Because Happiness Gets Better PR

Tonight's Specials

2011-11-16T18:59:00.000-08:00

My boy and I are very grateful for the wonderful friends and family we've been blessed with. Some people post frequently in November sharing the list of things for which they're grateful. Clearly I am not that type of person :).

My boy and I do like to play host though, so we thought we'd invite all of our local friends to stop by our house on Saturday between 2:00pm and 8:00pm so we could feed them and fellowship for a little while. I mentioned in my last post that I'm really behind the 8 ball for a party, well this is it!

I thought I'd post the tentative menu for this party that's been neglected so long. Items in red we've completely given up on, Items in green have been made, Items in yellowish orange have been started, items in black haven't been touched at all (are you as worried as I am?!):

Bread basket (roasted garlic, baguette, challah)/possibly parmesan cookies

plain butter, blackberry lemon butter

eggplant walnut dip: http://www.chow.com/recipes/13433-roasted-eggplant-and-walnut-dip

Maple Onion Jam http://www.countryhome.com/images/PDFs/Maple-OnionJam.pdf

blue cheese pate

blackberries (possibly other fruit if creme anglaise is made)

Crudite & dip -- someone took this out of my hands!

Gruyere honey mustard puffs

possibly cheddar olives: http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/hors-doeuvres/recipe-cheddar-olives-047009

some kind of flavored popcorn -- thank you little lad

Roasted Fall Vegetable Pizza: http://www.marthastewart.com/313662/roasted-fall-vegetable-and-ricotta-pizza

Dinner:

Some kind of meat (suckling pig?, chicken from chinatown? pot roast? brisket?)

roasted potato stacks http://gourmandrecipes.com/roasted-potato-recipe/

Balsamic mushrooms (and/or brussel sprouts)

http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/main-dish/quick-recipe-pumpkin-ricotta-pasta-casserole-130962 ricotta pumpkin casserole

Dessert:

http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/dessert/recipe-chewy-molasses-cookies-with-crunchy-lemon-glaze-130827 lemon glazed soft ginger cookies

pumpkin cookies with cream cheese frosting

vanilla ice cream

maple ginger ice cream

possibly madelines

possibly peanut butter smash cookies

possibly creme anglaise

possibly meringue

Drinks:

Chilled Cranberry ginger punch (with sparkling water if desired)http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/hot-cranberry-ginger-punch-10000000633522/ hot apple cider, sparkling wine, red wine, root beer

Clearly we have a ways to go. . . I'll let you know how it all turns out!

A Million Points of Interest, Not a Single Blog Post

2011-11-15T19:16:00.000-08:00

It's been brought to my attention that some of you are no longer enamored with the ball pit, and you'd like a new post to go up. I hadn't realized this because, as of yet, no one has invited me over to take a dip in their ball pit and I assumed that it was my duty to keep that post at the top so you wouldn't miss any important instructions! I mean, I really, really want to visit a ball pit people.

Here are various things that are not terribly interesting, nor in any particular order, but are things I've thought about in the Month Plus since I've been MIA.

The bus stop I wait at every morning is right next to the largest independently owned pharmacy in New England. There are several women who work there that stand outside smoking and gossiping before work (a do as I say not as I do sort of thing, I think). The other day, or week, or possibly month at this point, I heard one of the ladies exclaiming, "Oh, I know! Everyone is sick right now!" Let's review, THEY WORK AT A PHARMACY!!! Of course everyone they see is sick! It made me smile. . .
My boy and I are planning a laid back quiet open house type party on Saturday. We've been planning it for almost three weeks. I have a schedule of when items should be done to ensure maximum relaxing planning and execution. We've accomplished about 1/10th of what needs to happen by Saturday. I am usually not home on Wednesday or Thursday nights. I am getting scared.
I am currently making maple onion jam. I don't know whether I'll like it or not, but we had onions, we had maple and it seemed like an appropriate fall themed item to make. I can tell you it has thyme in it. I'm not a fan of thyme. . .
My laptop died. Perhaps that's not entirely accurate, there's an incredibly sad wheezing noise it makes if you to try and start it up, but it won't ever actually get to a start up screen, it just sort of breaths labored breaths that make you want to tell it as much as you love it, it's okay, if it has to leave you behind. That's not an excuse for why I've stopped blogging. I'm just telling you it isn't helping with the blogging.
After much angst and wavering I think I might (notice any wavering?!) get an iPad. It was this keyboard that swayed me. Though my boy points out that it may not be the answer to my dreams I think it is.
I just got back from a girl's weekend in NOLA. Though one of the ladies and I said at the same time "I'd rather live in Vegas than here," I did enjoy my visit and wished we had had more time to eat!
We went in honor of the date I've been waiting for most of my life, 11-11-11. The numbers still make me sigh in satisfaction. They're as comforting and lovely as hearing a dishwasher running at night. I hadn't realized the dates visual similarity to corduroy, but luckily, this other obsessed person was able to point it out!
Here's a tip, if you're going to Herbsaint, listen to the waitress, get their house made spaghetti with guanciale and fried poached egg small plate!! I heard a guy at another table say to his waiter as he got up to go to the bathroom "Do NOT under any circumstances deliver my spaghetti while I am gone! If you deliver it and I am not here, there won't be any left when I get back!" I thought he was exaggerating. Let's just say it was not the dish I ordered and I am still thinking about the bite I had.
Air boats are now on my list of approved water craft (it's a short list, canoes, and kayaks have not made that list).
I got to go up to the 33rd floor of a building on State Street today. the view was amazing! I could see the chain of Boston harbor islands!
I saw some clay gift tags and I've decided I'd like to make some for Christmas gifts this year. Clearly I have none of the tools and our craft area is sort of leaking all over the house so this is JUST what I need to do!
I still have a tub of clear glycerin hanging around from when I tried to make these super cute soaps for a wedding favor (I was overruled). I've told my boy I want to try and make soap for Christmas too.
It's unlikely I'll do either of these things, I mean look back up to the bullet point about the fast approaching Thanksgiving Party. . .
We're responsible for getting a turkey to my boy's family's house for Thanksgiving this year. Several years ago we were responsible for cheese and olives. We brought an overwhelming supply of both. I was informed that they only liked sharp cheddar. . . Last year we were in charge of stuffing. I got nervous I was using too much liquid while making the stuffing and used a suggestion to cook the stuffing in muffin tins for individual servings, it turned out dry and awful (though it was much closer seasoning-wise to the stove top stuffing I prefer). So this year we're bringing the turkey. We'll see how that goes.
The good news is that the onion jam appears to taste like the yummy Sardignia pizza from Sophia's Grotto. The bad news is that it also looks black. Think people will eat black onion jam?
It doesn't really matter. I finally have one thing checked off my list. I'm going to bed!

More Bouncing Fun

2011-09-30T07:30:00.000-07:00

Remember that adult sized jumping ball I told you about? Here's another adult sized idea for kid type fun: http://kevinjameshunt.com/ball-pit-balcony/how-to-build-a-ball-pit-on-your-balcony/ This guy built a giant ball pit (complete with inflatable shark)for his balcony.

Source

How cool is that?! Don't even lie, you're secretly jealous. Kevin James Hunt is clearly a GENIUS!I'm totally filing this away in the "design ideas for when I get a house pile."

"Tap His Smiling Toes"

2011-09-29T07:30:00.000-07:00

I have a pair of shoes I'm pretty sure I've owned longer than I've known my husband. I suppose this isn't terribly unique, there are a lot of items I brought into our marriage that have preceded him significantly. These shoes have made it through massive Good Will cullings. It's possible that I've even moved to two different apartments with these shoes.

What's strange about the length of time I've hung onto them is that these shoes have always been so uncomfortable that I've never been able to wear them outside of the house (and usually only make it a few hobbling steps in the house before I take them off). They're not particularly flashy shoes, and I'm sure my sister wouldn't approve of them (it's actually possible she would, but that would make them the first pair of shoes I've bought that she'd approve of). They're just plain black loafers with a little bit of a heel.

The problem is I've always thought if I could simply stretch them out where they pinch over the wide part of my foot, I'd get a lot of use out of them. They'd work with the basic black pants I wear to work, they'd mildly dress up a pair of jeans. They'd probably even look okay with a black skirt. They'd be the "little black dress" of my shoe collection if only I could wear them more than two steps.

I put a shoe stretching thingy on my amazon wishlist ages ago, but no one has ever bought it for me. Probably for the same reason I've never bought it for me. It isn't a terribly sexy gift and if I have a little extra to spend on myself I'd much rather get a fun book or a cute house-ware.

Recently I was reading one of the 14 design blogs I mentioned yesterday and the blogger took a break from her design ideas to ask for advice about comfortable shoes one could wear when doing home design projects. She got a slew of advice. The next time she blogged on the topic she mentioned that the shoes she'd purchased were a little too tight and to make them easier to wear she used a frozen bags of water to stretch the shoes (warning that's a link to a video).

I tried it with my shoes and while it wasn't a complete success, I did manage to wear them around the house for about 20 minutes before deciding they were too uncomfortable to leave on. They were really comfortable everywhere except where I have bunions (yes, disgusting I know). I'm thinking I might try the ice technique again, or possibly splurge on the shoe stretcher spray now that I can at least walk around in them a little. Think this is just false hope, or might it work? Any other suggestions?

One of these things just doesn't belong

2011-09-28T07:30:00.001-07:00

I read a LOT of blogs. Currently I'm subscribed to 14 design blogs. I don't really do a lot of interior design in our own house since we rent and usually my idea of "design" is to strategically throw my clothes all over the floor. . . So mostly my reading of design blogs is like window shopping.

I've seen things I hate, things that just aren't my style, and things that while I might love them, there's no way I'd be brave enough or savvy enough to try them. Massive use of patterns falls into the latter category. I'm not sure I'd love it if I were actually living in it, but I totally love it in pictures.

I fell in love with Jason Oliver Nixon's Apartment last year when I saw the pictures featured in New York magazine this spring. I was reminded of that apartment because Apartment therapy has been doing a feature on collections and recently they listed patterns as one of the collections (though I was unimpressed with most of the examples they posted). When searching for the room I remembered being so striking I mistakenly attributed it to Jonathan Adler.

While I LOVE so many of Jonathan Adler's pieces, his home is nowhere near as patterned as Mr. Nixon's. There's no reason why it couldn't be, he certainly has a number of very loud (and I mean that in the most flattering way) wallpapers. Jonathan Adler's blog mentioned a room designed by Diana Vreeland that also fits the bill as far as patterns. She said she wanted her living room to look like a "garden in hell." How can you not be fascinated by a description like that?

Source

You may not agree with my love of overwhelming amounts of patterns, and my examples may not be great, but I think it takes a great amount of skill to create rooms with multiple patterns without them all clashing and screaming out against each other. I would never be able to manage it. So, in the meantime, I just look at rooms other brave souls have designed.

What questionable interior design ideas are you mildly obsessed with?

"A Swinging, Latin Sort of Snack"

2011-09-27T06:11:00.000-07:00

I LOVE Doritos! I know it's not an incredibly classy food to admit a passion for, but there you have it. We can't keep any in the house because I would eat the entire bag over the course of a day or so (I have self-control issues).

That's why I wanted to be sure and let you know the sad news that the creator of Doritos passed away recently. That, and also, he's being buried with Doritos. . . I'm not sure I'm that committed to the product, but his family is convinced he was. You can read the whole article here.

Turns out he committed his whole life to snacks, he started out as a cheese salesman and then was an ad-man for jello. Also, he hated the late night cheeseburger flavor (me too!!). I wish I could have met the guy!

The Good Old Days

2011-09-26T07:30:00.000-07:00

You may (or may not) know that my dad is a letter carrier, as you can imagine the September 30th deadline that paper after paper is reporting about makes me nervous (last time I talked to my dad he seemed pretty chill about it).

Anyway, in light of that I thought I'd post a link to this Slate article: http://www.slate.com/id/2304468/?from=rss

Also, have you sent your fun mail yet? I haven't, I ended up hand delivering mine. I also wrote 16 thank you notes this weekend and managed to mail 5 of them this am. I think that leaves us with only 2 more to do completely and 11 left to address and stamp.

How long does it take you to write thank you notes? It apparently takes me on average 11 minutes and fifteen seconds per note, is that really long? Is that why I hate writing thank you notes so much?!

UPDATE: 3 More Mailed as of Noon! Now just waiting for addresses on 8 (if you're keeping score that means I'm half way done!!).

We Interrupt the Regularly Scheduled Programming

2011-09-23T07:30:00.000-07:00

My mother once said to someone, "Sarah really likes commercials." I have no recollection of the context in which this was said, and I think it's sort of a weird comment, but I really do like commercials. I like that commercial breaks let you have a chance to run to the bathroom or let you stop and do something else briefly. I like that they're a finite time, so I can run go do something and know that I'm done with that task by the time the commercial is over (hello laundry switch overs). I also just enjoy watching some commercials. Some of them are so well done it's like you've got bonus "shorts" in between your actual show. Below are some ads that I'm currently enjoying.

When I saw this ad, I immediately thought of my friend Meg:

Not only would she totally train a bird and a dog to do that (if she weren't afraid of birds and allergic to dogs) but she re-enacted the music video for ah-ha's Take on Me with our friend Chris at her 30th birthday. The best part of that was when they finished their reenactment and she said to me, "My dad's gonna come over here and ask me if I'm drunk!" Sure enough her father came over and said, "Meg, are you okay?!" Her response, "Yeah, we were reenacting the music video for Take on Me" she then walked away leaving her father standing there with a stupefied expression on his face.

This ad is pure brilliance:

This ad makes me smile EVERY time it comes on:

I love the brilliance of whoever came up with all the random things going down the street, but also the recurring "I could have had a falcon," makes me laugh!

Insurance ads usually suck me in. I like the Mayhem ad campaign, I love Flo and a number of the Geico ads. Here's one of the ones I think is great:

Subaru has had a few ads lately that I have found terribly cute. This one with the little girl sucks me in every time:

I love when she puts the seat belt on her knees and says "Daddy, Ok" In the comments on YouTube, it says that both of the girls in the ad are actually the guys daughters. I hope that's true, it makes the commercial that much better!!

I also like a new ad where a girl who has moved across the country worries about her parents. I can't find the ad right now (I was pretty sure it was a Subaru ad too) but the best line in the whole thing is when she's talking about how broken up they must be because "I'm their only child. . . .except for my sister." It totally sounds like something I might say :).

What ads are you currently enjoying?

Oh Modern Family, You are a Tease!

2011-09-22T06:24:00.000-07:00

So did ya watch the hour special for Modern Family Last night?! I did. Were you disappointed that though they advertised an hour special, it was just two separate episodes? I was. I mean come on, they built up that dude ranch episode and then it was only half an hour?! Also, the "I will only be checking somewhat satisfied on my comment card." was far funnier out of context.

On the other hand, I had crazy flash backs in the scene where Claire is correcting Lily about how old she is since I spent a good portion of Tuesday night doing the same with one of my friend's kids :).

Yeah, this is one of the lamer of my blog posts, I'm sick, you're lucky you got anything ;).

Things I'm Currently Digging

2011-09-20T07:00:00.000-07:00

We went to the fair on Saturday. It merits it's own post (I LOVE the Fair!!!) At the fair we saw judging for Belted Galloways. I don't think I'd ever seen one before. They were sooo cute and cuddly I think they might have usurped the place in my heart Jerseys once inhabited (sorry mom). I was sad because it didn't look like you could pet any of them and their fur looked soo soft! They even have fuzzy ears.

Source

I'm also pleased that Modern Family won 5 Emmys since it's one of the few current television shows I watch (though I occasionally catch Big Bang Theory and I do love that show too. . .). I'm even more pleased that day after tomorrow there's an hour Modern Family Special to kick off the new season!! "I will only be checking somewhat satisfied on my comment card." Brilliant!!

On a completely unrelated note, I'm currently obsessed with pickled peperoncini, I don't know why but when I came home for dinner last night we stopped at the grocery store and I bought a jar. I had eaten three before dinner was even in the oven. . .

What are you digging currently?

Imagine a Menagerie

2011-09-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

I want a LOT of pets. I am quite content to be able to leave the room without fearing a little critter will come up and sample my meal while I'm gone. I'm happy I don't have to use a lint brush constantly to rid myself of pet hair. Yet, I still have a burning desire for A LOT of different pets. Below are some of my top choices.

I am pretty serious about my current desire for a King Charles Cavalier (I don't want my husband to mistake that animal's presence on a mostly pipe dream list to indicate that I have stopped believing he will get me a non-bug-eyed specimen for Christmas -- though I am mildly worried that it might be lonely while we're at work).

Source

I would also like a pygmy hedgehog (how can you not be totally charmed by their cuteness?!?). It would be especially good if we could get a circus cage for him! I found out this weekend my husband's second cousin once removed (or something like that) has a pygmy hedgehog, she wasn't really interested in talking to me about it though. At the time, she was busy begging her mother to keep the big toad they'd found.

source & source

Next on the list would be a Neapolitan Mastiff. It's been on my list since my friends and I went on spring break to Seattle and saw one in a boutique on Whitby Island. Despite it's immense size it was very graceful (not breaking anything in the shop) and so gentle and sweet tempered. I think it might be the same breed they used in the Harry Potter movies to portray Fang.

Source

As my mother always said, Jerseys are the prettiest cows. Maybe it's the dairy farmer in my blood, but every time we go to the fair there's a yearning for a Jersey of my own (they're pretty brown eyes rimmed with long lashes, who can resist?). While a full sized cow is definitely not practical for the city, I totally think we should get a Miniature Jersey Cow! Of course they produce 6 gallons of milk a day and have to be milked twice a day, but that just means we'd have to be sure to keep our house fully stocked on cookies so my husband could keep up :).

Source

I've been watching a lot of the Golden Girls lately (sadly it's moved to midnight so it's harder to watch -- COME TO NETFLIX ON DEMAND GOLDEN GIRLS!!) and Dreyfuss from Empty Nest sometimes guest stars on the show. Wikipedia said he was a mutt, but when we were apple picking the other day we saw a dog that looked an awful lot like him. So Leonberger has now been added to the list of must have pets.

Source

So those are my top five, what is on your list (I might have added a rat with a racing stripe down it's back but in searching there were terrifying images of snakes everywhere!!)?

Randomness

2011-09-16T06:58:00.000-07:00

Don't you love it when I post random items I find in emails and chats from years ago? I hope you said yes, because here's another one from December 2008:

This morning we got on the train where a woman got on who was reading, The Newly Updated Handbook on Herpes. I mean really if something merits one of those handmade lace trimmed book covers, I think that is it!

As we were getting off the train and the herpes woman was still sitting on their reading her handbook on herpes, a guy got on the train with a large box of toilet seat covers; leaving me to wonder if he knew about the herpes woman on there and was being extra vigilant.

I'm Back Didja Miss Me?

2011-09-15T07:30:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I was doing so well there for awhile with a slew of posted ahead posts (brilliant). Work got really crazy last week though so I was thinking about that most of the week and packing for the trip, but I think I might be back on track for posts again.

Anyway, turns out I needn't have worried about our gift. The wedding has been postponed and it was handled so badly (and I mean really quite badly), we're not going now. . . I spent the first evening of our vacation almost in tears, but that may have been a result of the extreme fatigue brought on by the work I mentioned above.

Late Saturday morning I wanted to cry again, this time a result of getting stung by a yellow jacket. It was not an auspicious start to the family weekend, but things ended much better. One highlight of the weekend was going to a couple of antique shops and finding a slew of golden books. I didn't buy all the ones I wanted (seriously $7.50 for a golden book, what are you smoking?!) but amazon has a fair selection for under $4 and I'll search them more thoroughly at some point.

Speaking of children's books, awhile ago (by which I mean over two years ago -- happy birthday little G) we threw a shower for my friend using children's books for the menu. It looks like I'll get to re-use the idea for someone else and I'm pretty excited about it (just like I was before). You know I love a theme and I love children's books so what more could I ask for? Also, a children's book themed menu is pretty simple since you can usually find a children's book to match. I happen to know this woman loves chocolate covered strawberries, thus we'll have The Little Mouse, the Chocolate Covered Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear

Some ideas we had the first time around were:

Make Way for Ducklings Salad
Deviled Green Eggs and Ham
Three Billy Goat Cheeses Gruff served with The Stinky Cheese Cracker Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales
Dill Pickles to Pittsburgh
Blueberries for Sal tartlets
Madeline(s)
Goodnight Moon Pies
Ice Cream Cake Larry
Chicken Soup with Rice
Bread Pudding and Jam for Francis
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs-liders
Potato Pancakes for Breakfast with Rain Makes Applesauce topping
The Smoked Salmon Pinwheels Princess
If You Give a Moose a Muffin
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie etc.
Popcorn or The Popcorn Book
Three little pigs in blankets
The Peanut butter, Marshmallow Chocolates Incident
The Giant Jam Sandwich Cookies

What book (or food) would you like to see if it were your shower?

A Few of My Favorite Things

2011-09-09T10:25:00.000-07:00

We have a wedding this weekend (9/10/11 -- isn't that a brilliant date? I mean it's not my favorite date, but a close third). Lately Amazon's 4 for 3 has served me well by letting it appear we paid mildly more for the gifts we've given than we did (or the nice way to spin it is we've been able to stretch our wedding gift budget a little farther so that the bride and groom get a little extra-- total aside within an aside but do you think it was Freudian that I had trouble spelling groom and it came out as goon?). It's not terribly difficult to purchase the items off the registry that qualify for 4 for 3 and then call the place where the couple actually registered to have the items removed. So the bride and groom don't get multiples and we get the satisfaction of free two day shipping and the price of one item less.

