Only my husband...

I took the day off last Thursday to do homework before our long camping weekend. That's the thing about many online courses...the coursework is pretty dependent on an internet connection.

Chris called me around noon. He was at the courthouse in Madison for work and had gone through the x-ray scanner, as required. He was rushing to get into the elevator with a group of people and shoving items back in his pocket. Including the convertible key (the convertible was back at his office...top and windows down). You see where this is going, right? The key tumbled to the ground, just as he was crossing the elevator opening. He went to grab it, but there were too many people in the way and it fell in the crack, down the elevator shaft.

It's our only key (guy we bought it from only had one). We'd been talking about needing to get one made just a few weeks ago.

He found a maintenance worker, and they found the basement door to the elevator shaft. But nobody had the key. Only the supervisor who was off for vacation for a week and the elevator company out of Minnesota.

So Chris goes to the Toyota dealership two blocks from his office. We can't simply get a second key cut that matches the first. We need to have the whole thing reprogrammed and get a new key (of course we'd get two). Cost? About $300. They could at least get the windows up for us without the key.

Instead of waiting around to see if somebody could retrieve the key the following week from the elevator, Chris decided we needed the second key anyway, so had the two keys cut. It took four hours because they kept running into snags. And yeah, Toyota dealership shop rates? $110/hour. Luckily, they only charged us as quoted, because I was ready to make a big ol stink.

So between the key and some cosmetic work on the bumper Chris had done in May, the convertible cost us almost $1000 last month.

The courthouse called him yesterday and has his key ready to pick up. You know, the one that no longer works in the car.

Rhubarb Recipe

Made a new rhubarb recipe this weekend and it was VERY good. Thought my bloggy friends might like it:

http://sweetmary.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/04/rhubarb-oatmeal-bars.html

Furlough Friday & weekend

Another Furlough Friday is upon us. Tomorrow I'll be riding into Madison with Chris (who has to work), taking the car in for an oil change, then studying at the library. In the afternoon, Chris is taking off work and we are meeting friends to hang out downtown. Should be fun!

Saturday I think we are doing a river cleanup in the morning (the bar across the road is organizing it), then planting the garden in the afternoon.

More studying Sunday, while Chris is going to be an extra in a local beer commercial!

To do lists

Work
Edit manuscript and resubmit because the first author is a P.O.S. and won't do it.
Massively revise a training program
Develop a reference manual for group homes from scratch
Write committee annual report

Home
Clean floors
Plant garden
Pull weeds

School
Read 1 chapter and two articles
Write short paper

TV
Watch LOST
Watch Modern Family
Watch Flash Forward

Now that a lot of shows are wrapping up for the season, I think I'll feel better about getting that time back. Because having a TV to-do list sucks.

Diet starting

I've gained far too much weight over the last 18 months. Pants are getting too tight. So, it's time. I'm on a work trip now, so the timing is horrible. I'm actually iritated that we keep going out to eat and I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere. I've at least been mostly good at meals. No booze, no apps or dessert, red sauces, whole wheat, etc. I even avoided french onion soup at lunch today, which is my favorite.

Wish me luck. If I can slowly lose 10 lbs over the next few months, I'll be happy.

MIL visit play-by-play

MIL called yesterday to say she'd be at our place around 5 pm, on the way home from her vacation out west. Surprise! We had plans last night to watch niece play softball last night and go out with her family for pizza. So, we only chatted for about 45 minutes her whole visit, as we didn't get home until 9 p.m. I think Chris only said about five sentences to her. He just cannot tolerate her visits anymore. Let's do a play-by-play to understand why:

We pull in to garage, exit car with hands full of misc. items. She's on our heels, as is the dog.

MIL: Oh, you're home safe. Yeah, I had a real good trip. The tents are out drying. I'll pack them up tomorrow. I took Levi for a walk. Sure is lovely out! You have so many remotes so I just read a book and was about ready to go to bed. You are so late getting home!
Me: Ack, the doors are open! The cats didn't get out did they?
MIL: I got your mail, it's on the table. Levi has plenty of food and water so he's fine.

I notice the house smells like LP. Notice the stove knob is ajar. Turn on fan and vent windows.

MIL: I had a cold salad for dinner and didn't use the stove. I left a California orange for you in the fruit basket and some dried fruit in your cupboard. I have some other food in the fridge from my cooler. I ate hard boiled egg and ham sandwiches in the Motel 6 room every day on the road. I brought you some wine. I know you don't like Oakey wines, so the man said this would be good. He wants me to write to him and let him know if you like it. I met such wonderful people along the way. People were real happy to see me and just loved Levi. And I got my oil changed in California. That was more expensive than I thought.
Chris: How much was it?
MIL: $230
Chris: Whaaaat?
MIL: Yeah, they had to replace the oil filter. It was the original.
Chris: I guarantee that wasn't the original oil filter.
MIL: They said it. Smith's never replaced it (the place she usually gets it done). They said it could do real damage to my car. Yeah, they're just real expensive in California.
Chris: Do you have the bill? I'd like to see it?
MIL: Yes, here it is. California is just much more expensive than here.
Chris: They replaced the fuel filter, mom, not just the oil filter. You would've been fine waiting on that.

I tried to explain the fuel filter and oil filter are different. I think she's ignoring me.

MIL: Oh well. They took real good care of me.
Chris: Mom, they took advantage of you.
MIL: Let's open the wine-I really want to try it.
Me: Um, ok. That's really light.
MIL: That IS really good, isn't it? Delicious! I'll be sure to tell him you really liked it.

I know I never said I liked it. Chris plays Mafia Wars and ignores her.

MIL: Oh, and the latern you gave me (we bought an LED lantern for her for her birthday so she could use it camping on her trip) didn't work. I put four batteries in it, two new and two used. It wouldn't work, so you can have it back. I can't use it.

Can we use this line when she gives us crap?

MIL: And yes, all the tornados in the south! Did you hear about the one man that went under a communion table and God saved him?
Me and Chris: Surely is wasn't that it's a heavy object and that's what you are supposed to go under.

At that point, we went to bed.

I feel like I should write something

I really don't have much interesting to say right now, but it's time for an update.

1. I'm in the home stretch of classes for the semester. Undergoing a few more revisions to my thesis/grant proposal and starting my last "regular" class the first week of May. I have another "portfolio" class this summer, but it's kind of an oddball. Then I'll be done! Just three more months!


2. The weather is pretty good in WI for this time of year. We've had a few days in the 80s this month. We could use a little bit of rain this week, but none is in sight. Temps seem to be settling in around the low 60s right now.


3. I'm starting to pack away my winter clothes and haul out the summer. It's that odd time of year where you still need some of both seasons.


4. I have a piece of furniture from FIL to bring in the house today and find a spot for it. I'm not even entirely sure what it is. Part cabinet, part display case..I have only seen it in the back of the Jeep in the dark, as Chris and FIL loaded it yesterday. Added pic:


5. We finally bought a GPS unit. I know, just when everyone is using cell plans with GPS type services, we dive into a Garmin. That's us, about five years behind the technology curve.


6. My favorite TV host, Zane Lamprey of Three Sheets (a drinking/travel show) is on tour. We have seats to his Milwaukee show this summer. I read about it when I was in Milwaukee for work last week, and didn't check the whole tour schedule before I bought tickets to his Milwaukee show. Turns out, he's in Madison the day before. Doh!


7. I moved offices at work voluntarily. I'm giving up the 25% of my job that's in the research admin office and just focusing on my boss's research. Thus, I decided to move my office out of our research admin area, which meant giving up my window. I found a coworker that was a nice "fit" with research admin, even though she's under a different area (kind of a "partner" unit), who really wanted a window. She has a great carpeted office with really nice, expansive wood cabinets and desk. Thus, we switched last week and everyone is happy.

That's all I've got.

Rewards programs

I would just like to share how much I hate rewards programs that have no "membership" card, and rather track your points by having you register credit cards/debit cards with them. JC Penny and Skymiles Dining are the two I've used. In the last few years, we have gone to usually using cash for most of our dining and clothing purchases, so there's no way (maybe there is, but I don' t have the desire to jump through the hoops of finding out) to continue to earn points unless I use a credit/debit card. Grrr.

Sure, I could use the card, then immediately put the cash back into the bank, but jeepers, that's a PITA.

Italy

I'm so excited to be in the process of planning our trip to Italy in October. I have a two day conference in Prato, which is the Tuscany region. Then it's off to Rome for a three day conference. We are going a week early to stay in a different area of Tuscany, then heading to Prato for the first conference, then to Rome for the remainder of the trip.

The thing about Europe is that getting there is the most expensive part. I'm finding some wonderful accomodations and day tours that are reasonably priced.

Here is where we'll be staying for our few days in Prato:
http://www.accademiaresidence.it/apartment6.html

I came out of the closet

Or rather, Chris outed me. As an atheist. To his uber-religious, retired pastor MIL. On Easter weekend.

*rubs temples*

Well now I feel bad.

