Posted in Faith, family, Food, Friends, Holidays, tagged thanksgiving on November 27, 2014| Leave a Comment »
I sincerely wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving today. Even if times are tough or things are rough, let’s remember all of the blessings we do have and appreciate the opportunity to grow through hardship.
“I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.” (Psalm 9:1 ESV)
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Costco, eyeglasses, frames, lenses, optics, optometrist on November 26, 2014| Leave a Comment »
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I had finally gotten a new prescription for my glasses. When we were in Arkansas in July, I decided to get my eyes checked since I was off work and had the time. I didn’t get new glasses there because they wouldn’t have been ready before we came back to DC, and I delayed after we returned because I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do. However, once I decided on a course of action, things didn’t exactly go as planned.
Posted in Holidays, tagged cash, christmas, deals, ebates, gifts, holidays, saving, shopping on November 24, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Thanksgiving is less than a week away, which means the holiday season is upon us. If you’re like me, you’ve already begun thinking about Christmas shopping. If you’re like me, you’ve also done more of your shopping online in recent years. It’s pretty easy to find some good deals through the web, but a few years ago I came across a website called Ebates that has made online shopping even more profitable. I figure a fair number of you have heard of Ebates before, and I think there are a couple of other similar websites out there. However, since gift-giving season is upon us, I thought I’d pass along the info to anyone who isn’t familiar with it and also share some of my tips and tricks for making it even more profitable.
Posted in Holidays, regional travel, The District, travel, tagged air and space, airplanes, Concorde, Discovery, Enola Gay, museum, smithsonian, space shuttle, SR-71 Blackbird, Veterans Day on November 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Last week, I had Tuesday off for Veterans Day. I’m a little late to the game to say thank you to all those who have served in various ways for our country, but they deserve recognition all year and not just one day, so thank you all for your service and sacrifice!
Veteran’s day is not one of those holidays that Bart gets off from his work; however, after working really hard during October on a project, he decided to take one day off to relax a bit and do something fun while I was off as well. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to check another local Washington, DC attraction off our list. We tossed around a number of good ideas and finally landed on the Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport in Virginia.
Posted in Career, Faith, Friends, Moving, regional travel, The District, The house, Traffic, travel, Work, tagged moving, relocating, travel, washington dc on November 12, 2014| Leave a Comment »
On the morning of November 10, 2012, Bart and I saw the sun rise one last time from our driveway in Erie, Colorado as we got in our cars and began the three day, 1700 mile trek to our new home in Washington, D.C. Two years used to seem like an eternity, but I still feel “new” to my job, our church, and the area in general even 24 months after our relocation. Nevertheless, a lot has happened for Bart and me since we began this new chapter in 2012.
Posted in Career, Time, Work, tagged black holes, cinema, film, Interstellar, movies, physics, relativity, science, time travel on November 9, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Bart and I are cheapskates when it comes to watching movies: very, very few films come out that inspire us enough to drop $30 just to watch it. Therefore, we often wait to catch something on DVD or streaming, or we catch crazy early matinees on Saturdays when we can go for almost half price. (Can I just interject here that movies, like everything else, are so ridiculously expensive here in Washington, DC?) This Saturday, we didn’t have a lot planned, and I was in a rare mood to actually cough up a little cash to go see something in the theater. After weeks of being uninspired by recent new releases, I finally decided I would be interested enough in seeing Interstellar to brave a Saturday morning matinee, so Bart and I headed to the theater to catch this brand new release.
Posted in DIY, family, Holidays, The house, tagged christmas, diy, fireplace, front door, home improvement, mantel, stockings, thermatru on November 7, 2014| 5 Comments »
When my parents come to town, they always want to help us with stuff around the house. They’ve built houses as a side business for over 40 years, so they have tons of experience doing just about every home improvement project. So you know I come by it honest. When they were in town a few weeks ago, they volunteered to tackle some projects with us if we wanted, so we consulted our (impossibly long) to-do list and picked two things that seemed perfectly timed for fall.
Posted in family, Holidays, Murphy, The house, Time, weather, tagged Daylight saving time, ebola, election, eyeglasses, fall, flu shot, halloween, leaves, raking leaves, time change, vaccination, wind on November 4, 2014| Leave a Comment »
It’s election day, and this is the first election we’ve had in the commonwealth of Virginia. It’s been a bit of a learning curve to figure out how things work around here, but fortunately we got registered when we moved and our polling place is at an elementary school in our own neighborhood. So, as long as we don’t have to stand in line for hours, it should be incredibly convenient. I hope you’re able to get out and vote today–do your part to make an end to this year’s political ads. Oh my gosh, please, anything to make them end.
In other news, we’ve enjoyed a more relaxed pace around the Taylor household after birth-denouement (see what I did there?). We’ve been playing catch-up a bit from our busy month, but we’ve still had our share of diverse adventures here and there to keep life interesting.
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The Taylor Approximation 