Projects for Abbey

First of all, I should say that most "Lindsay" projects inevitably become "Lindsay and Jay" projects. Second of all, Jay did not nearly capture the horribleness that was the "painting the inside of the cabinets" project...by far the worst project I've ever subjected us to. I kid you not - there were tears.

The inside of the cabinets had never been painted, so they were GROSS and took three coats of paint. We did it section by section spread out over a few weeks. Typically, Jay would clean them out while I was at work and sometimes do the first coat and I would do the next coats after work. He would take over when I was near tears. But look how pretty and clean it looks now:

With this pic and the two collages, I feel you can mentally capture the full awesomeness of the kitchen:


And then last night I decided to steal most of the stuff out of our guest bedroom and swap it with our bedroom. You can't tell that the bedspread which my mother and I got about a month ago has a pattern in it that perfectly reflects the square-ish squiggles in the paintings that Kath designed for us a few years ago - pretty amazing. I also went and bought Jay a pretty lamp tonight and of course have no light bulb for it (it's on the bed to prove he gets a pretty one, too):
I also organized my closet. It's pretty incredible. And Jay cleaned my room out (we have 4 bedrooms so one is ours, one is the guest, one is his studio, and one is my yet-to-be-defined space that had a bunch of boxes until he emptied them all out yesterday).

The crazy thing is that's just our recent projects (painted the laundry room, parents helped us with landscaping, etc) and there are so many left to do!

Update

Home
Linz loves projects. I'll bet there's an older post that starts with that......AND I love Linz so...... we painted what will hopefully be the last of the kitchen cabinets (the insides) last night. Tonight we are going to watch "Sunshine Cleaning (Amy Adams)" which we have both been wanting to see for a while. There are also a number of movies we haven't gotten to see, but would like to..... they are the following:
1. Where the Wild Things Are
2. The Informant
3. Zombieland
4. Capitalism: A Love Story
5. The Invention of Lying

I also want to include the albums/records I am currently listening to. This is more for my older sister who sends me emails periodically looking for new music.

1. Muse "The Resistance"
2. The Alternate Routes "Good and Reckless and True"
3. The Beatles "Abbey Road 2009 Remasters"
4. Owl City "Ocean Eyes"
5. Jonsi and Alex "The Riceboy Sleeps"
6. Mutemath "Armistice"
7. Derek Webb "Stockholm Syndrome"



Work
Linz is loving her new job at Waste Management downtown. She drives to work in a little traffic and goes to the 40thish floor where she works with O'dalis, Clint, and Jeff. All I know is she build pricing models for their commercial property pricing strategy. Sounds fun.

I am currently producing a five song worship EP for Neal Mabry. Neal leads worship at Fellowship of The Woodlands for the youth. We recorded drums Monday the 12th in The Woodlands at Red Tree Studios. We are recording most of the rest of the record here at my house. I am sending songs to a bass player I met in Nasvhille (Tony Lucido) and also a keys player there (Cason Cooley). Cason started the band "The Normals" with Andy Osenga and both of those guys have played on pretty much every christian record you have ever heard. Such as : Stephen Curtis Chapman, Nicole Nordeman, Matt Kearney, Matt Redman, Tobymac, Bebo Norman, DC Talk, Starfield, Jennfier Knapp, Ginny Owens, Reliant K, Avalon, Matthew Perryman Jones, Derek Webb, Sandra McCracken...... on and on the list goes. I am really excited.



Some pics and video from Monday the 12th.

How Not to Rob a Store

Just read this headline...

Police: 500-pound inmate hid gun in his flab
Three separate body searches failed to locate 9mm pistol, officials say

HOUSTON - An obese inmate in Texas has been charged after officials learned he had a gun hidden in his rolls of fat...

Fighting the sickness and looking ahead.

Looking for a job is hard. People aren't hiring and don't want to talk about hiring and when you think you've caught a break and somebody responds they usually are giving you someone else's contact info.

