Freezing

In the spring and the fall Joshua and I usually set a date for when the air conditioner or the heater can come on. Until that date we just have to bear with whatever happens. This year we decided June 1 is the first air conditioned day of the summer and so for the last few weeks we've been pushing through some really warm afternoons. Yesterday I decided that our life would be so much better if we would get a box fan.

Hands down best decision of the week!

The last few days I've been wearing sun dresses in the house to keep cool and I just had to go put on pants, socks and cover my shoulders. It is literally 4 degrees cooler in our house today than yesterday. To be fair it is cloudy but the temperature is exactly the same.

One little box fan in the window and I am shivering. I can't believe it. I thought it would be bearable but I never knew how much difference it would make. At this rate we might push back our AC date to June 15 just for good measure.

Tonight we won't have to eat our dinner in the basement and the dog is no longer forced to lay spread eagle on the hardwoods to get cool.

Moral of this story: a)I am an idiot for not doing this sooner b) everyone go run out and buy a box fan and turn off your AC - its amazing!

What If...

What if you were planning a cross country roadtrip? What would you want to see here in our great America?

Lets say you had some friends who were going to go from Nashville, TN to the Grand Canyon. What should they make sure to see in between?

Currently said friends only have "antelope canyon" on the list so help us out.

End of an era

It's official. The last Felton is now married off.

Oddly enough, each of the Felton children married their high school sweetheart. Some of them took a brief (or not so brief) interlude but in the end they ended up right where they started. I'm sure there's a sociology/psychology lesson in that somewhere. Anywho....here are some highlights from their big day.

Mr. and Mrs. Ty Felton

New Music

By way of my friend Chad Gore, check out THESE GUYS

On the opposite side of the spectrum:
some interesting new electronic music by M83 and Crystal Castles.

Listened to anything new lately?

And you thought you wouldn't hear from us for a whole week.....pssshhhh.

One Week Hiatus

In celebration of our one year old blog, we are taking a blogcation for the rest of the week. Honestly, it has more to do with our life being crazy right now as we get ready to go to my brother's wedding this weekend but the blog anniversary just sounds better. A trip to TX and a wedding will give us plenty of new material and finally we'll have some new photographs to put up as well. We'll see you next week.

Dear Lock Service Guy.....

Thank you so much for quoting me an outrageous amount of money to come unlock our car after I locked my keys inside. Especially since you are literally two blocks away from our house (seriously dude, I can almost see your van from our front yard). I know it was a Saturday night, but I'm glad I did not agree to your ransom to free our car from bondage. As it turned out, it ended up being one of my better decisions. By standing firm and not succumbing to the fear of "Oh no! How shall we survive? What if we need to drive to the Walgreens at 2 in the morning?" I allowed myself to rise to the challenge and learn a lesson on determination, focus and just being a better man.

I know, big wup, I got my car unlocked. You weren't there though, and because of that I was totally in the zone. It was a thing of beauty. I got my wire hanger. I made a hook. My first try at pushing the unlock button....failed.

Not to worry, I pulled my wire out, re-grouped and developed a new strategy. I'm going after the lock latch itself, I'm making this wire a freakin' finger that is going to unlock that bad boy. Oh yeah. I get my wire finger on the latch and start pulling.....the wire bends...not enough rigidity.

Ok, ok, re-group. Third times a charm right? So I re-design my finger to make it stronger and I go in again. I'm getting into position, my wire finger is grabbing the latch. It's like a scene from Mission Impossible (yes I know that was a horrible, horrible movie. you got a better reference?) Anyway, so I start pulling very, very slowly and just when I think the wire is going to start bending again, the lock starts to move and before I know it I'm seeing red, which as everyone knows, means your doors are unlocked (also that you're looking to murder someone, but not for this story).

For a few seconds I stood in disbelief, motionless....I actually did it. That really just happened. When I came to, I went upstairs and did a victory dance for Tiff. It went something like THIS

Un-realtor-like

So I went back and forth about my business card. They say that having a card with a photograph is very good for business. I question the cheese factor of that. After many arguments with myself before falling asleep at night I voiced my delimna to some friends. They said that a picture would be to my benefit due to my unrealtor-like appearance.

I thought that made sense so yesterday Joshua and I fought the wind and rain to get said "unrealtor-like" picture.

This isn't the one we picked for the card but there were only 6 of 200 we took that didn't have my hair flying everywhere so I felt like it deserved to see the light of day.

Our Empire

I think there is a true advantage to some time without billable work in a business. Since Joshua and I have decided we are staying in Nashville we have dug in to the marketing and networking side of things and have become machines. Without realizing it we are working 10 to 12 hour days.

Step one is the development of a business blog.

We are trying to get that up and running technically. In the meantime, Joshua has cranked out some great designs and has 7 articles in the bag for that. I know you just can't wait.

The other part is planning and dreaming for the future of our business.

When we started FYK Architecture we didn't have time to really do much planning. I was still working at Lifeway and Joshua had too much to do all by himself. After I came on board we worked with Scott Lee to visually develop the brand, but that was it. This week we have made it our job to write mission statements, make larger plans and start setting our company up to be bigger than it is right now. Its only Wednesday and we are coming along swimmingly.