I may have grumbled about a committee I'm on before. I'm the chair this year (after last year's chair did nada), and there are four members. I can count on only one other member to regularly show up at meetings and help out. Another member, we'll call her Wilma, is semi-reliable. She'll take on a project, but is constantly in "exasperated" and "hurried" mode, so is present only at about 75% of meeting and is kind of spacy on communication. Other than Ms. Reliable, the other members are clinical instructors, so spend most of their time off campus and I rarely see them.

So a few weeks ago, Ms. Reliable was having surgery, but we were having a meeting. I was the only one that showed up for the meeting, despite me sending out the agenda with questions a few days beforehand. Nobody responded.

I sent out a message a few days after the meeting, saying we had an event coming up and I needed their input on the attached agenda. Nobody reponded but Ms. Reliable. Kind of strange "Wilma" hadn't responded to any of the messages. At least she responds to half of my messages usually.Today I found out "Wilma" was in a terrible car accident and broke her pelvis a few weeks ago. Now I feel bad that I was grumbling about her, as it may have even happened on the way to our meeting where nobody showed up. Can you even imagine having a broken pelvis?!

Haircut

I think I'm getting a haircut today. It's about a billion months past due. I hate going to get my haircut. Hate.it. I can't even explain why. Fancy salon, cheap salon, it doesn't matter. I still hate it.

In other news, it's spring break on campus, so it's quiet around work. Students are gone, professors are still on contract, but many of them take off anyway. My boss is in Australia, my coworker across the hall is off with her son who is on spring break from elementary school. My coworker next door called in sick. How this will impact my day:

• I'm having tea rather than coffee. Didn't want to make a pot when it's just me here.
• I might take off early for my haircut.
• I might go out to lunch with Nolay.

Food centric post

I'm going to make a grocery list in a few minutes to purchase stuff for OTCC. I'll be making the stuffed peppers and the chicken saltimbucca this weekend. Both seemed a bit complex to throw together when I get home weeknights at 6 pm.

I was out of town for a few days for work, and ate at a restaurant owned by a Top Chef Master's-Season 2 contender. He co-owns and is the head chef of Spiaggia in Chicago, where the Obama's dined on a November date-night (their first date since post-election in 2009). Well, I did not dine at Spiaggia, but at their Kenosha restaurant called Mangia. It is less high-end than Spiaggia, but still very nice. And very delicious. I have leftovers for lunch today of the Oricchiette con salsiccia (pasta with lamb sausage, broccolini, goat cheese and chilies). *slurp*

I also indulged in a little Kringle. If you've only tried the stuff from the grocery store, you are missing out. The real stuff from the skilled Danish pastry makers is so much flakier and buttery. Yummmmmmm.

Girls weekend/Man weekend

Four days of basketball and scratchy, tabacco chewing, beer swilling boys. Would you:
1) Find something else to do
or,
2) Find something else to do ?


I knew if I stuck around the whole weekend, I'd spend most of my time cleaning and serving up food. Thus, I planned to make Saturday and Sunday a.m. my annual "girls weekend" with old high school friends. Two evenings with constant basketball and messy boys was enough for me.

I met the girls at Starbucks, then went out to lunch, then went for a marathon five hours of shopping at the outlet mall. I tried to hang out with them in the children's clothing stores, but after store #1, I couldn't do it anymore.

We ate too much for lunch, so skipped dinner. Swell idea, eh? We proceeded to drink two bottles of wine at the hotel between three of us and a non-alcoholic one for my preggo friend. Then it was time to go out on the town. One of our friends got a lot of immediate attention from boys (and one sad, Jack Sparrowish middle aged man). One boy thought we were in our mid twenties. I loved him.

We hung out at a karyoke bar. It was fun, and we had lots of great pictures (I had no camera, so don't ask for pics). All the bachelorettes that came in looked so, so young.

We partied like rock stars until 2 a.m. Yikes!

Chris and I are both drank out. His birthday is tomorrow and I don't think we're doing anything. We'll probably delay celebration.

I'm a dumbass

I'm enrolled for only four credits this semester (two 2 credit classes). That is less than my usual 5-7 credits per semester (which is also two classes, it's just how the credit load worked out this time). Stupid me didn't realize this would drop me below the "part time" credit load required for my undergrad student loans to be in forebearance. Argh. In May, I'm back to above 5 credits. Sigh. There's $258 a month we hadn't planned for this spring.

New bed

I mentioned about a month ago that we purchased a new mattress and bed. We scaled up and went king sized. The bed is not in yet, but the mattresses are. We have a lot of guests coming for the NCAA tournament, so we want as many beds as possible. Thus, we asked for the mattresses to be delivered, even if our bed wasn't in. We'll put them on the floor for now.

So, yesterday it was to be delivered between 11-2. That's smack in the middle of the day, and since we live an hour from work, it necessitated me taking more than half the day off. I had a meeting that morning I couldn't miss and Chris had two guys being released from prison, so I was the one elected to be home for the delivery. So, between having to drive separate (we usually commute together) and me having to rearrange a few things and take vacation time, the delivery was kind of a PITA.

So I get home at 10:57 a.m. yesterday. I open the garage door, and there were the mattresses. Turns out they were early, and saw a sign I put out for the winter that said, "Leave packages in the garage, as the steps can get slippery." The delivery guys even "took photo of sign."

ARGH! So, we had to move the giant mattress in by ourselves and I ended up home for no reason. So, I took the time to do a little rearranging of the office bedroom and clean out some file cabinets. Whatever.

Good news, though. The mattress is DIVINE! It has the top 1/2 of the top mattress in visco foam (same basis as Tempurpedic). No cat movement nor tossing and turning from Chris to wake me up. And his snoring in the king bed I can tolerate (still with ear plugs, though). Yay!!!!! And it was very breathable. I was worried it would get hot, but they say with the newer generation of visco and latex, they are both more breathable.

Shopping bargains

It was time for a new winter coat and I found bargains! Sears and Boston Store still had a small selection left at our mall. At Sears, I bought a black wool peacoat with some subtle stitched detailling, a super duper soft scarf, gloves, cute hat and two pashminas for $47 total with tax. Then, I found an Anne Klein camel colored coat for $50 at Boston Store, so I snatched that up, too. So for under $100 I got all that!

Here's the camel coat (I've never had a camel colored coat):

Food smacking...or why I can't live in Asian countries

I understand the smacking of food is not just an Asian thing, but yeeegads, there are some Asians that have it down to a science where you can hear it from another freaking room. My friend Mark also smacks his food. He is not Asian, but rather a farm kid that grew up in a big household of boys. I suspect chewing slowly and quietly wasn't a focus growing up. I spent the weekend with Mark and his wife, and now just encountered a smacking Asian.

What is your intolerance d'jour?

And parents? Please teach your children to chew quietly. *looks pleadingly*

MIL phone calls

I write my MIL letters so I can get out of talking on the phone with her. Plus, I think it's nice for retirees to get letters in the days of so much junk mail. In the past two months, she's decided to start calling my cell phone. I usually let it go to voicemail, as it's the middle of day and some of us are working, not waiting to chat about nothing with their retired MIL. Why do I dread talking to her? There are two main reasons:

1. She talks constantly and doesn't give you time to respond to what she said, so it's not really a conversation as much as her just rambling.
2. If you do get to ask a question or tell her a story, she doesn't listen to what you've said and usually gives a nonchallant "yeah" response or "it's just been lovely weather" to most statements. This makes me wonder if she's having some hearing loss issues and is trying to cover it up.

How often do you talk to your parents and in-laws (if applicable)? Is it a decent experience, or do you also ignore calls?

Weekend

I have nothing exciting to report.

I spent Friday night finishing a paper for a class (for some reason, one of my classes was uber-condensed and ended Friday).

I spent Saturday working on my thesis. I opted not to attend a party that night as I had to keep writing and really didn't want to stand outside around a fire, talking to people I don't really enjoy chatting with. Nolay went, so I was able to have a quiet study time and then downloaded Season 1 of LOST to watch again from Netflix.

Sunday we went out to watch the Olympic hockey finals. I didn't think the U.S. would win, so was just happy that we made Canada work for it. :-)

I hurt my shoulder moving furniture last weekend, and all the computer work I've been doing has exacerbated the problem. I took old hydrocodone last night to get to sleep.

Good day

Yesterday was just a darn good day at our house.

-Chris had a great day in court, with a class of new p&p agent hires being invited to watch a case where Chris wrote the pre-sentence investigaton, which includes a history of the offense/s, personal history of the offenders, gives voice to the victims, and lists the department's sentencing recommendation. The judge and prosecutor publically acknowledged how great the PSI was and the guy got over 40 years in prison. http://www.channel3000.com/news/22663484/detail.html

-I wrote a grant and got the call yesterday saying it was funded for $100K...now we start the flurry of work that needs to be done asap.

-We went out with our houseguest (he lost his job, is retraining here and needed a place to stay) and had a great time.

Now, I have the problem of having a load of homework and housework to catch up on. Sigh.

Weekend Recap

It was a busy Valentine's Day weekend!

