.....And Were Back!

You know I totally intended to write some "Hey, remember that vacation? It's finally here!" post by the end of last week, but it apparently just never happened. Oops! Anyway, we're home now, Washington, D.C. was a BEAUTIFUL, we spent some time with old friends, and overall had a blast! There is lots of bidness to attend to before I get to play, so I thought I would steal a second and sneak on here to let you know I didn't just cave in finally to all that is dry and brown down here, and crawl into a corner and die. Nope, I'm a trooper! Let the record show, however, that D.C. was quite a tease for me! That is all. I do promise to upload pictures and give you something with substance very soon, dear reader(s)! Stay tuned!

Muy Interesante...

I just saw a link to this site on a friend's blog, and whadoyaknowit, I'm the ONLY Dorese in the whole United States! I wasn't really surprised to be the only Dorese Cornelison or Dorese Orlandi, but I was a little bit by the first name alone... Cool! Thanks Camille!

Just Some Bidness...

Awwe, thanks friends! It's true, as many of you guessed, the battle for shorter hair has been 3 years of marriage in the making. I've been getting more use to it now and making it my own, so I'll have to post another picture sometime with it a little more how it really looks! : ) Anyway, I don't have much humor for my "gush of consciousness" we often encounter on here, but I couldn't see that I had 8 comments on my hair and just go to bed!

In the news, I'm officially DONE with my classes! My last final was Thursday morning and now I've got 'til June 9th completely free. (I'm taking two Spanish classes this summer, from June 9 - July 31). So plans for the summer include our trip coming up next week to Washington, D.C., then my classes... then I'm going to visit my family sometime in August! It should be a fun summer, with a few weeks off here and there to get some work done beautifying our house and yard. I'm so excited to finally have a yard, and to finally be done with this crazy semester!

Anyway, thanks again, "all you all," for reading my blog and encouraging my craziness further! Stay tuned for more updates on the house, which is almost done!!! We're planning to put in a full day over there tomorrow, so between a full day of trying to get out of work and not having any homework to make me feel guilty about piddling around on the internet, there will be pictures! Yeah!

Hello, Bob...

Victory is mine!

Exterior House Pictures

We have pictures of our house! Finally!

It's so pretty outside right now! The sun is shining, the clouds are so puffy and... stuff, and the grass is still green! I realize this is something I should not take for granted, which is why I insisted we take these pictures NOW instead of waiting for summer to make our yard all brown and icky.

This is just to give you some perspective... You know, in case you were curious how tall the fornt door was or something.

I love wide angle shots. They make the artistic side of my little soul just sing.

The Appliances Have Landed! I Repeat: The Appliances Have Landed!

After taking nearly two weeks off due to illness and demands of work and school, Mark and I finally made it into town and put in a full day of work on House. And let me tell you - she missed us terribly! Kind of like the puppy that drags all of your belongings she can get to out into a pile on the living room floor (just to show you how much she misses you, of course). Except that House was a little less innocent in her assault. She dug deep into her crawl space under the house and came up with the meanest, most horrible sort of revenge she could bring herself to commit: House made my Cheetos stale. The horror! I was so saddened by this... and it certainly doesn't have anything to do with my recently bragging to an Ohio friend that a bag of chips left unopened will remain "good" for weeks on the counter due to lack of humidity... No, friends, this goes deeper. See, I'm kind of a sloppy Cheeto eater (I don't like to get that neon orange stuff all over my face, see?), and when I stopped in last week to eat some of my beloveds and look around the house for a few minutes, I dropped a few somewhere between the bag on the counter and my mouth.

Adding insult to injury, I left them on the floor. Then I forgot all about them... until I stepped on them, making a pile of crumby mess. Did I clean it up, I hear you asking? Of course not! We didn't yet have a broom in the house. And so, your Honor, it is for this reason that I believe Ms. House did it, in the kitchen, with the candlestick! Er... I mean, with the humidity! Don't worry though, I got her back. I realized today that we left the porch light on when we left Saturday night. And it's still on. (Commence evil cackling...)

Anyway, all this to say that we have finally moved the appliances from the garage into the kitchen. That's right, folks! And what do you suppose were the first things to go into the fridge and freezer? Those who know me well will not be surprised in the slightest. I raced to the store and bought: a frozen Red Baron pizza, a tub of chocolate/peanut butter/caramel ice cream, and a bottle of ketchup. And ice cream cones. The jumbo kind. Not that I am promoting that these fine items should all be consumed together, under any circumstances.

Oh yeah, and because I'm a loony, I forgot to take the camera in with us... so no pictures this time! Stay tuned though!

"The High Country"

As some of my readers may be aware, we're not too far from Yellowstone National Park down in this neck of the woods. For a desperately needed vacation a few weeks ago, Mark and I took a trip up to Island Park, which is a town in Idaho pretty close to the West entrance of the Park. We had hoped to visit the Park while we were there, but demands of work and school kept us from staying longer, and all total we were gone from home less than 24 hours. However, that night away was just what the doctor ordered. And we wouldn't have been able to stay much longer anyway, because it was on the drive home that Mark's illness began to manifest itself. Anyway, amidst all of the weirdo weather we've had around here lately, I wanted to share some pictures of our trip to "The High Country" as locals call it. After spending my few short hours up there, I will no longer complain about the snow we've had down here.

This first picture is to show the enormous pile of snow. They had no less than 8 feet on the ground up there, and this was the end of April, mind you!

(You will notice the pained expression on my face... it was COLD!)


This is the view from the balcony of our little abode. No sign of man's impact on this land anywhere in our view! It was so nice for Mark to be able to just set up the tripod and shoot away while I cooked dinner, without having to call him (and hope we had cell phone service up there) to tell him to come home when it was done!


Mark says he'll never take glamor shots of me again if I don't post the following picture...
I'll have to write a post sometime about being chased around your house with a camera. It's a joy no woman should go without.


In an effort to clear the above image out of your now-troubled minds, here's one of me, bed head and pained expression free...
Yes, that really is the same person. I clean up pretty well, don't I?!? A little too rosy though... don't you think? And what's with that twinkly, though not quite amused expression? I even seem to recall having been a little on the grumpy side that day. Something to do with being chased around with the camera before I even had a chance to make myself pretty (see above). Hmm...


I love this picture. We stopped at a grocery store on our way up to Island Park and purchased a few apples and oranges, among other things for dinner that night and breakfast and lunch the next day. This shot is just of the fruit sitting on the counter before we ate it for breakfast. Isn't he good?

Yes, Dorese. Yes, he is. He's amazing. Excepting only when he chases me with the camera. So, every fourth, twelfth, and twenty-seventh day of every month, he's amazing. (Ok, ok, that's not really true. He chases me every time he even thinks of picking up the camera. And even then, he's still amazing. It's the subject matter that brings him down... (see above)...). See the explanation for our flowery header picture here in case you need further verification.