Painting is Finished!

I eluded to the painting on my last post which "everyone" read. Now, here it is.

What We've Been Doing Lately...

I have officially finished college! The last assignment I turned in for my online class was on Aug. 6th; just so that we are all 100% clear, unless I decide to get a bachelor's degree in the future, I am done! I finished with a 3.6 GPA and all A's my last summer semester. My GPA would have been higher if I had done better when I first started college back in 2001 (I returned to college on academic probation).

Now, I am putting in more hours with my internship at the church to get more "real world experience" as well as put a good portfolio of my work together. Which leads me to the other thing I recently finished, my web-site. I have posted five videos that I have edited so far, with new ones to come in the future.

http://www.wix.com/seankenney/videoeditor

Sarah and I are still training for a marathon, however we have decided to change it from the CIM to the Napa Valley Marathon next March. The reason being that we do things together, and the CIM forces the men and women to finish at different places, and that was not acceptable to us.

In other news, I had a great 29th birthday, thanks in large part to Sarah for my great gifts and the large amount of time and energy she put into planning everything; she made andouille sausage burgers (best burger ever, by the way) and we enjoyed them with Sprecker's Rootbeer. We also went with friends to a cabin near Bass Lake where we wake boarded. A big thanks to our friend Carrie McChesney for taking lots of video of us actually getting up onto the board (video soon to come). Tip for getting up on the board: think, "meatball." :)

I am also nearing completion of a painting that I have been slowly working on for months (or a year), but stopped for a while during school. I am hoping to have it done in the next few days; I might post a picture of it when it is finished.

Nothing Much

Why haven't we updated lately? Because we just aren't that exciting. :(

Not much has happened since our last post:

Sarah still really loves her new job.
I have 2-3 weeks of school left (2 weeks of physical classes, 3 until my online class ends).
Steve and Mojo are still doing very well.

I was training with my friend Jason for a marathon in December; unfortunately he injured his foot doing so. Now, Sarah is training with me. Jason and I will pick up training for something else once he's back on his feet, literally.

The Sacramento Zoo's ice cream social is this Saturday, and we are taking our niece Kaidence with us. It will be our first play date with her, and her first time at the zoo.

Other than that, I'm looking for a job in the video production field now. The good news it that there are lots of those jobs out there. Bad news is that they are hundreds of miles away.

Home Sweet Homewood Suites!

(Top three pics are a few of our new problems. Bottom three was our Homewood Suite)

We are officially back into our apartment as of last Thursday. So, we stayed at the Homewood Suites from April 15 'till May 20th. No, it was not like being on vacation for a month; it was more like,"Would you mind putting most of your life on hold for a bit? Thanks." Yes, the apartment management paid for the hotel, and breakfast/ dinner was provided to us most nights as well.

We are very happy to be back home, unfortunately we came home to an apartment that was not renovated well at all. So, the apartment issues will continue for a while longer until the maintenance guy fixes what the contractor "fixed."

ON TO HAPPY NEWS!

Sarah got a new job! The pay is better, shorter commute, close to zero phone calls, interesting work, nice co-workers, a boss that respects her and an excuse to buy new fancy clothes. What more could you ask for? She is now a Senior Consultant for an executive search firm. So far, she loves this new job. Thank you Carrie M. for the hook-up! :)

I finished my last full semester at American River College; I got four A's and one B! Now I have to take three classes this summer, and then I will be FINISHED! I will be taking a Photoshop class (again), an Illustrator class, and a sociology class. Unfortunately, the graduation ceremony isn't until May. So we will just have some parties with friends and families this summer, and then do the ceremony thing later. Big thanks to Nate Romo for his hours of help on my Adobe Flash projects this last semester. You rock, Nate!

Some final random things:

We loved the LOST finale; we thought it could have been better, but it was very satisfying.
We have started to watch 24 on Netflix. I think we are the last people on earth who haven't watched it yet.
We started drinking decaf coffee at night from home; it's a great way to end the day.
The kitties are doing great. Mojo and Steve play and fight with each other on a daily basis.

Some Things

Goodness gracious it feels like we've dropped off the face of the earth. We've neglected to post any one of the many interesting things that have happened in the past couple of months, so here's a short list:

We celebrated our five-year wedding anniversary with a trip to Mendocino. We stayed at the same B&B that we visited in year two, and we had a (mostly) wonderful time (see below for explanation of "mostly"). I (Sarah) have been watching "Murder She Wrote" on Netflix lately, so I got really excited when I found Jessica Fletcher's house in the town of Mendocino. Sean was indulgent enough to take my picture in front of it.

On the actual day of our anniversary, we got a call at 9:45am saying that our apartment had been flooded by a broken toilet pipe. So, here's what happened:

Sometime on the 1st, the toilet hose broke and began filling our apartment with water (while we are several hundred miles away in Mendocino).