I've been sort of putting off purchasing a gift for the wedding this weekend though. I put a lot of items from their registry in my cart for my husband to look at before purchasing (it's for his niece I figure he should get some veto power). It's sat in my cart about a month. This past weekend I decided that since she was family maybe to make her feel more loved we should buy her some of our favorite kitchen items, items she didn't necessarily register for but which might prove useful in her kitchen. She and her husband are just starting out, she's lived at home for the last 20+ years without a kitchen of her own and, as far as I know, has not done much of the cooking there.

I'm torn, in my head I hear my friend from Other Pieces of Me telling me to "Just go with the registry, that's why people make registries it's WHAT THEY WANT!!!" on the other hand I like to think I give good gifts, couldn't we come up with a gift she didn't know she wanted?! I hope I come to a decision before this posts. . . .

Below are some kitchen items I love, some I've blogged about before, some I have not. They are all items I would totally replace if we had some kind of horrific kitchen fire destroying our beloved kitchen items. It turns out picking my top 10 kitchen items is almost impossible, these items have taken a LONG time to narrow down. Far longer than a blog post should really take :). If you gave us a wedding gift and it's not featured here, just refer back to the last two sentences and assume that it's number 11 on our list!!

When you look below you'll see why I don't post pictures. I tried to put them in a different file all nicely together and then when I uploaded it, it was all too small. I am no good at embedding them polyvore-style straight into the blog though. I read enough blogs to know I did a really shoddy job but I don't have the knowledge or the time to change it.

Cow Image from Here, Microplane Image from Here, LeCreuset Whisk Image from Here, L'econome knives, Chicken Image My Own, OXO angled measuring cup Image from Here, Dexter knife Image from here, Browne-Halco 11 inch Pan Image From Here, flexible cutting boards Image from Here, Silpat Baking Liner Image from Here

The Big Lobster. . .

2011-09-08T17:49:00.000-07:00

So I know this story is old, but I am so tickled by the whole thing that I thought I would post a link to the original story about Zabar's "lobster salad" and the almost as brilliant follow up! If you haven't already read it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Who eats White Peaches?!

2011-09-07T06:56:00.000-07:00

I just ate the juiciest loveliest peach from our farm share box this week. I mean dripping down your chin juicy. I did not want the peach to end. When we go to PA later this week we'll be going to a farmers market in Gratz --I love Gratz, PA, my husband makes fun of me saying that even the people who live there don't love it as much as I do! It was at that farmers market that I finally learned what free stone peaches are (yeah, yeah, it wasn't rocket science to figure out, it means that the pit easily removes from the fruit).

The difference between white peaches and "regular" peaches is that the white peaches tend to be sweeter and have less acidity. The thing is, I've yet to have a white peach that had good flavor. They seem like watered down peaches, sort of simpering half siblings of the "regular" peaches.

Any white peach lovers out there? If so, tell me what all the hype's about!

Prayer

2011-09-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

I came across a draft of an email I apparently never sent. It was from years ago (the friend who it was addressed to has changed his email address more than once since then) but I thought that maybe it would be something worth sharing on the blog (and yes, I'm getting kind of desperate for material already -- you might want to help me out a little lest I start to slow down and thus stop for another 6 months).

Anyway, I was emailing about something that Lauren Winner wrote about in her book Mudhouse Sabbath (and if you haven't read the book, you really should, I'm a big fan). Ms. Winner was an Orthodox Jew turned Christian. In the book Mudhouse Sabbath she explores some of the Jewish traditions in light of her new faith. The section I was talking about in my email is where she discusses the liturgical prayers that Orthodox Jews use. They have prescribed prayers for many daily activities. When she became a Christian she fell away from that and used more free form prayers. A point in her chapter is that while liturgical prayers can sometimes become rote, they also can sometimes make us less selfish than free form prayers, molding our thoughts to the creator rather than trying to mold the creator to our thoughts.

I have discussed this chapter with a number of people since I read the book and I think it's a very interesting argument but it wasn't the point of my email.

In my email I was discussing how even those of us who were brought up without much influence of traditional prayers (I had never even seen The Book of Common Prayer until after I read Mudhouse Sabbath) tend to start to create our own traditions in prayer. In the same way that a number of Jewish prayers begin Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu (I think it's loosely translated as Blessed art though Lord God. . .) I find that often I open my prayers Dear Lord God. . . and end them with in Jesus Name, Amen (decidedly less Jewish :)). Another woman who I used to pray with used to chant throughout her prayer Abba, father. I don't know that this is earth shattering, but I do think it's interesting. How about you? If you grew up a "free form" Christian, do you find yourself praying in patterns?

Hop to it!

2011-09-02T10:31:00.000-07:00

Um, you guys, I know it's kind of ridiculous, but I've fallen in love with these bouncing balls. It's a good thing I don't have a kid, because I am totally torn, do I love the bright red bull, the dino rider, or the hot dog best?! Maybe the elephant. You know I love elephants. . . They even have a sumo wrestler!! I mean come on, how do you choose?

Sadly, they only have two options for adults and neither is quite as exciting as any of the kids options -- go figure. I can tell you though, I am getting one for Christmas (as in don't worry about buying me one, someone already has :)).

They also made me smile because I remembered the scene in FRIENDS where Phoebe's list of things to do before she turns thirty includes a bouncing on a bouncy ball.

Have you come across anything as crazy that you're attracted to?

Some Fun and Crafty Ideas

2011-09-01T09:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I challenged you to send people some fun mail. Below are some links of fun crafts you could make and then send on!

Surprise Balls --I've had these bookmarked for so long (I considered making them for kids at our wedding)

Tiny Pinatas -- you can use any leftover water balloons you have from the summer!

Elephant Delivery -- okay, so this one is the easiest, print it on card stock and let your recipient put it together. Yes, it's very valentine themed, but still, how fun to get an elephant in the mail!?

Turn a beloved paperback into a custom hard back (um, and you can send it book rate!!)

Photo Shrinky Dink Jewelry --I thought about doing this with some of my boy's art to sell at open studios. . . I don't think it would work though).

Felt Finger Puppets -- fairly flat and they could be as fancy or fanciful as your creativity/skills allowed.

Photo Napkin Rings -- send flat and let your recipient make into the actual ring, great if you or your family would be missing a holiday or other family event!

Temporary Tattoos --it's unclear to me, but I think you can just cut the tattoo paper yourself (one reviewer said you needed to own the sillouette cutter).

You can find lots more ideas for crafts all over the web, but one of the blogs I read offers you a bunch every day. Go visit Oneprettything for more ideas!

Stamped, Sealed, Delivered

2011-08-31T07:40:00.000-07:00

I was talking with a friend of mine about what she could do for save the dates for her Cape Cod wedding. I suggested, yet again, that it would be super cute if she took the images the BPL has made available of vintage postcards and made her own postcard save the dates. She shot that idea down (yet again).

I remembered that one of the bloggers I read, giverslog, has a feature on fun items she's mailed and one of those was a bucket. I told my friend she should mail a little bucket and ask people to put their wedding on their "bucket list" I thought it would be a super cute idea. I got shot down again. I won't tell you what my friend's idea is (lest it's a surprise for any of you who read my blog) but I do think it's pretty fun!

I've been thinking about mail lately, not just save the dates and wedding invitations (since we've been invited to eight weddings this year they've certainly occupied a certain amount of my thoughts) but fun mail, non-bills and not junk. A friend of ours gave us an "item of the month" for our wedding. She made a commitment to send (or hand deliver) something to us every month that seemed like something we'd want. She said she'd looked at a lot fill-in-the-blank a month clubs and non fit the bill for what she wanted to give so she made her own.

My father has taken to randomly sending me books from amazon that he thinks I'll enjoy. Just last week I got a fun surprise from my aunt. She sent me a package which contained an item that reminded of her the minute she saw it! My friend, Emily, talked about how exciting it was when her sister-in-law mailed them a ball last spring. Their mailman even got in on the fun, tossing the ball through their screen door so the mail was bounced to them, rather than delivered.

It's so fun coming home and discovering a package or a letter waiting for you. I don't know anyone who isn't excited by "fun mail" greeting them at the door. So why is it that we don't send more "fun mail" to those we love?

It's not like the post office makes it incredibly difficult (though, I'll admit, some postal clerks make mailing packages a HUGE annoyance). They even have super fun stamps, like the new Edward Hopper Forever Stamp (unveiled this week in Provincetown, MA), not to mention, the kid-friendly Pixar Forever Stamps and the Sunday Funnies. Some of the stamps have really interesting stories behind them (readily accessed on the USPS website)

Are we so busy that we can't slap some stamps on an item or scrawl two sentences to another person to let them know we're thinking about them? I think it's more than that. I think like my long list of thank you notes, and my long neglected blog we get overwhelmed by the time that has elapsed since the last time we sent something or touched base with a person. It's easier for us to keep putting it off till we can devote the appropriate attention to it.

A new month is about to start and I'm challenging you to send someone you know fun mail, random mail, something that will bring a smile to their face when they get home from a hard day of work. It doesn't have to be lengthy, it doesn't have to be incredibly deep, it can even be anonymous, just send something fun! I promise I'll send the three thank you notes that have been in my purse since February and I'll work on sending the rest of you deserving people the thank you notes I owe you. I'll also try and send out one fun item a month. Are you with Me?!

P.S. I did NOT write this post because my dad works for the Postal Service, though it doesn't hurt :).

Bonus Points

2011-08-30T07:05:00.000-07:00

So a lot of blogs I read have regular features, be it "Awesome Shit I Want Monday" or "Happy Mail: 13 ounces or Less" (I soo will write more about each of these bloggers in an upcoming blog post cause I've loved some of their features -- I'm just dragging this blogging thing out for all it's worth).I've decided that for this spurt of blogging (which, lets be honest will last probably 2 weeks max) I'd add a feature called "Bonus Points."

My husband makes fun of me when I tell him certain things (getting me a glass of water in the middle of the night, doing the dishes, etc.) would earn him bonus points. He usually wants to know what he can cash these "bonus points" in for. We're not Chucky Cheese after all. I have mentioned that the bonus points make up for all those times when I subtract bonus points from him in my head (not re-filling the Brita pitcher, leaving droplets of jelly on the floor, etc.)

Anyway, the "Bonus Points" feature will involve things that can be made and/or done that would earn bonus points with me. Don't say I didn't warn you with that intro, bonus points are actually not trade-able for anything :).

Here are some current bonus point worthy items:

Make me these:

Cheesy Mega Tots (um seriously, Thursday Night Smackdown's description and pictures has had my mouth watering since she posted them I. NEED.).

Malteser Cake

Do This:

Volunteer to set up chairs and tables at the Chelsea Soup Kitchen my boy and I work with. If you can't volunteer personally, ask everyone you know if they would be willing to commit to an hour or two a month to help with set-up and don't stop until you have at least one person committed (it's a great volunteer activity for people with young children, they're already up by 8:30am and they're attention span usually lasts long enough to drag some chairs and spread some tablecloths!)

Bonus Point Earners this week:

Other Pieces of Me, she read my blog post on Kohlrabi and then presented me with one when I went over to her house!

My boy, he bought frames and mat board and then framed and matted pictures all in one evening when I was desperate to have them by the next morning!

What Would We Do Baby, Without Netflix Watch Instantly?

2011-08-29T08:19:00.000-07:00

So I know there's been a LOT of uproar over the increase in rates netflix is instituting in September. In fact, at that brunch I mentioned a couple posts ago, someone said, "yeah but netflix is so expensive now." It's not really. I agree, a 20% increase is a pretty huge jump, especially in a recession. But it's still only about $4 or $5 more a month, so really the cost of a fancy coffee a month more. It's not like the annual 20-40% hike we see in health insurance pretty much every renewal!

I am not trying to spur a debate over netflix pricing, I just thought I'd mention a few things my boy and I are enjoying watching instantly (we LOVE watch instantly, though I'd love it more if they'd add The Golden Girls, Murder She Wrote, Modern Family and NCIS, to name a few).

We finished, the short lived Out of Practice, it has Phil from Modern Family in it and you can see glimmers of that character in his portrayal of Oliver. I thought it was a super cute show, though nowhere near as brilliant as Modern Family.

My boy and I are currently rationing out Sports Night, again, a cute show, though I'm glad Peter Krause was free to make 6 Feet Under when the time came.

I love how many old television shows are on watch Instantly. My boy and I watched all of Simon and Simon (LOVE) on there and currently I am catching up on Family Ties. I was only 3 when it started so I missed the episodes with Tom Hanks and Geena Davis (and even if I'd seen them, I'm not sure I would have gotten all the nuances).

They have all of the Dick Van Dyke Show, and if you're not going to watch every episode (and I totally think you should), you should at least watch "Pink Pills and Purple Parents". In this episode, Mary Tyler Moore who usually plays the straight man, takes on the physical comedy role and she's GREAT! I also totally recommend The Cosby Show, though my current favorite episode (if I can only convince you to watch one) is Father's Day.

Not on watch instantly, but another show I got from Netflix and loved was Bride and Prejudice. It's a super cute rendition of Pride and Prejudice Bollywood style. Perhaps my favorite scene was the dance of the cobra.

Any suggestions on Watch Instantly Items you love on Netflix?

Family, the Ties that Bind And Gag

2011-08-26T07:55:00.000-07:00

So I totally stole that title from Erma Bombeck (I love her!). I was telling some friends recently what I find to be the hardest thing about being married. It really is the inlaws. I LOVE my husband's family. In fact, at one point he accused me of marrying him simply for his family. I always wanted a big boisterous family and so it's exciting to have inheirited eight nieces and nephews and to instantly have not only four more siblings but really eight more because they're all married.

The thing is, you grow up in a family and dysfunctional or not (and I'll tell you, my family really felt like we put the FUN in dysfunctional) you learn the system. I'm not gonna lie, every time we go home for a visit my dad says to me, "why do you come back?" Every time I leave though I miss those people I've just spent two weeks fighting with. . .

Despite the fact that my father loves to tell the story about how we're "the quiet family" (a nickname we earned from a walmart greeter when we walked into the store in silence as part of the aftermath of a fight we had in the car), my family fights. We yell, we swear, we slam doors, and stomp and vow (very loudly) to never speak to each other again, and to never come back. Then it's over, no need for apologies really, no need for hugs (omg, is there no need for hugs!!) and you talk again, and you laugh and you tease and all is right with the world.

When you get married though, there's this new family. A family who didn't grow up playing by the same rules your family did, not matter how similar on paper they might seem. So you know your family rules, and you want to apply them to this new family, but it just doesn't work. No matter how much you want to shake the people (or, barring that, at least shake your fist), you have to learn (and then play by) new rules. So far the one I have the most trouble with is where people really do simply stop speaking. They didn't announce it loudly and continue shouting back replies. They just. stopped. speaking. How do you deal with that? No, seriously?

Won't You be My Neighbor?

2011-08-25T07:22:00.000-07:00

So a long time ago on this blog (it would have to be wouldn't it, since I let months and years pass between blog posts), I mentioned someone who often rode the bus I was on. It was not very complimentary. . . I've now found another person who frequently rides our bus (or rather, she found us).

She's from Pittsburgh and had noticed my boy's PA paraphernalia. Both Penn State and Hershey Bears Hats. On Monday she started a conversation with us. A conversation that lasted all the way from when we got on the bus to when she got off at Back Bay station. Turns out, she lives so close she can see our Apt from her back porch (we could see her apt too if our house weren't so strangely cut up).

So far we've seen her every day this week, and while our conversations aren't earth shatteringly deep, I really like her. I'm hoping that we become even more friendly with this newly discovered neighbor.

Kohlrabi My Old Friend

2011-08-24T06:23:00.000-07:00

So, as always, I haven't blogged in a long time and I still owe a lot of you thank you notes.

Let's pretend that neither of those things are true. Let's also pretend that I'm not responsible for my organization's blog and that I haven't neglected it for about a month too. Let's just start as though we were friends that actually talked on a regular basis and you knew so much about what was going on in my life that my babbling about food we've eaten recently/recipes we enjoy would be natural.

Good, I'm glad we got that out of the way!

Anyway, we went to a Free Friday Flick a couple of weeks ago to celebrate my friend C's birthday. The movie was Tangled. I am pretty sure that Disney declared that after Tangled they were going to stop making princess movies because they don't have the turn out they used to. Let me just say that I like princess movies, I am especially partial to Sleeping Beauty, but generally I'll watch any princess movie (it's Bambi I hate!!). I don't think that Tangled is an indication that they should stop making princess movies, I think it's an indication they should stop making shitty, trite movies that simply aren't funny. . . The absolute funniest part of that movie was when the witch/mother says: "I don't want to be the bad guy" and a kid a couple of blankets over from us shouted "YOU ALWAYS _WERE_ THE BAD GUY!"

C enjoys a good theme as much as I do, so for her birthday we pulled out all the stops on a salad themed menu. There were about six salads, but the top salads based on consumption seem to be the Vietnamese Shrimp and Glass Noodle Salad and the Corn Salad with a sweet lemon dressing and salty/crunchy sesame seeds. I also tried this watermelon salad and learned that I love the combination of dill and watermelon (I think I like it more than basil or mint and watermelon) but I am just not a sake fan -- at least not the kind I used.

Skipping ahead to last weekend (BECAUSE WE TALK ALL THE TIME REMEMBER?!?) we hosted two brunches (listen, we're not clean people so when our house is in some semblance of order we have to make the most of it). On Saturday we had friends over to the house who had gifted us with a waffle maker and a toaster for our wedding (I mean doesn't that sort of imply that they expect to be invited to brunch?). We had two types of waffles plain and banana (we used mixes, but I feel no guilt, the stonewall kitchen mixes are super yummy) and a slew of toppings: there was blackberry lemon butter (my boy thinks I needed to push it a little more because it tasted mostly just like colored butter), Amish butter (from Lancaster and everything!), freshly made vanilla whipped cream, bananas in brown sugar, lemon curd, peanut butter sauce, and this super easy praline ice cream sauce (I know it calls for pecans we used walnuts) -- I would use salted nuts next time or add a little salt to the recipe.

We also offered various bread products to be toasted and a yummy egg dish I like to make with caramelized onions, sausage, sharp cheddar cheese and dollops of ricotta. To wash it all down we had iced coffee using this recipe, maple lemon iced tea (I did not make it well), and mimosas (both orange and grapefruit).

I had high hopes for our organization and planned on making some sample menus for people, things like, "the new england elvis waffle" banana-bacon waffle with peanut butter sauce and maple syrup; "The nutty monkey," a banana waffle with brown sugar bananas and caramel walnut sauce; and then I ran out of ideas. . . I had plenty more toppings just no more clever names :).

One of our friends is a plain vanilla kind of guy and so when I asked him what type of waffle he wanted and what he wanted on it (mind you, by Saturday we'd added a maple waffle to our list using these pellets from King Arthur Flour) he sort of balked. Later I asked him what he wanted to drink and he said, do I have to pick a topping for that too?! Of course, these brunches occurred before I read this article.

Whew, I see why more bloggers use pictures in their posts :). If I haven't lost you already in the long boring lists of food we've made and eaten, I thought I'd try one more. On Monday night we got our delivery of vegetables and I was giddy with excitement. Included in our box was a kohlrabi. I haven't had kohlrabi since I was a little kid and I'd wander across the street to our neighbor's yard. They had a double lot and one whole lot was devoted to their incredible garden, row after row of raspberry bushes, strawberries, fresh carrots, and other yummy items, including kohlrabi.

One of the bloggers I read was complaining about kohlrabi and how much she not only didn't like it but refused to believe she ever would like it. Growing up we ate it raw, just sliced that puppy up and ate it like you would a carrot stick. It was mildly flavored and totally refreshing. It's sort of like daikon in it's refreshing crispness, but with a subtle cabbagey flavor. It looks like a majority of people eat it cooked. If we get another one, perhaps I'll try this recipe, but our kohlrabi is long gone, eaten raw with much pleasure as soon as it was brought into the house.

A lot of blogs I read end with a question, so I'll leave you with this, what vegetable do you absolutely adore which you don't eat often enough?

DON'T PANIC

2011-02-18T17:00:00.000-08:00

Imagine that title in large friendly letters. . . In case you don't get it, it's a reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. If you didn't get it, then you probably also didn't get the reference to the book under Interesting topics relating to our wedding on our wedding website. What's that?! You never clicked on the link?! Well here it is reprinted for you:

According to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, our wedding date is the binary equivalent of the "answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything." Can you think of a more auspicious wedding date?

I even wrote about the importance of the wedding date in our wedding announcement for the Anchorage Daily News. You probably didn't see it there though. Since I never actually sent the form in. In case you're interested

SRH and SPK will marry in Boston on 10/10/10. SRH’s especially excited about this date; according to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, their wedding date is the binary equivalent of the "answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything." They will have an Alaska reception July 3, 2011. SPK and SRH met while volunteering for a homeless outreach program sponsored by Park Street Church. They are both board members of The Network of Community Food Providers in Chelsea, MA and continue to serve the underprivileged on Boston Common with their church. By vocation, SPK is a senior draftsman at McNamara and Salvia, Inc. By avocation, he’s a landscape photographer who looks forward to yearly visits to Alaska. SRH is a reference librarian at the Insurance Library Association of Boston. She is the daughter of DMH and KLH, of Anchorage, and a graduate of East High. SRH is a 2001 graduate of Hillsdale College and 2002 graduate of Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science, where she earned her masters degree. SPK is the son of GK and DK of Halifax, PA and a 1995 graduate of Pennsylvania College of Technology.

