Saturday, August 9, 2008

At Long Last

Hello friends & family!

Apparently when I said I would post soon, I really meant that I would get to that task over a week later. Sorry for the belated post, if anyone's been waiting out there. (Doubtful that you are, but my apologies anyway.)

Alrighty.... so I have a lot of back-tracking to do, in order to keep you up to date on the life of the Modell's in Delaware. First, I'll give you a quick clavicle update. Basically, Kyle's doing quite alright. He stopped taking his pain medication last Sunday, and says he feels fine. He has a post-op check-up this Tuesday, so we'll find out just how well he's doing at that point. He went back to work this week as well. He's (of course) not flying yet, but he goes into the squadron to get back "into the mix", so to speak.

And if you're interested, here's an x-ray of the break:


Kind of on a funny/unfortunate note, Kyle was randomly drug tested yesterday at work. Normally wouldn't be a topic of discussion, except he was on about 2.5 weeks of a serious narcotic that shows up as heroin in the blood stream. Ah!!! His squadron commander tried to get him out of it, but with no success, but he was able to at least tell the testers about the situation, so it shouldn't be a problem.

So in summary, Kyle's doing much, much better, he's just very tired of sitting around, and he wants to fly.

I just finished up my 6th week of work at John Milner Architects. This job is such a great experience for me. The projects are amazing, the quality of work spectacular, and the people are so nice, and so willing to help me learn. Thus far I have been able to work on projects ranging from the garage/pool house of a $3 million dollar home, to historic churches in the Philadelphia area. I'm learning about new construction as well as preservation methods and techniques. I was even pulled in to work on a model, which I haven't done since undergrad.

Soon I will be beginning some SketchUp projects in the office. They are very interested in this program, and luckily I'm well acquainted with it, so I will be able to facilitate some new methods within the office. That's very exciting for me, because a) I really enjoy that program, and b) it will be fun to start something new!

The job is great, however my commute is awful, AWFUL, AWFUL!! It is very much bringing me down. I'm in my car about 2.5-3 hours a day. Sometimes the drive goes well, and I can be here or there in an hour and ten minutes... but mostly it takes me about an hour and twenty minutes to make it to my destination. The evenings are the busiest, but Thursday and Friday are ridiculous in the amount of vehicles packed onto the road. It is unbelievably frustrating. I very much want to work for this firm, but I am hating the drive between here and there. Well, I won't complain to you too much, so I'll move on to a new topic. :)

I have pictures of our house! I've been able to successfully complete the decoration of the downstairs of the house... upstairs is a totally different story. So for now, I'll just stick to pictures of the living room, kitchen, & dining room.


Entryway


View from the front door into the living room


The living room


My kitchen! (dining room to the left)

kitchen (cont.)


Dining Room

We bought the table about two weeks ago. We're very glad to have it, because well, it's been awkward having dinner at the coffee table every night. I love it!! It's just what we were looking for, and I think it goes well with the red that I painted, before seeing the table.

When I have some time (who knows when that will be) I'm going to continue the red paint into the kitchen, in the space under the cabinets and above the counter. I also have a gallon of a pale golden yellow that I plan to paint on the soffit in the dining room and kitchen, as well as near the pantry, which I haven't shown you yet. (It's to the right of the refrigerator.)

Okay... I will try very, very, very hard not to be so long in between posts next time. I don't make any promises because time seems to be a very valuable commodity now. I don't even have time to facebook anymore... and that's very telling in how much time I don't have, because I'm kind of addicted to fb-ing.

Okay, anyway.... I hope you are all doing well, and until next time, take care!!
Jill

2 comments:

Shannon Ambroson said...

I LOVE the house :) For a base house, especially, there's a lot of room in there! And open space... the houses here don't know anything about that ;)

I'm glad Kyle's feeling better. I'm sure he'll be up flying again in no time.

And I'm really sorry about your drive too :( That's such a bummer. Hopefully you'll prove yourself such a great asset that you won't have to do that 5 days a week much longer. The job itself sounds great.

Miss you! I'm happy to hear you're having fun and doing well. Thanks for the update.

Kathy Spann said...

Jill, Loved the pictures. The painting and decorating are just great. The new dining room suit is just beautiful and a great choice.
The x ray picture made me just fold over in pain for Kyle.
The commute sounds terrible. Try the books on tape, they really do make the time go by fast. But I am sure sitting in the car seems like such a waste of time when you have so many things to do.
Love, Kathy Spann