-Friday night we went to a Badger hockey game. Chris's work partner was a high school hockey cheerleader (yes, apparently those exist), so at least she knew a little about hockey, unlike us. It was kind of fun. We hit some downtown bars we otherwise never get to, so that was a bonus.

-Saturday we were guilted into heading back into Madison again for the Garden Expo. Chris's mom was otherwise going to come and visit us on Sunday (um, No!). So we tooled around in a very crowded expo center, payed $14 plus $5 parking just to attend, and didn't really get much out of it. We then had lunch at a new restaurant in town, and it was good. You can get shots of hot sauce (of various styles), so we sampled a lot. Then Chris's mom and brother returned back north, and Chris and I stayed in Madison to do one of our favorite things...play trivia at BW3s on Valentine's Day (ok, we were a day off). We won six rounds against a pretty big field, so we were proud.

-Sunday we lounged all morning, had heart shaped cinnamon-pecan pancakes (well, I tried to make a heart shape, anyway), and I did a little homework. Chris did some homework on his own: mattress research. We ended up AGAIN going to Madison and purchased a new king sized mattress and bed (headboard/footboard...yes, we just bought bedroom furniture over a year ago, but we NEED a king sized bed), and an office chair. I'm thrilled! It won't be delivered for another week, though. It's a "hybrid" with double coils (these are individually wrapped), then a thick "memory foam" type layer (not just a topper, it's about six inches of the foam concoction).

Today? I must go pick out bedroom paint, as that never got done last time we moved around furniture.

Life update

So, as most of you know, Chris was in the hospital for a day (and night) this week. It was pretty stressful for us, because the thought of a heart attack at 36 was pretty freaky! Turns out his heart is fine, and it was a pulled chest muscle putting pressure on his esophagus, so he was having trouble breathing. That coupled with the albuterol (rescue inhaler), caused his bp and pulse to spike to crazy levels (220/110 and over 100 respectively). So, he's back to work and feeling much better.

School is back in session, so my online fun time is a little less.

We are having a big bonfire this weekend, burning lots of brush. Let's hope it's warm out, so my toes don't get cold.

Working from Home

Chris is on a furlough day, so to save us gas/mileage, I'm working from home. It's probably better he's here. He'll be watching tv I won't want to watch, and that will help me stay tucked away in the bedroom/office, working on my things for work.

My to-do list only contains one home thing: wash sheets. I think I should put Chris on task fr that.

The weekend contians many home things and homework. Blech!

Definitions

Words have been making me pause and consider definitions lately. Ever feel like you are getting dumber by the year? I can't decide if I used to have a more sophisticated vocabulary (I don't recall ever having to look THAT much up), or I'm just aware of more words now and thus get puzzled more often.

The word "flotsam" came up somewhere...in a book maybe? It's been stuck in my mind to look up, as I wasn't sure exactly what it meant. I finally did. I think the context I heard it in meant "useless odds and ends."

The djs this morning were talking about the word "cynical" and started debating the difference in the meanings of "skeptical," "cynical" and "jaded." I need to figure out exactly what differentiates each of those, as there were many situations they brought up where I wasn't sure which word best fit. There were some where one clearly fit better than the others, but then other situations where all three seemed to be reasonable choices.

Any words puzzling you lately?

Back from the Beach

Did you miss me? I'm back from our little Bahamas cruise getaway. Not my first choice of vacation spots, but the price was right.

The cruise wasn't as good as our previous cruises with NCL, but I think it was a) a more casual cruise because it was shorter and b) NCL hasn't changed their menus in at least three years (though as we speak they are rolling out new ones starting with a few ships at a time), so I'm kind of bored with the food. The entertainment was pretty lame, and well, we won't speak of the craptastic pub crawl experience (fit for 20somethings, not us old folks). However, I did learn to play Flip Cup and I'm quite good. The youngsters were having fun coaching the old lady.

The Bahamas are ok if you just want to beach and shop the days away. Chris bought me a Gucci purse that I'm quite sure is a knockoff, but it's convincing. I drank cocktails from coconuts, snorkeled in the warm Caribbean, and got a little tan. I won't complain. Other than our arrival weekend in Florida (drove through the Everglades in the rain), the entire cruise weather was perfect-sunny and in the low 80s.

Traveling with my sister and her husband was a new experience for us. It was good to have company, though it was harder to plan and do things. It was a little less "loose" than we are used to.

We of course are looking to plan our next winter escape. Not sure if we'll cruise or do land based. We have a reason to go to Arizona (Taliesen West), but it's not really on my travel radar otherwise...have you been there?

A few pics (my sister took far more pics than I did):

Our ship. The little boat is a tender boat that took us to the one island we couldn't directly dock at. They had two tender boats running back and forth. We took this from one we were on.

Between those rocks was where I snorkled.

Cigar factory at the old Graycliff hotel.

A beautiful Bahamian traffic cop. There were a lot of limos due to the Michael Jordan Celebrity Invitational Golf Tournament in Nassau starting that day.

There are a few things I get a little obsessive about

I'm not really OCD about much. When I throw parties, I kind of obsess about stupid things like straightening pillows. Otherwise, meh. However, another example hit me in the face yesterday. Summary of the conversation:

Coworker: Do you or Barb like to pick out food for meetings? I have to choose appetizers and desserts for a meeting of faculty after work hours and am not good at these things.

Me: YES!!!!!!!!!!!

Coworker: Here's the menu, here are the meeting details, a meeting will occur while they are eating, blah blah blah

Me: pecan chicken fingers could get soggy, the shrimp looks too extravagant in these tough fiscal times, about eight of these choices involve crunchy and/or potentially messy things that can be embarassing or distracting during the meeting, the artichoke and crab dip is too rich for this crowd, the andouille cajun fritters too meaty and fried for this crowd, and the beef is probably not a great choice for the 16:2 women to men ratio in this bunch. That leaves about six apps to choose from, and you want three. Here is my first suggestions, as they pair well together, here is my second combo choice....etc.

Coworker: Wow, you really put a lot of thought into these things.

Me: I admit, I can be a little obsessive.

I bet Frodis can appreciate this, as I recall her enjoyment of planning the baptism meal last year.

Rome if you want to...

My boss asked me to go to Rome in October for a conference. Um, ok.

I also am going to Australia at some point this year, as I was just hired on a grant there.

My biggest problem now becomes:

1) Do I stick with Delta? I was a Northwest loyalist until they switched to Delta last year. They have the most flights out of our tiny airport. I like MSP and DTW airports, which are usual hubs. I do not like Atlanta nor Cincinatti, which are additional new hubs for me with the switch. I only have about 15K miles with Delta right now, as we cash in free tickets fairly frequently. One international trip and I'm up to a free ticket with Delta and very close to upgraded status, which is very big.

2) Do I go with United? My boss flies United because they used to be the only carrier to get her to Australia easily from WI. However, they have very few flights out of Madison, and all go through O'hare, which is notorious for bad flight delays. My boss has massive status with them and is a member of their lounge club, so it's great to travel with her. If my ticket is booked with her, I'm also eligible for upgrades, which is important for long flights overseas. I'd be starting over, basically, with miles and status, though. So cons are starting over and fewer flights/O'hare issues. Pros are good chance of international upgrades and lounge use. Not to mention I've never been to Eurpose or Australia and it would be comforting to have my well-traveled boss by my side. Con to that is having to work more during flights.

Whomever I choose, I'll likely stick with for a long time. What to do, what to do. Any advice? What would blogland do?

Time's a wastin'

Classes start in a few weeks, and a week of that is vacation. So I have three weekend days to finish cleaning and organizing projects. Carp.

Yesterday: Freezer defrosting, shower grout scrubbing
Today: Basement organizing.

Yet to tackle: Cabinet organizing, tax receipt organizing
Any volunteers?
What's on your winter to-do list?

Photo vomit

I just downloaded a jumble of photos from the camera. Here are the highlights:

Christmas Gifts from MIL

Never one to disappoint, here are the craptastic gifts from MIL this year!

For those of you who have met me, please tell me none of this screams KIM! (well, ignore the cat creeping into the photo). For those curious, there's a used white/bulletin board, two sparkly pens, a sweater for a 70 year old church piano player, a pink little hand towel with embroidered bells and doves, a book of herbal remedies, a 25 cent bag of used, fake leaves and straw for decor, and a dust mit.

Hotlanta

The big billboard of Anderson Cooper is my favorite one.

My OTCC Chicken in Place of Beef Attempt

This is the dish before going into the oven. I should've resisted my urge to blend the veggies, because it looks better here than it did on my plate when I was done.

Cute Cats!

Chris's work partner gave us this cats-in-santa-hats blanket for Christmas. The cats adored it from minute one. That's big Bartleby in front and little Loki in back. Ali managed to sneak away from this pic.

Virginia Highlights

I feel like I'd better get this all out of my head before I forget details!

