Bosque del Apache

A couple of weekends ago, Brendan and I woke up well before sunrise and drove 90 minutes south of Albuquerque to the Bosque del Apache Wildife Preserve. The Bosque is the winter headquarters of tens of thousands of migratory waterfowl, including snow geese and sandhill cranes. It was bitterly cold that morning, but just as clear as could be. We arrived just before sunset and stood in the cold with the other nutjobs and waited for the big "fly out" that never happened. But it was beautiful nonetheless.

Decorating Sense

My favorite show on HGTV is Decorating Cents. I love the way they redesign a room for only $500, but even more than that I love the "no-cost redesign" part of the show, where a designer comes in and basically just rearranges the furniture. Then they go around the house pilfering accessories and small pieces from other rooms to finish it off. The rooms always look so much better afterward, it's really just amazing.

Inspired by my heroes from HGTV, I recently embarked on a no-cost redesign project of my own on the first floor of our house.

The great room is really a poorly-converted garage. At some point we are going to do a major project in this room, but for now, I'm making the best of a bad situation. Before my redesign I hated the look of this room so much that I didn't take a picture of it. Here's what it looks like now:

The front room of the house is a sunken conversation pit with a kiva-style fireplace. The wood beams (non-structural) are called latillas. I still need to get some proper seating in this room, but it's looking pretty good. Here's a view with the dining room in the foreground.

And a close-up of the fireplace:

The kitchen is a lovely southwestern style; I haven't made many changes.

The first-floor half-bath shows off it's Santa Fe style.

And just because it was a beautiful sunny day, I took this picture from the margarita deck:

The Big Snow, December 2006

In December 2006, Albuquerque (heck, most of New Mexico) experienced a heavier snowfall and colder temperatures than most local people could remember ever occurring. It was a beautiful and exciting mess. Here are just a few photos from the experience:

Sunset on the Saturday after the big snow. The Sandia mountains were an unbelievable shade of pink for about 5 minutes. I took this photo from our margarita deck. In the foreground are the snow-covered arroyo (an awesome word that means stream, but here in ABQ it really means storm drainage ditch), and the backside of our next door neighbor, Sangre de Cristo Plaza - home of such fine establishments as Mountain Eagle Karate and Upper Cuts hair salon.

Another sunset view, looking west this time.

Joe on the margarita deck, looking none too sure about the cold white stuff.

Good times.

The New New Mexicans

Brendan and I moved to Albuquerque, NM in June/July 2006. Brendan came in June for the closing of our house purchase; I arrived a week later.

The above photo was taken on our house hunting trip in May 2006. (Photo taken by Charlotte Knutson, our real estate agent.)

Some quick history to bring you up to date:

In 2003 after leaving P&G, I began a job search in both Albuquerque and Cincinnati. I found a job with DigitalThink in Cincinnati first. Six months later DigitalThink was acquired by Convergys Corporation (no doubt saving us from bankruptcy) and the resulting organization became known as Convergys Learning Solutions, part of the Employee Care (HR outsourcing) business unit. I spent a frustrating and fascinating 2.5 years with Convergys, but I never stopped keeping one eye on the Albuquerque job market for an opportunity that would enable us to move to New Mexico.

In March 2006, this vigilance paid off when I noticed a posting on Monster.com for a "Systems Transition Manager" in Albuquerque. I interviewed for the position in April and received a verbal offer a few days later. On Mother's Day we put our house on the market, and a week later travelled to ABQ to look at houses there. While in ABQ, we received an offer for our house in Cincinnati, made an offer on a house (see above pic) in ABQ, and received my written job offer from the City of Albuquerque. Whew!

Six weeks after I started my new job with the City of Albuquerque, Brendan accepted a position at the University of New Mexico. Brendan also started the MBA program at UNM this January. We are real New Mexicans now!

Cheryl