Not Since the 99 cent Kids Meal

A couple of months ago Joshua and I stumbled into family night at the Chick-fil-A where they sell chicken nugget kid meals for $ .99 and now LOVE Tuesday nights at Chick fil A. Well, technically we've never been back but it's nice to know that if we wanted a 99 cent kid meal is it waiting for us there.

Anyway, I found out yesterday that Chick fil A is having an even bigger celebration on Monday in honor of not only Labor Day but also football season. Here are the details but they are basically handing out 3 piece chicken strip meals if you wear any football teams logo or paraphernalia.

Joshua and I have our Longhorn gear all picked out and can't wait to drive thru and each get our free chicken strips. If there is a Chick fil A near you make it a part of your Labor Day celebration and think of us as you are enjoying your FREE chicken.

Happy Labor Day!

P.S. Once I looked at the entry posted I notice we match our blog perfectly in our shirts - that is funny!

Your Opinion Counts

Here is the final house that we have photographed so far:

We have begun the processing of the images but I thought this might be a great time to get some feedback. Joshua and I are having a bit of a disagreement about a few elements of the photos so be brutal and give us your thoughts on how the photos look. You'll probably be making at least one of us happy with anything you say so criticize away.

For some reason the blog is cutting off a part of the photo so just click on the image and leave your thoughts on flickr.

If you don't want to play our game with us, then just enjoy the photos of his house. We also worked on verbage for the website since we last posted so you can get the real information that will go on our website.

After the demolition of an existing home in the heart of Green Hills, we acted upon the owners’ desire to create a new home that would meet their needs, while also paying homage to the overall scale and history of the surrounding neighborhood. Porches wrap the front and rear, extending the home’s living spaces. Controlling the overall height and massing, we utilized authentic historic details to create a 4,000 sf home that is charming, approachable and fits in comfortably with its neighbors.

The Words just out of My Wife's Mouth:

"Dude, we could totally go get another milk."

Never before have I been referred to as "dude" by my wife.........

it was weird.

Once I recovered from the momentary shock I replied:

"Yeah bro, totally. Let's hook that up."

A Bit Off Schedule

According to the schedule I set for myself today should be images of one of Joshua's houses. However, my production work has gotten in the way of our photo editing so we'll be getting that out a little late for you. We have one of the edits started but at this point the red would reach out of your screen and sort of slap you in the face and I want to save you that exchange.

I'm hot and heavy working on the premieres of this film. Today I'm learning about the cost of first class tickets from all different areas and let me just say this. Having recently flown first class on a domestic flight - it IS NOT worth the difference in the price of the ticket. You could feed a small village with the difference, and I'm not talking one good meal - I mean for a month.

So I'm going on record now. When I'm big time and my people demand that I fly first class, I will gladly take a coach ticket and say "please feed a small village with the difference in the cost. thank you very much."

The Dark is Coming

I looked out my window last night at 7:45 and it was already dark. That my friends, is the sign of death to summer.

 It means the end of our exercise swimming at the Y. 

It means tanks tops won't be an option soon. 

It means the scooter riding will begin to deplete. 

And now I have to spend the next couple of months dreading the coming of 4:45 darkness.

That is very high on my list of grievances with Nashville. They are so far east in the central time zone that it gets dark incredibly early in the winter. At least in Austin we had light until 5:30 which doesn't sounds like a big deal but that 45 minutes can CHANGE YOUR LIFE!

Currently Listening To: Midlake

Great stuff coming out of the home state, good 'ole Denton, Texas.

A Voicemail from One of our Favorite People

We had this message waiting for us in our voicemail after a long day and we couldn't help but smile......and then laughed so hard we almost pee'd our pants. Thanks Mr. Tisdale!

Nothing of Consequence

I can't believe Friday is already here. We had a week crammed with work and activity and I don't think the weekend will slow much for us, although we will be able to sleep past 6 tomorrow which is an improvement over last Saturday

Yesterday our day stretched all the way to a 10:00pm appointment to help someone move a piano. It took quite a lot of work and Josh narrowly missed a trip to the emergency room but the piano found its new home safe and not too badly out of tune.

