteriously reverted to draft form. They were actually posted quite a while ago but they're here for now. Sorry about the craziness!


In an attempt to not let this whole homeownership thin go up in flames I am determined to begin organized and stay organized. Luckily, I have a deep, some might say troubling, love of labels, dividers, hole punches and the like. It's nothing to be concerned about, I swear. Really. Whatever.

Anyway, enter the Home Resources Binder (this great idea brought to you by the modern manifest-er of all great ideas, Pinterest!). This is one handy, tidy place to keep all important house-related things. Ours already has documentation about our furnace and water heater, garage door warranty, utility information and potential paint colors. Everything we want to know about our house to keep ourselves sane is kept in there. Want one? Neat. I want you to have one. Behold!

Get yourself a three-ring binder, a package of dividers and a bunch of sheet protectors. Impulse buy some pens or a notebook. You good? Excellent. 

Let's continue. Grab a piece of scrap paper and brainstorm somewhat categories make sense for you. Here are ours:

When you've got an exhaustive list, slip all the relevant documents into sheet protectors in the appropriate categories and bask in your organized glory. 

Mmm, labels. 

To the Ozarks!

This is one of a series of posts that mysteriously reverted to draft form. They were actually posted quite a while ago but they're here for now. Sorry about the craziness!


Boyfriend's parents have a place in the Ozarks in southern Missouri. It's the place where his family congregates several times a year for catching up, overeating, incredibly competitive Monopoly games and the kind of relaxed weekends I thought only existed in movies and on Sandals commercials.

For those unfamiliar with this part of the country, picture hills, not so much rolling as tripping over each other and doubling back, weeds that when left untamed turn into trees and a beautiful, humongous lake smack in the middle of everything. It is as beautiful as it is strange.

The Ozarks is also one of those places with massive resorts and fancy condos just miles down the road from fairly serious poverty. It is, in that way, just like the rest of the state. The wonderful thing about going to the lake is you can do just about anything. Lazy float trip down a cute, little river? Got it. Crazy tubing on the busy lake? Check. Napping on the dock? Yep. Eating round the clock? Of course! This is summer vacation, isn't it?

We headed down for the 4th of July. Arley came with us. She wouldn't miss the opportunity to sit on a dozen different laps in a weekend. She lives for that kind of thing.

Well, the dog got what she came for and so did we. The weekend was a blur of tanlines, food and sleeping in. Vacation success! I'm not getting any better remembering to take pictures...use your imaginations if you want to see me lazy and sunburnt.  

The Kentucky Bourbon Trail

This is one of a series of posts that mysteriously reverted to draft form. They were actually posted quite a while ago but they're here for now. Sorry about the craziness!


A few weekends ago (sorry for the radio silence, by the way. Life, etc.) we got to go on another little beat-the-winter-blues getaway. Boyfriend's birthday was a couple days ago and as my gift to him I arranged a quick trip to bourbon country. For those without booze nerds in their lives, the Bourbon Trail is a small area of Kentucky where half a dozen or so distilleries are located, included some major national brands like Four Roses, Wild Turkey and Jim Beam. We live just a couple hours away so we headed down to Kentucky on Saturday morning. We would be staying in Frankfurt but there are distilleries in several smaller towns close by.

First up was Four Roses in Lawrenceburg, a unique distillery because of it's Spanish architectural style. The tours for most of these places are free so you need to do nothing more than materialize at the top of the hour. The Four Roses tour starts with a short movie and a little history of the grounds. The coolest part of their tour, though, is being able to walk through the actual processing areas. They don't kid around. There are pans of boiling water to watch out for and massive vats of yeasty mixes. The highlight of these tours for bourbon fans of course, is the tasting and at Four Roses you get to taste three different bourbons. I am not a big bourbon fan but even so it is interesting to try different types back to back.

After Four Roses we checked into our hotel and recharged for the evening. I love trips like this because we had a couple things scheduled but no particular plans in between. We consulted UrbanSpoon to get an idea for dinner options and decided to head to a little place in downtown Frankfurt. Pretty good food, really attentive service- as it was St.Patrick's Day weekend the chef brought out a little of his corned beef for us to try. We also got free birthday dessert and we didn't have to listen to anyone sing! Score! After dinner we had a reservation for the ghost tour at Buffalo Trace.

Arriving at Buffalo Trace, we were both taken by the size of the operation. That place is huge! There are not only processing buildings and a visitor's center but a historic home and a large cabin-style banquet facility that was hosting a wedding when we there. As for the tour, we assumed it would be a mix of campfire style stories about the spooky history of the distillery and bourbon info. We were unaware that a lot of the tour rehashes the episode of Ghost Hunters at the distillery. Even better, some of our fellow tour-goers fancied themselves amateur ghost hunters complete with an app to detect...whatever you try to detect when you think your phone can help you hunt ghosts. So, that was...that. The coolest building in my opinion was the storage facility. Rows upon rows, floors upon floors are filled with barrels of aging bourbon. It was a great little weekend away that ended with my acquiring the stomach flu. Awesome.

Back to normal life now. My birthday is next week! Hooray cake!

Two Full-time Graduate Students

For the first time since we started dating, Boyfriend and I are both full-time students. He's a year and a half into a PhD program and I started working on my Master's this semester. Here's what to watch out for if you find yourself similarly afflicted:

We've both stopped doing the little household stuff. I find that being on campus all day and still having homework to do at night is more draining that having a 9-to-5 job that I could forget as soon as I was driving home. Result: mounds of laundry, a sink full of dirty dishes, general grossness.

We have similar schedules. For instance, neither he or I have classes on Fridays. Lunchtime study date? Ok! Running errands at 10am on a Monday? Doable. It's nice to take advantage of the random free time we both have.

Stressful, busy times are now the same for both of us. Midterms? Finals? Those take over both of us, now. I used to be able to shut the door to our guest room/office knowing Boyfriend would be working until the wee hours and go about my evening. These days you'll find us side by side on the couch, computers in laps, bags under eyes.

We're both actively working toward something. I have cut back significantly on freak outs regarding my meaningless job and wasted potential (Yes, I have been a real peach to live with at times). We still take turns being overwhelmed but there's structure, a purpose. I like it.

I'm glad this will not be our situation for more than a couple years. Two stressed out grad students with no one else in the house to keep us in check can get ugly. That and I cannot wait to have my own classroom. Speaking of which, my math lesson looms ever closer. I'm pretty excited.

P.S. Kindergartners are the best people to talk to about Halloween. Seriously.