I arrived in Richmond on a Monday night. As I exited the secure area of the airport, I see what can only be someone waiting for ME! A darling little boy, with the biggest grin, was wearing a packer jersey and a big foam cheesehead. I literally LOL and proudly told the people next to me, that little guy was welcoming me to Richmond. The whole Boo-family came to pick me up at the airport. What a charming clan they are! Mr. Boo even took my suitcase so I could blab to Boo without causing harm to others.

We arrived in Pleasantville after dark, so I could only admire the quaint holiday decor in the neatly groomed neighborhood. Boo's home is everything you'd expect-nicely decorated, spacious and welcoming. The room I stayed in even had the benefit of a tv, computer and exercise equipment. I don't even get all that at a hotel in my room. No, I did not use the exercise equipment.

I was welcomed with a big steak dinner and mmmmmmm, it was good. Boo & Mr. Boo grill some mean steaks on their big grill (I have grill envy). We stayed up to watch the Bears beat the Vikings (always a good way to end a night).

The next day we took a driving tour of a few interesting areas in Richmond. I got to see a gorgeous neighborhood of big old and new houses with some of the fanciest holiday trimmings I'd ever seen. I also got to see the hip and eclectic area of Carytown, where Boo grew up. We even got to stop for cupcakes.

That afternoon we prepped the OTCC recipe and played games with Conner (ok, the games with Conner thing was pretty much constant when at home).

Mr. Boo came home from work that night, informing us his buddies were playing group trivia at BW3s in a few hours. This excited me, so they kindly bundled the family up (the weather there was disappointingly cold) after dinner and hit the wing joint. We had a blast, while Boo impressed with her hockey knowledge and Mr. Boo impressed with obscure Bond tidbits.

STEREOTYPE ENFORCING HIGHLIGHT: A pretty young blond thang at our table grabbed a can of chewing tobacco and stuck a dip in her mouth. Boo and I both sat there in shock!

Back at home, the family indulged me with the Badger game (Champs Sports Bowl) for a bit, though I was the only one that watched it to the end. Boo kindly put the game on in my room so I could curl up in bed and watch the final quarter.

Our final day, we had a mission. I needed a t-shirt for my nephew from the new local minor league baseball team in Richmond: The Flying Squirrels. *giggle* They have a huge stadium. I was impressed. Richmond must love baseball.

We snuck naps in that afternoon, as that night we were having a girls-night-out! Boo was kind enough to take me to two of Richmond's brewpubs in some neat areas of town. Downtown Richmond was beautifully lit at night, with white lights perfectly outlining all the buildings in the skyline. We played some SUPER pathetic games of pool and had a great time.

I left on a rainy, early morning the next day, and was sad to say goodbye to Boo and her family. Her little Conner is such a charming, smart young man. He definitely is just like his mom.

Thank you, Boo, for everything. *smooch*

One down, two to go

We had Christmas at FIL's this weekend. They really are wonderful people, but good-golly, retirement makes FIL a little overbearing. I ate too much, but at least didn't drink too much. My favorite new gift? A Teavana Perfect Tea Maker:

You put the loose tea in the cup, pour boiling water over it, steep, set the maker over your coffee cup and it drops down. No bits (*waves at MC*) in my cup and no drips. Chris remembered how much I coveted it when we went to Mall of America recently. Step-MIL was heading to Mall of America, so Chris slipped her a gift tip for me. Voila! Can you even believe he remembered!?

I have a pumpkin scone to eat this a.m. Mmmmm.

I sent 75% of my holiday cards this a.m. I'll finish the rest tonight. I also sent out cookies to my bloggy peep today!

Watched The Proposal. One of those cute, silly movies. And you get a nice, long look at shirtless Ryan Reynolds. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Ever seen There Will be Blood? Thinking of taking that to Christmas with MIL, but not sure if it's one of those with lots of uncomfortable scenes for family viewing.

ETA: Funny thing at the doctor's office Friday (annual exam). The nurse says, "Have you recently had a large fluctuation in weight????" My answer was no. Apparetly they had me down at a completely random 123 last time (add 70 to that and it was probably accurate). We had a good laugh. Another interesting thing from my visit. I started getting mammograms last year because of family history, but my doctor said, "I'm concerned that you are so young and that's a lot of radiation to be exposing you to in your lifetime. Let's send you to a specialist to see if a baseline MRI would be best, and then less frequent mammograms." I think that makes a lot of sense. We are in agreement about self-exams still being important and we reviewed propper technique. I was happy about that.

Salad

Let's suppose you were having a very small dinner party (just a few couples) and people have asked what they can bring. You decide to ask someone to bring a salad. Would you tell them what kind of salad to bring? I might ask them to bring a lettuce salad, but I'd go no further than that. Or I'd tell them what else we were having and assume they'd bring something complementary.

I was asked to bring "a spinach or arugula winter salad with cranberries, walnuts and a citrus dressing." Not even "something like" that. It was very specific. I am bringing a baby greens salad with dried cranberries, fresh raspberries, pecans and a cranberry vinegarette. Do you think I'll be turned away?

Am I the only one that thinks this is a bit odd to be this specific?

Ouch!

I've been having neck pain and headaches for about a week now. I rarely have headaches, so it's a bit disconcerting. I frequently have neck pain, though, so no surprise there.

I could be a hypochondriac and assume it's meningitis. Just to feel better, I should take my temperature and see if it's running high.

More likely it's just either snow shoveling or bad posture catching up with me.

I see the doc on Friday for my annual exam. I am afraid to mention it, lest she think it worthy of testing for meningitis (spinal tap!). Let's hope I feel better by then. I've been doing stretches, but should be strengthening my core a little more.

Looking forward to vacation

After this winter wollop, I have our January mini-cruise on my mind. We weren't going to do one, but decided it is worth our mental health. We just needed to do it super-duper cheap. And if there's one thing I can do, it's finding and inexpensive cruise (still working on the "spend less money while on cruise" thing).

So, for $199/pp we booked an inside room on the NCL Sky, for a quick 4 nighter to the Bahamas. We are flying into Miami on Saturday, and leave for the cruise Monday afternoon. I know, it's the Bahamas and not too exciting, but it's warm. We talked my sister and her hubby into joining us.

Well, the price dropped even more last week, so I called the cruiseline to see if they'd sport me an upgrade (NCL is stingy about giving credit when there is a price drop, which is fine). Some people on cruisecritic.com said they've had varying degrees of success, so I figured it never hurts to ask. Me and my sister were both upgraded. Yay-bigger rooms and now we have a window.

I also scored a dress on clearance at JCP this morning. $15 and it will be good for the cruise for dinner, and even nice to wear to work with a black lightweight sweater.

Creative gifting

I am kind of fed up with holiday consumerism for some reason this year. Buying a bunch of expensive things for grown adults bothers me.

So, I'm trying to be more creative this year.

FIL
He needs a new desktop computer. Our old one just needs a new chip, so we are giving him the computer and BIL is having it fixed.

In addition, he wanted a Thai cookbook. Instead, I am printing him my favorite Thai recipes and filling a basket with ingredients he'll need, but might have a hard time finding in his small town.

I also made him and his wife some homemade Kaluha and Irish Creme.

MIL
I've typed up a book of some recipes I enjoy, that I know she'd enjoy and that have ingredients she uses. She's been talking about how she checks out cookbooks from the library, so I thought this was a good idea.

I need to get her something else, but haven't decided yet.

My dad
He lives by himself, but stays with his GF a lot. They both work full time, and tend to eat the same things over and over. We are smoking a pork butt, shredding it, and vacuum sealing it in smaller servings for the freezer. We'll include homemade bbq sauce.

My oldest sister
In addition to some stuff from B&BW, I'm giving her my homemade pepper jelly with a super cute little spoon from World Market, some mascarpone cheese and fancy crackers.

Forecast

TUESDAY:
Mostly cloudy and turning windy with snow developing; heavy snow and blowing and drifting snow overnight.
High: 29
Wind: NE 15-25 MPH

WEDNESDAY:
Cloudy, windy, and turning colder with snow. Blowing and drifting snow likely. Total accumulation: 8-12".
Low: 28
High: 28; temperatures falling throughout the day

THURSDAY:
Variably cloudy, breezy, and very cold.
Low: 4
High: 14

FRIDAY:
Partly sunny and continued cold.
Low: 4
High: 18

SATURDAY:
Partly sunny and cold.
Low: 4
High: 20


*cries*
After almost three hours of futzing, the snowblower attachment was installed yesterday. Sigh.

Lack of Creativity

So my boss likes to "jazz up" reports ocassionally. Our final reports for grants are often strict about plain jane formatting, so we only jazz them up if they are going to outsiders on a fairly frequent basis, or going to someone important.

Well, one report done in March is now going to somewhere important. She wanted to jazz it up. I offered to do it, as our student workers are tied up, and frankly I kind of enjoy this stuff. She says she doesn't want to waste my time and runs off to find someone else to do it. She asked a young secretary who is very competent. I thought it was probably a great choice.

Wrong o. Barb asked her to make the report look nice. Her response? She put a border on the cover page and used arched Word Art for the title and make the author names bigger. All in black & white.

Seriously.

