Brandice.net Blog

Easter was a pretty great holiday this year. I’ve never really been into it since I’m not really into the whole Christ rising from the dead aspect of the holiday, but I spent the morning in a great discussion at Merging Hearts about the origins of Easter (I particularly love the story of Ostara and the bunny, which is midway down the page at the link) and what this season can mean.

Afterward, I spent the day with family and enjoyed the beautiful weather, which seemed like the perfect way to welcome in the spring season. :) You can click on this handy place setting to see the entire Flickr album.

Some of my other favorite shots include my brother and sister-in-law:

Jeff and my uncle, enjoying themselves out on the porch:

My nephew enjoying the sunshine with his other auntie:

And two tipsy lasses on a swing:

Hope you had a great Easter and that you’re enjoying the spring!

The housewarming pics are finally up and edited! It was a really great time, everyone loved the house and the dogs, and the after party was a blast. :) Here are some of my favorite shots:

Laura teaches Ohio people how to dance like someone from NYC:

My grown sibs!

Adorable Amy (who I’m so happy I met in 2009), and Matt!

Laura and Brandice create Dance Party USA! :)

Our families were a huge help for the housewarming and it was a huge success. :) I’m so incredibly happy to be living in a home now, instead of a house!

Two weeks after the housewarming, celebrated Jim’s 30th birthday, Schnabel Bar-style. Click on the partygoers for the photo album!

Life is good in Brandice Land! :) 2010 is off to fantastic freaking start…

I’ve finally started editing photos from Christmas and my mother’s surprise birthday party for her 50th birthday… funny how moving and then unpacking will just eat away an entire month of one’s existence. It feels really good to be getting caught up this weekend.

Click on present-gleeful Damien and Ben to see my Flickr album from Christmas morning:

I don’t really remember much about Christmas, except that I was pretty exhausted and pretty thrilled to have a new house and two great dogs, and Christmas Day itself was probably the only time I wasn’t busily unpacking or shopping or household items or taking the dogs to the pet store or the vet. Holy whirlwind, batman!

Next up is my mom’s 50th, which I posted about previously. Here’s the photographic evidence that it was a completely spectacular evening (click on my mom and her sister to see the whole album):

HOLY CRAP, it’s cold. I’m sitting at my desk (which is no longer under piles and piles of boxes and various non-unpacked rubble) waiting for Laura to call me to pick her up at the airport, because this weekend is…

OUR HOUSEWARMING!

I am completely psyched, and our house is in really good shape, considering that we’ve been in it for less than a month and a half. Furniture is in place, everything is clean, the dogs were groomed on Wednesday, there are pictures and artwork on the walls, and it’s sounding like we may have 50+ people at this shindig, which is just crazy.

I haven’t had a lot of time to anything but get this house ready, and I’m not only excited for the party, but ALSO for the relaxation that will occur immediately following said party. I’m ready to live in this house. :)

Also, SO psyched to be hosting Laura as our first guest… we’ve become friends online and have chatted and video conferenced and read books together and we met oh so briefly in NYC a couple years ago, but we’ve never just hung out. I’m glad she’s coming early so we can chill for a bit before the onslaught of people.

Also, in the event that I neglected to mention this:

IT IS FREAKING COLD. I’m talking single digits cold, and dropping. Tomorrow is going to be chilly (except at our house, where we’ll be busting out the fireplace and liquoring everyone up to stay warm). ;)

What are you doing this weekend??

So, I posted fake updates over the past two days about driving to and being at a conference in Columbus, because tonight (I should be there right now when this posts) is my mother’s super secret 50th Birthday SURPRISE Party.

The whole family convinced her that we couldn’t be around this weekend (my excuse was a fake conference, my bro and sis made up similar excuses), when we are actually all surprising her with a very special birthday party at the Sebring Mansion, arranged by my stepdad, Jeff.

This is a surprise of EPIC proportions… I don’t think we’ve ever done something like this for my mom, and she has seemed genuinely bummed out all week because she thinks no one is going to be around and that she’s going to have a crappy, low key weekend for her 50th.

I’m looking forward to a night with family and a lot of Mom’s close friends (her sister is driving in from Minnesota and she has no idea!), taking pictures and seeing the look on Mom’s face when she pulls up to the Mansion to see 50+ people waiting to celebrate HER.

Here are some links to info about the Sebring Mansion, which is a really cool historical mansion in Sebring, Ohio that sits about a mile from my mother’s home:

Sebring Mansion Inn & Spa Official Site (horrible site, but has some neat photos of the inside)
Innkeeping.org Listing
Article from 2008 (Restoration was still in progress)
Sebring Historical Society
Clip from The Alliance Review

Jeff has reserved the mansion with an open bar and a fancy shmancy dinner for 50 for the evening, and it’s going to be a blast! As you’re reading this, we’ve already yelled “SURPRISE!” and begun the celebration. :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM. :) We love you!