The flooding spills over into our neighbors apartment and he calls the maintenance guy.

Friday morning we get the call from Sarah's brother (who was checking in on the kitties) and told us what happened. They then proceeded to frantically move all of our belongings into another apartment (all while we are still away).

We stayed in the model apt. that weekend and they had new carpet in that Monday. Wheeee!

Unfortunately, the story doesn't end there. We now have a mold problem, since they didn't replace any of the drywall or molding, just the carpet. An independent inspector came out this last Saturday and today and found moisture in all but one wall about a foot of the way up AND moisture in the new carpet, because the cement didn't dry all the way.

So now, we have a large & loud dehumidifier in the living room and a air purifier in the office (also loud). Sarah and I are going to have to spend the next week in a hotel, and professionals are going to come in, move everything, clean it, replace the drywall and put everything back. Did I mention that I am in the last few weeks of the semester when projects and tests are all due? Fun.

Sorry for the lengthy post, but it will probably be awhile before we can do it again.

One last thing, Sarah and I are running a half marathon this Saturday! That's 13.1 miles. Piece of cake.

Update Tuesday 4/27 11:30am: The mold remediation people say it's probably going to be 2 weeks, not 1. At least we're staying in a suite with a full kitchen and our cats.

Steve & Mojo

Steve and Mojo are getting along wonderfully. They play with each other every day, and Mojo likes to lick Steve's head right before he starts to play fight.

That big lump under the blanket in the picture is Steve. He has taken to climbing under there to sleep, and then Mojo finds him and sleeps next to him on top of the blanket. Very cute.

Mojo loves getting into closets. We have closed him in a couple times, not knowing he had walked in; never more than a minute or so because he starts meowing pretty loud.

All in all, it's nice having two kitties around. :)

Craziest Call Ever! I just had to share it.

Steve Gets a Friend

(The cats are trying to scramble my brain with their eyes!)

His name is Mojo, and he'll be staying with us for an indeterminate period of time (he belongs to Sean's brother David). He's somewhere between 17 & 19 years old, but you wouldn't know it from his energy level. He's practically running Steve ragged with his youthful antics. We were worried that they wouldn't get along, but they're playing together quite well. I keep waiting for the moment when we catch them sleeping in a basket together. I guess I'll have to be patient.

If this was my own work...

I'd make it my personal manifesto. My heart sings.

http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2010/01/rules-for-writing-well.php

Homemade Bread on a Weekday!

So, yeah, I totally whipped together a homemade loaf of bread last Thursday. I started the bread in the morning (literally stirred the ingredients together and walked out the door), then finished it when I got home. I had homemade bread on the table at 7pm. If you haven't heard of it already, "no-knead bread" is THE thing this year. It was quick (as far as hands-on time goes, less than 10 minutes), and it was delicious. I even substituted regular all-purpose flour for bread flour, with no discernible sacrifice in taste or texture. It also makes excellent toast, when it starts to go stale. Plus, something really neat is that you can cook it in a Dutch oven, a casserole dish, or any number of round-ish vessels of the right volume. It was so easy, I'm thinking of doing away with buying sandwich bread and instead making this every week. Here's one of many recipes available on the interwebs:

No-Knead Bread makes 1 loaf

3 cups bread flour

3/4 teaspoon regular yeast (not instant)

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 cups water

Mix all the ingredients in the morning before you go to work. This should take about 3 minutes and leave you with a thick, slightly goopy dough. Cover with a towel or some plastic wrap and leave it in the warmest spot in your kitchen. It should get a 6 to 8-hour rise.

When you come home from work, lightly mist a counter or baking sheet with spray oil and turn dough out on it. Shape it roughly into a ball (a bench scraper is useful here), mist with oil again, and cover with a towel or plastic wrap. Let proof for about an hour, or however long you have.

Heat the oven to 450°F. Put a Dutch oven (or an alternative vessel with similar volume) in the oven to heat. When the dough has doubled in size, put it in the pan. You may have to pour it, pry it off the baking sheet, or just roll it in - the dough is very wet. Don't worry if it looks a mess. Cover the pot with a lid and bake for 30 minutes. Remove lid and bake for another 15 minutes to let it brown.

You can be really sure that the bread is done when an instant-read thermometer inserted into the side of the loaf reads 210-220°F.

New Year!

Just wanted to give a quick update:

Christmas was great this year; all of Sarah's decorations + 2 cartons of egg nog + lots of Christmas music at home + several "fun" trips to the mall= feeling like Christmas.

New Years Eve was spent with friends again and I won second place in the 80's attire contest; I was going for the Marty McFly outfit, but couldn't get a red sleeveless vest.

Lastly, the thing that I am most excited about right now (which is what actually prompted me to do this update) is that I got all my grades from this last semester; five A's and one B! Not too shabby. :) Five more classes next semester, two in the summer and I will be done (which is 213 days from today, but who's counting?)