In twenty minutes I downloaded a good Word template and fixed up the formatting intricacies. I'm not exactly a creative genius, but I can at least think to use a template that looks pretty.

Oh, and in unrelated chatter, I am going to be racist and say I hate listening to many Japanese women talk on the phone in their native language. The rhythm is so grating to my ears. They often drag out the end of the last word in their sentence. It's like a roller coaster that keeps going quickly up, then slowly down.

Blu-Ray

We bought a new blu-ray player on Sunday from Amazon. Free super saver shipping, and it's expected to arrive here tomorrow. Yay!

Our old DVD player (pretty basic model, 9 years old) has crappy picture and even worse sound. I mean really, really horrible sound. So we had to decide between a regular upconvert DVD player, a blu-ray player, or a PS3. We do not have a gaming system, but Chris wants one (ok, we have an old Nintendo and Atari, but that doesn't count). However, we'd both rather have a Wii.

Chris tried to trick me into the BUY A TV, GET A FREE PS3 OR BLU RAY deals at several retailers. No way, no how. He's so sneaky. He tried to say this would solve my issue that the living room tv would become "Chris is constantly playing games" tv and I'd be irritated. I also said he'd be bothered if I wanted to do the Wii Fit in the living room while he wanted to watch tv. We have a tv in our bedroom, but it's a pretty old one. So, he claimed, by getting another nice tv, we could turn the four season room into a gaming room. *eye roll* Nice try. I mean it's not a terrible idea, but it's also an $800 idea when frankly, all we NEED right now is a new DVD player.

So I knew I wanted a blu-ray player, as it's where movie technology is going, and you can still play regular dvds. I also like the option to beam in movies from Netflix, though doing so is an extra cost. I like the option, though.

And that is my long, convoluted story of our new blu-ray player. Terribly exciting, I know.

Reflecting on the holiday weekend

I had a four day weekend (we were on forced furlough Friday) and I'm not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. However, I fear I'd just turn into a sleepy blob with one more day.

Thanksgiving Day was good. I went to BIL's and had a shrimp boil. It's never a traditional turkey dinner at his house! I drank WAAAY too much wine. Felt miserable the next morning. It turns out I CAN get a wine hangover.

Friday I spent preparing for my family to come over on Saturday for our Thanksgiving dinner. I put the make ahead mashed potatoes in the crockpot, so I could just turn them on to warm in the morning, brined the turkey, prepped the celery/onions/broth for stuffing, etc. Less to do when my sisters arrived to prepare their dishes. I despise a crowded kitchen. My one sister is terrible, she aimlessly stands RIGHT in the way. If you aren't doing anything, move to the other side of the counter, please. I also snuck a LUSH bath in on Saturday night right before bed. Ahhhhh. I used a new Santa shaped bomb. I forget the name.

Saturday went ok. Middle sis was very quiet. Other sis brought their puppy and I had to lock the cats up. Ali has been constipated again, and was miserable. Didn't need a puppy chasing her. And the puppy is in cat-chase mode still. Sigh.

Today I spent decorating my new artificial tree for the deck and stringing the white-lit greenery across the front deck area. I put some wintery knick-knacks out around inside the house to give the inside a Christmasy feel, too. Far less stress that dealing with climbing and chewing cats.

This afternoon I spent doing homework. One big paper, three article summaries, and editing my small grant proposal left for this semester.

Hotlanta

I'm back from my conference in Atlanta and am loathing to get back into the daily routine of work. It is an exhausting conference, but I sqeezed in some fun. Here's the fun:

Thursday
Went to STRAITS restaurant in Atlanta, owned by Ludacris. I'm so hip. Not. It was very tasty and I met a new friend from DC.

Friday
Toured CNN. Awesome, awesome tour. Did not see Anderson Cooper, however saw many other CNN "celebs." Might have been on HLN, as I was interviewed, but I didn't have all afternoon to watch tv.

Saturday
Nookie Day! She's everything I'd hoped she'd be. :-) Mr. Nookie is also charming and yes, he's a hottie as many of you have noted. We went to lunch, walked Piedmont Park, and sipped some Starbuck's. They were great hosts! Best of all-there are pictures.

Tom Colicchio can kiss my butt

I don't even want to see if I spelled his name right. *harumph*

I decided I needed a game on the computer, but none of the Facebook ones are things I want to get sucked into. I want a game I can play for a day, leave for a week, and come back without it impacting my life whatsoever. So, for the low price of $6.99 I downloaded the Top Chef game.

I am on episode four and Tom keeps telling me my dishes are straight out of cooking school and don't wow him enough. Suck it, Tom.

Lots to update!

1. I broke down and bought Folgers coffee for work. Now I can throw cans of coffee at my coworkers like Carey does. I call it "Recession Coffee." My boss kind of looked at it with distaste (she's basically the other person that drinks from our pot) and said, "You really should have told me we needed coffee." She tried to be nice about it, but in her mind, she was saying, "YUCK!" At least I sprung for the darker roast. It's not bad.

2. I'm going to see Boo the last week of December. This makes me so happy! I get to meet her hubby and sweet little boy. I also hope to see her 747 that she breaks out after a few cocktails. Bonus: It will very likely be much warmer there.

3. We had to go to court yesterday for our neighbors. They are suing the original owners (John Deere house builders) re: a flooding basement (it's flooded numerous times). Original owners (well, husband is dead) are denying they knew of any water problems (wife is saying husband dealt with all that and she didn't know a thing...she's a liar) and say it's the builders fault if there are water issues (the builder should not have let them put their basement all the way in the ground...us and the other two neighbors built to deal with the high water table). It was weird. The lawyers were kind of grasping at straws. My favorite was when the defense asked Chris to tell them about the weather each year since we lived there. I wanted to say, "Consult an almanac, idiot."

4. I get to see (breifly) Nookie in two weekends. Yay! She's been on my wanna-peep-meet top five forever! Ok, I don't really have a list, but if I was asked, I bet I could come up with my top five. But don't ask, because I don't like choosing favorites. :-)

I'm giving out badges

People seem to wear certain acts on their sleeves like a badge. For example, "I don't do Facebook" or "I don't eat beef." They seem to take every chance to bring it up they can.

So, what do you seem to wear like a badge, or what annoys you about someone else?

I worry I use my "I'm in school" like a badge sometimes, but I use it as an excuse (albiet a valid one), not because it's a pride thing. Hell, around here I'm in the minority that I don't have a graduate degree of some sort and it's not something I like to bring up.

The President is Here

It's kind of exciting. President Obama has just landed in Madison and is off to Wright Middle School, a very diverse charter school, to interact with students, teachers and education leaders, then give an education speech.

6 ingredients

There are six essential ingredients to a good football game-watching experience, IMHO:

-Good company
-Comfort of seating
-Quality of tv
-Good food
-Good beer
-Good football

I watched the game yesterday at a local bar (the one on the river, MC) that was also holding a customer appreciation party as they are closing for the season.

Good company? Yep, Nolay kept me company and we had good laughs.
Comfort of seating? Meh.
Quality of tv? Yep-brand new HUGE tv and we sat right in front of it, unobstructed view.
Good food? Good AND FREE! BBQ pork, roasted chicken, brats, dips, salads, beans, chips, fried bar food, fresh fried blue gill, etc.
Good drinks? $1.50 taps until the taps ran dry...of some of our favorite beers that are usually $3-4 a pint.
Good football? Though we didn't win, it was a great game.

BONUS! We won a 12 pack of beer!

PSA

Public Sweets Annoucement:

Dragonflies has a sign up for the annual Blogger cookie exchange on her blog!

My eating dilemna and weekend fun

Good news-Chris took a walk with me last weekend, so there's hope I can have a partner to get out of the house on weekends and exercise. Of course it took me laying out his entire outfit and telling him, "I'm ready to go, your clothes are on the bed." *snort* Whatever works! This weekend we are going to a really big corn maze.

The bad news is that winter is coming and neither of us want to venture out then. And there's no good indoor area for us to walk around town. In the winter, I tend to just use the treadmill in the basement.

Good news-I've been curbing my daily cookie/bar afternoon fix. It's a habit I've been trying to break forever. And no, a piece of dark chocolate doesn't do the trick, nor does a little pudding cup, low fat/low sugar prepackaged treats, or Fiber One bar (sometimes it does, but I get sick of those pretty easily). With the cafeteria downstairs, it's just too easy for me to indulge my craving. But I've found a reasonable solution.

Bad news-that solution is cereal that has a fair amount of sugar. A bowl of cereal cures my sweet tooth and my need to sink my teeth into something substantial. Plus, I can mix up the variety. I've tried the Special K chocolatey cereal and it wasn't particularly yummy. And healthier cereals with some Splenda? Not the same. I need to sit down and look at some lables to at least choose the lesser of evils.

Nudists

I forgot to mention-there was a small nudist (or "naturalists" as they called themselves...which I always thought were people that took you on flora and fauna tours) convention at the motel next to our house this weekend.

Chris and I noticed the place was full-kind of strange in October, but we figured it was either a wedding or lots of fall color tourists. But we also noticed the windows to the pool area were covered with green paper. Kids party?

