Leaving the Nest

When I was a toddler I remember thinking that marrying a man other than my father wasn't an option.  While I couldn't exactly figure out how dad would be married to both me and mom, I figured this kind of thing just works out for all big girls.  As I got older, I realized that marrying my dad was just a dream that made me feel safe and sound and I started to wonder who I would marry and what I would look like as a young lady.  I remember trying very hard to imagine the day when, wearing a white dress and veil, I vowed to love and cherish a single man, who wasn't my father, forever and ever and with that became someone's wife.  Today I write this from the home that my husband and I have made together.  It sometimes seems so far away from the nest where I was raised, but at the same time I have made a new nest with a man who gives me the sense of being safe and sound.  What an essential role fathers play in the lives of their daughters and what an immense pursuit it must be to see a child through their development only to watch them leave just when they believe they are sturdy enough.  So, thank you, Dad, for seeing me through and holding my hand all the way down that aisle. 

Labor Days

So, I know that this lovely long weekend was brought to us by the federal holiday Memorial Day, but lately it's seemed more like Labor Day around these parts.  In the past week The Haag Household has gotten a series of makeovers from the outside in.  Last weekend, my mom was here visiting and she certainly earned her keep (as usual...during her winter visit she turned our house into a sewing sweat shop)!  While Ian was hard at work preparing for the graduate level psychology course he has just started teaching at U Albany, Mom and I were running the Home Depot employees ragged gathering everything we would need to create a raised bed vegetable garden.  2 hours, a 4x4 garden bed kit, 2 zucchini plants, 3 tomato plants, 4 pepper plants, 1 cucumber plant, several herb plants, and a Visa swipe later, we were ready to go where neither one of us had gone before.  We picked a small plot in the rather small back yard that seemed to get the most sunlight and got to work.  A couple more hours later and we had made the bed so to speak. 

Mom and Abby taking 1 of 2 allocated breaks.

And we didn't stop there!  We planted 2 beautiful pedestal urns with flowers and ivy to flank the steps at the front of the house.

Bargain Shopper's Tip: When I bought these plastic "urns" at Home Depot they were ugly and cheap looking.

The pedestal isn't even attached permanently to the basin.  But, when I saw them I imagined them covered in a flat black paint filled with plants at varying heights...like the ones I see in the Ballard Designs catalog.  So, for about $25 for the urns and spray paint and about 15 minutes worth of labor, I think I pulled off a look that can go for hundreds of dollars.  Just be sure to make a few holes in the bottom of the basin for drainage.  A screwdriver did the trick for me. 

By the time we got the urns planted and the bed made, it was time to hit the showers and go for much needed manicures and pedicures.  The next day, Mom flew back down south and I went to work.  When I got home that evening I put the vegetables to bed.  I was afraid of over-crowding the garden, so I decided to plant the herbs in pots. 

I'm hoping that by the end of July, I'll have something to show for all of this labor...hopefully in the form of a fresh and colorful salad!

If you're still reading at this point...Bless you.  You remember I said we've made some home improvements from the outside in, right?  Well the "in" I'm speaking of is actually a nice segue from the exterior because it's our enclosed porch.  It's really a strange little room...an afterthought for certain.  And, believe it or not, it was much stranger before we moved in.  The floor covering is astro turf and as you can see from the picture below, the carpet definitely matched the curtains.  Equally as remarkable is the view from our little porch.  The very dated and poorly insulated windows look out onto our shared driveway and our rickety cinderblock garage.  Oh and now it also looks out onto our veggie garden.  Definitely an improvement.

Up until now, we've pretty much used the porch for a storage and recycling area. Our friends and neighbors Maggie and Andy gave us some bamboo roman shades they had laying around so Ian replaced the green beauties with something less offensive.  We had a siesel rug from Ikea that we weren't using in the house and laid that down on top of the astro turf.  Another simple yet major improvement to the room.  A few weeks ago we practically stole 2 natural-colored wicker arm chairs at a yard sale for $5 each (including seat cushions), which just so happened to coordinate with a wicker end table that was handed down to me years ago by Kari and Tim.  We also had a lovely antique rocking chair being stored on the porch that we were able to (purposefully) incorporate into the room.  I put a couple of coats of dark brown glossy spray paint on the chairs and scrounged up some framed botanicals and little odds and ends I had around the house and now our little weird green porch looks like this:

Total cost of porch makeover: $30

Blogging on your own turf: priceless

I'm a mentor...