I'm still sick from Africa, but slowly getting better. I still have sore throats in the morning and congestion, but it seems that it's going around here as well. Lindsay has been sick also, but she always gets over things pretty quick.

I played my typical sunday morning job this last weekend, was in the studio yesterday and will be there today to finish up an X-mas record by Matthew and Cameron Hammon. Robbie Seay is producing and has been great to work with. The drums sounds are amazing thanks to Harold Rubens and RedTree. Thursday I leave with Jimmy (Needham) for a thursday through Sunday stint near college station.

Next week it's back to the weekly grind, but a little more time to look for jobs and then we will have to get ready to move.

Our house renovations are about to begin. Lindsay is going with Adam Wells (our realtor Katie's husband who is who we have hired to do the renovations) to look at tile and counter top options on thursday. He and katie are great. We are very thankful to have had them to help us do all of this. They took care of so much.

To give you a peak as to what we are doing I'll give you a quick rundown: We are very fortunate to have family who love us and have been so great helping us with our new home. Thank you so much to both of our parents.

Kitchen (The Big Project)
Masterbath overhaul
Miscellaneous repairs etc. etc.
Utility room washer and dryer

I've been watering the lawn everyday (last night at 10:30 p.m. while I was hafl asleep ;) and I really believe I am seeing improvement. I thought that at first I was just making myself believe I was seeing the yard get better, but Lindsay agrees. I think the only time the previous owners watered it was the day we came and saw the house. Every other lawn on our street is immaculate. Ours is the black sheep of the street and our neighbors know it. I saw one of our neighbors as I was watering the yard a couple of days ago. I thought I would get a "Hey are you guys the new owners?", but instead she had this dissapointed look on her face like we were now responsible for the shabby yard in the neighborhood and she kind of lifted an eyebrow and said "Got a lot of yard work ahead of you. Welcome to the neighborhood". I felt great.

I'm sure she's a really nice person....

Lindsay started painting while I was gone. We are both really big on the color grey right now. She and GeeGaw painted the entire master bedroom and in low light it looks great, but we went back after they had finished and it was a little purple. It's not bad by any means. I'm not sure if she wants to change it or not.

The home studio is coming along. We had adam bid out the cost of starting work on some of the space I'm going to be using. It's a little expensive so we will have to wait right now, but hopefully soon I'll be up and running. I'm looking to produce some projects this fall unless I happen to land a job so finishing the spaces will be very important.

Anyways. Theres a quick update.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Africa

I am currently sitting in the Hotel International in Kampala, Uganda. We have the evening off after playing music for a local high-school. We have been teamed up with a group of dancers and preachers to deliver a program of music, dancing, and evangelism to different high-schools through out Kampala.

Being here is such an experience and I don't know if simply typing about observations does it justice. The country is very beautiful and the city has it's moments.

People are everywhere all the time. Driving is crazy - the people seem to be pretty nice all around. Sometimes I feel like strangers hate me, but only sometimes. White people are called Mazungos (muzoongoos). The people at our host home are pretty amazing. Getting to know them and spendimg time with them has been great.

I'll post some pics when I get back - I took Lindsay's nice camera with me and have taken a ton of photos and videos.

I miss linz, but have been fortunate enough to talk to her everyday.

J

Coldplay!

Earlier this week, Jay and I went to see Coldplay. It was amazing...it was the happiest concert I've ever been to.

Here is during Yellow (one of my favorite songs in the world for almost 10 years) when they threw a ton of huge yellow balls out into the audience to bounce around - amazing:


Here's during Lovers in Japan when paper butterfly canons went off to shower the entire audience - amazing:


Looking straight up:


Here's where they walked out into the audience (the first time) to play some songs - amazing:


And here's where they walked out into the audience (the second time) to play on the lawn behind us - amazing:


And then, they gave away a free CD to everyone on your way out! The whole thing seriously just made you happy.

PS I love my new iPhone! Though I feel as though we weren't really as far away as the pics look.