Nope, the nudies were there. I hope they wore clothes to dinner, or that they didn't use the regular chairs in the dining area.

Upcoming road trip

I have a hotel night to use by the end of the year, so we are doing a quickie to Minneapolis in a few weekends. We're staying near Mall of America, which has two LUSH stores! I haven't purchased any LUSH since last July in Chicago. Chris said he agrees that I deserve some LUSH holiday items. He wants to hit some flight simulator place there.

We'll also be hitting some brewpubs (surprise!) and a cupcake bakery. :-) I suspect we'll need to do some mall laps to make up for the calories.

In other cupcake news, my black forest cupcakes were not devoured at our friend's Oktoberfest party. They were very pretty, but there were four competing desserts and lots of other food. I came home with 10 leftover cupcakes. Oh well, yummy for us!

In random news, I forgot my jacket at a bar that's not so convenient to return to. It will have to wait until this weekend. Also, Puffy's DD had reasonably good weather for the wedding this weekend. Given the rest of the week, they had the best possible day.

Soft Pretzels

If I were a religious person, I would credit God for the soft pretzel. But since I don't, I'll give props to Alton Brown, for giving me the yummiest pretzel recipe evah! Normally, homemade soft pretzels just kind of taste like bread in a pretzel shape. His pretzels have that special crust that tastes very pretzeley. The secret is in the boiling baking soda bath.


We are taking these to our friend's Oktoberfest party on Saturday, along with a black forest cake. It's the friend who started chemo this month and her DH was hit with H1N1 and still is low on energy. They want to have the party, but their plan to bake a bunch of soft pretzels wasn't happening. Thus, a few of us are bringing batches for them.

In other news, MIL thought she might die during her colonoscopy. She sent a letter saying "If anything happens to me, my journals are in the cabinet above the fridge." Um, ok.

I love my boss

Maybe it's to ease her guilt, but she's been putting out great feelers about jobs for me. She's making sure any job would include a significant raise for me. What a great woman.

I have another job that really interests me (and hires for on a rolling basis), but I don't have a nursing or social work degree (or "related" field degree, unless they consider education "related"). However, I know the job well and it's a job I helped develop some tools for, so I think I could claim significant experience. It's not one licensure is required for, so I could try and tapdance around the issue.

I'm feeling a little less lost than in pervious days.

Job news

Well, it sounds like my boss wants to take the job in California. She had an interview last week and after a brief chat with her, I bet she'll take it. Things have been terrible here, so she's wise to run. She asked if I was still interested in coming with her. Sigh.

I want to go. I love northern CA and I want out of my current workplace. I hate winter. It would be a raise. Real estate is relatively cheap around there now. We could buy low and have a good investment.

However...

1) CA isn't exactly is great financial shape and state workers are on worse furloughs than we are.

2) Chris would need to get a job, and outside of his current profession, there's not a ton of available work he'd qualify for/be interested in currently.

3) If we sold our house (and in this market, that's not exactly an easy thing to do), we'd probably only walk with $15-20K after some projects we'd need to do to prep it for selling and realtor fees. That's not even 10% down for most houses out there.

4) I don't know that I want to stay in academia. It's never been the best fit for me, and now is an opportunity to change fields.

The good news is my boss wouldn't leave until summer or fall next year. This gives me some time. Unfortunately I won't be done with my MSEd until summer next year, but I think I could apply for jobs it's required for in the spring anyway.

I guess when it comes down to it, I'd rather wait until we are better prepared for a move and the economy offers more options for work. If I was 100% sold I wanted to stay in academia, this decision would be easier.

When did we turn 80?

My friend Mel, the one diagnosed with breast cancer recently, commented "When did we all turn 80? I could've sworn just last month we were all in our 30s?" Chris joins her on the sick people's couch (her hubby also is just getting over H1N1!) and goes in for surgery soon for his insanely broken shoulder.

What does this mean for us?

1. I have to drive myself to work, which isn't a big deal except I don't have anywhere to park. My options are to park about a mile away and walk, park a mile away and ride the bus, or pay $10/day to park at work. I'll be doing a combo of walking and bussing, depending on the weather.

2. I have to adjust grocery and meals. With him being home, but unable to cook, I need to make some adjustments. Not to mention his bloodwork results recently suggest we need to make adjustments.

3. I'm going to have a bored husband when I get home from work. This is a slight issue because I am starting my other class this week, so I'll have homework at least 5 out of 7 days to tend to, progressively more as the semester goes on.

4. We rejoined Netflix last night.

5. The cats are going to get really spoiled by having a person around all the time.

6. I have to juggle some meetings around, but I'll also take some time to work at home, which can be good.

Work stress

It was one of those days yesterday when I held it together until 4:30, then left in tears. People just get so darn defensive and can't take feedback. I recorded meeting minutes a little too accurately from a meeting and got screeched at by the people some "frustrations" were (not in name) directed at (it was about our school website and people having difficulty getting their voice heard about needed changes...those were words I used). The communications group screeched when they saw the minutes(they are the people that aren't listening, but I worded it to be a "school" issue, so it wouldn't directly implicate anyone). Did I mention this is a completely voluntary committee that isn't required for me to participate in? If push comes to shove, I'll happily resign! However, I'm just enough stubborn on principle, I'm not backing down that easily.

I revised my minutes with the blessing of the rest of the committee and resent them with an apology for an inaccuracies or inappropriate wording. Sigh. I hope the day improves.

Mid Week Miscellaney

1) I am making Buffalo Chicken Lasagne for dinner tonight. *waves at tummy*

2) MIL is coming this weekend. We are going to a show at APT, but in the new indoor theatre. Thank cod, because it's going to be cold. I'm also having her help me make Tummy's OTCC food. She lived in Germany for a year, so maybe she'll bring some expertise. Chris is doubtful about that.

3) I bought boots and a sweater at Kohl's last night. I hate buying shoes because they never have my size in the ones I want. I ended up buying a larger size in a shoe that ran small.

4) I had spanikopita for dinner at a greek restaurant last night. I realized when I went to order, that I didn't really know how to pronouce it. I've had it many times before, but it's always been part of a cocktail party offering, so I didn't have to say it.

5) Chili cookoff is Saturday. We decided to not take it very seriously and are making "chili dog chili." It will be a basic beefy chili with hot dogs slices cooked in, topped with cheese and onion. It will at least be entertaining.

Soup!

I've been making a few soups this fall. I made a potato leek soup a few weeks ago. This weekend I made a curried butternut squash soup in the crockpot.

1 cut up butternut squash (peeled & seeded, cut into 1 inch chunks)
1 apple (peeled & seeded, cut into 1 inch chunks)
1 onion (cut into 1 inch chunks)
5 cups chicken broth, mixed with 1 teaspoon curry powder (or, to taste)
Salt and pepper

Toss it all in the crockpot for 4 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low. When done, use a stick blender to puree all, or let cool and process in the blender in three batches until smooth.

I added a little bit of milk when done because I think I didn't peel the skin deep enough and it tasted starchy.

Friday quickie

I will be sitting at our research display table at an event most of the day. Yuck! I'll at least have my laptop.

So what are you up to this weekend? My plan:

Friday night: Go to Kohl's and Target
Saturday: Go for walk with friend in the a.m., go to my dad's annual big truck show for an hour, and head home to work around the house.
Sunday: Homework!

Trying to Love

Things I am loving or trying to love:

1) Loving the sleeping temperature at night. The house is perfect in the mid 60s. I've been sleeping great.

2) Trying to love my crock pot. I bought a larger one last year with auto timing features, thinking I'd cook with it more. I'm generally gone AT LEAST 10 hours per day, so sometimes that just overcooks things. So, I now don't add veggies to anything, only do meat, and use the autotimer features (it switches down to warm when the 8 or 10 hour cook time is done). I have also been looking for more ethnic and interesting dishes, as I tire VERY quickly of the can of soup/bottle of bbq sauce type slow cooker recipes. I'm warming up to it (no pun intended).

3) Loving the DVR. This is the first full season of tv where I'm really using it. I could use it even more if I took the time to search for more shows I like.

4) Trying to love a few new fall shows. I'm feeling stale in my tv options. Modern Family and Flashforward have the most potential for me. I've also been catching up on Dexter via free Showtime, but that will soon end and we'll never pay more to subscribe to the channel.

So tired lately

I shouldn't be complaining, as our friend Frodis has far more reasons to be suffering from the yawns.

The one thing I hate about fall? It's dark when I get up now. It's so hard to roll out of bed in the mornings.

I've been eating more sweets than I should. I need to cut back and it's probably exacerbating my sleepiness.

I swear I only watch (via DVR-I otherwise couldn't watch it due to the 2 hour commercial fest) the Biggest Loser for inspiration to exercise. Last night I thought I'd head downstairs with the laptop to see if there were any good workout routines online. I found some very funny things. :-) Needless to say, I hopped on the treadmill after about 30 minutes of looking and trying other stuff. I did find some good ball workouts, though.