Because they love me, I was given a key so that I could come play while they are on vacation next week. I couldn't be more thrilled. I'm going to dig out my music and head over soon. And because I love them, I'm gonna remember I was given a key to play the piano - not a practical joke.

My Return to Peru

Last week I officially signed up for my return trip to Peru. The first time I went it was my freshmen year in college with the Hyde Park college ministry FOCUS. Now, my church has a partnership with a church just north of Lima and so at the end of October I will be heading back to the Lima airport to see if it still smells of fish. Well, that and putting on a worship conference for the leaders of churches around Comas.

Its really amazing how perfectly I fit into a need they had. Last year our church gave the Comas church a video camera (nicer than you buy at Best Buy) and so this year I'm going to be training a guy on how to create stories that can be used for church services. He knows how to use the camera but I'm going to teach him a better editing software and some professional camera techniques as well as some techiniques for storytelling. I'm hoping to fit about 2 years of my training into a week course for him. I couldn't be more excited.

This is the first time our church is doing something like this with just the leaders so it is an awesome opportunity to equip not only the Comas church, but also the other churches that will be coming. If you guys could be praying for the trip and my preparation that would be great.

The One House Outside Tennessee

This house has not given us enough repeat business to return to Texas. Maybe once my parent's realize that if they would get us a few clients we'd be more likely to come back then they'd start shamelessly promoting their incredibly talented son-in-law.

Probably the best feature of the house is the back porch.

We were visiting in July and you could still sit out there even around lunchtime. This is a huge accomplishment that you can only understand if you've lost half your body weight from sweating in the Texas heat.

So while the back porch is awesome, this is the thing that every visitor loves.

Yes, those are bunkbeds in a closet. My mom says people just can't stop talking about this part of the house when they get the tour. Why? Because it isn't normal, its amazing.

How I Know I Married Right

Joshua and I have started doing a very strange thing for fun. I know, everyone is thinking "you do a lot of strange things" but even in the midst of how much fun this is - I still recognize and agree that it is weird. Drumroll....

We go shopping at CVS once a week to see how much we can buy for the littlest amount of money. It has become our date night and we love it because it is kind of like a treasure hunt.

The last few weeks we've been doing it with the assistance of The Grocery Game. But this week the list wasn't spectacular so we did some web searching to see what other people were doing and headed to the store with our calculator and coupons and spent a great hour.

We walked into the store with only coupons, no store credit or anything and here is what we got:

1 Revlon Lash something Mascara

1 Sunsilk Shampoo

1 Sunsilk Styling spray

1 CVS aloe body lotion

4 Twelve packs of Pepsi

1 Twelve pack of Mountain Dew

$9.40 spent - including tax!

I actually discovered a way to make it $8.40 once we were home, but you couldn't buy the Pepsi's for $9.40 so I'm not beating myself up.

Here is where I learned about "CVSing" if you want to check it out and here and here are a couple of coupons that made it possible.

A Thousand Dollar Day

We had the largest garage sale I think Crieve Hall has ever seen clocking in our group total just under $1000. We were five families, nine tables, 2 tarps and more hanging clothes then you can imagine. It went from inside the garage to halfway up our driveway.

But the best part was we sold SO MUCH stuff.

I am always just so shocked how much money we can make when we don't really have anything big to sell. We had a couple of $40 items but we (Joshua and I) made $200 on items under a dollar. UNDER A DOLLAR! And just to be clear I'm not talking 99 cents. I had stuff priced for 15 cents to 75 cents. That is a ton of junk (probably close to 300 items) that we sold. That is crazy to me!

There were no fabulous stories from the day but we had a great time hanging out with new and old friends and when we all saw each other at church that night we could agree on one thing. We had a great day, but man were we tired. Apparently earning $1,000 can really take it out of eight grown adults, either that or it was the getting up at 6am.

Why We Have a Garage

garage sale stories to follow

How Cool Were Your Parents?