The big decision of the day is our plan to develop the FYK name and brand to encompass our future ventures. That means that FYK Realty Group will be forming shortly. Luckily, we decided this the day before I officially designed my business cards. Normally this would be a conversation we had the day after we got them back from the printer.

Score 1 for FYK!

"London Baby!"

WARNING: Architectural nerdery ahead. Proceed with caution.

Although more cluttered with baggage carts and kiosks than Sir Norman Foster perhaps envisioned, the Stansted airport terminal is a great building. The basic design concept is a grid of tree like structural squares that house the mechanical equipment at their base. By keeping all the systems at the floor level (or below), it allows for the roof to be open and light. The skylight design at each grid offers diffuse natural light, so there is very little need for artificial lighting. Not just is it interesting to look at, it reduces power consumption in two ways: it eliminates the energy consumed by light fixtures as well as reduces the heating load caused by those fixtures.

Here’s my favorite part. The experience of Stansted is very straightforward. The design and organization of the terminal creates a clearly defined progression from entry, to ticketing, to security, to your designated gate and off you go. No guessing where to go and no need for signage typical of most airports; just a soothing, pleasant airport experience.

However, if you’re thinking you can just walk around taking pictures without being interrogated by security, well then you would be wrong. That blur on the left was the security officer who all but patted me down to confirm that I was not going to use my photos for evil.

Sentri-key

This week my real estate license posted so I am legal to enter any home for sale in Nashville. Joshua and I no longer have to wonder what we will do with our evenings any longer. Tutoring will be over next week so maybe we'll turn Tuesday evening into our home expedition evening. It will help us professionally but honestly it'll just be fun.

We just went down the street to test out my key because I knew there was a vacant house. I am not looking forward to the call from the listing agent asking how my client liked the house. I am opting for an honest answer of "No client, just me. I just got the key today and I just wanted to make sure it worked. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone about the leak you were fixing downstairs."

Who's Idea was This?

I want to know why anyone would add music to their website. I don't want to click on a site and then have this music I didn't ask for come blaring out of my speakers. In the time it takes me to find the button that says "mute" I'm already so annoyed I'd rather just "X" out the window.

My website developing friends, please educate me. Why do they do this to us?

Not for Everyone

I love HBO shows. I think they hire some of the best writers. I know they also allow more raunch than some people can stand but professionally I just think they do TV better than most.

After our discovery of the library Joshua and I have been catching up on all the HBO shows we have never seen. We started with Six Feet Under. We had it on good authority that it was the best ending of a TV show. Now I took this to mean that I was going to love the last season. I want to clarify this for everyone. You are not going to like the last season, however, the final episode (more exactly the last 10 minutes) is worth all the hours you spent watching the last season.

It is so simple and if I told you how it ended you would say that it was too cliche, but it isn't. In the moments when you are watching it you are just taken in. I still can't believe how much hope this very dark show gave in it's final moments.

Clearance Sale Puppy

Last night Joshua and I watched Marley & Me. There were some seriously funny lines in that thing that I would love to be able to quote. However, that would involve having to watch it again and I AM NOT going to do that to myself.

Now for people who know me in real life I need to clarify something. I am a crier in my reality. I have a hard time holding it together during conflict and when I'm passionate about something I very often end up in tears. However. I do not cry in movies. When I saw Hope Floats with my cousin who had just lost her mother - nothing. My Girl got one fully formed tear but that is it. I just don't cry during movies.

Until last night. I spent the last 20 minutes of this movie bawling like someone punched me in the face. I don't mean tears running down my face, I mean ugly crying with sounds. So as much as I would love to pull out some of the very witty lines from the movie I don't think my dignity can take another viewing.

Personal Best

I went to Kroger last week and out of nowhere they were tripling all coupons under $1. After checking with customer service (and calling my friends who also coupon) I pulled out all my 75 cent coupons and went to town. Before coupons my total was $49.63 for all of this:

Seventeen coupons later I paid $11.37 out of pocket.

I try to not geek out over this stuff too much on the blog but this trip was just so ridiculous I had to share.

Expired

So our remaining $2.34 of Skype credit expired today. That means that one year ago today we loaded up the ten dollars of credit for our Europe trip. For the rest of the day you will find me curled up on my couch lamenting my expired passport and the fact that we are not going to walk around outside for a full month this summer. Or you'll find me planning our American roadtrip - I can't really decide yet.

Poker Face

This week we kept the 6 year old we rent occasionally for a full 3 days. Every time we keep him I am just astounded at what a good kid he is. I know our kid will not be as calm and laid back as this one. I believe I was considered a "handful" and Joshua had/has this ridiculous nervous energy that stresses him out over the strangest things. He threw up almost everyday for the first few months when we were dating because of nerves. So yeah, our kid is going to be high strung and never able to just sit and play alone.

But anyway, enough about the fictitious terror that our child will be.

The only issue we have is even really good kids lie occasionally and because he is only here once every couple of months I don't know his tells. I have to trust that when I ask him in my I'm an adult and if you don't tell me the truth this could get really bad for you voice he tells me the truth. I really need to remember to ask his mom for his tells so that I don't have to pull out that voice quite as much.