Work has been busy, but I'd say a good busy. Makes me not realize how tired I am right away.

I have a couple that are friends of ours (not super close friends, but friends we do things with ~4 times per year), and I heard they are preggers. I see the husband at work a lot, but he hasn't yet said anything. I want to ask, but I feel like they'd tell me if they wanted to.

Burrrrito....Suuuave

For whatever reason, I always think about the song Rico Sauve when I say the word burrito.

The annual chili cookoff we participate in has added a campfire dessert category this year. At the 3 Day, Breezy and I were discussing less common ways to do dessert. Lots of people will do cobblers, maybe a few pudgie pie/campfire pie/hobo pie recipes, etc. Thus was born the concept of the dessert burrito. I tested a few in quesedilla form on the stovetop last weekend. The favorite was the banana/marshmallow/chocolate chip. I still need to try a cream cheese based one and try rolling them burrito style. Maybe I'm better off leaving them as quesedillas. Not sure if I'll do it on a tripod grate over the fire, or a cast iron pan.

Fall clothes

It's that time again where I don't feel like I have money to spend, but want new clothes for the season. It's all about choices, I guess. Next month my choice will be to spend some allowance on clothes.

Last night I had the clothing bug, but couldn't pull the trigger on a shopping spree. To avoid the desire, I instead hit Goodwill where I had a buy one, get one coupon and also needed some new books anyway just in case I had some free time.

My loot:

-Three paperbacks (Nanny Diaries, The Corrections and something else a little more deep and interesting, but can't remember the title)
-One pair of shoes that look never worn from J. Jill. I know, some of you just totally freaked out that I'd buy shoes from Goodwill. I at least have the standard of nothing can look "worn" (including the printing on the inside of the shoe-a dead giveaway that it's been worn more than a few weeks).
-Gaucho or Palazzo style pants in brown.
-2 v-neck cotton shirts with fake shirts underneath. One is garnet red with a cream fake silky blouse underneath. The other is a gray casual shirt with a white fake cami underneath.
-1 tan jacket (like a blazer, only no has the asian style neckline) with some matching embroidery detail. Conservative, but easy to dress up with a cute shirt underneath and jewelry.

My total spend was $18. All shirts and the pants were in great condition (the gray casual one looked like it had seen a few washing cycles, but the others were barely noticable they were used).

Are some of you still freaking about the shoes? :-)

Taliesin

First, if you haven't read MC's update of her trip to Wisconsin, visit her blog.

Second, I'm excited about this weekend. I am going with a small group on an "intimate" tour of Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright's original architecture school and home for much of his life. This is an amazing deal because it's costs nothing (the most expansive regular tour is $80/pp) and it's more than any "normal" tour offers. I owe big thanks to a friend that was able to arrange this.
Taliesin

We'll also be staying at Frank Lloyd Wright's Uncle's Farm due to the amazing deal our friend got. We'll throw him a little cash for this, but he got it at a silent auction for a steal. It's just down the road from our house, so we'll probably only stay one night, but will enjoy a few nights of campfires there with others.

Things not to do

1. Pick your anniversary dinner restaurant based on having a coupon.

What's on your list this week?

P.S. I got 8 DIVINE truffles for our annivesary from this place:
David Bacco

Things I love about MC & Mr. MC

I figure I should post some kind of official recap, but Maroonclown is doing a lovely job of that at her blog. Plus, she has all the pictures.

In about 10 seconds of seeing them at the airport, it felt like our best friends from long ago had come to visit. There was none of that weirdness between us all (at least I didn't think so). They are so much fun, finding humor in everyday things and being open to trying anything. They're just all around good peeps.

Chris enjoyed playing tour guide and filling them with all sorts of factoids (well, maybe "fact"oid is an exaggeration). I enjoyed pointing out things like, "this is where I buy my cheese," and "that's one of our favorite bars."

My faovirte time of the weekend was sitting on the Madison lakefront, watching sailboats, canoes, families, students and dogs playing in the hot sun. We had beers and warm water lapping at our feet. It was summer and we were sharing it with friends that we rarely see.

We baked T-kits blueberry muffins (yum!), sat around the campfire, shot a lot of guns (shredding cabbage and chopping watermelon in the process), saw the sights of Madison and lounged on the deck of a bar on the Wisconsin River. The weather was perfecto all weekend, other than the cold nights and foggy mornings.

Our cats were not the best hosts. One puked on their suitcase while we were out.

Thank you, MC & Mr. MC for coming to visit. We had a most enjoyable time.

Get yer cheese!

I bought a lot of cheese last night. I hope MC is ready to gain 20 lbs.

More things that won't get done:
-Possibly weed trimming. We'll see about that.
-Fridge cleaned throughy
-Garage cleaned

Don't worry, at least she'll get clean sheets. And guns. Mr. MC will get to play with many, many guns. I suggest anyone considering burglarizing my home to wait. *rolls eyes* We've alerted the neighbors.

Weekend in Review

What a horrible weekend, weather-wise. We headed up to northern WI to visit my MIL. It was high's in the 50s and rainy most of the weekend. Yuck!

My MIL was nice enough to research things to do if it was rainy...or we could sit with her and play old games she "dug up." When I say old, I mean board games with musty smell and missing pieces...board games you've probably never heard of before. So, we headed out for the afternoon. We went to a small town "Oktoberfest in August." It was actually fun. Old people drinking and singing crack me up. We also had a big piece of black forest cake that was uber yummy.

We stopped at a bar that served deep fried, breaded brat bites. Yes, we tried them with some of the hottest mustard I've ever tasted. My heart is still beating this morning. Yay!

We brought a load of granite rocks home to continue our flowerbed border around the house. I need about three more loads in the Jeep to finish it off. That means it will be next summer before it's done.

This week and next will be tomato processing hell. I made a batch of spaghetti sauce that's too spicy (I know, even for me), so I need to run more tomatoes through my mill tonight to add to it.

We'll be able to make a fresh batch of salsa this weekend to munch on. Yum!

We have Sirius radio in the Jeep, and like to listen to crazy talk radio on long trips. Well we found a doozie yesterday!
What's a Woman to Do
Oh my cod. I seriously felt like ripping the receiver from our dash and throwing it out the window. You really must listen. Your jaw will drop.

Things that won't be done

I'm enjoying my last few weeks of freedom from School. Classes start again on the 9th. Speaking of the 9th, our wedding anniversary is 9/9, it will be our 9th anniversary, Chris has his annual sups conference at 9 a.m. that day...we should probably buy a lottery ticket.

I'm enjoying my more flexible schedule by deciding not to do a few things in realation to our upcoming houseguests. I will not vacuum screens of all the cat fur. I did this in June, but they are all fuzzy again. I also will not leather-polish the furniture and will not go frantic about my flower beds, as it's the end of the season anyway.

This weekend we are heading to MIL's. She wanted to come and visit us, but I want to steal landscaping rocks from her land (she lives in an association with acres upon acres of rocky woodland). Plus, that give us more control over the length of the visit. :-)

Final word: My sister's new golden retriever puppy just might be the cutest puppy ever, and I've seen a lot of puppies (including their other two goldens). I really should've grabbed my camera last weekend.

Shitstorm Raging

Seems like there is a lot of bad news raining down upon OT and other peeps in my life. Name something you are thankful for.

I? am thankful for my health.

Boom Boom Pow

A kid goes into an Apple store and does a Boom Boom Pow lip sync and puts it on YouTube. This becomes a sensation, really? He was just on the Today show. Our threshold for entertainment is really low.

On the other hand, if you have a cat, go watch the "Simon's Cat" cartoons on YouTube.


I've been having a horrible neck issue this week. I can only sit at the computer for a few hours at a time. Thus, I've been at home most of the week. I have a ton of housework to do, but haven't been able to do much.

However, I just made zucchini bread. Who wants some?

To Do List

I need to make a to do list, so why not do it here and give you all something incredibly boring to read? This is a working weekend, as I've been gone the last two weekends and will be gone the following two.

Thursday night
1. Pick up veggies from CSA
2. Go to Michael's and look for a suitable matte for a photo
3. Make pumpkin gnocchi and salmon (Chris is "gone fishin'" tonight so I can have fish & gnocchi, which he doesn't like!)
4. Vacuum house
5. Swiffer other floors
6. Call my dad's girlfriend re: his birthday

UPDATE: Michael's only satisfied one of my needs. They did not have a mat large enough for one of my pics pre cut. Framing guy was like an 18 year old guy, so I didn't ask about just buying a custom sized mat. I'll do that later.

Otherwise all tasks accomplished Thursday night. Unfortunately I got myself into hosting a bay party for my dad next Sunday evening. We are getting home from a Milwaukee trip with friends around noon that day, so not the best timing to be hosting.

Friday afternoon/evening (working from home tomorrow, so I gain 2 hours during the day where I'd normally be commuting!)
UPDATE: I'm at work. Long story. Carpets will not likely get done tonight.