I know, it's not thrilling, but my mom REALLY wanted me to publish it in the paper, so hopefully, four months late, that fulfills that dream.

Anyway, I used the above title to let you know I won't be posting for a bit again, we're going to Central PA. I don't want to accuse it of being the hinterlands, but there's only dial up Internet service where we stay. . . It would be impossible for me to type all this drivel on dial up (aren't you ever so grateful for technology now :)).

Have a good President's Day weekend!

C is for Cookies, S is for Stories so long and boring you'll want to shoot yourself. . .

2011-02-17T17:00:00.000-08:00

This weekend I had a "girl's night" with women from my Thursday Night Outreach Group. I had planned on making a variety of cookies for dessert but one thing led to another and I was so far behind by the time Saturday rolled around that the only thing I'd managed to make ahead was a sad looking ice box cake.

The ice box cake was originally going to be chocolatey and yummy, like smitten kitchen's, but I couldn't find the chocolate wafers. Instead I found Anna's Ginger Thins (total aside, but, for a little anna's fun, you can take their cookie quiz). I also saw a tip from kitchn lifted from the LA Times that suggested using a food processor for making whipped cream that stayed stiff. A few more googled attempts and I decided on a maple flavored cream to go with the ginger flavor. Once it finally came time to make the whipped cream I decided to add a little brandy too.

The problem was I haven't really ever made whipped cream before and the directions from the Times and Kitchn weren't really step by step. . . my cream was not really whipped in the end, but it was a nice flavor. It didn't really fill the bowl well though for layering. My boy stepped in with our new whipped cream maker, but it only takes half a pint at a time and each use requires a new nitrogen cartridge so that seemed pricey and useless after two tries. I knew that the cream was going to sink over night, but it was a pathetic little "cake" that greeted us the next day. Since we'd been given the trifle bowl from one of the women coming, I was determined to sit my super sad looking pile of goo out. Luckily, the flavors worked well and the women are the super supportive kind!

As the week heading toward Saturday progressed and I hadn't prepped any food nor made a move toward cleaning my house, I remembered that palmiers we're fairly simple to make and that a blogger I love, Joy the Baker, had written about them awhile ago. The blogosphere blew up about them briefly just before Valentine's day ruining any attempt at originality I might have had, but I've already mentioned who I was cooking for, so it wasn't a huge deal :). To dress up my palmiers I used a little raspberry jam and shaved on some chocolate (using a microplane we also got for our wedding -- I LOVE that tool) . I am not sure that you could taste the chocolate but people seemed impressed by the palmiers.

Instead of the original 13 women I'd planned on, in the end there were only six of us. Four of the women brought another dessert to share. Chocolate chip cookies, brownies, a red velvet cake and flourless chocolate torte all came to keep my contributions company. I may not have been successful at providing a cookie buffet, but we certainly had plenty to feast on.

I was thinking about all of this today when I saw this blog post on Serious Eats. They apparently got the idea for cookie stuffed cookies from this blog, but then they took it so much farther! I wasn't sure how I felt about the cookie stuffed cookie idea, but it did remind me of this salon article about cookies and pizza . I was horrified about the idea at first when I thought they were combined, but apparently they are only packaged together, like a killer lunchable.

Anyway, there's a fairly lengthy blog post for you on basically nothing, but I'd totally welcome your thoughts on cookie stuffed cookies or even DiGiorno pizza and cookies. Heck, I'd take your thoughts on any subject really, it's just good to be getting back into the blogger swing of things.

More on Homelessness

2011-02-16T17:00:00.000-08:00

Yeah, still no real posts, but I thought I would pass on this link to a Salon article somewhat related to homelessness because I thought it was mildly interesting: http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/02/15/what_i_learned_pretending_to_be_homeless/index.html

Enjoy.

2011-02-15T17:00:00.000-08:00

So two posts in two days! That's pretty big time folks. Today's is kind of a cop out post. A friend who used to be involved in our Thursday night ministry wrote a post for her new ministry's website and I thought I would re-post it here since I haven't talked about Thursday night outreach in awhile. It was a timely post, since I'd just been thinking about the person she was describing. I have a terrible scan from a newspaper of him (he's the one in the middle) on my computer that I'd just come across yesterday (I've posted it on my blog before).

Souce: The Boston Metro

It's been so long

2011-02-14T17:00:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know that I always write that or some variation after a long hiatus. I have been asked yet again if I ever plan on posting. As always, the answer is don't give up on me, I'll get back to posting at some point! Clearly a lot has happened since 9/28/10 and I owe all of you loyal readers who haven't already written me off a lot of blog posts.

The thing is, I can't make up for the four months of not writing all at once so I'm starting slowly (I mean come on people I still owe half of you thank you notes from our wedding and shower still!!!).

I will try to write about how I think the Franklin Park Zoo is the best deal in town for events (and how maybe they should charge more -- gasp!-- since they're looking for suggestions).

I will also try to write about how our wedding was PERFECT. I know lots of brides say that, but mine really was. We struggled to come up with something to put on the survey as something we wish had gone differently. I finally answered that I was disappointed that the pink cotton candy I had requested TWICE in writing and was assured in writing we could get was instead blue cotton candy, but really when that's your biggest problem, you're really grasping.

I will even try to post some pictures here of the big day (you know, now that we have a computer up and running and can look at some pictures). Until then, you can definitely look at some teasers here and here if you haven't already seen those.

Anyway, all that to say I'll be back. I know I have stuff to write about, but I'm just not ready yet. In the meantime, I wanted to share this fun link with you: http://www.acme.com/heartmaker/ so you can go have some Valentine's fun (like the kind I had at the top of the page). My boy and I had our first date on 2/13 so we already celebrated v-day, but we hope you enjoy the link on this, the proper day to celebrate.

If it's not one thing, it's another!!

2010-09-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

My dad just emailed. My aunt fell down some stairs and broke two vertebrae, she's not sure she can fly next week.

Who saw that coming?!

I probably should have. I am TOTALLY Even Steven, I should have been worried the moment I found out my mom was okayed for take off. Sorry Auntie. . .

Today's Status Update

2010-09-27T18:24:00.000-07:00

Yay, my mom is coming!!!!

Boo! We haven't managed to clean at all today (perhaps the massive amount of cereal we bought will mesmerize them so they don't notice how messy the house is -- who am I kidding? My mom will not be deterred).

We managed to buy the last of the supplies for our programs (I hope my bridesmaids realize how involved this project is going to be).

Um, I thought I had more big/fun things to announce. . .I'll keep you posted if I come up with another little thing to add :).

Update

2010-09-23T19:30:00.000-07:00

I managed to get some work done on our wedding program. It's not exactly what I'd hoped for (there were some sizing issues) but I think it will work out and be a fun memento for our guests.
I finished our strong man shirt. It's not quite as cool as it was in my head, but it could have been WAY worse! (falling right in line with my new mantra "whatever, people will love it")
I made kettle corn for a friend's birthday tomorrow.
I paid our bills.
Sean and I managed to finish some thank you notes (though I am sure we're facing tons more!).

Um, do you notice I'm just grasping at things to prove I did something with my night -- oh right, and and blogging instead of cleaning something. I've made no headway on cleaning, unless you count the half a coffee table I cleared off when doing something else. Ah well maybe the butterflies in the stomach will go away enough that I can actually fall asleep!

I'm Breezy

2010-09-23T03:34:00.000-07:00

So I promised myself that our wedding was going to be laid back. That if we were calm, our guests would be calm and they would have a better time. . .

We've been good about not becoming recluses. We've accepted invitations out with friends, realizing that this time of engagement shouldn't all be one of hurry and busy work, but it should be savored and shared with those we love (not to mention, we love Chatham and apple picking in the fall :)).

My mother's health has been iffy for the last three months, but even that we've taken mostly in stride. Praying hard (she's specifically asked for prayer for the pain shooting down her left leg), thinking about alternative methods of projecting our wedding and joking about how it's a family tradition (my mother's parents missed her wedding too). I think the back and forth on that decision is starting to take its toll though.

Or, maybe it's the fact that not everyone sent in their rsvps on time and I made the chair rental for fewer chairs than we might need at this point. There's also the issue of where everyone will sleep in my STILL hoarder-esque house (and how many loads of sheets I am going to end up washing for what looks like a volleyball-type rotation schedule through the beds).

I've been trying to work on our program this week. It seems that the list of "required" items our pastor has given us for it will be impossible to fit in the little 3.5x11 folded note we planned on using for a program (and really, this program should be finished before next week when I no longer have access to publisher on off hours. . .).

Possibly what's getting to me is that we just found out that there's a qualifying race for the Boston Marathon going RIGHT THROUGH THE ZOO on our wedding day ("really That's kind of fun and unique," the laid back/breezy bride in me says). The fact that all parking and most roads surrounding the zoo are going to be closed is what's bothersome (my groom may or may not have had a meltdown about that as I calmly took the computer from him and emailed our zoo coordinator).

There are also these wedding nightmares that keep plaguing me (I probably brought that on myself what with scoffing at other brides about it). --I have to admit though, despite all the failures in my dream last night, the fact that we had a popcorn machine that also baked chocolate chip cookies and sort of flipped them out of the machine was pretty awesome, someone should come up with something like that :).

Whatever it is, though, I can't keep up this schedule of falling asleep at midnight or so and waking up around 6. It's killing me. . . I know that some people get less sleep (please don't try and comfort me with that). I am a girl who shines on 9 hours, a girl who occasionally sleeps 14 hours to re-charge (I might not have done that since college) and a girl who is usually tired on the 7 hours she usually gets. This new schedule of continued 6 hour sleep, not working. Perhaps our office could implement a nap time?

The sky is falling

2010-09-14T16:36:00.000-07:00

It hasn't rained as much as it did in my last post, but it still feels like the sky is falling. So many little things have snowballed into one huge headache.

I have had a desire for a gin and tonic all summer. Tanqueray has done a good job with their bus-side advertising and I've become susceptible. A couple of weeks ago I dug out my Costco size bottle of gin and put it in the freezer. I haven't actually made a gin and tonic since I dug out the gin but tonight, four days into my slump of annoying things, I decided was the night! This is what I was faced with when I manged to get the freezer open:

So the trend continues. . . without Princess Leia here to free it, I am afraid it is doomed to stay in the freezer.

Remind Me Again Why I DON'T Live in Seattle?!?!

2010-08-25T18:06:00.000-07:00

You guys, I cannot deal with today. The two silver linings I see are, we got to have a pleasant dinner out with our friend from NJ using a gift certificate given to us by another friend AND that the elevator at work was inspected YESTERDAY.

Today started with pouring rain, I say started but it was really just a continuation of weather from the past two days. I don't mind rain terribly I loved the weather Monday, I wasn't disappointed on Tuesday and today I was fine until 3/4 of the way into my walk where my pants were completely soaked through so that now my underwear was wet, my jacket had sprung leaks and I couldn't see because there was soo much water in my eyes. Still, I thought, it's not terrible, being wet is better than a lot of things. My socks, however, were only wet on top. Two doors down from my office, there was an unavoidable puddle. My feet were sopping. When I got into work I took off my shoes and there was standing water in them! I was still dripping, still having a hard time seeing from the water still pouring off me. I spent some quality time in the bathroom with a hair dryer, it didn't help much.

I was wet until about noon. At about 12:30 today our elevator stopped working. I feel like you guys might see where this is going. I didn't. I blithely thought the elevator people were fixing the issues the inspector had pointed out yesterday. After a few people stopped in to mention that the elevator wasn't working I went down to the basement still sure I'd find elevator people busily working. Why WOULDN'T I think that? We've put in Two new sump pumps since our last disaster. Well my friends, it turns out that two more sump pumps (for a total of three) is still not enough!! There were only two inches of standing water and it wasn't everywhere, so that's better than the four inches we had before, but still depressing.

After that fiasco my feet were wet again and they didn't dry out for the rest of the day. We met my friend, as I mentioned and it seemed like maybe today was looking up. You know, I sort of felt like the Facts of Life theme song was playing in my head.

When I got home tonight, there was an impressive little bulge in the ceiling. Like the basement, it to was far less impressive than the absolute low point of ceiling falling in on me this spring, but it still wasn't great. Once poked, the water was about three inches high in the five gallon bucket we held under it. needless to say, the theme song in my head has changed slightly.

Hello Again

2010-08-19T09:14:00.001-07:00

So it's been well over a month since I last posted. I hate blogs like that. I had high hopes for blogging fun little details about our wedding, but not too many, lest you were actually coming so there would still be fun surprises left for you when you came (and if you are planning on coming either send in your rsvp or do it here online you've got t-minus 23 days to get it in!). Clearly, the blogging hasn't happened. We did manage to get a fair amount of projects completed a few weekends ago. My friend (and bridesmaid) Sam was the catalyst behind that, if she hadn't been here, I would have just crawled into bed that weekend and not come out. I caught Hand Foot and Mouth Disease, a mild case, but still wasn't feeling great. Yes, that is a childhood disease and yes, I did have it when I was a kid. Apparently there are three strains of viruses that cause HFMD and I didn't have the strain common on the East Coast.

In other mildly depressing news, my mother is back in the hospital. While it started out looking just as terrible as the last time, two years ago, it is starting to look up. It seems that this time they're fighting her infection and not causing her potassium levels to plummet as well. Her pain isn't being managed incredibly well, but as the swelling has gone down in her spinal column the pain there has righted itself some. So it's still touch and go, but it looks like things are improving. You can pray that they continue on this path so that she makes it to our wedding!

Speaking of health news, one of our friends from The Common died since I last posted here. He had been with us since the beginning and was quite a character. I should probably say cast of characters since one of his favorite things to do was recite all the parts from the Wizard of Oz in a sort of one man show. There is a memory pole up for him in the common right now near the visitor's center, which I think he'd like. He spent a fair amount of time near there. One of his proudest moments (perhaps second only to the joy of getting housing) was when he got a job as a tour guide for one of the walking tours around Boston. He even gave our group a free tour once. He was one of those people who was always hungry for attention and when he got it, he truly shined. He was interviewed for the Metro at one point and I can still see him waving the paper, telling us about it. I post a terrible scan I took of it below (the only copy I have left, sadly) as sort of a memorial here on this blog. . . He's the one in the middle.

Finally, in updating this blog, I thought I would mention that tonight I am giving the sermon on The Common. My family will tell you that I put off writing it till the last minute (which is true) but I've been thinking about it for several months. Out on the Common we meet a lot of people who feel like that their lives have strayed so far that they cannot talk to God, they are too bad or too worthless for God. Here is the sermon I plan on giving tonight (please pray that it reaches those who need to hear that God loves them and wants them. . .pray that the words tonight are all God's and not mine):

I was reading a book a few months ago about Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints. I don't know how much you know about the religion but it's pretty extreme. I was really upset by a minor detail in the book. The woman writing the book was talking about a sin she committed that she was convinced was so bad that Christ couldn't forgive it. She quotes Brigham young saying, "There are sins that men commit for which they cannot receive forgiveness [by the blood of Christ]. . . She talks about her sin saying: "And now I needed to atone for my despicable crime. A price had to be paid, and Jesus hadn't paid it -- not for such a weighty sin as this. . .

I found this upsetting because nowhere, that I am aware of, in the Bible does it ever make a list of sins that are so bad that if you repent and ask forgiveness of Jesus he won't or can't forgive you. Also, if Jesus' blood atonement wasn't sufficient enough for all sins whose blood or repentance would be good enough?

On the 12th of this month, The Onion, a fake newspaper ran an article essentially titled "If I Hadn't Found Jesus, I'd Feel Pretty Crappy About My Crimes." As with most of their stuff, It was an over the top article, here's an excerpt:

The first few months behind bars were the worst of my life. Every night I'd stare into the darkness, waiting for the nightmares, waiting to hear those horrible screams all over again. Even here behind these thick penitentiary walls, there was no hiding from what I'd done to that poor family.
Then, one night, it happened: I lay alone in my cell, my only companion the visions of wickedness that filled my head. Suddenly, there was a light, and somehow the light spoke to me. It was the voice of Jesus Christ. He told me he had died for the sins of mankind and all could find peace through his salvation. Was I ready to repent?
Uh, let me think about that for a sec. Yup!
It was a stroke of unbelievable luck. Here I thought I'd spend the rest of my life agonizing over that night I broke into a random house and methodically tortured all five of its residents, but Jesus was like, "Nah, you're good." He took all those years I expected to wallow in suffocating guilt . . . and wiped them away in a jiff.

Clearly the article was written to be funny, but it’s not terribly off the mark. It may miss the point about genuine repentance and striving for righteousness once you’ve been forgiven but Jesus' forgiveness is radical. It's unbelievable, and it's true.

In 1 Peter 2:21-25 it says: For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, 22WHO COMMITTED NO SIN, NOR WAS ANY DECEIT FOUND IN HIS MOUTH;
23and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; 24and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. 25For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls. Jesus died for our sins, ALL OF OUR SINS while we were still sinning.

John Piper, a famous evangelist says of this passage:

We need to linger here. Do you believe this about your own sins and about the sins of your brothers and sisters? The implications of this for us individually and as a church are huge. It means that, if we will, we can leave the past with God. We can say, "I trust you, Jesus, that all my sins; all the ones that are public and all the ones that are private, all of them, have been lifted, borne, suffered for, and therefore removed from me. I bear them no more. I do not carry their guilt into the future with me."
Let this sink in. You do not have to carry your sins or be burdened by them. You do not have to wake up with guilt or go to bed with guilt. You can bank your hope on the commitment of God in Jesus: "Christ bore our sins in his body on the cross."
But notice again clearly what God's aim is in this guilt-lifting death of Jesus on the cross (v. 24): " . . . that we might die to sin and live to righteousness." This corresponds with the purpose mentioned in verse 21: "that you might follow in his steps." Following in Jesus' steps is the same as living to righteousness.
In both cases, the vicarious suffering of Jesus in verse 21, and the substitutionary death of Jesus in verse 24 are given as the means that God intends to use to make us righteous like his Son.

It is important to note, that Jesus is not unfamiliar with our temptations, in Hebrews 4:15-16 says: For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. 16Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

I want to finish with these thoughts, Jesus did die for all sins, no matter what you have done, by truly repenting and turning to Jesus you can approach the throne of God in confidence. There is no sin no series of sins even, that Christ doesn’t have the power to forgive. No one is so bad that they are beyond Christ’s healing power. You can always turn to Jesus in confidence, knowing that his mercy and grace is sufficient for you.

In our church, before we take communion, we recite part of Psalm 51, a Psalm David (God’s Beloved) wrote after the prophet Nathan had confronted him when David had committed adultery with Bathesheba. I’d like us to recite that together now as we begin our prayer time:

Psalm 51: 1-12
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Surely you desire truth in the inner parts;
you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Let us pray.

In Other, Not So New News. . .

2010-07-01T16:10:00.001-07:00

I was looking at my sad little blog and realized that I had totally left you all hanging about where we were having our rehearsal dinner!

I'm really excited with our final decision. While it does not donate to charity like our first, most awkward, choice, it does provide yummy food at almost the same cost as our wedding cook out. I need to sign the contract still, so I probably shouldn't be as attached as I am already, but you know how that goes.

We've decided on DRUM ROLL PLEASE. . . . . .

Midwest Grill in Inman Square! For those of you who are too lazy to click over, let me provide you with the highlight: "A seemingly endless stream of waiters will circulate with skewers full of meat, fresh from the grill. You'll be offered as much as you like of any item. We suggest you dig right in, because before you know it, another waiter will be offering another choice and so on…" Did you read that? ALL YOU CAN EAT GRILLED MEAT BROUGHT TO YOUR TABLE ON SKEWERS! What could be more fun and more filling than that?

So if you've gotten an invitation and you'd be coming from out of town (sorry, guys we had to come up with a way to limit the costs somehow) there's no need to sit on the fence anymore, you can eat the price of your plane ticket in meat!

UPDATE

2010-06-30T18:41:00.000-07:00

Tonight I was in the living room and I found a magazine that we had just gotten a subscription to sitting on the coffee table. I brought it back to where my boy was and waved it around saying "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THIS CAME IN THE MAIL?!?!?" (yes, it may have sounded a little shrill)

He said "what are you talking about? It was on the coffee table this morning."

I said "You know I don't go in the living room in the morning!"

He said "I assumed you put it there, I didn't bring it in"

I said "Neither Did I!!"

He said "Maybe the Post Office really IS playing with you!!"

So yeah, not going to win any awards for screenwriting, but I might just have a case against the post office now!

P.S. Chris, you're totally invited to the wedding, I didn't change my mind at all. I put the invitation in the mailbox this morning so as long as it doesn't end up back on my coffee table, we're golden!

Oh you guys. . . .

2010-06-30T05:45:00.000-07:00

I was going, eventually, to put up photos of our invitations. My boy worked terribly hard on them and they were so cute. I thought I would wait till we sent them out to everyone to post them here. We sent them out weeks ago now (June 10th to be exact). So we could totally post pictures online. We just haven't taken any yet.