- Moving is a time during which it would seem a gal is likely to simultaneously want to thank her husband for all the heavy lifting and also strangle him for constantly just being in the way and putting things in the most ridiculous places.

- For Christmas this year, Jim and I made boxes for everyone, with a tile done in alcohol ink by me, and the actual wooden box made by Jim. They came out beautifully and I forgot to take a single picture of ANY of them. Poo.

- My nephew is a year old and was ADORABLE at his birthday party:

Click here for photo album if you don’t see the slideshow.

- My kitty Penelope has finally emerged from hiding after a several day stint behind the stairs protesting the two enormous beasts that have been allowed to enter HER home. *whew*

- Having a fireplace is absolutely AWESOME. Not only is it awesome on a regular basis, but all these torn packing bags and boxes make great additions to the fireplace and help us cut down on bulky trash.

- Days off work are AMAZING. I feel like a different person on Day 5 of this Christmas break, even with all the unpacking and mayhem.

- I am hopefully going to be painting pottery with my little brothers today. Pics will ensue!

iMac geekage from my favorite 5 and 6 year olds. :)

My little brothers have their first computer, which I’m happy to report is an iMac. I spent Thursday evening setting it up for them and installing all of the games they wanted to play, and we also spent some time doing a video chat with my brother Chris is Columbus via Tokbox.com (he had trouble getting Google Talk to work).

They are little geeks in the making! :) A geeky older sister couldn’t be prouder.

Jim and I are buying a house! We should be closing on this house in North Canton in mid to late December and we are really excited. :) We signed a purchase agreement over a week ago, and all the bank stuff has been started, so now it’s just a waiting game.

Here are the preliminary photos that I took when we went through the house last week during the home inspection.

Tentative date for the housewarming is January 30th! Mark your calendars, local peeps! :)

Man oh man, has life been busy. Those of you friended up on the LiveJournal will see that this is the 4th wordy post today. I have two days off mid-week from work, and it feels like I finally have time to sit and enjoy some reading, some writing, and some reflection on the past several weeks.

Work has been stressful recently, not so much in the always-present aspect of dealing with patients and other people’s emotional and psychosocial wellbeing all day, but the whole picture. I think I’m doing a really good job of just riding with wave with that, and I know it will pass.

Family life is good, although I wish I had more time and energy to give to family time (my little brothers and nephew especially). I think this is related to work and Nanowrimo starting up and the next exciting news item. ;) I was really disappointed to miss a lot of family time this past weekend due to a trial work experiment that involved me working the weekend. It was horrible timing. I spent a lot of quality time with my sister and 11-month old nephew today though, so that was a blessing. :)

Jim and I are looking for (and may have found) a house. Holy CRAP, is that ever exciting! We think we’ve found the right house, and we’re making an offer today at the realtor’s office… our first ever time making an offer on a house. We have a decent down payment, both of our local parental units have taken a look at the house in question and all approve of making an offer. If anyone wants to really get wacked in the face with “damn, I’m a grown up whether I like it or not,” go buy a house. It’ll throw you into grown up mode real quick-like. ;)

Spiritually, I’m in a good place, but I’m pretty sure my family thinks I’ve joined a cult or something (my sister confirms that this is likely the case). I’ve found a really comfortable home in the area of energy healing, meditation, and neopaganism that feels really authentic for me, but really foreign to most of the people around me, which has been interesting to explore. On a really positive note, I’ve found a great group of people locally at Merging Hearts who are very much on the same wavelength, so while I’m sort of out on a spiritual island among family and many friends, I’m much more supported now in other ways. I’m going to my first ever observance of Samhain this Saturday! :)

Dogs are on my brain lately, since we’re looking for a house. I originally wanted a mastiff, and then was worried about my little allergy-ridden brother Ben not being able to visit, so then I spent some time looking into hypoallergenic dogs and found out that Tibetan mastiffs ARE hypoallergenic! :) Pretty much completely in “I want a dog… dog dog dog!” mode now.

Where are you at in life right now? Exciting transitions? Happily resting in a comfortable place in life? Struggling through a rough patch? I feel so out of the loop as I’m moving through my own transitions, so leave links to your exciting news and updates in the comments. :)

I’m kind of in love with my nephew, so I have a tendency to take a ton of pics of him when he’s in town with my sis. It really helped on this particular weekend back in October because it was beautiful weather.

Click on any of the shots to see the full set of the pictures I took just of Damien that weekend, and I also took some shots of the little shindig/corn roast my mom was have that weekend (those pics here).

(Damien rocking the swing)

(Damien exploring the hole in a cornhole board)

(Damien playing in the grass)