1. Shampoo carpets
2. Laundry
3. Dust

Saturday
1. Tend to my flowerbeds which are a mess from me being gone so much and well, not doing much since early summer with them
2. Use trimmer on borders

Sunday
1. Clean some closets and cupboards
2. Scour countertop

3 Day Hangover

First, I want to thank everyone for their amazing support. Whether it was financial, cards of support, cheering us online, or coming out in person, it's obvious you are wonderful people and you deserve a round of applause yourselves. Without you, Breezy & I couldn't have done this.

THURSDAY
Breezy and I took it easy with a pasta dinner and drink at the hotel and snuggled in our comfy hotel beds to watch movies and go to bed early. Well, Marky Mark kept us up later than anticipated, but it was worth it.

FRIDAY
*Yawn* With PB&J gramwiches in our bellies (Breezy scored some from the woman that gave her a ride on Thurs.), we headed to opening ceremonies. After some disorganization on the part of the 3 Day, we finally got parked and our big bags dropped at the luggage truck. Energizer sponsored the 3 Day this year, so we all got pink bunny ears! I don't know if Breezy got a pic of that or not. The survivor march was truly emotional. I know I shed a few tears. About 1800 walkers registered for the Chicago 3 Day, so we were quite the vision starting our walk in Northbrook, IL. The sheer impact of seeing a sea of pink I hope is inspirational for those who pass it. It is one of the major reasons I walk.

The morning sailed by beautifully. There were some very, very light sprinkles, but it was overcast and relatively cool. Yay! Our route was beautiful Friday, taking us through the Botanical Gardens and along the lake where there were some million + dollar homes to view. Here's a pic from one of our pit stops, whose theme was "Copacabana"



Right before lunch, the rain started. We donned ponchos and headed to the lunch location, where they said to quickly eat and get to the next pit stop where there would be dry shelter, as the rain was expected to pick up. I planned to do hot spot care and switch socks at lunch, but since we were promised a dry spot in the afternoon, I waited. By the time we got to the pit, I had blisters formed. :-( Here's a pic of Breezy patiently waiting for me to fix my feet.



We got to camp and it was still raining. We needed to set up our tent, and were lucky the rain was very light during our tent construction. By then I had full blown, painful blisters. We did, however, make it to the mailbox! Thank you SO MUCH to those who sent us letters. It was the most surprising, uplifting thing to read our mail.
*smooches* We also got to play games for prizes in the Energizer tent. We scored Bunny tote bags and bandanas, along with portable cell phone chargers. Yay!

3 Day "Rock Star" took place in the tent that night (after we did fun things like sing The Greatest American Hero song. *snort* There were a swoony man (lots of men at this years 3 Day!!!) that sang Wanted Dead or Alive, a fun girl that sang Fancy, and a goofy fun duo that sang Love Shack with a whole routine. MUCH better than our "I Hope You Dance" girl, Boo!!!!

There were about six I.V.s on Friday, and it wasn't even hot. We think it was the group of ladies at the bar Thursday. *snort*


SATURDAY
Saturday, oh rainy Saturday. I went to the medical tent to pad up my feet for the day and we started out with ponchos on for our rainy morning of walking. By the afternoon, the rain gave way to sweltering heat. Super. We knew we had Frodis and family to look forward to that afternoon, though!!! By then my blisters were terrible, so I had a nurse dress them. I gimped through the day and Breezy was nice enough to go slow for me. Her short legs made it easier. *giggle*

Our route took us through Mount Prospect, IL, where the AWESOME police officers directing traffic and helping us cross intersections were wearing pink uniforms and handing out special badge stickers to walkers. How much do they rock? Also, the Fire Dept. was at an intersection, also wearing pink shirts. *swoon* All three days, a local Ambulance company was driving the route with an outside mounted speaker, blaring 80s music and hanging out the window dancing and cheering us on. It was the BEST!

I took one picture of a Pit Stop food tent, just to show Boo they were not nearly as good as us. You should've seen all the food they had left. No salesmanship whatsoever. *grin*


What a great weekend, despite all the challenges!


Frodis and Lauren were hanging onto a sign welcoming us to the afternoon cheering station. We even got to meet sweet little Jeff! We ate frozen grapes and relaxed under a shade tree (Who is going to make a mommy of two move from under the shade tree?) with the crowd. It was such a welcome sight and her kids are so, so, so cute!

Back at camp that night we were exhausted and didn't take part in much of the festivities. We did get to hear about one man who walked from Superior, WI (very northern edge of Wisconsin) to Chicago that week to then walk in the 3 Day! WOW! We also got a visit from the Mount Prospect police to show us how to pack our tents by having a little contest amongst themselves and one even did a little pony dance for us. *snort* I think we were asleep by 8:30. We had to get up early and break down camp. The good news was the rain was gone so we could air out our tent from our wet clothes and sleep with the tarp off.

SUNDAY
After quickly breaking down our tent and packing up our gear (after a tent neighbor awoke chattering in a normal voice level and cackling with laughter at 4:15!!!!!), we headed off to breakfast. I hit the Medical tent to have my blister checked out, as the nurse Saturday night thought one might be able to be lanced (they only did this if blisters were over 2" wide!). Indeed, they loaded me on a bed and a crowd of staff decided to ooh and ahh over my blister, which in the words of the doctor (who was not that hot, Boo), "this is the worst one I've seen so far." Super. I'll spare you the gory details. The doc suggested I take the morning off the walk and keep my foot elevated, so I unfortunately missed the morning walk with Breezy. She was a trooper, as it was SUPER hot on Sunday.

We ate lunch in the shade and headed off for the afternoon, me still gimpy, so she had to keep slow pace with me. It was a beautiful route on Sunday along the Chicago city lakefront. We even got to take in some of Lalapalooza! Lots of people love boobies, so we got lots of honking cars. It's amazing what a difference that makes, so if you ever pass some charity walkers, give them a supportive honk! It was in the high 90s with high humidity on Sunday, so a miserable day to be walking. We did stay hydrated though. Saw lots of I.V.s and a few people hauled away in ambulances.

At about 3:15, we hit the sidewalk of Soldier Field (no, these Packer fans did not burst into flames), our endpoint of the walk. Big crowds of supporters cheered us in as we walked through the inside of the stadium. It was very cool (even literally-love those concrete stadiums!). We did it! Well, Breezy did it all, I missed about 10 miles. We all (crew, walkers, medical staff) raised a shoe at closing ceremonies as each of the walkers entered the ceremonial gathering. It was emotional.

Tomorrow, I have an appointment with an NP to look at my horrid blister, as it's red and awful looking again. The doc in the medical tent said it can get quite terribly infected when there is blood in it (as there was), so I should get it checked out asap. I wasn't moving from my couch today (except to take a bath and wash my stinky clothes). I have realized my feet are just blister prone, period. Have been since I was a child. I never went barefoot outside because my feet were too sensitive. Fortunately the walking sandals (particularly the Eccos)helped me continue to walk. I could actually get my foot into the shoe without screaming in pain like last time I walked.

But it's all worth it. Every bit worth it.

*hugs to Breezy*

Special shout out to Boo, who was missed this year, though if she had to walk through that rain, I think I might have lost her to the Holiday Inn that night. :-)

Again, THANK YOU to everyone.

Back from KC

I thought my mini-vacation would feel more like a vacation. I had a conference where I was presenting last week in Kansas City. Chris and I had always toyed with a trip there, so it was a great opportunity to get reimbursed for a few nights hotel and mileage. We drove down on Wednesday. It was a long drive, but not bad. Thursday I was at my conference most of the day, then Friday half the day. So Friday afternoon and Saturday were my only real vacation days. I never really got in the groove.

We ate way too much and drank too much. I bet after all is said and done, I probably gained weight. The various bbq and cupcakes (two cupcake bakeries were on my agenda) alone were were worth it. :-) However, due to the caloric overload, I am so uninterested in food and drink right now.

My Web Project

A little brag about the skills I learned this summer. I took a class in Web Design for Educators and made this bad boy from html scratch, with no help from templates, Dreamweaver, etc.

*pats self on back*

Kim's Final Project Site

Delicious things

Yumminess is in the air.

• Special K vanilla and almonds? Gross by itself. Drizzled with a little bit of melted dark chocolate? Delicious.
• I'm going raspberry picking tonight. This will necessitate making a raspberry balsamic chicken dinner, some raspberry salsa for pork and either a raspberry pie or chocolate raspberry bars this weekend.
• There is a spicy halibut boil at a restaurant in town on Friday. I should go. Halibut is yummy.

What is your favorite summer food? It's a tie between raspberries, watermelon and corn on the cob for me.

School Sucks

I'm so sick of my summer classes. The content is great, but the pace is brutal. Three more weeks! So that is why I've been incommunicado.

I've been trying to sneak in 3 Day training walks on weekends and it's been great weather in the mornings. Not to mention the smells of the flowers along the roads are awesome.

I must throw out the last of the cupcakes tonight. I made some this weekend and have consumed way too many.

I miss playing with my friends on the net. :-(

Roller Skating

Guess where I'm insisting we stop on our way through Lincoln, NE at the end of the month?
http://www.rollerskatingmuseum.com/