Last night, as I was wallowing in self pity over my summer cold, I looked over at my kleenex laden nightstand and realized there were some invitations there. I knew we'd held back some of our invitations to hand deliver so I just assumed they were those. I picked them up anyway because my boy had a cache of the hand deliverables down by our front door and I thought they should all be together. Then I noticed they were all stamped. They were the invitations for my three cousins!!!! For some reason their envelopes had printed badly so my boy re-printed them and then, apparently, I NEVER SENT THEM!!!!!

I had thought it was weird that my cousin hadn't responded because I had heard she was tentatively thinking about coming out for the wedding and I was all excited about it and simply waiting for confirmation through a little fuchsia envelope in my box. Folks, I'm here to tell you, it was never going to come.

A long time ago my dad had a really crazy customer. One day she ran out and accosted him. She said "I mailed this letter weeks ago and today I found it on my coffee table!" The implication being my dad had seen the letter in the mailbox, had gone in her house and set it back on her coffee table. He tried to smooth things over but she was insistent that it was the post office's fault. Think that line of reasoning would work for me?

Rorschach Billboard

2010-06-16T19:47:00.000-07:00

I know it's not just me, because Megz and my boy also thought this billboard was all sorts of wrong, but the people in New Hampshire don't seem to be up in arms over them. We had to take our own picture because I couldn't find anyone blogging about strangely suggestive engagement ring ads. I haven't marked this not safe for work since, you know, they're out in the open in NH :). Let me know, is it an unfortunately colored couch, or is this billboard verging on the inappropriate?

It's Been One Week Since You Looked at Me

2010-05-01T07:08:00.000-07:00

Or at least since the Doctor last looked at me. Last night I couldn't sleep til 4am. My belly hurt but I'd tried Aleve for the first time since the surgery (I mentioned that Tylenol does nothing and I was trying to not take my big pain pills since it's been a week) and I was committed to it for the next 12 hours. This morning I woke up at 8:30 -- far too early for a 4am bedtime. My belly still hurt but I had an hour left of the Aleve. . . . I helped my boy do some dishes and tried going back to bed at 9:30 at which point I could take more painkillers but whatever had pulled out of place during the night (there was a coughing incident) had switched back after the dishes but now I couldn't sleep.

Um, yeah, that entire paragraph was boring. That's sort of how my life has been lately. Strangely, it's occupied me a lot even though I can see it's not fascinating to the outside world. . . .

Last night, in my bout of insomnia, I contacted four places about a rehearsal dinner (or lunch, cause my boy and I are starting to worry about money -- perhaps we should have worried about that before we bought a 2010 Honda CRV). I only have price quotes back from one place and the cost is twice as much as our wedding catering, so we'll see how this all pans out. Here are the places I contacted last night, in no particular order:

Ristorante Fiore

The Elephant Walk

UpStairs on the Square

Maggianos

Finally, the North End branch of The Daily Catch is one of our favorite restaurants. We've heard that there's some difference between the various branches, but the Harborwalk does do functions and they're kind enough to post their pricing on their website, which makes me love them. Problem is, our two favorite dishes are seafood (good since it's a seafood restaurant) but we'd like a meat option for those in our party that won't eat fish, and if you upgrade to the three entree option it costs an extra $24, maybe we could work some compromise out though so let's tentatively put them on the list too.

So maybe the kettubah signing location will work itself out. I'll keep you posted.

Galling

2010-04-25T07:15:00.000-07:00

On FRIENDS, there's an episode where Chandler has his "nubbin" removed and it appears to remove his funny as well. I've commented before on how my blog is not as funny or interesting as it was originally, but today it's worse than ever. I have tried to write a whole blog post on the fact that I've been MIA for the last week due to a saga culminating in the removal of my gallbladder. I swear there are some puns and some jokes in there somewhere but I can't come up with them. I wish it was because the drugs were so good, but they're not. They didn't give me many and the only supplemental pain med I can take is Tylenol. I believe Tylenol is Latin for PLACEBO THAT DOES NOTHING.

While I am really grateful that the surgery went well, I am sad because this was the weekend we'd set aside as our weekend to clean, plus we're missing a friend's choir concert and our pastor's last Sunday. He's preaching on Philippians 1-4 today a different sermon for each service, we were going to make a day of it going to each one. The silver lining was going to be listening to it live streaming, but this message greeted us this morning was: ATTENTION LIVE STREAMING Is UNAVAILABLE TODAY Due to a Lack of Internet Connectivity in the Meetinghouse.

Best laid plans and all that. . .

Ketubah

2010-04-14T10:21:00.001-07:00

See and you all thought being engaged might mean I blogged more! At least I haven't lost my personality completely now that I am an engaged woman. I am blogging about wedding stuff again though (so maybe I am becoming a little obsessed -- becoming, ha, who are we kidding?).

When we first started wedding planning (and by that I mean week two when I had come up with two plans, our break up plan and our getting married plan), my boy and I decided we'd like to have a formal rehearsal dinner with all of our out of town guests, our family and a few very close friends who live in Boston. We had known all along we'd like a casual wedding where we could invite everyone we know and love, but we also wanted something a little more formal, for those closest to us.

I had heard about Quaker weddings from a friend of a friend and I thought they were a lovely idea. In the Quaker wedding ceremony there is no pastor leading the service, it's an unprogrammed service where the friends surround the couple and as the Spirit leads they say blessings, prayers and bible verses. I thought it sounded absolutely lovely. A perfect way to start a marriage. Also, my boy is from the Quaker state, so I felt like it was a little nod to his roots (even if his family isn't Quaker and they're from Amish country --they're not Amish either). It also reminded me of what the ketubah signing has evolved into for a lot of Jewish weddings; an opportunity to gather together with a small number of close friends and family in an intimate moment prior to the whirlwind of the ceremony.

It turns out that Quakers also have a wedding contract that they have signed by all those present and which they hang in the center of their home just like Jewish families have for generations as well. My boy and I want a ketubah (I'm calling it that even if it's more similar to a Quaker marriage certificate for us because we're Christians). Well really I want a ketubah and my boy is very supportive of all things honoring my Jewish (on the wrong side) ancestry. I think that may stem from his love of Challah, noodle kugel, and latkes, but you know what? I think that that would just make my people even more happy. My people are all about the food ya know.

We want a ketubah hanging in our home to show the world the commitment we've made. We want it to remind us (when we're less than thrilled with each other) about that commitment. We want the ketubah, hanging with all its signatures, to remember all those people who were there with us when we made that commitment and who also committed to support us.

When we started thinking about a getting a ketubah, we thought back on something we'd seen in one of the art galleries in Rockport, MA. It was microcaligraphy done by Leon Azoulay, he creates art illustrating parts of the Torah or important Jewish prayers/blessings and underlying it all in tiny Hebrew lettering is the entire book of the Torah, prayer or blessing. The problem was, that as amazing as they all were we weren't sure that any that were meaningful for a wedding/marriage were something we'd want to hang in our house for the rest of our lives. . . .

When we were in the same gallery we were struck by an artist, Charles Fazzino, who did amazing 3-d work. It's pop art and it was a lot of fun. Also, it turns out, though he's not Jewish, his love of Jewish related things came through food too (so how could we not love him?):

"My Jewish art collection actually started with my discovery of Kosher food,"
remembers Fazzino. "I went to the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and I was
always discovering new restaurants, but as a struggling artist, I couldn't
afford the finer ones. That didn't matter anymore once I discovered the delis on
the Lower East Side. I LOVED them! I was soon exhibiting in the Village art
shows and thought the Jewish delis would be an appealing subject, and they were.
I began incorporating entire streets in order to capture the unique culture of
the area. Eating the food and painting the street scenes led to more research on
my part into the people who made this wonderful food. That, in turn, led to my
growing knowledge and appreciation of Judaism. I didn't just wake up one day and
decide to paint the Star of David. I have spent years researching and
appreciating the Jewish faith, and my Jewish collectors seem to appreciate my
view of their religion through a gentile's eyes."

Unfortunately, though he does do ketubah's and he has a lot of fun art work, we're not alone in being charmed by his work. A ketubah he created was apparently featured on platinum weddings. We are not in the platinum wedding league. . . Even the non-commissioned items seem above our, very limited, price range, so while we might be tempted to get one of his works because we think we could live with it for the rest of our lives, we can't really afford the price. So we're still sort of stuck on the Ketubah front.

We're also stuck on the Quaker marriage/rehearsal dinner front. I was really excited when I found out about Elephant Walk having a "benefit restaurant." We're having a circus theme for our wedding so Elephant Walk sounds like it fits in and we love benefiting something in the process of doing something we'd already do. It's sad that we've worked really hard so that our guests can get everywhere via public transportation and the benefit restaurant is out of town, but we could probably figure something out. What made me even more sad though, was when I realized that we couldn't do a benefit dinner. I mean it's perfect pricing and half of the cost goes to a charity of your choice!!!! Unfortunately, it's only good on Mondays and as much as I'd like to finagle something with our wedding, the only Monday we have to work with when everyone will be here, would be the Monday after our wedding and then it's not really a rehearsal dinner anymore, more like a redundant dinner. . . .

We keep putting off worrying about these two fairly important facets of our wedding celebration figuring it will work itself out. I do have a nagging voice telling me that we don't have that long to plan. Decisions need to be made. Commitments formalized. You think I'm speaking figuratively; I'm not. While she hasn't said these exact phrases, especially about the two topics I've mentioned, my sister has actually been the one to make me the most anxious about the impending deadline of our wedding! So if you have rehearsal dinner ideas of kettubah's you think we could live a lifetime with, let me know. . .

Ring Shots

2010-03-25T11:03:00.000-07:00

As always, a lot has happened since my last post. Rain last week caused flooding at work and more leaking at home (you guys are so lucky I waited till this week to post, cause seriously as horrible as it was, I found omfg omfg omfg becoming a mantra interrupted in brief intervals by, God forgive me, but omfg, omfg, wait, please forgive me!). Rain this week did not prove to cause any problems at either place.

We had a tough time getting a pastor to agree to marry us (and I don't even think that it's cause they knew my new mantra or cause my boy and I appear to live in sin -- I told someone that we really live like roommates and he said mhmm, my wife and I do too), seriously, we went through about four pastors before we found one that took pity on us, but now we're all set on that front.

I am currently in panic mode about where all of our out of town guests will stay! The perfect B&B I found already has two rooms booked and they're down to like six rooms or so. . . Hotels here cost a FORTUNE!

Anyway, all that to say, I totally owe you guys a lot more information, but until then, I'll leave you with these ring shots my friend took.

The More Things Change. . .

2010-03-14T19:21:00.000-07:00

I am not a good photographer, but I thought that a pictorial study might be better than the thousand four letter words I have to say about the subject.

Let's just say, my bed is covered in a tarp at this point and for the second time in two weeks I am sleeping on that uncomfortable bed in the living room (and yes, we have a worlds more comfortable futon in the office, but I am too lazy to move stuff around so I can pull it out). Word on the street is a new contractor is being called tomorrow.

Engaging Information For Once

2010-03-10T07:05:00.000-08:00

I have at least two, if not three half finished posts that I never managed to get put up. They discuss things like the ceiling falling in again after it was plastered; how uncomfortable our pull out couch is and a woman on etsy who went postal (sorry dad) when I gave her two postive ratings and one neutral (apparently I should have just eaten her baby, it couldn't have been worse than the devastation left in the wake of a neutral comment).

I was going to stay up late on Saturday and write a post for you, then I was going to write one on Sunday. . . . You see where this is going right? It's Wednesday and I am just now getting something out for you. My boy and I got engaged this weekend. Probably you've already heard the story, but if not, here it is below (including my encouragement to all of you non-homeowners to get a house NOW!!!!!!!!):

We were trying to save enough money to get a house under contract by the end of April (you know for the 8,000 incentive -- which if you can do would be brilliant you have to be under contract by the end of April, but you can close in June giving you two more months to save and then if you can get an fha loan you only have to give 3.5% down which for a lot of houses is the same as the tax incentive -- fha lets you use the incentive as a down payment as well -- see we did our research) anyway, we decided to focus on a wedding first and set aside the house plan.
When we had this discussion my boy said, I was going to ask you if you wanted to get married on President's day weekend but YOU wanted to look at a house (it was noon on the third day of the weekend, he was still in his pjs that day and the house was a half mile walk away, it's not like it was in PA). Then he said he was also planning on proposing on our church retreat, but I didn't go (I'm not sorry btw). I am unclear why he didn't just ask when he was giving me a list of all the times he would have asked but I messed it up, but whatever, the plan was set I was no longer focusing on the houses I was pining for. . .

This past Saturday, we went up to Halibut Point so he could take photos and then finally at the last spot just sat down next to me and said, "will you marry me" and shoved a ring box at me. So yeah, not a big story really and I am unclear still, on why an hour walk in our neighborhood ruined a plan like that, but you know, whatever.

We went to our friend's father's house that evening for a dinner party with my boy's small group and they were far more excited and sweet than I was (I think this may actually be true always, I don't think that Saturday was special).

When we arrived at the house, I stayed in the car talking to my mom while my boy went in ahead of me. About 10 min later I came in and was surprised that our friend didn't say congrats or ask to see the ring (oh, right, for those of you interested, it's an emerald cut solitaire with knife edge band). So I said "did you tell her?" and he said, "no, I thought you might want to." So basically my boy had been in the house with our friend 10 min and didn't mention the engagement once. He just cryptically said "she's talking to her mom." That's my boy. When the rest of his small group got there and found out, one of the women said, "That's so great! We've been praying for this!" I kind of think that is hysterical. The women in his small group meet separately and I assume that's where they've been praying about it, but I like to imagine them praying about it in their normal small group meetings right there in front of my boy. "Dear Lord, please, please let them get engaged!!"

My boy, unbeknownst to me, solicited addresses from a number of people earlier this week. One of those people was the pastor that leads our Thursday night group. The pastor's response to the email was: "About dang time!" Sort of the southern equivalent of my boy's mother's response of "well, it's about time."

I have a friend who was a weddingbee (remember a long time ago I mentioned reading it all the time cause I get so bored?). Another friend asked if I thought I would become a weddingbee now. The idea of weddingbee is that women blog the details of their wedding planning etc. If you've noticed, I am a terrible blogger. I think the world of wedding bloggers can breathe a sight of relief that I will not be joining their ranks. Perhaps I'll write a post or two about wedding planning, but more likely than not, I'll just add to the number of half finished posts.

Monthly Update

2010-02-15T13:05:00.000-08:00

For all of you eagerly awaiting an update on the ceiling situation, the landlord has put on two coatings of plaster and will, hopefully, finish the last one this week. So that's exciting. I'm hoping it doesn't all come crashing back down in the next rainstorm.

Saturday was my boy's and my 4 year anniversary. We celebrated by cooking at the grand opening of the soup kitchen where we volunteer. We were told the turn out for breakfast was huge but apparently everyone filled up before lunch cause there wasn't much of a crowd when we made it downstairs.

I have also fallen in love with another house (well I was sort of in love with a summer home up in NH with three acres of land, but realized that we couldn't afford it and it got no tax incentive, so that dream is on hold for awhile -- though not completely forgotten, if we rented it out I am convinced we could break even on it, but whatever). The last time I was in love with a house I kept it a secret and would only show it to those of you who privately messaged me, and, you know, those of you I send every link to every house to. This time, I am fairly convinced the house will sell out from under us, so even though I am pretty set on wanting it, and excited about the size of the yard and the driveway that looks large enough to someday build a garage, not to mention the two block walk to one of our favorite restaurants, I am also willing to share it with all of you, my loyal readers. Here she is in all her glory.

We're signed up for a first time home buyers class and, as of today, we're in big time saver mode. If you wanna pray that we get it, we'd (okay really mostly me, my boy is on board, but not nearly as excited as I am) really appreciate it.

Okay, I realize this isn't the greatest post, but I have a terrible headache and it's hard to get back on the writing regularly schedule. . .

Remember?

2010-01-21T15:03:00.000-08:00

A long time ago, way back in July in fact, I posted about the ceiling in my room falling in. The landlord's son came and took a look and was talking about all sorts of crazy tests involving thermal monitors etc. that might have to be done to figure out where they leak was coming from and then they'd get the leak fixed and they'd re-plaster my ceiling.

Nothing happened on that front. Months passed, my boy's family came to visit and we put his parents in my room because even though the ceiling's falling in, it's still the nicest room in the house. October came and went. Then in November there were a series of really bad rainstorms and more plaster and more wetness. So we contacted the landlords again. They had someone come out to clean the gutters and to look at the windows, but they couldn't do anything about the roof because at this point there was snow and ice about.

As I have mentioned in the last couple of posts, I am sick. Tonight, I came home right after work because I figured I'd be no help cooking a meal and I shouldn't stand out on a street corner for a couple of hours. When I got to my bedroom, I noticed even more plaster had fallen down and the ceiling is wet again.

It is unclear to me if it is wet because the sun has been out lately and snow is melting off the roof and coming in wherever the leak is, or if, contrary to all previous inquiries, it has something to do with something going on on the third floor. It seems unlikely that there would be a kitchen or a bathroom above my bedroom on the floor above, since the plumbing seems to be piggy backed in one area of the house (the kitchen and the bathroom being situated near each other in our apartment), but I find it terribly hard to believe that there's not some evidence up on the third floor of this terrible leak that's occurring down here on my ceiling. . . .

Also, now my parents are coming to visit and the eyesore that was here when my boy's parents came to visit has almost doubled in size. And it's all well and good for my boy's parents to sleep in a room with a horrible ceiling for one night, but these are my parents and it's six nights! You (if you're not my boy) see my problem here, I'm sure :).

Ear Drums, the Best Percussion Instument

2010-01-18T16:47:00.000-08:00

We just watched an episode of Little People Big World where Zach had ear surgery. It brought back flash backs for me. In a follow up check up the doctor said I am just going to put a speculum in here and I cringed and flailed just as Zack cringed on tv. I fainted during Million Dollar Baby in the scene where she's in the hospital, not any fighting, just the scene where she is hooked up to all the tubes, and I thought I might crash again with the whole ear surgery thing here. . .I managed to make it through, but the squirmy feeling at the bottom of the spine is still there if I think about it too much.

My ears aren't too hot today either. I am still fighting the cold, after Saturday's bright "I can breathe" moment, things got stuffier again so Sunday I spent all day in bed and today I spent most of the day in bed (luckily there was a Golden Girls marathon on one channel and a Little People Big World marathon on another). Since I am still stuffy and my ears are still plugged, I am looking for a miracle tonight similar to the curse that started all this. Perhaps I'll feel perfectly fine as of 3am.

Sick

2010-01-16T15:22:00.000-08:00

I got a cold as of 3pm on Thursday. It seriously came on as if it were scheduled. 3pm and I had a very bad headache and my ears filled with fluid and my nose got stuffy. Friday was dreadful. Saturday though hasn't been nearly as awful. I am still sick, but somehow staying in bed all day and remembering to take decongestants every four hours has cleared my sinuses enough that I can breathe through my nose again. It's really exciting news here!

Health leads me to my next topic, (I say that as if the entire point of this post WASN'T to show you this). My boy found the following schedule for the Central Pennsylvania Blood Bank. This tips the scale slightly in favor of moving to Central Pennsylvania. Any place that can boast giving Seltzers Smokehouse Bologna for your blood is pretty high up in my book! I don't actually give blood, but if I could be promised more than some cookies, maybe I'd be more inclined to get over my extreme fear of needles.

Harrowing Dreams Continue

2010-01-14T10:51:00.001-08:00

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night from a horrible dream. I was minding my own business in the dream when suddenly we were driving in a really scary section of town (and when I say town think film noir city). Not only was it clearly the projects, but we were in my car where the locks don't work very well anymore and there weren't any streetlights on and no lights in any of the apartment buildings looming large all around us. We were really nervous and could feel, but couldn't necessarily see and I don't remember hearing anything actually just an erie silence as if the entire city were about to pounce, crimes occurring all around us.

We made it through the city and out onto the other side and it turned out I was narrating what was going on, I heard myself say: "So then we were in Florida but it turned out it was execution season, so we ended up being at a mass hanging. . ." Next thing I know we're walking into an old building, it looks like it may have been a factory, with big open empty rooms with very thick wooden beams and stone walls. We're taken up to a room upstairs where there are about 12 people who are about to be hanged. They're currently just sitting up in the room with a psychiatrist chatting fairly easily, and pleasantly, not looking like violent criminals at all. There are a couple of women that get in a little spat, but then make up quickly because they decide that since they're going to be hanged soon, it's not worth it to fight. One of the women had a clear pencil bag with a lot of paper clips and some rubber bands and a couple of dollars and I thought about her parents who would get that when she was hanged. That that was what they would have to remember their daughter by.

I don't know what finished the conversations, but it was clear that the hanging was supposed to start soon and I freaked out --none of them did, just me. My boy escorted me out of the room and then I blacked out and the next thing that happened in the dream was that I was awakened with sliced onions under my nose. The psychiatrist was baffled by my reaction and suggested that I be excused from watching all of those people be hanged.

You guys, I haven't read that website I told you about that has the last words of people who are about to receive capital punishment since I told you about it back at the beginning of November! Even when I read that website, I suffered no ill effects on my sleep. Seriously, I think this series of dreams is simply stemming from my insane unhappiness at work. Clearly, the whole blog series on random alternatives to this life are not helping enough. I am hoping a long weekend will.