So I got this link from another blog I've begun to follow. She is a fabulous photographer but just like me her name only ranks 2 stars. Go here and check out everything you could ever want to know about my name, then search your own.

I totally appreciate the fact that this site is not just informative, it is also judgmental. Joshua also only ranks 2 stars but if his parents had been cool enough to throw on an "h" at the end of his name it would have bumped him up to a respectable three stars.

Do let me know if you rank higher than 2 stars because I'm curious what the super cool names are :)

Water with Gas

Last night, we had our first European couchsurfers since our return and we were armed with new European lifestyle knowledge. We had a bottle of water with gas waiting for their arrival and it got the same response that I would have given had someone presented me with a Dr. Pepper on the side of the Swiss Alp.

I love knowing a way to make people feel at home.

P.S We also taught them about French's yellow mustard which they said looked like paint but tasted great.

Yet Another Thing to Put on Our Calendar

I was just beginning my day when Joshua brings the phone upstairs and I hear him saying "Let me let you talk to my wife because she handles the credit cards." Apparently we never paid our credit card bill last month and they were giving us a courtesy call before they turned us over to the "mean collectors."

While I was sitting on the phone I was running through the bank website trying to see if I could figure out what happened there - no payment was sent. The phone call lasted long enough that I even made it down to my filing of statements and receipts to see if I accidently filed it away without paying it. Nope! There wasn't a statement. I asked the guy about that and he was confused and looked into the account and said, "oh, they never ordered or shipped a statement out."

WHAT!?!

After the shock of that statement wore off I moved on to paying the bill. It took him a while to understand that I didn't want to pay the minimum payment but rather the whole bill but we finally communicated well and he took care of it. He waived the late fee and I called customer service to see about getting rid of the interest and figure out why we weren't issued a statement. The short answer is they don't know, but I have a duplicate statement being mailed out. I wanted to ask how it was a duplicate since there was never an original but I refrained.

The moral of this story is we should apparently be noting all our bill due dates and have reminders to insure that we have received statements. This might be common knowledge to you people, but that is news to me.

I have the Coolest Husband

We are beginning to take pictures for the FYK Architecture website. Since the website is still unfinished I'll feature a house a week here. This is going to feel a little bit like a double post but with me out of the way you can better see the house.

Isn't it a nice house? It is in the outskirts of Franklin, TN called Peytonsville (I think). It will eventually be the guest house on an estate out there, but for now the husband, wife and new baby live there and I think it is quite cute.

project photo turned......

you make work fun

-love josue

I miss it!

We have now been home for almost 2 months from our 6 week European adventure and I miss:

• Walking tons of miles everyday
• Seeing new things everyday and the creative stimulation that brings
• Meeting new people almost everyday
• Being outside so much

We had our first couchsurfing family stay with us on Saturday and they are planning a one year around the world trip next year.  Got me thinking about our next adventure.   I wonder where it will be?

Curves

Tonight our photoshop chapter was about curves. You people don't know how much cooler all our Europe photos are about to get.

My New Find

I love to read so I am constantly going through books. For four years I sold books on Amazon for spare money. Not only did it generate a little income it also kept a constant flow of books into our house and a good outlet to get rid of them as well. I still have about 60 books listed in my shop - musicitybooks- however, I've stopped actively searching for books to sell so the constant flow of reading material has waned a bit. I also, have a ton of read books I don't want to keep that I end up selling in the garage sale for $ .50.

No more!

As of last week I found a great new resource to keep my books flowing in and out of my house for very little cost (just the cost of shipping which is around 2 dollars). You sign up and list 10 books to get one credit for a book. Then every time you ship one of your books to someone, you get another credit for a book. The best part is the catalog of books that people have listed is great. You won't find everything but I think it will take a while for you to exhaust your possibilites.

I only signed up on Saturday so I haven't even listed my 10 books yet but I really like the idea. One of the things on "to do" for Tuesday is to list all my already read books to that site. If you like to read or are in a book club this is something you should at least check out.

