child's play

for those of you who know my husband, you may be familiar with the politician's "thumbs up" that has followed us around the globe, and most recently - our wedding! it all began at a fountain in switzerland, circa fall 2000, and has since become my husband’s "trademark" (hear that honey? you need to file some papers for that!).

last thursday (around the time the world was learning of the fall of michael jackson) we were at a work sponsored event at the children's museum of indianapolis to see a sneak peak of the king tut exhibit.

despite the recent exterior remodel of the museum and all the mediterranean themed decor around the place, my husband just couldn't get past his childhood memories of the water clock.

i think it is safe to say the exhibit (which is a kind of a deal - http://www.childrensmuseum.org/special_exhibits/tutankhamun/index.htm), took a backseat to the clock in my husbands eyes. while most of us walked out discussing the lack of any of tut's sarcophaguses (err, sarcophagi?), he just couldn't get over how the water continuously and correctly displays time - pumping it up, then down and all over yet again. from entry to exit, from a coors lite to some hummus and pita, from the tomb of tut to the dinosaurs - his only interest was just what makes that clock tick.... literally!

i feel this blog will be a great tool to document our journey through life with the thumbs up. perhaps it can be a reoccurring theme. in fact, had we thought of it earlier, it could have been a theme in the naming and URL of the blog, yada yada yada.

so stay tuned - we go tubing and boating this week and head to seattle at the end of july to document the family trademark!

vino time!

wine just became a little more fun at the voight household!

last week we picked up our new wine rack, compliments of my favorite store: crate & barrel. too bad we didn't have this when i hosted wine club earlier this month. i'm not quite sure my favorite part about the new purchase, so i'll list some highlights below:

1. because we bought the floor sample, it was on sale
2. it awesomely displays my decorative "V" on one of the shelves
3. it fills an empty corner
4. we can store up to 15 bottles on wine and not feel bad or embarrassed about it
5. we don't have to keep wine in our basement any more
6. the addition inspired us to finally go shopping for a dining room table
7. it is dark wood
8. it smells like rich mahogany
9. it is contemporary
10. and even though it isn't a feminine purchase, it makes the room feel like it has some more "me" in it.

marriage survey

when asked how much he enjoys being married to me, this was his response:

cream cheese and chives

this post is dedicated to my sister-in-law. not because it is her birthday. though it was a few weeks back. not because she is a great cook. though i'm sure she is. but because she is a hard-working-cream-cheese-and-chive-cracker-eating-mom-of-three-who-just-wants-some-attention-on-the-blog! or something like that....

so this past weekend, i found out i have not met the voight/haynie standard of blogging. which in turn means mentioning them in my posts a minimum of 3 times. so instead of telling you about the many things we did this past weekend (which includes a pizza/movie night with the husband, a lot of relaxing, italian fest downtown, church and minimal, but some, yard tending), i will inform you of the weekend's true highlight - the cookout with the in-laws! man o man do they throw a grand bbq. not only this, but the mother-in-law recently turned 21, so of course there were shots around the table. oh, and check out the sister-in-law's fruit salad...still not sure if she made that or bought it from the store (like the cookies she put on the serving platter for dessert!) oh, and the other is documentation of what the boys do after they each crackers with cream cheese and chives...

extreme home makeover: god style

last weekend, as some of you may know, our house church (along with a few others) spent all day saturday cleaning, cleansing and purging an entire home - literally from top to bottom. rebecca, the homeowner, lives next door to our friend katie and is in her late 60s. between taking care of her 2 grandkids during parts of the week and a few health issues, she was desperately in need of some cleaning and love.

when we showed up at 9am on saturday morning, we realized it was a little more than a few hours of cleaning, but in fact helping rebecca in confronting some major hoarding issues.


the pictures attached may not do it all justice - as our friend jana thought to take some photos during the middle of the process. i think she is going to go back and take some "after" photos so i will post those one i have them.

we started by completely emptying rebecca's house onto her front yard. we sorted through important documents, medicines and then organized items that needed to be rinsed or washed. her house was completely empty. we then set up a dish station that washed all the dishes (all of her many place settings to serve about 30 guests!) and made them user friendly again. some others took two car loads of laundry to the nearby laundry mat, which took nearly 4-5 hours to do!

over the course of the 11 yr day, several passer-bys stopped to inquire if this was a yard sale, a GIANT portable dumpster on the back of jesse's sweet van was overflowing and we made multiple truck-loads to the goodwill.


some of the guys built some really shelves in the basement for storage. the husband and i took on stripping a wall of some painted over wallpaper (sigh) at one point in the day. as evening approached, some cool antiques had appeared (including some pink depression glass and a office desk my mom would flip out about), we had painted her dining room, living room and kitchen, and new ceiling fans were installed. this house literally did a 180 from dawn to dusk- with the help of about 20-30 willing people. it was a really neat way to show someone god's love. however, i hadn't been this sore since my high school soccer two-a-days!

last wedding post, promise....maybe

swirl that…

last night was the first official meeting of our girls’ wine club. the idea first came about from my friend stacey – we wanted to find a time to get together for a night with girlfriends. both of us love planning, but also get tired of coordinating fun activities but being rejected due to busy weekends and previous commitments. so the idea solidified to a monthly get together, on the second tuesday of each month, with what better than a wine theme?

so here is how the club works (no worries - no official club news, announcements or secrets will be revealed here…just the basics). each month a different member is in charge of hosting club. the hostess is responsible for providing snacks, and each club member brings a bottle of wine. The best part is that each month there is a different theme. for example, last night’s theme was “favorites”, where each person simply brought their favorite wine to share. the theme of the night is up to the hostess to decide, and previously suggested themes include wines by region, country and then of course “hillbilly”, where we’d all drink boxed wine or wine sealed only with a twist off cap.