I Like You a Latke

2010-01-13T06:15:00.000-08:00

You guys, the New York Times was discussing a kimchi pancake today and they said: "Kunjip’s pancake [is] similar in texture to a hearty latke." Don't you think that's a sign? I make a good latke, clearly the stars are aligning for me to transfer that talent to making kimchi pancakes with my own, home grown giant cabbage kimchi!

I'm In LOVE!

2010-01-12T12:42:00.000-08:00

Okay guys, I was totally not going to mention this because a. it sounds like a new year's resolution, and we've talked about that before and how February is the worst month in the world because we all come crashing down off new year's resolution highs and we realize we were the same people we were before the new year's resolution (which yeah, yeah, blah blah blah we should love ourselves as we are etc. etc. --I certainly hope you're not reading a blog called getbitter and planning on saying crap like that and not getting flamed) and b. because I am thirty some years old and I have had highs and lows, but never has a diet plan stuck and let's be honest day one and a half in isn't an indicator that one will so why share anything with the world, but I love this program online so I thought I would share it with you even though it's only day 1.5 of me entering items and in all likelihood it won't last a week.

I know that this picture is tiny and I am really sorry, perhaps I'll try to be a better blogger at some point and try and zoom in for you, but right now I can't. What you're looking at in tiny tiny format is the really cool screen on your personalized page from thedailyplate.com (the picture is linked so you can make your own account if you want). I totally get that most people don't like journaling and it's annoying to try and remember what you ate, let alone how much, but so far this is fun and effective (remember it is day 1.5 people).

On the top right corner, you can see a little water bottle, for every glass of water you drink you get to add to the bottle and it fills up till it congratulates you on drinking water (what can I say, I am even excited when a credit card machine says approved, maybe I didn't get enough affirmation as a kid, but I love the water droplet saying congratulations).

Below that is a little pie graph with information on what percentage of what you ate was carbs, protein and fat (can you tell I ate an avocado today -- red is fat).

The section underneath has customized meals. You can click off a series of items you ate, rice, beans, squash, ham steak, and group it together so that next time you eat it you can just select "rice and beans" (or whatever you named it). There is a section below the customized meals that has the individual components you ate recently so you can simply click and add them instead of having to search for them each time. This has a lovely feature that you can organize alphabetically or by frequency.

Slightly above the widest section of the page it tells you approximately how many calories you have left for the day. The widest section is reserved for the food you've consumed. You can look at the nutritional values at a glance (calories, fiber, protein etc). Also, when you add an item, the program will sometimes suggest a similar item, that's better for you, so you can make more informed choices in the future. Below the wide section is another run down of the calories you've consumed so far, fat protein etc. and what percentage of your daily intake of each they represent, 94% of your protein for the day etc.

There is also an exercise feature where you can search various activities for calories burned (including washing dishes for a church function 200 some calories an hour people) and the site will track all that for you as well (I haven't used that part yet).

Finally, for people willing to share more information I believe there are ways to post the information to your facebook account and other options including friends through the site where you can hold each other accountable etc.

I realize that this may be a boring post, and that this site may not thrill you, but I have really enjoyed using it so far (all 1.5 days) and since it's free I thought I would share!

Someone's Been Sleeping In My Bed

2010-01-11T16:47:00.000-08:00

Or rather, barging in on my dreams. This weekend I woke up from a terrifying dream where a bear was rushing toward my house (we lived in Palmer in this dream). To make matters worse, our dog was on a lead outside and the bear was swerving to get him. The next morning, I told my boy about how I frantically opened the door and struggled to get our jack russell off his lead before the bear could come up and crash through our sliding glass door.

My boy said: "You should have known right then that it was a dream!" I was confused and said "Because we wouldn't have sliding glass doors in the wilderness? Or because the whole bear charging the house scenario was a little too The Great Outdoors (skip to 1:24)?" He said: "No, of course not, the fact that we had a little dog should have been a tip off!" I said, "well jack russells are kind of sporty, it's feasible we'd have one." My boy just shook his head and muttered something about small dogs and sporty and ridiculous. . .

Go Ahead, Have A Cow

2010-01-09T13:34:00.000-08:00

My friend Christina introduced me miniature cows awhile ago. While I thought they were darling, I didn't really expect to have one. Since we're talking about the dream still, don't you think one of these babies would be perfect?!

My mother has always said that Jersies are the most beautiful cows, and of course she's right. I mean come on, they have the longest lashes and beautiful brown eyes with golden coats. Go look at that link and find Louise and tell me your heart doesn't break a little at her cuteness!!

Having a cow could provide some natural fertilizer for our plants and maybe a little cream for my coffee (am I reading that right are they saying those little cows provide 6 gallons of milk a day?). I think this plan is a keeper.

The Time Has Come

2010-01-07T11:25:00.000-08:00

When I was little, my grandfather used to recite these lines from the Walrus and the Carpenter:

"The time has come," the Walrus said,"To talk of many things:Of shoes--and
ships--and sealing-wax--Of cabbages--and kings--And why the sea is boiling
hot--And whether pigs have wings."

I was thinking about them a lot today. About how perhaps they could be a mission statement for our new farm, or at the very least, be used in our once a year whole pig roast accompanied with all the sauerkraut varieties we'll be making.

Since I typed out my current wild dream yesterday, I've thought about it more. I am concerned that I have now worked myself up into such a frenzy I'll be terribly crushed when I come crashing down from this dream. Another friend suggested that since the cabbages in Alaska really are giant we could also make kimchi (another favorite of my boy). I think it sounds brilliantly fun (though smelly).

You can go here to find recipes and learn about the history of kimchi (you know what else there is even a kimchi museum). This summer we went to a Korean first birthday at KumGangSan and my boy was sorely tempted by these huge plastic tubs they had of kimchi in various states, we briefly considered buying one just because it was such a great size (and they did make a particularly good kimchi), but with our new plan, we could have our own giant tubs and make other people jealous! It looks like we could even go here and try out the techniques before committing to a whole big processing system: http://store.therawdiet.com/pisaandkimch.html

Pork and sauerkraut apparently brings good luck for the new year among the PA Dutch, at least that's what my boy's family (and the post I linked to yesterday) say. I think that we could start an annual New Year's whole pig roast and sauerkraut buffet. Someone suggested that New Year's in Alaska might be cold for a whole pig roast and perhaps we should do it in the summer. I said, it doesn't bring good luck in the summer, besides, the summer will be reserved for giant homemade bratwurst and sauerkraut barbecues!

With my new plan though, we not only have to set aside the issue of money, jobs (though I remembered I vaguely know two architects, perhaps my boy could work for one of them?!), and my dislike of winter, but also set aside my fear of canning. . . besides that, this plan is brilliant. I mean really, don't you think that having 5 acres of peonies and five acres of giant cabbages would make a beautiful mix?

Don't think you've heard the end of this. Oh, no, the floodgates are open people, I'll be chattering about my calling to garden, for a lot longer.

Ennui

2010-01-06T16:19:00.000-08:00

Lin Yutang said: "Probably the difference between man and the monkeys is that the monkeys are merely bored, while man has boredom plus imagination."

So I usually only blog when I am bored or annoyed. I was unbearably unhappy at work today. So much so that on my lunch hour I spent time searching for another job. I cannot handle the social dynamics at work. It's so frustrating sometimes. In the last few months, I've had a couple of dreams that include me quitting my job. As you know, I have also been unhappy generally and have felt pulled somewhere else, I just can't figure out where.

A friend suggested that perhaps blogging my ideas for alternative realities may help the build-up of unhappiness. Awhile ago, I wrote about a house I wanted but I wouldn't share the link because it was too dear to me. That house has since sold (shockingly, not to me). So I've decided to share my insane dreams with you all from now on.

Today, my big plan when I couldn't find anyone hiring was to buy a house (still have no down payment mind you) in Palmer, Alaska and start growing peonies . People on weddingbee.com are always moaning about how they cannot get peonies in the middle of summer because they're not in season. I thought I was brilliant for coming up with the idea of growing them in Alaska. When I was in college, I would love it. It would be lilac season in Michigan and then when I got home to Alaska it would be lilac season all over again because Alaska's summer was about a month delayed. Clearly, I could use that same theory for my peony business!!

When I was home this past summer my dad mentioned a family friend had considered going into the peony business. So perhaps I should have realized that my brilliant idea wasn't so unique/earth shattering. What I didn't realize, was that there was a whole association!!

So perhaps the peony thing won't work out, there will be too much of a glut on the market and I don't have a job lined up for the two years it would take to start the plants growing strong. But follow me down this path for a bit, the one where money is no object, and I actually don't kill every ivy plant that crosses my path (supposedly one of the easiest plants to grow).

I would buy this house: http://www.trulia.com/property/1074787248-20723-N-Glenn-Hwy-Palmer-AK-99645 it's reduced guys, it's like a siren song to the buyer in me! As an aside, if you went to look at the house, I hope you made it to the last few pictures of the 25 where there are gratuitous "cute moose" pictures (notice they didn't show you the bears or wolves or scary animals). It's half the price of the house I have my eye on here AND it has 13 acres of land, surely that would be plenty of land to grow peonies! The house is slightly over 2,000 square feet and has a large outbuilding so there's got to be a space for my boy to set up a dark room, not to mention to start thinking about making my compound for family/friends to visit.

We would be 20 minutes away from the fairgrounds and certainly live far more in the wild than I ever have. This means my boy could take all the nature pictures he could possibly want and once a year there would be a market practically in our back yard to sell them!

Maybe we could branch out, in the winter we could offer to cater holiday parties, or go to church bazaars and similar events with a cotton candy machine or kettle corn. In fact, the Alaska state fair has a LOT of nice booths, ice cream booths with fresh made waffle cones filled with barley caramel ice cream, genuine southern gumbo, and lots more yummy items, but I don't think they have deep fried cheese curds. We could TOTALLY fill that market. If that's too tough though, maybe we could just make deep fried oreos (such a simple treat).

I think we could totally make it work, and I also think, barring the fact that we have no money and I don't love winter, we'd be way happier than we are currently (and by we, clearly I mean me).

While searching for property in Palmer, I vaguely remembered a for sale sign I saw when we were up there this summer. Wolf Country USA is for sale for $950,000 I've always been a fan of crazy road side attractions. The problem is, I find wolves mildly intimidating and I'm not a great gold panner, so I am not sure that wolf country is the best fit. Perhaps if they had something in the way of pink flamingos. . .

EDIT: My boy heard about my plan and said he'd rather grow giant cabbage and start a sauerkraut canning company -- perhaps that's what we could do with the winter months? I mean he is from the land of pork and sauerkraut.

Instant Streaming

2009-12-29T16:21:00.000-08:00

So post three of stream of consciousness. . .

Little Couple is in Boston. Here are the things that are weird about this. 1. they're in the north end in the summer and it's not crowded to the brim with some festival. 2. they're in Mike's Pastries and they were not only not trampled to death, the camera crew had enough space to get shots of the glass cases filled with pastries. Also, not weird, but I thought I should mention I hate Union Oyster House (they went there too). I realize it's historical and that the founders of our country were patrons of the establishment, but I am convinced given the choices available now, they wouldn't be caught dead in the Union Oyster house (well actually, they aren't caught dead there and they actually are dead so I rest my case).

Speaking of the Faneuil Hall area, I went to Crate and Barrel today and that location is closing. It's been there for 30 years, it is the most convenient location in the world for me and has gotten a number of us in my office out of a lot of jams. I am sooo sad about this closing. The biggest shopper I know has left the country for two weeks and in her absence Crate and Barrel decides to close?!

And while we're on the topic of dishes and being abandoned, my boy is the one in our house that does our dishes. I hate doing dishes. There are a lot of reasons why I hate doing the dishes, but tonight as I was doing them, I was reminded of yet another reason. We have one of those handled sponges that is filled with soap. It's great except that the sponge doesn't stick very far out the front of the handle but it sticks out behind. Why would you design something like this? It means you cannot get the bottom part of narrow cups, vases etc clean. In looking for a picture to demonstrate the maddening design to you, I had to go through two pages before I could find one to show you what I was talking about. Apparently oxo's classic design (and pretty much any other one they've designed) does not have this issue, nor does libman to the same extent that ours does.

I have more randomness I could spurt (like a handled sponge), but I think this is probably good for tonight. Tomorrow will be my last night with ready access to Internet till Monday, so eat it up now!

Friendly Little Public Service Announcement

2009-12-28T16:16:00.001-08:00

So clearly the stream or consciousness writing hasn't affected my readership. I didn't get any comments but I also got no complaints. So here we go again.

Have you used up your FSA yet? You have three more days. I was planning on getting a tdap vaccination because I work with the homeless (who can be high risk for pertussis) and am around a few babies (though I've been so slow about it at least one of them has already sped well past the 12 month marker). Apparently whooping cough is deadly to babies, or at least that's what the scaremonger article I read said. The cdc just says:

Adults who expect to have close contact with an infant younger than 12 months of age should get a dose of Tdap. Waiting at least 2 years since the last dose of Td is suggested, but not required.

According to the CVS minute clinic website, that vaccine and a flu vaccine would have taken care of the rest of my FSA balance. Sadly, Mayor Menino (WHO I DID NOT VOTE FOR WHEN I HAD A CHANCE -- TWICE!!!) doesn't like minute clinics (okay fine, it's not just him, but since I currently don't like doctors, I like the above board we're just in it to make money minute clinic idea besides, there are two cvs stores really close to work, so convenient for a quick vaccine).

Anyway, that's a long boring post, to say, if you're like I am and didn't make it to the minute clinic, you can go to drugstore.com, where they have a lovely tab for fsa eligible items. I ate through my balance pretty quickly.

Speaking of eating, have you tried Turkey Hill's Chocolate Nutty Moose tracks?!

It's delicious, you should rush right out and by some -- and by you, I mean my boy specifically because even though it's only 55 degrees in our house and I am freezing, it's becoming a very real possibility I will consume all 12 servings before Thursday.

In other random announcements, did you know that there are pink tomatoes? I mean really, can't Susan G. Komen let just one opportunity to turn things pink go?!? Really it's Burpee, and as as far as I know they aren't donating money to Susan G. Komen, but maybe they should get on them!

Also, my boy is correct, apparently, when he says everything comes from Pennsylvania. Burpee seeds come from Fordhook farm located in Doylestown, PA (only an hour away from all of you in Philly). They appear to have "open days" in the summer and fall months where professional gardners give you lectures on gardening and you get to wander around a truly historic site (this is the birthplace of the big boy tomato, golden bantam corn and, most importantly, iceberg lettuce -- so named because of being shipped in crates of ice long distances. If you're interested in more about Burpee and the farm, you can read an article about how burpee seeds got sold off and then reunited with fordhook farm.

Oh, and to answer my question from the last post about best Christmas present this year, I think the beautiful candy apple red kitchen aid mixer I got pulled out ahead:

source

See how much more blogging you get when everyone I know has left the greater Boston area (and by greater Boston area I mean Roslindale and the South end).

PSSSSSSSST Guess What?! It's Been a Month!

2009-12-16T13:55:00.001-08:00

So time flies, that's it, time just flies. . . .

We've come to the end of watching The Waltons. Technically we haven't in the sense that in January all the reunion movies come out. But for now, we're aimlessly searching the television for other options. I pick The Golden Girls my boy picks Air Wolf and usually we compromise on an episode of History Detectives we've only watched once or twice before (especially now that TopChef and Monk are finished).

Way back when I started blogging, I thought I had so much to say. Turns out, that's not exactly true. I blogged quite some time ago about a friend who accidentally emailed me (it makes me wonder how many people get back in touch via the auto-fill feature on various email programs). At the time I struggled to come up with something new and flashy that was going on in my life. Oddly enough, my life has slowed down even more at this point, meaning I have even less to blog about -- for example if you referred back to that post, you'll notice that I had started a multi-vitamin, that lasted about a week (TWO YEARS AGO).

Anyway, since it's late and my boy is set on leaving the house at 5am (you know like three hours from now), I've decided to just free associate. . .

I almost titled this post, I got a ring!! Which is true, I did get a ring, but it wasn't an engagement ring, it's just a ring I had admired for awhile and had hinted very strongly (and by strongly I mean I sent a coupon code to my boy and a link) that I would like to see it under our imaginary tree. So yay! It's beautiful, don't believe me? Go, look for yourself.

I've gotten a lot of really lovely presents this Holiday season (I say holiday, because I opened some of them during Chanukah). For starters, I got apples to apples the Jewish edition. WHO KNEW?! Guess which was the first card I pulled, that's right, Sarah!! I also got a super cute stuffed saint (I plan on buying some for two other friends, but since they never read my blog, it's safe to share it here -- besides, the shop is on vacation so I can't even imbed a link). Also, in going to get you the link for the stuffed saint, I stumbled across this which is awfully cute as well!

My boy and I don't write Christmas cards (come on people, you saw how lame I was with thank you cards) but we've gotten a number of cards with pictures of friend's children and sweet or interesting notes updating us on all the goings on in our their lives (clearly I don't need to do that since I blog so regularly ;)). One note I received from my aunt this year made me laugh. She said she enjoyed my blog and that I wrote like I talk. I thought back on how many of my posts are about how annoyed and how depressed I am and I just felt sorry for all of you. Course those of you far away luck out, cause you can just skim or, you know, just skip.

So your turn now, what was the best gift you got for Chanukah (or Christmas if you're late reading the blog post)? And/or if you were going to write a Christmas letter what exciting, new, or notable thing would you include?

Thankful

2009-11-24T12:10:00.000-08:00

So this is the season where people who are ungrateful all year long decide to write down/think about what they're thankful for. I, however, am not feeling thankful this year. The thing is, I should be. There are lots of things I have to be thankful for, including the fact that my boy's family, much like my own, does not make you go around the table, putting you on the spot to say stupid heartwarming things about which you're thankful.

This week, even though I only have to make it through two work days, I am having a really rough time. Things are not going how I pictured it (and for those of you who know me well, know I don't like it when things aren't how I picture it).

Last night though, we were watching an episode of The Waltons and there was a scene that clearly didn't go how the director had pictured it. I am happy they left it as is though, cause I couldn't stop laughing last night and even though I am angry and bitter about some things today, I remembered this scene long enough to laugh once more today.

In the episode titled: The Outage The family is having dinner together and discussing racism and freedom and people's rights. They've just finished telling a story about Lena Horne who was entertaining troops at Fort Reilly, Kansas during World War II, when she saw German POWs seated in the front row and African American soldiers forced to sit behind them. They said she walked to the end of the row of POWs turned her back on them and sang to the black soldiers.

There's a pause after this dramatic story and then the kid playing John Curtis (who must be about two) pats his "grandfather" on the shoulder and pipes up"I got new pants." John (his grandfather) says "I see that. Who got you those, your mommy?" John Curtis replies "No, from Pat" (there's no pat on the show). John says "From Pat? Where does she live? On the next farm?" To which, a rather confused John Curtis says "Yeah." and John finishes with "Okay, Good." It was impressive. As one person said: "Ralph Waite was smart enough to cover it up since John Curtis was so excited that he got a new pants. The producer thought it was cute and they decided to leave it alone. Pat Norris was the costume designer for the Waltons"

I think it loses something in the translation here, but I couldn't stop laughing. It also helps that this total non-sequitur regarding pants reminds me of my favorite ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIq58H6CYQU "I invented pants."

So maybe I'm thankful that some people are so proud of the fact that we all put our pants on one leg at a time, whether we invented them or we got them from Pat. . .

UPDATE: I thought I had posted this ad before, and it turns out I did, here. Also, in the process of searching for where I posted it, I came across a New York Time's article I posted about Christmas sweaters. I know it's still a little early for some people to think about Christmas, but it's worth looking at if you're not intentionally avoiding Christmas.

Warning, a little depressing and graphic

2009-11-10T19:28:00.000-08:00

I loved Spoon River Anthology when I was in high school. A series of poems that are the epitaphs of various residents of Spoon River. Tonight, while skimming various blog posts I saw a link for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice which reminded me of that book.

On the site, they listed the offender information and last statement for the executed offenders since 1982:http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/executedoffenders.htm I am not posting this to further a discussion on whether capital punishment is right or wrong. Some of the crimes these people committed are horrific. But reading their last statement first and then their crime, somehow lends more sympathy for them. It may not be of interest to all of you (or any of you), but that's how I've spent my evening, solemnly reading last statements and then records of crimes.

Some of the crimes seem unbelievable, like a made for tv movie, one man had a 160 mile crime spree killing family members and random other people at one point kidnapping a family of five and forcing them to drive him across a border. Some of the crimes are so senseless, a person murdered in an armed robbery that only resulted in getting a six pack. So basically a life (two if you think of the death penalty as murder) all traded for a six pack of beer, there's no mention of whether the criminal actually consumed it or not. Some of the crimes are heartbreaking, one man attacking two people as they left church, stealing $40 from a woman who he then shot and attempted to cut her face with a carpet knife as she prayed to God to forgive her attacker.

I don't know how to explain this fascination I have for this site, the humanizing affect it has on otherwise faceless criminals, the empathetic urges it produces both for the criminal and for the families left in the wake of these crimes. . .

Haven't I seen you on tv?!

2009-11-03T11:14:00.000-08:00

So a month or so ago, possibly during the meltdown of Thursday Night Outreach as we know it, or maybe the week before or after, a guy said to me, "I feel like I've seen you on tv."

