Friday, January 27, 2012

About Us

While some of you who read this blog may know exactly who we are, some of you may not so I thought I would share a little info so you can get to know us a little better.

Who are we?


As the title suggests, this blog is all about the life of CK and Nate but you may ask who is CK and Nate?

CK aka Cassandra: I'm the one that you hear from for the most part. I grew up in Maine with my parents and younger sister. I went to undergrad in Maine where I got my B.S. in Math and Physics and then moved to the Boston Area for graduate school. My mom has always called me CK to get my attention but it wasn't until college that the nickname stuck (I was a thrower for the track and field team and my coach needed to have a shorter name for me)  I met Nate my Freshman year of undergrad and that was the beginning of our life together.

2 Facts:

I love the ocean but hate the feeling of sand on my feet (once I leave the beach)

In my ideal world, I would have a herd (would you call it a herd?) of dogs.


Nate aka Nathaniel: Nate grew up in New York (not the city) working on house projects with his dad and building bookshelves with his stepdad. He then made the trek to Maine for college (where he met me his junior year). He's a smarty pants and earned his B.S. in Math, Physics and Chemistry and then headed down to Boston where he got his PhD in Math this past summer.


2 Facts:

Nate brews his own beer with his friends and had the granite installers at our last house reinforce our sink (to the point where they could stand in it) so that it would support his beer buckets

He loves math... like a lot



We dated for 3 years before Nate popped the question and we got married June 20, 2009.

Miss Maddie aka Madeline: Madeline is our older(15 lbs)/bigger pup. She just turned 4 and she thinks she owns all the pillows in the house... and all the free space on the bed. She also really loves to cuddle

2 Facts:

 She has loose knees and so she clicks when she walks and has to take medicine so she doesn't hurt

If we get up too early she will crawl under the covers to the bottom of the bed


Zo-Zo aka Zoe: Zoe is our little trouble maker. She will turn two in April and she was basically my 1 year anniversary present. She only weighs 8 lbs and if anything is a mess/broken/chewed/eaten, then it was her fault... but she's super cute. She started out a fully black with little white tips on her paws that looked like french tips and has slowly gotten grayer.

2 Facts:

She can jump the equivalent of a human being jumping 4 stories high.

She brings her favorite toy to bed with her

What do we do?


You may have read that we recently moved from MA to FL. This move was due to the fact that Nate got a tenure track position at a small liberal arts college teaching Math. He loves his job and I love the weather so we're both happy! I've been working as an Adjunct professor at a couple of schools and I just started at a new school to finish my PhD in Medical Physics.

Why do we blog?


We actually started blogging in 2009 to keep track of the renovations that we were doing at our first house and to let our families see the progress. Our blog was called Madeline's Castle (since Madeline really ran the house) and I didn't do a great job keeping it organized. Then we got another dog, sold the house, moved further away and I found out I was allergic to wheat. All these changes and the disorder of the old blog made me decide to start over and widen the scope of the blog to include more aspects of our life. Now we blog to keep track of renovations, organize recipes, keep our families in the loop and to have a timeline of events that happen during the year.

Where did we learn how to renovate?


Basically, practice makes perfect (or semi-perfect). We learn a lot as we go and have come to grips with the fact that we will not always do everything perfectly. We also do a lot of research if we don't know exactly what to do. We both have the added benefit of having degrees in subjects that help tremendously with things like electrical. Nate makes sure that he is up to date with all of the codes and we check and double check ourselves constantly.

We make a good team because Nate is excellent with the systems of the house and I'm good with finishing touches. We help each other out with both aspects but we definitely know our strengths (or weaknesses .... I cannot crawl around in the crawl space running wires without having a claustrophobic anxiety attack and Nate has a hard time visualizing what a finished design will look like).

Lastly, we know when to call in the professionals. We are fully aware that there are jobs that our out of our scope of skills (Like running gas lines....or re-roofing our super steep roof) and we are more then willing to pick up the phone in those instances.



Well that's about it! We hope you looking through the blog and getting a glimpse into our lives!




Serenity Now Six Sisters' Stuff

3 comments:

  1. Great to 'meet' you! Your dog is a cutie. My husband is HUGE into beering his own beer too. And making homemade wine as well (which is NASTY, but don't tell him I said so!)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! He luckily hasn't tried the wine route but he's made some hard cider... one batch was excellent but the other batch exploded all over the place!

      Delete
  2. I love that you two are doing it together, keep up the good (team)work.

    ReplyDelete