Flipflops

Conversation between dad and daughter in a stall of a men's restroom:

daughter "Is that a boy?" (referring to the feet next to her)

Dad "Yes"

d "Is he wearing flip flops?"

D "Yeah honey, he is"

d "Boys can't wear flip flips, can they?"

D "Yeah boys can wear flip flops."

d exasperated "No Dad, I don't think they can"

I'm Curious....

It's Here

Okay what do you all think? I think the colors are awesome but is it too small?

How I Know I'm Doing It Right

This is our most recent addition to our decorating scheme. Between it and the curtains we are starting to look a bit "put together" in the living room. We would have the borrowed art work over the fireplace by now but we are always driving the scooter when we think about it.

We bought the print you see on etsy intending to have it and the mask be a part of a grouping on the other side of the fabric piece. However, the background is too close to the wall color so it will end up in our hallway. We are still on the lookout for the things that will join the mask hanging on the wall so let me know if you see anything I would like.

Anyway, let me show you the thing that seems to trip everyone up:

The general concensus is positive, but literally everyone asks when we are going to hang it on the wall. Let me take this moment to say, it is in its final resting spot. We built a thick frame and intend it to stay where it is - leaning against the wall.

I take no offense when people ask that question. I do feel bad though, because some people get embarrassed when I say "actually that's the way its supposed to be."

Honestly, I like it that everyone tilts their head and "hmms" at it. If people got it that would be normal, and I want none of that.

Clipping Craziness

We are on week two of a slow down of work. Why? Well apparently when you are gone for six weeks you don't have a full slate of clients waiting to start projects on your return. We do have some projects but not enough to fill the lull whenever the ball is in the homeowner's court. We have presented a few designs and now we are waiting to hear back and I have a huge project that could hit at any moment but looks like I'll have at least another week of sanity. So, in that lull we are getting creative with our time.

We are learning photoshop, exercising regularly, doing finishing touches on the house, and now educating ourselves on coin collections (the booty couldn't have come at a better time).

One other thing we are reviving is our love of coupons and working the system. You know, sticking it to the man. When I was working at Lifeway and just crazy stressed out with no time I let our coupons just sit and expire if I even cut them out of the paper. No more! We are going crazy getting things for free or for pennies based on a good use of coupons (here is where I find some of my leads). I've been phasing them back in slowly over the last year but in the past few weeks we have gotten serious.

Probably what I am enjoying the most is the box we're accumulating in our store room of stuff we got for free that we don't need. I plan to give it away or sell it in the garage sale. I gave some friends a bag of cat treats yesterday, and I have at least 4 shampoos I'll sell for a buck each in the garage sale next weekend.

I know most people reading this think I'm crazy but I really think it can be more fun when things are tight and you have to be creative with life.

Like in a Movie

We had quite a few things left in our house when we bought it since it was an auction purchase. One interesting thing she left was a filing cabinet in the storage room.

When we first noticed it we gave her a call to make sure she didn't want it because there was a safe in it. When we pushed it around we heard stuff in there so we thought she might change her mind about leaving it. She assured us she didn't know the combination or what was in there and so she didn't care about it. She said that if we could get in it, we could have whatever we found.

For the last 9 months we never touched the safe that we looked at every time we went to get the extra paper towels and mustard in the storage room. Until Friday night.

We had some friends over and I don't know how the safe came up, but it did. They couldn't believe we hadn't touched it and their curiosity couldn't be abated so we decided it was time to open it up. Josh Joshua and Greg took to destroying it while Memry and I imagined what we might find. To me, best case scenario was jewels. However, I fully expected to find paper documents with social security numbers because honestly, how often do you forget about your safe full of jewels? It didn't take that long to get in it and you won't believe what we found.....

MONEY!

There wasn't wads of it or $100 bills but it was someone's coin and paper bill collection and it wasn't small. The Smiths couldn't believe there was actually money of any kind in it and to be honest we couldn't either. At just face value I'd say the money is worth $300 but there are some really old pieces and some misprints so we are getting a coin book at the library this week to figure out collector's value.

So we found buried treasure this weekend, what did you do?

East Nashville