I said I had never been on tv, but that was flattering, then I proceeded to ask what show. I mean I have been mistaken for Mayim Bialik before, so maybe he was thinking of Blossom? Or Perhaps he thought I could be on a news program? A cooking show?

Nope, he didn't think any of those were it. He said, "Maybe America's funniest Home Videos? Or, Candid Camera?" Great. That's just the persona I want. The kind of person who looks like she gets hit in the crotch or was a bride who slipped and fell on her ass. I said "nope, sorry. . ."

Then I remembered back to my first week here at my job in Boston. There was one incident that had me completely convinced I was on candid camera. So much so that I seriously did look around for the camera.

I was assigned a copying task that involved programming the copier to sort and staple a publication that was well over 50 pages long. Because it was such a large document the document feeder could only take half of the pages at a time. I started the project and went to work on something else. When I came back to the copier what I saw was horrifying*. There were just reams of paper shooting out, falling in huge swathes to the floor. The glow of the light from the copier only made the continued stream of falling pages seem even worse.

After looking around to see if anyone had noticed (or if there were any cameras), I stopped the machine and gathered all the pages together. Clutching them to myself. I ducked into one of the stacks (more difficult than you might think since we have compact shelving). I assessed the damage and realized that part of the problem was that the copier hadn't sorted the pages so they were all being dumped one on top of each other on the top tray. In a panicked moment of stupidity, I began sorting all the pages myself. putting them in different piles to try and collate together. It took me longer than it should have to realize that with the thousands of pages I had in front of me, it would be impossible to sort all the pages back in my little compact shelving alcove without someone (in my office of three employees) realizing something was amiss.

One of the hardest things I've had to do (and yes, probably this is where you really see how blessed I am) was to walk to the front of my office with my arms full of papers and confess to thoroughly messing up the small task I'd been given. My boss was very gracious and, despite my offers to pay for the three reams of paper I'd thoroughly destroyed, she suggested I just try again and forget about the first try.

Eight years later and I'm still here, but boy was I glad when that first week was over!

*I swear there was a movie in the 80s that featured a copier shooting paper out in a similar manner and at this point I was going to link to the youtube featuring it, sadly, I can't find a video of the scene (I think it was 9 to 5 in the xerox room)

You Don't Want to be in Love. You Want to be in Love in a Movie

2009-10-30T18:05:00.000-07:00

Sleepless in Seattle is on right now, and I sort of watch it with a contented sigh. Even though most of the movie is spent talking about how you shouldn't believe in romantic comedies, the moral is deep down they really do come true. I was thinking about romantic comedies earlier today when someone mentioned they were going to watch The Proposal. I haven't seen it and don't know much about it, my romantic comedy watching has been severely curbed since I started dating my boy.

Tonight my boy and I ate dinner in my bed while watching an episode of The Waltons (Sadly not a terribly uncommon Friday night occurrence). After dinner, I looked over and he was sitting up with his hands folded across his stomach and I looked down at myself and realized I was in the same position. I said, "look at us, such a hot young couple." He said "yeah, fat and watching tv, that's us."

Sigh, I know life isn't like the movies, but sometimes, just sometimes I wish it were. I mean yeah, there are usually really huge problems like you end up finding out you have your new love's dead wife's heart but there's a lot of laughter and the ending is always happy, it's always right, everything always works out. . . .

If you can't tell, my melancholy returned this afternoon. There was no real pre-cursor, no instigator. I'm just sort of mopey again and everything that goes wrong seems like a bigger deal. . .
I'm watching Monk now, he's my style, OCD and sort of depressed :). In the meantime, I'll think back on two Thursdays ago when, after working late, I came home to a note from my boy : "There is a pizza & a surprise in the fridge, I love you [your boy]" The surprise was some cake which in my stressed out crazy work week I'd wanted for a number of days. I almost cried, it was the sweetest gesture I could imagine at the time. Maybe I do have the makings of a romantic comedy after all.

HI LTOP or Highs and Lows

2009-10-17T17:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday there were a lot of highs and lows.

High: we cooked at the soup kitchen this weekend and it went off without a hitch and for the first time since we've moved the kitchen to a new location there wasn't a low point where the tunnel had closed in and I was so miserable I ended up yelling (not just snapping mind you, actually yelling) at my boy. We also had a good amount of very responsive help.

Low: there was a fair amount of food leftover and we didn't realize until 3/4 through that the rubber mats weren't down so we had sore feet the rest of the day.

High: My boy and I got to spend the entire day together at our leisure with no schedule.

Low: we ran out of errands at about 3pm and we were waiting till dark to shoot some pictures.

High: We went to the Christmas Tree shops because we happened to be near there and found a lamp shade for the hideous chandelier that's been in our apartment since we moved in. Plus, we found perfectly respectable hardwood frames for under $10 for a wall montage we want to do in what I like to refer to as our kitsch-en.

Low: When we got home we realized the shade was about two inches too narrow.

High: my boy rigged it with some wire so that the tips of the chandelier which held ugly glass plates before just sort of stick out the top. I found some faux chandelier crystals in a drawer and we've got a slightly strange looking but far more appealing looking chandelier.

Low: Turns out somewhere along the line the shade got mildly bend so there's a little crease around the bottom on one side, it looks fine from the outside but drives me nuts when I look up at it from where I usually sit on the couch when I see the white creased inside the shade.

High: we managed to find enough things to keep us busy that we were ready to shoot pictures on route one aka the Massachusetts's equivalent to the strip.

Low: the shot we wanted most of Hilltop Steak House wasn't possible since part of the cactus was out and the sign actually read HI LTOP SILAK House due to various lights being burned out there. Also, we were hoping to take a picture of the leaning tower of pizza at prince pizzeria but it wasn't lit very well so we weren't sure how well it would turn out and we were a little too discouraged to try.

In the end though, it was a good day, and even though it's currently snowing out and the heater in my car has chosen this weekend to stop working, today is a pretty good day too!

It Only Takes a Spark to Get a Fire Going

2009-10-10T06:51:00.000-07:00

I share a lot of my disappointments so I thought I would share a minor triumph today. When we got home last night our road was completely torn up and the water was out. By the time we went to bed, the water was back and the gas was out (not to mention loudly being worked on). They were still working on it this morning. They rang the bell at 8:30 for access to our basement (It's the first day I've been able to sleep in for weeks I was soooo sad. My boy directed them to the landlords and about an hour later our doorbell rang again. They came in to check our gas in our apartment, Our stove hasn't worked properly since we moved in. The two burners on the left don't have a pilot light that stays lit so I can never use them without my boy at home because matches get too close to the flame for me to be comfortable and my boy thinks buying fireplace matches is ridiculous (oh, and I am lazy). Today though, national grid totally cleaned the area where the gas comes in so now, our stove works perfectly. Sounds like I should make some soup and pay the national grid bill today :).

Tomorrow Never Dies

2009-10-06T17:21:00.000-07:00

So clearly I didn't post pictures yesterday, but since I've started this post with a James Bond movie title, it's only appropriate that I start off this post with the few (not great) pictures I got of a famous car stunt from one of the movies. Apparently this car was the first to do a 360 turn and survive (or at least have a driver that survived). They did the stunt originally in the white car (hence the upside down printing) and then the red car was used for the movie.

Also, in addition to consuming five orders of deep fried cheese curds over the course of the day (every order was shared and I am still thinking of them), between the seven of us we ate: cheese fries, kettle corn, cotton candy (both pink and blue and maple), fried dough bites (not funnel cake even though I like that more and am posting a picture of the description for those unclear on differences), pork chop sandwich (voted best sandwich at the fair for a number of years), the Craz-E burger (pictured below which was not as balanced as the link would lead you to believe, I could only taste burger), a beef gyro, corn on the cob, quahog chili, peanut butter bacon pizza (there was something off in the balance there too, too much pb to bacon and the cheese was too oily and added no flavor, I think a smoked cheese might have worked better), maple milk, corn dogs, apple crisp, blueberry pie, baked potatoes with all the fixins, and lobster rolls. Whew, so we definitely got our cheese curds and other fair food taken care of.

We also got to see lots of animals and exhibits, including the peking acrobats, circus, sea lions the butter sculpture. We visited every state house and took a brief stop through storrow town village where there was a root beer cart. The weather, and/or our timing was perfect, though it rained a good portion of the day, we managed to be inside when the worst hit. It was a great day!

How about a cloud for your silver lining?

2009-10-03T18:25:00.000-07:00

Sounds like a bad post doesn't it? I like to keep you on your toes. We had gray and rainy weather all day today, but even that couldn't dampen our spirits.

I promise a post with some pictures tomorrow (not many, did I mention the rain).

I've Nicknamed Tuesday "Only"

2009-09-30T12:54:00.000-07:00

My dad and I were talking last night and he mentioned that there are peaks and valleys in life and I said yeah, tell me about it. I got through telling him a roller coaster story about how my Monday and Tuesday had gone and I was saying I can't believe it's ONLY Tuesday, if the rest of the week is like this I'm not going to make it.

We continued talking and I discussed how lately my peaks and valleys have pretty much just been a series of valleys similar to the long downward plunge of a roller coaster, but broken up with some bumps (go with me here on this metaphor, the bumps being the bright spots stopping me from just plunging straight down -- can you tell I don't' ride roller coasters?!).

My dad mentioned some craziness going on at work and then he said wait, today is Tuesday! It's only Tuesday. . . (yes, we're that dim of a family we had already talked about it and had forgotten). He said, that's it, I'm nicknaming Tuesday "Only."

I've been trying to end my blog posts with silver linings, you know, so only my boy and my co-worker suffers along with me in my extreme mopiness (oh, right and all of you I im. . . and my dad. . .um, right, who am I fooling?!). But I wanted you to know, this isn't just some silver lining I've pasted on to the end of this blog post. While I will miss a number of people this Saturday who were invited but cannot make it, we're going to the Big E. It's gonna be good people. If deep fried cheese curds can't get me out of my funk for a least a day, nothing can. I have eaten vegetable soup all week in preparation for the deep fried goodness that awaits us on Saturday. There will be deep fried cheese curds, lobster rolls from the Maine state house, deep fried cheese curds, kettle corn, deep fried cheese curds, corn dogs, and cotton candy, with a cheese curd chaser. Life is good (at least life with a side of deep fried cheese curds).

Yesterday was Plain Awful/But that's/ Not Now/That's Then

2009-09-27T12:31:00.000-07:00

To continue my Annie theme songs, yesterday was kind of rotten. Perhaps that's why today seems soo lovely. My boy didn't wake me up for church and we can't take the walk in the arb that we'd planned since it's raining, but it's been a quiet pleasant kind of day.

I woke up at nine, we went to pick up our csa, which was kale free (they ran out before we got there and gave us extra pears to make up for it -- talk about serendipitous), we stopped by Allendale farms and picked up some fun veggies to supplement this week's haul and then we came home where I started a veggie soup from the numerous vegetables we had left over from last week. We're settled in now watching the National Parks documentary. It's really great so far, though I read a sort of mixed review.

The smell of the soup is filling the house and it's a sleepy comfortable day with the promise of hunks of walnut wheat bread dipped in a warm broth as a final treat.

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

2009-09-25T12:26:00.000-07:00

If you've read this blog at all lately, you know I am currently, mopey, homesick, feeling pulled somewhere I cannot determine.

I was really excited about that house from my last post. Really excited. I was energized and felt like I had a purpose again. Save, save, save like there was no tomorrow. I would not spend money on anything that wasn't utterly necessary. It inspired me to actually consider using the two rolls of scotts toliet paper we have (they are left over from a costco size package that I refused to use the rest of and made my boy take down to Pennsylvania so we could give it away because I couldn't even have such foul toliet paper in my house let alone use it -- yes, this toliet paper is that bad that it inspires a paragraph long paranthetical statement, try it yourself, you'll see). Anyway, if you notice, all that is in past tense. I was really excited about that house etc. I mean yeah, it's still a great house and yeah, if someone gave it to me, or if by some fluke we could afford it, I think I would be happy there (or, you know, as happy as I ever am).

This past weekend was spent with my boy's family. We went up to the White Mountains and did tons of really fun things (and there's soo much more we left unexplored, who knew the White Mountains held such treasures!). We stopped at fun spot (famous from The King of Kong) on the way up, went on the Cog Railroad, saw the bears at Clark's Trading Post and rode the rails multiple times on Sunday (the boys even got to try out a hand car even though they each had a broken arm, I mean it is called a hand car I suppose, not a hands car). When it came time for us to part ways, and for my boy and I to go down the Mass Pike while they continued the long trek home to Pennsylvania, I got teary eyed and said "I miss them already." To which my boy responded with much disdain/disbelief "Are you kidding me?!"

I'm not a big crier and it wasn't my family we were leaving. . . So now I am homesick not only for my family, but for my boy's family as well. Great. If I didn't know where I was being pulled before. I certainly don't know. Perhaps picking someplace random to move like Weekawken, NJ wouldn't be a terrible first step. It would be that much closer to both our families and a move would certainly keep us too busy to notice a feeling of being adrift and purposeless.

I started this post on Wednesday, and by the time I got home and started a couple of loads of laundry and a pulled pork pizza (with caramelized onions, yum!!), I was feeling contented and purposeful again. Unfortunately, the bbq sauce I put on was slightly runny and the sharp cheese I had chosen was apparently a little too greasy and while the apartment filled with smoke I fell right back into my negative nelly thinking. It did remind me of this part of It's the Hard Knock Life "Don't it seem like there's never any light!/Once a day, don't you wanna throw the towel in?/It's easier than puttin' up a fight."

Today is a new day though, and the sun is shining (no, it literally is, this isn't me giving up on bitterness) and so there's hope that tonight at least I won't end the night sulking. Seriously, who am I kidding?

In My Father's House there are Many Rooms

2009-09-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

So when I was planning to move to Boston, my future (now former) roommate and I set aside one week to look for an apartment. We made an offer on one apartment and it was taken right out from under us. Then, the last day we'd allotted for the search, we found it. Yeah, in retrospect, it was a little slummy, but there was off street parking and it was a somewhat open floor plan and near some nightlife (though the closest we got to night life was coming home late from class and studying). We had a slum lord, but in the grand scheme of things not even a really slummy slum lord and the police officer living next door was really very kind and would fix major problems.

My roommate moved on to bigger and better things (she now gets to put dr. in front of her name) and I needed a new place to stay. I had just joined a small group and a woman in the group had a friend who was looking for a roommate. This place was even better than my first place, I had my own room this time, there was still a good flow for socializing and my roommate and I, while not terribly close, got along quite well.

That roommate too decided to move on to bigger and better things and two other really fun women were looking for someplace to call home. We searched high and low and found nothing that was a good fit. There were lots and lots of slums far out of our price range and one "compromise" apartment that would mean street parking for two cars and as far as we could tell, no front porch ever! Then, the clouds opened and it was as if a dove flew down and said "This is my apartment in which I am well pleased!" In desperation one of the women posted what we were looking for and in what price range. Randomly, the person who was to become our landlord for the next 2 + years saw that posting. Even now, thinking back on that apartment I almost cry tears of joy.

It was like God had crafted that place exactly for the three of us. There was central air conditioning for the Alaskan in me, two parking spots for our precisely two cars, three rooms, one perfect for each of us, and every little detail, down to bike hooks in the basement demonstrated that this place was ours. It was meant to be. There was no other explanation as far as I could tell. It swooped in right when we needed it and answered every singly petty prayer we had about a place to live. When we finished looking at it the first time we went back to my friend's apartment baked brownies and rushed back to ask when/where do we sign?! I had decided to live in this apartment until I got married -- and even after if I could convince the landlord to sell the place to me!

It didn't exactly follow through on that plan (much to my regret, still to this day). I did manage to outlast my two other roommates. And I still dearly love the place, but last June I moved out. I moved into another place that I really felt had been perfectly created for this part of my life. A cheap place with lots of space (another serendipitous find by the friend who found my last apartment) near friends so my boy and I had a community. A good apartment to help us save money and pay off debt. Last week, we moved my friend out of the apartment I loved so dearly and it felt like a loss again.

Then, randomly searching trulia last Friday, I found something that replaced that apartment in my heart. I found a house that I couldn't find a flaw big enough for it to stop nagging at me, calling to me, whispering sweet nothings at all hours (sure you might call it a stalker, I call it mine). It had everything I could dream of in a house, it had space for a garage and to build an in-law apartment (if and when we ever have money), it had a real yard, big enough for tons of tomato plants (and a grape arbor lush with grapes, my boy loves wild grapes), it had three large bedrooms, and a basement where we could store stuff (instead of behind a curtain in our living room). It's still in our area, but in a slightly less fancy section, in a section that is close to a community center and should be slightly cheaper to buy in. Except. . . . This place is not. It's not cheap at all. In fact it's at least $50,000 overpriced. I was trying to figure out a way we could afford the place. I figured, if we offered them $50,000 less than what they wanted and we could come up with a 10% down payment we could totally afford the mortgage, taxes and insurance. The problem (you're thinking _the_ problem as in ONE? and I am ignoring you) is we don't really have any savings. We've worked on paying off debt, not on saving (don't lecture, I know it's stupid). I tried to figure out how we could swing it. I told my boy, well, I have $5,000 saved and we could use the $8,000 incentive as part of the down payment if we can convince someone to give us a loan and the people to drop their price tons all before November 30th, and we can save my paycheck for the next two plus months and then you can borrow the rest from your 401(k). And if you didn't think I'd lost my boy before then (well you'd be wrong) I certainly did at that point. He put his foot down. He pointed out our credit card debt. He mentioned the fact that we should be focused on other things, not houses.

He is sure that if this house sells (he may have said when. . .I am ignoring that), there will be plenty of other, different houses that will also be a perfect fit for us. I am not convinced. Did I mention this house has central air conditioning?! No houses in Boston come equipped with central air. Anyway, I am praying that they are in slight denial about the market and how much their house is worth. I am also praying that they don't decide to really sell this house till the spring. I am praying that one of those stupid people who always buys during the 20% off part of the going out of business sale (SO DUMB) doesn't swoop in and buy at the far too high price. I am praying that all of this works out so that in the spring I can be living in what I consider to be MY house. The house, that like my last apartment, was fearfully and wonderfully made just for ME.

Oh, and why didn't I post a link or a picture? Cause even though I am trying to put it in God's hands, I am still superstitious and don't want to call extra attention to the place. Email me if you're interested (and didn't already see my google talk status on Friday :)). Also, don't think this is just a completely selfish desire (maybe mostly selfish, but not completely) the in-law apartment desire is so that all of you lovely people spread hither and yon can come stay with us for extended periods! It's almost the compound I've been yearning for, almost.

Egg(plant) on My Face

2009-09-15T08:26:00.000-07:00

So I hesitate to post this knowing that the most comments I ever got on this blog was for a throw away post on kale -- I never knew how controversial vegetables were :). But I LOVE eggplant. LOVE it. But only when other people make it for me. I like it when I order it in restaurants, in eggplant parm, in my very favorite dim sum dish which I can only see described as eggplant and shrimp, I love random eggplant dips, and miso dipped eggplant that's grilled. I really do love eggplant.

I have had terrible luck cooking eggplant though, and I don't want tons of tips, I've read the tips, I've watched the alton brown episode. I am just no good at eggplant. I didn't grow up with it, I don't exactly know the ins and outs of eggplant even though I've read and watched shows on them and I just don't think I care enough, I prefer buying my eggplant already prepared.

At least, I was no good. I tried this recipe last night and though it could use some tweaking (on my end, not necessarily theirs -- for one thing I had no scallions in my fridge), I think it came out lovely. My boy, who is not an eggplant fan, said that "if it was too much trouble, you don't have to make it again." Code for, I don't really like it.

But it was not too much trouble at all. We get two eggplants in our csa every week. While making this recipe is slightly more intensive than just throwing out the eggplants, it's not that much more intensive, and takes way less time (in the sense that we cannot bear to throw out perfectly good veggies, so those eggplants have to rot in the fridge before we can just toss them-- I realize it's not hands on time). This meal was thrown together in less than 30 min and was a great main course for me and a nice side for my boy. So one eggplant recipe down, millions more to go!

As for our other continuing problem, to update you on the status of our house, we have three and a half rooms cleaned and two and a half to go (I am counting the pantry as a half room).

Also, there is absolutely no sign of the rat, we've moved every single piece of furniture in every room and swept behind and under them (even the two and a half rooms not counted as thoroughly cleaned). This has confirmed to my boy that one of his two theories is correct. Either our rat was someones pet who came to visit and then left (explaining how it was able to resist the uber tempting Reese's peanut butter cups on the traps) or, the rat was a ghost rat. Yes, I realize the latter theory is ridiculous. I tried to convince him that he was wrong based on the fact that the rat ate our Easter candy. My boy pointed out that Casper and Slimer both ate food. So now our rat has been classified as a Casper/Slimer type ghost. I am so glad that got cleared up. It will be much easier to catch him now! Where's Egon when you need him?

The end of an era

2009-09-13T18:57:00.000-07:00

So David Sedaris talks about how when his cat died it felt like the end of an era, "The cat's death struck me as the end of an era. It was, of course, the end of her era, but with the death of a pet there's always that urge to string black crepe over an entire ten- or twenty-year period. The end of my safe college life, the last of my thirty-inch waist, my faltering relationship with my first real boyfriend: I cried for it all and wondered why so few songs were written about cats."