the inaugural meeting of wine club exceed anyone’s expectations. sadly I cant reveal much, but I can say that it may have been the hardest I have laughed in months. wine club had a pretty early start time of 6 pm, so I attempted to whip up some wine friendly foods: bruschetta, cheese/grapes/crackers and cheesecake. it was such a fun way to mingle groups of friends, meet new people and enjoy some QT time with girlfriends.

as the eight of us took down the 10 bottles of wine that happened at the voight household, we reverted to giddiness of third graders - making up an official lingo for “cheers”, a secret passcode for us “founding members” only, nicknames with alter egos and more. the only thing missing was a lisa frank trapper keeper for our note taking, which may actually appear from an ebay purchase next month. milo was beside himself with excitement and probably overwhelmed by the estrogen but he made it out with only a few successful licks of the cheese tray and a bump on the head from being pushed under the coffee table.

and don’t worry, I am in charge of writing an official song for next month’s meeting…

jrune

i'm surprised i have yet to mention what the voights are now calling the month of "jrune". that's right. said just like it sounds and is what it looks - the words "run" and "june" combined. not only does "jrune" fail to flow from your tongue with ease, but it is even more painful to do.

after the husband's blog post at the end of may about the weight gained after the wedding - we decided to devote the month of june to being healthy - which means at least 30 mins (aka 3 miles) of running every single day. brandt's logic is that i myself would lose 8 lbs by the end of "jrune" if we did it. so i took him on his bet.

the problem you say? today is day three and my body is throbbing. my muscles are swollen inside and i creek like an old rocker. since our schedules don't always match up, the husband woke up yesterday morning and ran at 6 am. he said it was to get it out of the way. i believe it was to guilt me into doing it that night when i got home from work. yet, when i was leaving work, literally all hell broke loose in the skies - with hail (further north some were as big as baseballs mind you!), lightening and probably swirling clouds all the meteorologists peed their pants about [just a little] when they saw their doppler radars...

but no worries - i completed my run despite it all. only made about 2.5 of the 3, but we are keeping up ... and will remind my husband next time he complains about "his knee starting to hurt"! and believeyoume, i will win that bet by the end of "jrune"!

digital subscribers BEWARE:

this blog topic is a shout out to my husband - to help ease his boiling blood on the issue and spread the word to think twice before you sign up for a great digital cable deal.... so to all of you 15-20 loyal bloggers out there, listen up!

we have had an ongoing battle with Direct TV as of late. from their extremely poor customer service to their unwillingness to waive a simple fee, we now find ourselves without TV until sunday and conned into a 2 year contract that would cost more than $350 to retract. not that we ever really received consistent satellite service from day 1, but at least on a clear, sunny afternoon we could take advantage of a few of our HD channels.

you want to know the icing on the cake? the last customer service representative we spoke with actually told us this week would be a great week to clean out our garage and do some yard work we have been putting off since they aren't providing us their service! i mean, really? the nerve! "hey disgruntled customer, get your butt off the couch from watching our crappy satellite service and do something with you life"... i bet he doesn't get a salesman of the year award.

moral of the story: direct tv = crappy service. say no to it. it is bad.

we eagerly await the next 18 months to pass when we can take advantage of at&t u-verse that has just arrived to our street. and trust me, my husband already has his bitter breakup speech prepared for when that day comes.

landscaping duty

have you ever rolled out of bed in a haze confused as to what you did to your body the day before to make it ache the way it is at that very moment? that was me this morning. from my neck all the way down to my ankles –as i lied in bed this morning, waiting to muster the energy to move, i couldn’t quite put it all together. but after the grogginess faded, i soon remembered it was the hours of landscaping the husband and i did on sunday.

now before i get too far, i must mention my in-laws were in town this weekend to celebrate yet another family birthday. this is going to be a common trend in life, as we are packed full of birthdays in the voight clan from april to july. it is important i bring this visit up for two reasons. 1. a large chunk of blog readers are from that side of the family and 2. i believe they would feel slighted if i didn’t mention their contributions. or perhaps blame is a better word. :)

on sunday morning, while the husband and his dad mounted our new bedroom tv (not to mention their unsuccessful attempt to hookup cable….that can be another blog) my husband’s mom took me to the local hardware/gardening store and bought us two new plans for our flower bed. and that my dear friends is where the can of worms was opened! apparently, weeding tickles her feathers. so knowing we had at least another hour before the cable went out the window via the men's skills, she and i began to go from flower bed to flower bed pulling up all the weeds. lucky for her they only had about an hour to spare before running other errands and heading back home.

for you homeowners out there, you know you can’t just weed one little part. after my mother-in-law left, i recruited my husband for some assistance (and also to help take his frustrations from his hate for Direct TV – yes, another blog entry will follow on this) so the day of planting, pulling and stump removal in the front yard officially began. by the time it ended, we had spent hours shoveling weeds, planting the two new plants, buying four more to complete the front yard, removing stumps the previous homeowners left behind and attempting to drown out the pesky mole that is burrowing holes in our yard. and no, sadly i don’t believe it worked.

compliments of my new birthday iPhone, i am now able to take some photos on my way out the door to work and upload.

the final product: a weed-free and flower friendly house!pink indian feather i believe

i can't remember, but we bought this because there were a few others existing that needed to be "fluffed up"

can't rembmer either - but should look good with all the daylillies about ready to bloom!