...A Clothes Mentor that is. 

Some of you already know that a couple of months ago I picked up a part time job in what I like to think of as the retail recycling business.  For about 10 hours per week I work at a women's resale clothing store called Clothes Mentor. 

Like we say on our phone greeting there, "Clothes Mentor, You've never seen a resale store like us!" 

It's true.  I've never seen any place like it.  Maybe you've heard of resale stores like Planet Xchange and Plato's Closet?  Places where they pay you for your clothes, shoes, accessories on the spot.  Clothes Mentor is like that, but it's for the sophisticated lady whereas Plato's Closet is more for the person with unbridled hormones (you know...teeny boppers and "young adults"). 

I actually learned about Clothes Mentor when I went into Plato's Closet (just next door) and the girl who went through my items told me, "Your stuff is too mature for our store."  I don't know that I've ever felt that old.  (Well, maybe when I was trying to be cool and put to use the hip lingo my cousin Mikey had just enlightened me with and in front of him and his girlfriend I said "crutch" when I should have said "clutch." Ouch.) So anyway, just when I was feeling hopeless and used up, the girl said, "but in a month or so a new store is opening up and your stuff would be perfect for there!"  I immediately envisioned a whole store dedicated to polyester blend pants with elastic waistbands and shoes with velcro straps.  In fact, I was so distraught and caught off guard about my own maturity that I walked out of the store without my perfectly mature clothing that I could have sold to Clothes Mentor.  So what happens to the "stuff" that people bring in to sell that doesn't get bought you ask?  Clothes Mentor and Plato's Closet donate everything to the Albany City Mission.  I half expect to see a panhandler wearing my old Vera Wang trench (her Kohl's label...). 

Needless to say that when the store opened to accept "buys" (they were buying people's things but people could not buy from CM), I scrounged up plenty of things in the way of mature fashion and probably made close to $200 in cash by selling to CM.  I was there for the Grand Opening (when they started selling to people) standing in line, hoping that no one had scooped up the little vintage navy Gucci bag I had been dreaming about for over a month.  The news crews showed up to capture the scene and some women were holding things up in front of their faces to remain incognito because they had apparently called in sick to work just to shop at CM.  When the owner came out to announce they were opening the doors, I tucked my travel coffee cup into my bag and marched straight over to the tower of designer bags.  My Gucci was gone.  I found plenty of other great things and found myself thinking about how fun it could be to work in a place like this...new and different stuff coming in every day...employee discount...designer clothes, shoes, and bags at great prices....a job that doesn't feel as intense as being a psychotherapist sometimes feels.  I put in an application a month later and got the job. 

I usually work one weeknight and one weekend day per week and I promised myself that I would not spend more than what I make at the store.  Over the past couple of months I have found some amazing deals and I really enjoy the women that I work with and most of the responsibilities that the job entails (my least favorite is straightening the racks...they are crammed with clothes!).  One other drawback is that they don't sell men's clothing so I don't bring finds home for Ian from work...but yesterday I did surprise him with a "chimney starter" for the charcoal grill we have (which Ian salvaged from someone's trash pile). He'd probably prefer if I got a part time job at Home Depot where I'd be (much) less likely to spend my earnings (a girl can only have so many tool belts in her closet, right?).  But for now I'm having a lot of fun and my wardrobe has never looked so good :)

If you're interested in learning more about Clothes Mentor or to see if there's a store near you, click here.

Chi-Town

You may be wondering where I ran off to since my last post in which I essentially begged you to officially follow my blog.  Sorry about that.  See, last Thursday Ian and I left for Chicago to attend a professional conference for 4 days. We had a great time touring the city (and shopping!) while playing hooky from the conference. This trip was also a chance to see so many of our friends from UT who were also attending the conference.   On Friday night, some of our former supervisors organized a UT reunion of sorts as they have done for years and there must have been 20 of us Volunteers or more.  It's weird to think that I have to travel to Chicago to see my friends from Knoxville...but I'll take it any way I can get it.  That day we walked over to Milennium Park and saw "the bean" (formally known as Cloud Gate) and the other amazing sculptures.  Here are some pictures taken by Ian in the bean's reflection.