When "The last MASH unit worldwide was deactivated in 2006 in a nod to the increased capabilities of combat support hospitals." it felt mildly like the end of an era. But then I wasn't actually in the Korean war I had just watched Mash repeatedly.

I just found out today though (that's right people, the one who won MASH trivia --uh, right at her birthday party, but still I think it was fair and square-- didn't find out until TWO DAYS LATER), that Larry Gelbart died on the 11th. And so, while he was 81 and only worked on the show the first four years, I still feel like it's the end of the era. God help me when Alan Alda dies (I just double checked to make sure he was still alive since clearly I can't count on any of you to tell me things like this).

I remember my mom crying when Lucille Ball died (or maybe it was when Desi Arnaz died? but that seems so unlikely). Anyway, my dad pointed out that it wasn't like they were going to make any more episodes of "I Love Lucy" and I did think it was odd that she was crying over some celebrity we didn't even know. Now I think, perhaps, she was just crying for the end of that era. Whatever that era encapsulated for her.

P.S. In reference to my post earlier, it would be lovely to just shove our crap in one room and close the door, but there will be 9 people sleeping in our 2-3 bedroom apartment. We don't have a room in the house that will be hidden -- we don't even really have much in the way of closet space to hide stuff.

7 Years Bad Luck

2009-09-13T08:24:00.000-07:00

If you couldn't tell by my title, my plan didn't work. We have spent the weekend cleaning for my boy's family's visit. Mostly this has consisted of shredding and throwing out massive amounts of paper, doing copious amounts of laundry and using the broom far more than any witch could imagine. Our house is currently still a disaster area.

My boy just came in saw that I was on the computer and mentioned that I would need to clean my room. Um, thanks, I didn't think we were going to draw a map so our guests would know how to avoid the piles. . .

In the process of moving the coffee table so we could sweep under the couch, we managed to break a mirror and when we reached for it, we knocked over a bottle of water. That's basically an accurate snapshot of how this weekend is going. I am considering going back to bed. That will entail shoving over the three loads of laundry on the bed, but I am willing to make that sacrifice. Think my boy will accept that?

200th Post

2009-09-11T07:28:00.000-07:00

This is my 200th post (were you hoping for something more monumental? Perhaps you're reading the wrong blog. . .). I am reading a book about a guy who read the entire Encyclopaedia Brittanica I was going to avoid talking about it since I planned on giving it to my dad for Christmas. Last night though, in the emotion section, I came across an entry that may help my mopiness. It's called facial feedback hypothesis. Basically if I smile like a goon, I should start to feel better. I like how A. J. Jacobs put it though: "This is when your brain senses that your facial muscles are in a happy position, so the brain figures, Hey, I must be happy. (The brain can be remarkably stupid sometimes.)" Anyway, that's my plan for this weekend. That, and actually cleaning -- my boy's family comes in six days!!!

Sprialing out of Control

2009-09-10T07:30:00.000-07:00

I was looking back at some of my posts from when I started this blog in 2006. I remembered starting it because, among other things, I was upset about a particular person who had stolen money from me in my own home and had threatened my roommate at the time that she'd commit suicide, insinuating that it would be my roommate's fault, because my roommate had asked one of our pastors how to deal with the fact that the woman had also blatantly stolen money off of a table when we'd been out with a large group of friends.

It's been awhile at this point and I can actually laugh at the picture of this woman stealing cash from my purse while my roommate and I were "shopping" in our pantry for choice foods we could send her home with. We filled two large whole foods bags with food, picking out our favorite rice dishes and canned goods, leaving behind things like canned peas (don't even ask me how canned peas got in our house, I am vehemently opposed). Anyway, I think that's funny now.

At the time though, I was very angry. So looking back at my recent posts, I was wondering how I balanced the angst with still being interesting and keeping a sense of humor. It turns out, that more strange things happened around me at the time (or at least I noticed strange things more).

So I haven't posted particularly recently because I am still fairly mopey and restless; feeling pulled somewhere else, but also not knowing what or where that "somewhere else" is. I also don't know where the funny went. . .

I think, however, the 2006 me would have rushed to tell you all about what happened two weeks ago when we were out on the common. 2009 me is just tired and no longer finds these stories as fresh and charming when they happen (it takes two weeks for her to recover her sense of humor about it -- what can I say, grey hairs, and no sense of humor curmudgeon-dom is just around the corner). Also, as a warning, when I typed this up, it lost some of the funny and gained some serious length, so you might want to skim :).

Two Thursday nights ago my boy and I returned from a two week absence (you know, we'd been to the wild animal park in PA, we'd been to NY the next week etc) and you would have thought we were complete newbies the way the coffee cart we have manned for the last three years was stormed. It was like everything we'd ever taught the people about orderly lines etc. had gone out the window. People were five or six across and they were shoving and pushing (just to clarify, we don't give out free crack, diamonds, or liquor, we've got coffee, hot tea, iced tea, hot chocolate and bottled water). They wanted the bottles of water. They always do. Let's review, they're bottles of water, not vodka, they're worth 12.4 cents (and yes, that's an expensive item for our cart, but still, in the grand scheme of things, really?!). We told them ONE LINE holding one finger up and then putting our hands together to show they needed to move in, that we weren't serving more than single file. They pushed forward still six people across. we pushed our cart back, my boy stood in front making the universal pushing back motion to show them they needed to step back. They ignored him. I said everyone needs to take THREE steps backward. I took a large step held up one finger and said one loudly, took another large step held up two fingers and said two loudly, took a third large step and said three loudly while holding up three fingers. They laughed at me. I closed the cart.

I threw a blanket over the top told my boy to get out from in front of the cart where they had closed in on him even farther. There was no point in someone being crushed over 12 cent water. We stood like that for awhile at an impasse. They still didn't form a single line and they didn't step back. The people in the back of the line though, had no control over the people in the front. We are a religious group. I thought back on "Many who are last will be first and the first will be last." (at the time I didn't remember it was from Matthew 19:30 or the context, just the verse). So that's what we did, as the people in the front of the line crowded and continued to push, we worked our way from the back of the line forward. At one point an unsuspecting group member was pouring some iced tea and one of the women at the front of the line tried to convince him to just give her a bottle of water. As he was reaching for the water, I stopped him -- they will seriously take advantage of any possible way to get what they want and then more than what they know they're entitled to.

Anyway, after all this madness, we worked our way through the line and served everyone (the people in the front finally caught on and started squishing into one line slightly farther back). At this point the line for food had also dissipated, though apparently because we'd run out. It seemed like the night might be calming down. A man came up looking for some food, when he was told we didn't have any he started shouting about how he could break jaws and not to treat him like this because he wouldn't stand for it (mind you, we had no food, it wasn't discrimination, there was just nothing left). He veered around and continued to threaten to break jaws until he'd had enough and left still ranting, a dog barking after him a final good riddance.

The man with the dog (who had barked away the jaw breaker) approached my cart, clearly drunk, but in a cheerful mood. We chatted he got his drink and sat off to the side. When he was ready for a second drink he brought a hibiscus from one of the flower beds. I said it was sweet, but he really shouldn't pick the flowers. He took his drink and we chatted some more. He drifted away and then came back with another flower. If I hadn't realized he was drunk before, I surely would have at this point. The beer goggles were clearly in place.

It was time for our praise and worship circle and sermonette. We sang and the woman designated to speak that night began. She spoke on Ephesians and the double edged sword where we're damned to death and how God cannot associate with us because of our sinfulness and the beauty of what Christ did and what an incredible relationship that opens up for us. Or at least I think that's what she spoke about, I can't be sure.

You see, my flower wielding drunk friend by this point had pulled out some sticks and started juggling. Then, to up the ante, he turned them on. That's right he was juggling fire, behind the woman giving the sermonette. Juggling is putting it kindly, and slightly less menacingly. Really, he was throwing sticks with flames on the end up into the air and missing the catch then dipping down to pick one up while the other was thrown up in the air which he'd invariably miss.

I guess I could have skipped the build up to this point, since the fire "juggling" was really the crescendo, the truly unbelievable part of the evening, but I thought you might be interested in the build up as well.

God -- or perhaps just the NY Times is taunting me

2009-08-26T08:02:00.000-07:00

Shockingly I didn't win the lottery last night (not even the $2 minimum prize), but no one won the jackpot at all, so now it's up to 325 million.

Today, the New York Times ran this article I mean really, clearly, I am already having a hard time coming to terms with giving up my mill, now they're just rubbing my nose in it!!

Grinding to a Halt

2009-08-24T07:32:00.000-07:00

So my friend called and asked how much the minimum bid would be for my mill. The auctioneer said "well what do you think it will go for?" And she said "A substantial amount, I am sure." At which point he became defensive and said he expected the opening bid to be $500,000 and for it to go for $1.2million at least. So that pretty much stomped my dream to death.

I really, really would like to buy the place and preserve it. I would like to run it as a b&b/tiny dairy farm and rent out the wheat/milling part. I even bought a lottery ticket tonight (yes, I know that I would be better off saving the dollar and letting all those dollars add up and then buying my mill 9,000 years from now). I don't even want to hear what my friend Robert, who has figured out at what salary it is no longer a cost effective use of time to pick up a quarter, to hear I bought a lottery ticket, but there it is out there for the whole world to know.

Since buying my mill is as unlikely to happen as my winning the lottery tonight, and, since I haven't lost my entire readership already despite a long hiatus and inane posts, lets think about what I would spend my $252,000,000 on.

First, I would pay off both my, and my boy's bicentennial fund pledges to the church (yes, we've gotten a little behind on that), then I would pay off any remaining credit card debt we had, I would buy my mill and my sister this house: http://www.trulia.com/property/1068642092-1504-Airport-Heights-Dr-Anchorage-AK-99508 Then I would build my boy's parents a dining room and work shop and pay to move my stuff out of my parents house (so my mother will have space for even more furniture :)), We'd send my parents on a cruise to Australia and my boy and I would plan the most amazing circus themed wedding any of our closest 400 friends have ever attended! I could go on, but It's dinner time.

What would you do with the $252 mil if you won?

There's One Really. . .

2009-08-21T13:24:00.000-07:00

So I know a long time ago I wrote on this blog about a loft I wanted my boy to buy, and then I wrote later on about a house I wanted to pay to move, I just didn't have any vacant land, well this time I am even more serious than those other times and my boy (and everyone else thinks I am even more ridiculous). Last weekend while we were waiting for the two hours in the mechanic's shop in the 90 degree weather (subtly different than the two hours we'd spent prior to that waiting for the car to be finished while at the wildlife park), I saw an ad and I fell in love again. Here's the link, you can go look at it: http://www.auctionzip.com/Listings/683520.html I'll wait.

Ever since we went to the White Mountains this summer, I've been longing for a compound for family and friends to come visit. Like a bed and breakfast only more laid back. I really, really want it and I think that we'd be good hosts for something like that, we're very hospitable, we like cooking, my boy likes building crap and growing veggies.

This place fulfills both that longing and the one I've had lately to be closer to family (ok, so it's much closer to my boy's family and probably not significantly closer to my family, but driving wise it is, we're 7 hours closer to Alaska -- maybe).

Also, this farm has been in the same family since the 1700. I think that's amazing, the road this mill is on? It was named after the mill. I want to be a part of the history of this mill. I want to preserve it. I want to make sure that it is kept as one piece, not parceled off for other commercial ventures.

See, don't you want to help the cause too? Don't you want to have a place to get away from the hustle and bustle of life? That's this place. Let's get it!! Need more reasons? Let me know, I can do a follow up post, I just wanted to get this out in the 15 min I had between our exciting NJ/NY weekend adventure :).

The best laid plans of mice and men

2009-08-18T17:52:00.000-07:00

We were gone all weekend, still no signs of the mouse, no droppings and no food ripped open. I was starting to think that perhaps he had moved out. then out of the corner of my eye, tonight, I saw a little blur running down the hall. It was on the way into my boy's room. My boy rushed over to try and catch it, but he was too late, he saw the mouse disappear under his dresser. So now we've moved traps to be strategically placed under the dresser and in the hall and we hope that that does something. I'm not too sorry to be gone again this weekend!

. . . How Laid Back Is He?

2009-08-17T13:37:00.000-07:00

This weekend we visited my boy's family in rural PA. Among other things, we took our car in to have the water pump replaced (there's a whole story about what a waste that was, or if you're not a pessimist, on what good preventative care we took of our car -- again, that's if you're not a pessimist who was stuck in a car with no ac for 7+ hours in 94 degree weather because you'd already wasted the short overlap of time you and the mechanic had in the same place having the waterpump fixed instead of the ac).

Anyway, while we were waiting for the car to be fixed, also in 90 degree weather, we were stuck in rural Pennsylvania with nothing to do. We walked around the block about three times stopping and looking at a grave yard, twice before we wandered down another road and into a wild animal park. That's right, 15 minutes from where my boy's family lives are lions, and tigers and bears (for real, I'm not just chanting like Dorothy), not to mention alligators, zebras, giant koi, capabara's and many more random, very wild animals.

When I say "not to mention," in the sentence previous, I am serious. I have visited my boy's family numerous times in the two and a half plus years we've been dating and NO ONE. Not one single person (he has a big family), thought to mention that they had a wild animal park a mere 15 minute drive away. I swear to you there have been conversations that have started with me saying "so, what is there to do around here?" with no real response. [edit, my boy claims he's told me numerous times about the wildlife park. . .]

People have always said that my boy is laid back, and I found most of his family to be just as chill (all very good considering I'm kinda high strung), but I am starting to think it's not really a family trait so much as an environmental thing. If you look at the Lake Tobias Wildlife Park website, you will see this: "Any food you bring to feed the animals must be approved by Park Management before you feed it to our animals." Notice that they don't say no outside food is allowed. Nope, they just assume you'll be dragging your ratty (or perhaps zebra-y) food in with you and they're okay with that. Whatever you want. Also, the alligators are allowed to come right up to the fence. I have never been closer to an alligator in my life. My boy pointed out that there was a double fence. I would like the point out that the "double fence" wasn't more than a fingers width apart. I swear if you really wanted to you could get your fingers chewed off. I think the mentality is meh, if that's what you want, that's what you want. Seriously, the most laid back wildlife park I have ever been to.

Final review, well worth the $4.00 to get in, probably worth the $5.00 for the safari ride, but we didn't go on it and we still enjoyed ourselves. If you find yourself stuck in rural PA, with random food just itching to give it to a wild beast now you know , the secret's out!

I Have a HORRIBLE Confession to Make (and many of you already know)

2009-08-13T12:20:00.001-07:00

I am a horrible, horrible thank you note writer. I love getting thank you notes from other people. I know that it's proper etiquette, and I usually have good intentions.

Case in point, I planned on having beautiful thank you notes made for all of your incredibly generous support for my participation in The Walk for Hunger. Due to all of you I raised over $1500 for the walk for hunger. I contacted a friend of mine and we had a plan worked out. Then I found cute polka dot cards with my initial on them, so I decided to go with those. I wrote a number of the Thank you cards and they were sealed and ready to be sent out. This was about two months ago. People, I can't find them.

Even worse? I found a thank you card for a birthday present under the couch when I was in the process of writing my thank you cards for The Walk for Hunger. It had been stepped on and shoved under the couch and so I thought it better at that point (you know three months after my birthday but still reasonably close to the walk) to include a belated thank you and explanation in my thank you card to R&C for their support and their lovely gift of red buckets. Sigh. That one was lost too.

Don't even get me started on how my boy and I got a package of cards from Project Bread that would be perfect for writing thank you notes on. I can't figure out where I filed them.

Does it surprise you that I can't find a mouse that's actively hiding from me?

What a failure!

But for those of you who supported me (and the many hungry in MA). I do want you to know that I really appreciated it. Your love and support does far more than you can imagine! The food we're able to provide weekly to people who are on fixed incomes or who are homeless or working at the poverty line does more than just feed a physical need. It also shows a concern for people who are usually marginalized. In each of the programs my boy and I are involved in, we're proud of the work that goes into what we serve, whether it be creative muffin recipes, high quality ingredients, or thoughtful menus. We think that the people eating the food feel the hospitality and the love that goes into the meal (maybe that's why we wanted Carla to win the last Top Chef so badly -- we're right there with her on understanding the love that goes into food prep).

Thank you for making it all possible!

Love,

SRH

P.S. R&C thank you for the pretty red buckets. They are a useful addition to our home!

The Bounty

2009-08-10T11:33:00.000-07:00

So besides an issue with pest control in our house (there have been no takers on the 8 traps we've set up), yesterday was fairly exciting just for the sheer amount of fruit and veggies we were able to score from our CSA. We got: 4 ears of corn, 3 red potatoes, 1 bunch of arugula, 1 head of lettuce, 3 zucchini/summer squash, tomatoes, apples, peaches, beets, kale (a new smaller curlier version that we've already eaten some of for those of you who worry about our kale consumption), blueberries, and cucumbers. We supplemented this incredible haul with another stop at Allendale Farms where we got those cute little plums, some Rainer cherries, a couple more round zucchini and a quart of strawberries. We stopped off at our local grocery store and bought 12 more ears of corn for $1.99 (it is soo yummy and sweet and also from a MA farm).

For lunch we had a loaf of ciabbatta bread spread with pesto and covered in toasted pine nuts, zucchini slices, kale and garlic, spring onion, and heirloom tomatoes topped with mozzarella cheese. For dinner, we stuffed those uber cute round zucchini squash with sausage my boy made, corn, cheese, tomatoes, mushrooms, garlic, and, of course, zuchini. It was yummy. Best of all, we had strawberry shortcakes for dessert with the incredible strawberries we had gotten from Allendale and with whole foods shortcakes that taste just like the bisquick shortcakes I grew up on (um, perhaps whole foods will be insulted, but I thought it was perfect).

Anyway, it was a lovely day for veggies and since it was chilly, we had the oven going most of the afternoon baking and roasting various items. We should have plenty of beets for pickled beets when my boy's family comes to visit (you know, if they'll still come to visit if we have a mouse running loose and the ceiling isn't fixed. . . ).

Uninvited Guest

2009-08-09T10:03:00.000-07:00

So in the series of weekly misfortunes, this morning we saw a mouse in our house. Perhaps you didn't hear me, THERE IS A MOUSE RUNNING AROUND OUR HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Personally I find that far more distasteful than the ceiling falling in, the car being in disrepair or the washer not working. A MOUSE HAS INVADED MY PRIVATE HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You probably are thinking that I am inherently against rodents or that I am just afraid of them, but you are wrong. I think mice in the wild are darling. I had a lab rat I trained (Ratcliffe was so smart and cute that we won a prize at a rat rodeo -- if you're interested I might even be able to post a picture of the prize -- I don't know how, but I never got a picture of the rat himself). I also had two gerbils (one of which i adored and one which I was scared of -- rightfully so though, he ended up killing the adored gerbil AND then killing another gerbil and eating part of him).

So here's the problem I see with the mouse in my house. He's a complete stranger who's entered my house unasked and is running who knows where peeing all over who knows what and probably eating anything he wants that we don't have sealed up in plastic lock and seal containers. In other words, the worst possible house guest you can imagine. If a human came in your house and behaved this way, the police would come and kindly take him away for you. But no one (besides an exterminator -- and you my readers) is interested in your mouse problem (not even my boy really, he said to me, what, you live in Boston, you're telling me you've never had a mouse in Boston?!). I mean really, can you imagine the animal control call on that one?! I have a friend who was told animal control wouldn't help her when she had a bat in her house (perhaps it was the way she told them that she didn't mind the bat being in her house so much, except he kept hanging on her curtains and you know that those claws were going to put a run in the drapes -- notice, again, bad house guest etiquette). Unless the traps work soon I am not gonna be a happy camper --and don't even get me started on how I'll feel if I find something worse than a mouse on one of those glue traps!

And Then There Was Silence

2009-08-07T09:44:00.000-07:00

I mean not really, but it has been four days :). I haven't really blogged because I never finished the pile of laundry that I started in the last blog post -- and really, who would admit that to the whole wide world?! Oh, right, me.

Last night I led Bible study for my small group. I talked to a couple people before and told them how crummy it was going to be, and, from my perspective, it was only mildly better than crummy, but through the grace of God I think people got something out of it.

I led on Luke 6:37-42 I mentioned in my study that I couldn't find the study guides our group has for Luke and none of the books I have at home had much to report on that section of Luke either. I went online to steal shamelessly from random sermons, blog posts and online Bible Studies and didn't find much. It's weird since this is such an important passage. A passage that's quoted frequently and that is a fundamental part of Jesus ministry.

I could have skipped ahead and worked on another passage (we're kinda free and loose in our Bible Study on what sections we study -- last week we had a complete repeat of the section we'd studied the week prior). But I had sort of a soft spot for this Bible passage. When I was a little kid, I couldn't wrap my head around verses 41 & 42. I couldn't understand why it wasn't a completely selfless act to try and help your neighbor get the speck out of his eye when you had a painful giant log in your own eye. I mean really, doesn't it sound like one of the most giving and kind things you could do? I've since learned that in the very basic of terms it means don't criticize and pick apart someone else's problems when you've got your own (larger) sins to deal with.

I still had some issues with the passage when I was leading last night. I was trying to understand where you draw the line between accountability and judging. We are called to keep each other accountable, I mean Proverbs 27:17 is pretty clear, as iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. One of the women last night pointed out that just like having money isn't in and of itself evil, it's your attitude toward money that can be evil, so it is that your attitude is what distinguishes between judging and accountability. If you're pointing out faults to make yourself feel better or to bring the other person down, it's pretty likely you're "judging" if you're pointing out faults to help build the person up, it's accountability. . . Okay, sounds pretty simple when I type it out, but I never claimed to be a genius.

In reading the passage over, I also realized I had never noticed the second part of verse 38: "a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." Somehow that section sort of got overlooked in the crazy, judge not, blind leading the blind, get the plank outta here!! passage. But re-read that part again. It's really wild. I mean yeah, it means that Jesus clearly wasn't a pastry chef, but if he were a dry goods dealer he'd be the one people would line up to visit. To demonstrate, last night we measured a cup of flour properly for baking (sort of, my demonstrator sort of patted down into the cup, so I think hers should have been 2ozs lighter,) and we had our other demonstrator take a good measure of flour, pressed down, shaken together and running over. The difference was approximately 4 ounces (or 2/3rds more in our case -- if I did my math right, which I doubt). Try the experiment yourself at home. It's shocking. So our forgiveness, our giving, it's supposed to be pressed down, shaken together and running over, not the bare minimum we can muster and still slide by, but 2/3 more! -- or something like that :). Hope it gives you something to think about this coming week when someone annoys you! (I've already messed up today, but I am dusting myself off to try again).

A Kale Free Zone

2009-08-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

So, if there were a religious ceremony like Passover (which requires taking all of the leaven out of the house), surrounding kale, we'd be all set. This was the first week since we got the csa that we haven't had kale in our house. While you might not think that's huge, I have a horrible confession, we haven't eaten a single bite of kale since our csa started. While we do manage to eat a good portion of our csa, the kale was always wilted and sad before we got to it (and yes, I know about prepping it and freezing it, my boy did an amazing job of prepping it for freezing but we didn't have space in our freezer that week and then it sat for two weeks prepped and nothing done with it).

This week, on the way home from the csa pick up, we stopped at Allendale Farms farmstand. We loved it. While we'd just picked up our veggies for the week, we still managed to spend $20 at the farmstand getting beautiful purple beans (that apparently taste just like green beans and turn green when you cook them -- the turning colors thing is a neat trick, I just wish it worked the other way for maximum impact), perfectly round zucchini, lovely tiny little plums just slightly larger than cherries and lots and lots of sweet corn. It was a lovely haul.

In other news, I started a load of laundry when I came home tonight, over an hour later (after dinner) I went down and the laundry was off but still full of water. I tried starting it again and it would work for a little bit and then stop. I am convinced there was foul play -- my boy thinks I am insane. Every time our washer has a problem, there's someone downstairs. It's always the same someone. My boy pointed out that tonight I couldn't get it to start up right away like I usually can, so probably it was a quirk with the machine, not foul play. I am not convinced, but I'll keep you posted on whether we get any laundry done tonight or not --aren't you thrilled I'm blogging again?!

Cause I know you're waiting with baited breath

2009-07-27T19:54:00.000-07:00

The landlords are in Greece still, they'll be back next month. I had a great plan though, I was going to do laundry tonight because I usually run into the landlord's son when I do laundry early in the week. The only catch was our house is far to messy for him to come in still (yes, I am lazy okay?!). So, since we knew I'd see him in the laundry room and bring him up the back way, we worked on cleaning off the table and putting the dry good groceries we had still sitting there away. We figured we could just clean the kitchen and then when I "happened" to run into the landlord's son and bring him up the back way to our apt through the kitchen and into my bedroom he might not notice how messy the house was.

My boy did dishes and I swept up the most recent plaster remnants. I was in the process of making my bed when the doorbell rang. My boy answered the front door and who should be there but the landlord's son. I am sure there's a sermon in this somewhere, unfortunately, I am not a pastor, so all I get out of it is the irony that we spent so much time cleaning the back of the house, I didn't have time to clean up my suitcase or the knick knacks we brought back from Alaska which were strewn around the living room, nor the tarp waiting to be cleaned sitting in the front hallway, all of which the landlord's son had to step over on the way into the bedroom.

Accessories Whore

2009-07-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

So it turned out my car just wanted an update on three of her belts. Apparently thin belts aren't in this year and so she just had to have all three replaced!!

She's back up and running again and my boy has promised her if she's good she can have a tuneup and her ac replenished in August (and possibly her shocks replaced).

A friend of mine asked me if we kept track of how much money we pour into this car. I said "no, of course not." Clearly she doesn't understand that we're no longer into the car for economic/convenience reasons (if we ever were). While I have fallen out of love with her, my boy is now firmly in the grips of a doomed love affair with a car that will only disappoint. There's a whole group of them involved in a similar love affair though, and so together they write each other tips and tricks and they each manage to keep their cars on the road one more year.

In fairness to our car, though I complain about it rather frequently, she has performed above average according to the newsletters, her odometer gear did not give out at 60,000 miles like most and so far her thermometer has held out, and who knows when the last time her shocks were replaced (I've owned her for 8 or 9 years and I've never done it). So while she is expensive to fix, under my boys loving care, she's held out a little longer -- and if he gets his way, will continue to do so (though I am eyeing Subarus with back seats so we can actually take passengers/cargo). . .

When it Rains. . .

2009-07-26T11:36:00.000-07:00

So the sky continues to fall. More pieces hit the floor this morning. My boy says that it doesn't look like much more should come down since there's only a small bubble of plaster still. We haven't heard back from the two emails we sent to our landlords and my boy isn't sure the landlords are home (we're chickens and haven't gotten the nerve to knock on their door). Rent is due this week, so being passive, we'll include a note with our checks.

In other news we were on the way to pick up our CSA today when our car started making a horrible screeching noise. there was no place to pull off and finally we had to pull into one of the mansion driveways off Centre street. My boy looked under the hood even though, I was screeching, turn off the car first, you don't know what could explode out when you open the hood of that thing with it on!!!!! I also had gotten out of the car and run to the back assuming that even though the sound appeared to be coming from the front, perhaps the exhaust system had fallen off and was scraping and that's why it stopped and started.

Turns out it was some belt that broke which was causing all the noise. We didn't want to stay in the rich people's front yard though so we drove the car back toward the Arnold Arboretum where we knew there was parking. The car showed that it was hot (I thought, big deal, so am I, it's 80 some degrees out and your ac doesn't work!!), but it made it to the spot and AAA sent a tow truck quickly and since our mechanic is in Halifax, PA, we had the car taken to pep boys where they say that they should be able to look at it today.

We're lucky we have good friends. We called three people and the first agreed to pick up my boy at pep boys, and the other two asked if we needed rides (we were calling for them to pick up our csa). So all has ended fairly well, though as soon as we got home from pep boys my boy put on his pjs and went to take a nap so he could start the day over again. . .

The Sky is Falling!

2009-07-24T20:55:00.000-07:00

When I came home tonight there was a significant crack in my ceiling. I wrote the landlords an email saying I didn't think it was critical because I saw no water on the floor and the ceiling wasn't stained, but there was a big crack that wasn't there this morning.

Fast forward 6 hours later and there's still no water dripping but my crack became a large swath of ceiling (plaster? some other covering for the ceiling, I really don't know) hanging down. Still no water really and the ceiling under the plaster still doesn't look wet. . .

This means that we'll have to bite the bullet and TALK to our landlords. I get weirdly shy around them and don't want to do it at all. Worse, they'll have to come into my apartment. While it is not the utter disaster that it usually is, our apartment is still not terribly neat (we haven't unpacked from our trip and there's just general clutter piled around). While this may all be fine with normal landlords, our landlords are not normal. They are insanely neat. I have never been in a basement that's cleaner than their basement. The floor has absolutely no grit, grime or other usual items found in a completely unfinished basement. I dread having our landlords come in here and judge our home (and by dread, I mean that I fear that they'll take one look around and evict us based on the level of messiness-- this may not be all bad, I hear my former apartment may have two rooms opening up :)).

So yeah, that's what I have to look forward to tomorrow (cause I am certainly not waking them up at midnight with this information). Also, we have to cook tomorrow at Chelsea, this means that we either have to tell the landlords at 7am on a Saturday morning or we have to wait till 2 or 3 tomorrow. Either way it's a Saturday, what can they do really? For some reason, neither options sounds great -- perhaps because it's midnight and I am working myself up into a tizzy?

Family

2009-07-22T18:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight when I was through watching an episode of The Waltons, I turned on TvLand and The Cosby Show was on. The former is my boy's top choice for tv family he would want to grow up in, the latter is my top choice. Do you think it says something about us that he chooses a big family growing up in rural Virginia during the depression and I choose a family headed by a doctor and a lawyer in the heart of Brooklyn? If you could choose any tv family to live in, which would it be (and why)?

The best laid plans

2009-07-20T20:47:00.000-07:00

My boy and I have gotten really round this year. We HAVE to start eating better and actually exercising. I mean really, we do. Our plan was to walk either to or from the train (almost 2 miles I think) every day this week, thing is, it's supposed to rain the rest of the week :(.

So taking control where we can, tonight we went to Costco to start the week of eating out better. I got some mushrooms, and apples and my boy got bell peppers, but we've got an insane load of veggies coming in on Sunday and so we didn't want to buy many Costco size veggies and have no space in the fridge so we moved on in our shopping. We got some whole wheat bread (1 pt on weight watchers, and, as my dad says, utterly tasteless but too cheap to pass up) we got some nice bread for the soup kitchen on Saturday and at this point, my boy picked up chocolate chip cookies. I said "NO! We're eating healthy remember?!" He put the cookies down and we moved on with our shopping.

At the end, when we were unloading the cart, what do I find in there but the cookies!? It's like shopping with a two year old (only the two year old may have better lies). He told me, "I have to get cookies I bought whole milk (a whole other dispute we have) this week from the dairy and I need to use it up." I said "why can't you use it up with fig newtons, they're far less fat?" He then explained to me the intricacies of cookies that you dip and those you don't Turns out, Fig Newtons aren't dipping cookies. Needless to say, somehow with that logic, he won.

Tonight for his bednight snack he had a number of cookies (far more than I thought he should have). After he went to bed, I got hungry and decided to have an apple. Thing is, in the kitchen I got distracted and I was 3/4 through a cookie before I remembered what I was really in there for (geesh, I don't even have ambien to blame). Can I just tell you though, DAMN Costco knows how to make a chocolate chip cookie (the fact that our house is still 80 degrees probably helps since the chocolate was all melty and perfect). It was so good, it's hard for the guilt to really set in, course I wish the self-control would step up. . . .

Remember Me?

2009-07-20T07:54:00.000-07:00

I had a friend who was dismissive of my blog way back when I actually blogged. He thought that blogs were self-important drivel or something like that. He was on facebook though, and I had no interest in facebook since I thought it was just drivel. People updated all the time to tell all of their "friends" that they were eating a can of spaghetti Os or whatever (of course, now there is twitter which contains every thought that crosses anyone's mind --remember back when we were glad people couldn't read our minds and know every selfish, spiteful or stupid thought we had?). I had said at the time that the blog was a way for me to communicate with all my friends spread across the country and I didn't have to worry about fake friends etc because only people I really considered friends new about my blog.

With how well I've been at updating my blog, and how well facebook has been about getting EVERY PERSON ON THE PLANET hooked, I think I've just managed to lose touch with everyone. I am convinced this blog post will just go out into the great nothingness and unless someone has subscribed via google reader and forgotten to take this "dead" subscription off, no one will know I am still alive :).

It makes me kind of sad that I miss out on pictures of friends babies etc. cause they just post them to their facebook page and I have still refused to get a facebook page. I read over fifty blogs a week though, I just cannot handle one more internet related obsession. Besides, my boy has a facebook page and I hate seeing numerous quizzes and pokes and whatever other random stupidness ends up on his page.

There was no real point to all of that discussion about facebook pages etc. It was just something I was thinking about when I thought about a blog post (the fact that no one reads this blog anymore :)).

The post I had in mind wasn't brilliant, really just selfish drivel, so there you go, Ben was right. I was just thinking about how homesickness increases exponentially with how close to home you are. I was really dismissive in college of all the girls in the dorms who would cry about being away from home when they lived less than two hours away -- just drive home for heaven's sake. I always figured living 10 hours (a two hour drive and an eight hour plane ride) away if things got bad enough I could always go home. The thing is, 10 plus years since that freshman year, every visit home makes me wish I could just stay there -- and that's saying a lot since I didn't manage to get along with my sister for more than 15 minutes at a time this trip and we were only in the same city for about two days.

Walking through our neighborhood the last night, I kept imagining buying a house there in that neighborhood my father refers to as south, south mountain view (read, that as an anti-gentrification project). The street I grew up on was the street my dad grew up on, and the same is true for about five other homes on that same block. Children buy the parent's home and raise a family there in the heart of the "big city" in a much bigger state boasting of its frontier feel (see, you get the amenities of a city and you can easily visit the great outdoors, isn't that convenient?!).

I don't know if it's because every flight out of Anchorage seems to be late at night and that makes one even more prone to emotional outbursts. But it seems like every time I leave I have to fight back tears. I think I may have posted this on my blog before, but one of the sweetest things my boy ever said to me was about a week after a trip to Alaska. We were in the grocery store and he said, "I've been thinking about it [by it I think he meant my crying jag where I said I didn't want to leave Alaska], and at first I thought you'd miss all your friends here in Boston if we moved, but I realized that most of them could afford to come visit us in Alaska. So if you want to move, we can." Of course, at the time it had been a week back in Boston, with good friends, a church and a home I don't want to have to pack up so I was fine with living in Boston again.

This trip when I was getting weepy again, I asked my boy if he gets homesick every time we visit his family. Turns out he does. So is that how all of you (my loyal readers) feel too? Is it homesickness you think, or simply fighting against the "you can't go home" feeling?

My friend Emily posted on her blog this week about the emotional turmoil there was when her mother sold the closest thing Emily had to a family home growing up (her family was military, so there wasn't a lot of staying in one place). She talked about how her father used to say, houses are just buildings, it's the people who make a home. Regardless of what's pulling me, today, I just want to be home. . .

Double Sigh

2009-03-30T18:14:00.000-07:00

We went to a train show yesterday, I went to ensure my boy didn't buy another train!! We have an entire closet full to the brim with no more space.

Unfortunately, I have fallen madly and deeply in love with a set. I accidentally found it on ebay last night when looking up for something else and I have thought of little else today. I emailed to ask my boy if he thought it was a good deal and he didn't respond. First thing I saw him tonight I asked him and he said it sounded like a good deal, but he wasn't sure. He checked his train program (we got it because I kid you not he has an insane amount of trains) and it says that the train is worth $149 in new condition not the $199 that the ebay seller is selling it for (not to mention the $40 they're charging for shipping). So that's that right? It's $100 more than it's worth and I'm supposedly working on saving money etc. But I am just so sad. Cause this train is amazing, it's got an elephant car with a little guy sweeping out the car and a car with a lion chasing a lion tamer around the top of the car and a car with a bobbing clown head sticking up out of the top and a caboose that's lit. Doesn't it sound lovely, just truly great? Also, the lion tamer car is going on ebay for $40 alone. Maybe I should go buy the set. . .

Sigh

2009-03-28T15:55:00.000-07:00

Two people have told me that the link for craigslist no longer works. I assume that someone else got this great deal. I tried to convince my boy that we should get it, but he thought I was crazy.

Today we were supposed to do spring cleaning in our current abode. I finally got up at 8:30 am. My boy made breakfast and I went back to bed till 10. I got up again still tired (we need a coffee maker, or some diet coke!!) but determined to do something. We went through all the stacks of mail and random papers in our house. My boy finished the dishes and I folded two loads of laundry while my boy hung random pictures that have been sitting around the house for the last 8 months (you know, may as well hang them since clearly we're not moving!!). The sad thing is, our house is still a disaster. God forbid someone stop by and need to use the bathroom, we'll have to lie and say we don't have one we just dig a hole. . . Cause there's no way anyone else should be subjected to our bathroom. Also, every room in the house needs to be swept or vacuumed. And there's just. so. much. clutter. . . . . I could go on, but why, bother. It's enough to say, the house is still a disaster despite a concerted effort to the contrary.

The silver lining is that we took a lovely walk to the square to get bread for lunch and we picked up a nice cheese from the cheese shop for lunch and dinner. We just finished dinner. We cooked our farm fresh chicken using this recipe: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/dining/11appe.html I was a little disappointed the bread on the edges of the pan just burned and those under the chicken were soggy on top and impossible to chew on the bottom. I will say that I did exactly what the directions said not to and used a dark thin roasting pan (hey, some of us haven't gotten gifts off a registry and we have to make due with what we could afford on our grad school salary -- yes, I bought the pan 7 yrs ago geez I am old). As sides for the chicken we had balsamic mushrooms adapted from a weight watchers recipe, and a salad made with apples, sharp cheddar and toasted walnuts. I put lemon juice on it to keep the apples looking pretty and balsamic dressing on my portion.

We're going to clean up dinner and then I plan on falling asleep watching the incredibles. Time was I would be sad I was staying home on a saturday night thinking of bed at 7:35 but apparently I've matured :).

If I were a mother and this blog my child, I think dfys would have been called

2009-03-26T11:23:00.000-07:00

So yes, I've neglected my blog. If you write a blog that I know about, I haven't neglected it though. I was so thoroughly caught up a couple of weeks ago I had to add more blogs to my reading list (thanks rebekah).

There are tons of things I should tell you about like how I got the most gorgeous piece of luggage from my boy for our two year anniversary. I mean really beautiful. The ticketing agent in Las Vegas said so without any prompting (the one in Boston needed to be prompted and it was really only half hearted but whatever). I haven't told you about the luggage though because I planned on taking a picture (the ones online aren't terribly great) but then it got scuffed on our trip and I haven't had a chance to clean it back up to it's shining glory. Here's a link to a lesser picture and with the specs so you can see how it SPINS it can go in a full 360 circle and even though the edges are hard and therefore good at protecting my items, it's expandable. I love this piece of luggage so much I think I need a back up exactly like it for when they stop producing it (sort of like my whisk).

As you've probably gleaned from that above paragraph, I also didn't tell you about a trip to vegas. . . and, you know, how my birthday party turned out, or even which party I decided on (deep fried, as my boy said, "I did not start dating a woman who was elegant, I am dating a woman who loves all things deep fried and kitchy").

You're probably thinking based on the date and or the email I've sent asking for support for the walk for hunger that I am writing this apologetic post briefly updating you to beg for money for the homeless and to tell you my walk website is here: http://www.projectbread.org/goto/getbitter You'd be wrong (well sort of, I mean I did tell you where the website was, but this isn't my groveling for money for "the homeless" post).

This is my, I am homeless (well homeowner-less) and don't you think you'd like to pay for this house to be moved: http://boston.craigslist.org/bmw/gms/1085072114.html and find me a lot closer to boston than Concord to move it to (which would, of course, add to the cost of moving it)? I would totally invite you over for dinner every week as a thank you (and look at the pretty dining room, it's totally worth it).

Sigh. I have been thinking of the house since I looked at the pictures on a whim. My boss is convinced I should buy it. Clearly she has no idea how little savings I have. But it is a lovely deal and the Jew in me is all a flutter at the possibility :).

Very Important

2009-01-26T10:46:00.001-08:00

I know it's probably not important in the face of world peace, but somehow it's become a very big deal to me; I am trying to figure out what to do for my 30th birthday. I can't decide what to do, I mean 30 seems big and like it merits something really special.

I have been talking about a deep fried party for a couple of years now. I really do want to have one at some point (basically everyone comes with something to deep fry and share be it candy bars, oreos, korean fried chicken or pizza -- oh the list goes on and on and on). It sounds yummy and seems like such a good idea, both interactive and fun.

The problem is I get sucked into thinking is that how I want to remember my 30th birthday? Don't I want something elegant. . . .

My friend Meg suggested a cocktail party. It sounds fun and grown up and could be totally shi-shi, except we kind of did that at a prohibition party I had a few years ago and while that party was fun, most people didn't end up mixing drinks and so we were left with tons of alcohol (good thing I realized how much I like gin ;)).

I was thinking about an elegant dessert party but, again, my gracious friends hosted a party like that for me a few years ago. It was really really great (I still dream about those brownies Mike Ike made), but if I do it for my 30th, it's sort of a been there, done that feeling.

So nothing seems to fit completely into this vague notion of a spectacular 30th birthday bash that I have (doesn't that sound so terribly childish-- perhaps that should be a hint to me considering I'm turning 30 and should stop obsessing over such nonsense).

Anyway, I am turning it over to you, my loyal readers. Do you have any suggestions? Do you think one of the suggested parties sounds like the best way to ring in my FOURTH decade (I am stupid and wrote third until someone had to email me and point out that not only am I dumb I am old ;))? There's a poll on the side you can click to vote. If you have some brilliant idea not mentioned, please post a comment -- there may even be a reward in it for you!

Rewards of Volunteering

2009-01-22T06:03:00.001-08:00

So if I am reading this correctly (and I may not be since I haven't actually had any caffeine this morning) I think Starbucks is rewarding you with a free coffee if you make a pledge to volunteer five hours: http://pledge5.starbucks.com/ I don't think it's even asking you to volunteer five hours a week like a lot of people I know already do, just five hours flat and I don't think you have to sign up with their specific charity of choice. I think it's five hours of volunteering period. . . I could be wrong, but if I'm not, it's a nice little reward for those do-gooders out there already (though not much of an incentive if you don't already volunteer :)).