Ian took so many amazing pictures on this trip.  I can't wait to print and frame some of them.  I also couldn't wait to take advantage of all the great shopping Chicago has to offer.  We only had a few hours to spend in the stores so Ian and I chose the big guns...you know, Filene's Basement and Nordstrom Rack and of course my most favorite store in the entire world...Anthropologie.  I would live in an Anthropologie store if I  could.  That probably has something to do with the fact that their home goods are so expensive that I know I could never afford to buy them for MY house so I would HAVE to live in the store if I wanted to be surrounded by things from Anthropologie.  Oh, the pain.  I tell myself that I go in there "for inspiration." Ian knows better.  (It's probably a really good thing that the closest store is 3 hours away from where we live.)For Valentine's Day he picked out this beautiful black winter scarf from my favorite (online)store....my first Anthropologie garment.  (I have a little ceramic incense holder that I bought at the Atlanta store on clearance a looooong time ago.)  If you haven't yet witnessed the magic....here's just a glimplse!

Por Favor

I have a request for the faithful few.
You know...those of you who are reading this right now and tend to follow my lil' blog fairly regularly...
Will you please become official "followers" of the blog?
If you're like me, you were taught to be a leader and not a follower because being a follower would increase the chances of jumping off that bridge if [insert name of popular, deviant, and influential schoolmate here] told you to. 
I'm hoping you could bend the rules just this once.
It's very simple.  Just look to the right side of your computer screen and find the heading "Followers."  Then, click on the "Follow" button.  You'll then be taken through a few more easy steps.
I would really love to know who my audience is and I must admit...I have this idea that having a few followers on the page would make me feel kind of popular.
Muchas Gracias!

The Garden State (written 3/28)

I wish I could say that this post is on the topic of my garden with its sprintime sprouts and the promise of homegrown produce.  Unfortunately, I had to make this post about the state of New Jersey because I have yet to plant a darn thing and even if I had, the fact that it's currently still winter in Albany (it's 37 degrees with a windchill  of 27) wouldn't bode well for those (imaginary) sprouts anyway.  So, go with me on a trip to the great state of New Jersey where there are little cousins, big cousins, margaritas, extremely strenuous exercise classes masked by a reference to ballet, more cousins and aunts and uncles, a trip to Manhattan in gale force winds, and of course some Trader Joe's and Ikea patronage.  Are y'all ready?  Buckle Up!

So, Ian and I drove down to Denville/Boonton, New Jersey for the first weekend in March and Ryan met us there from DC so that we could have a big fat Greek/Irish/Italian/Latina family reunion of sorts.  My oldest cousin (in the world) Peter and his beautiful wife Josie had made the trip from California to NJ with their sweet baby James to visit my aunt and uncle and cousin Jennifer and her husband Tony and their little slugger Luke.  Since gatherings like these don't happen very often, I had to be a part of it.  Besides, Ian barely had the chance to meet Peter at our wedding and I had never met James and he was already 18 months old! 

The drive was very easy and we got a big welcome into the house of my aunt and uncle, which has become Gagi and Pop's Playhouse.  It was wonderful to see everyone and have the time to sit and chat. Brother Ryan arrived late that night in his mini rental car after battling traffic in DC and then again in the lovely East Orange.  We all stayed at Cousin Jen's house.  Ian and I shared the twin bed in little Luke's room.  (He never sleeps in it because it has dragons under there.)  The next morning we were woken up by the littlest dragon (Abby) who flew onto the bed to escape from Luke's chase.  Of course Luke landed on top of us a second later.  We got up and soon blindly subjected ourselves to the best (and most difficult) workout I've ever had.  Cousin Jen owns an exercise studio called The Bar Method.  If you've never heard of it, it's one of the latest trends in exercise that combines isometrics and ballet/dance training in an interval-style workout.  It promises to "sculpt your seat" and I think that's code for "kick your ass."  Brother Ryan and Doctor Husband did it, too (with the exception of a couple of specific stretches).  If you have a Bar Method studio near you, I highly recommend trying it out.  Highly. 

We tooled around Denville that day and got in some good family time.  Cousin Tony made killer enchiladas and guacamole that night and we washed that down with margaritas and beer.  The next day after lunch and more family time we said goodbye to everyone and headed back to the Empire State with a quick Trader Joe's stop on our way out of town.  We had to restock our Joe Joe supply :)

I'll be back with Garden State: Part 2

Happy Easter!

May you and your loved ones be happy and healthy on this special day and always.  And may the spring season bring you new opportunities and blessings (and a few Peeps and Chocolate Bunnies...and if your like Ian, a bottle of Jack Daniels).