The Life and Times of T & A

practicing

2012-01-31T14:33:00.002-05:00

The video is a little dark, so I hope you can see it. Tabitha's been practicing a very important movement for the past few days.

clarification

2012-01-24T14:35:00.002-05:00

The emails I posted yesterday were actually written back in November. Tabby has been a 35-40 minute napper since she was about 6 weeks old. The book I was reading at the time was based on the assumption that your baby was taking naps at least an hour and a half long, and the things I tried were all suggestions from the book. They never worked. However, I have read since that short naps are common until 6 months old, and are common if your baby sleeps well at night (which Tabitha always has). So I haven't worried about it in a long time, Alfred just wanted me to post it because he thought it was funny.

Coincidentally, for the past 4 or 5 days Tabitha has taken at least 1 long nap (at least an hour and a half) every day. She's currently in the middle of her second long nap for today. I don't know if this will become a regular occurrence, but I'm certainly enjoying it while it lasts!

operation: longer baby naps

2012-01-23T15:13:00.005-05:00

The following was recorded for posterity and is submitted at the repeated urging (some might say nagging) of the recipient of these reports, whose identity shall be kept confidential

Captain's log, nap 1: subject started to nurse at 9:05, was asleep by 9:30, popped off the boob at 9:46, woke up at 9:55. Jiggling to keep her asleep was unsuccessful. Subject was brought into bedroom and wrapped up; white noise activated. Subject was asleep again and in crib by 10:05. Captain remained and observed behavior to determine time of premature wake up. First stirrings at 10:46, eyes open at 10:48. Analysis: sleep cycle lasts between 40 and 45 minutes. Plan of action: initiate phase 2, aka "hands on belly" at minute 35 of next nap. Will report back with progress at that time.

Captain's log, nap 2: subject exhibited fussiness so nap sequence was executed (swaddle, white noise, rocking). Subject was asleep at 12:24 and placed in crib. Captain reentered sleeping chamber at 12:57 to find subject already stirring. Hands on belly was immediately initiated. Subject opened eyes at 12:59. Hands on belly deemed a failure at 1:03. Captain regrets forgetting what time subject initially fell asleep and mistiming the intervention.

Captain's log, nap 3: subject struggled valiantly, but succumbed to sleep at 2:40 once singing was added to standard nap protocol. Captain reentered sleeping chamber and began "hands on belly" at 3:00. Subject first stirred at 3:05. Eyes opened at 3:08. Hands on belly was abandoned as unsuccessful at 3:20. Subject did not fall back asleep, though Captain's arm and lower legs/feet did due to position during mission.

Captain's log, nap 4: nap protocol initiated, subject asleep at 4:10. Captain made executive decision to place subject in swing instead of crib, due to continuing fussiness on the part of the subject. Subject woke upon being placed in swing, but fell back asleep at 4:15. Subject was still asleep at 4:25, but was awake and crying at 4:35 when captain got out of shower. Alas.

Captain's log, nap 5: nap protocol was initiated, as the nap window was closing for the day. Subject fell asleep at 5:50. Stirring began at 6:21, eyes open at 6:23. Hands on belly was not executed due to proximity of bedtime.

One year ago today...

2011-12-25T05:06:00.001-05:00

...we found out I was pregnant :)

(after a week that included plenty of drinking and a day of paint ball. She was a tough little embryo!)

hibernating

2011-11-30T14:50:00.006-05:00

I've heard rumors that it's cold outside today. The internet told me it was 51 degrees at like 10:00. That's cold for me now. In a month it will feel warm I'm sure, but I'm not ready for it yet. So Tabitha and I are hibernating like a couple of bears today. She's even been eating a ton all day like she really is fattening herself up to survive the winter. I have not eaten much, mostly because my digestive system has been mad at me and hurting me and making me nauseous since last night. It would have totally been a pajama day except a) Tabby spit up on her pajamas and then peed on them while getting her diaper changed so I was a responsible parent and put clean clothes on her, and b) I hadn't showered in 2 days and decided a shower was a priority today. So I took a nice, hot, long (aka 20 minute) shower during her first nap this morning and it was glorious. I am, however, still wearing pajama pants. Yesterday I was all ambitious and house wifey and made dinner and a yummy peanut pie for dessert. Today I'm staring down the dust under my coffee table and trying not to pee my pants as I sit in my glider all day while Tabby naps in my arms and wakes up to frantically nurse again every 20 minutes or so.

We were due for a lazy day at home. Our social calendar has been hopping for the past week! There was Thanksgiving of course (when Tabitha managed to pee on the floor while lying on her changing table), then we spent half of the next day at at a Mexican restaurant with Ilya and Mercedes. We got a wee bit drunk on margaritas, thank you for asking. Monday we had a lunch play date with my friends Lucy, Gara, and Mercedes, and Tabby's friends Ellie, Marly, and William. Monday I also had book club (anther Mexican restaurant=more margarita drunkenness) and coffee club the next morning. Coffee club is agroup of stay at home moms who meet once a month to discuss interesting, non-kid topics. For example, yesterday we discussed women in politics and why the US has never had a female president. Lucy (of bravofam.com fame) has been introducing us to various mom/baby activities. She's my social coordinator. Thank God, because otherwise I'd be going crazy here alone every day.

Ok, back to big important things like reading funny websites and doing Christmas shopping online.

Good thing babies don't hold grudges

2011-11-22T03:51:00.001-05:00

It's been a blood bath around here lately. Ok, blood bath may be a bit strong, but I have managed to make our child bleed twice in the past week. A few days ago I noticed a dark speck at the corner of Tabby's eye. In her bath that evening I wiped and wiped at it with the washcloth. Turns out it was a tiny scratch, which I rescratched with my rubbing, thus making blood run out and almost into her eye. Then yesterday I was cutting her nails and accidentally cut one of her fingers instead when she moved. Apparently that one hurt, she started screaming right away. She was smiling and playing on her changing table again within about 5 minutes, so no permanent damage there. Her onesie might not be so lucky though, there are little specks of blood all over it.

Just for the record, I'm not the only one around here making babies bleed. Tabitha has discovered how to get her right hand up to her mouth to suck on it. Unfortunately, she misses quite a bit, and will end up poking herself in the eye or rubbing her nose instead. And when she does get her hand to her mouth, she often ends up sucking on her wrist with her fingers in her eye/nose. So she's now started scratching herself in the face and occasionally drawing blood, hence the nail clipping attempt. Too bad I only got 2 of her nails cut yesterday. She might be channeling Michael Jackson and rocking one mitten for a few days.

In other news, happy first birthday to Louisa, Tabitha's future Cornell classmate! I can't believe she's 1 already!

wide open spaces

2011-11-17T12:44:00.002-05:00

Tabby has been sleeping in a co sleeper in between us in our bed since she was born. It's sort of a mini baby bed that just sits on top of our mattress. The top half has hard sides but the bottom just kind of has netting sides. Well, she decided this week that a fun way to wake me up in the morning (or middle of the night) is to kick her way out of her blanket, scoot down and out the side of the co sleeper a bit, and kick me in the back. Charming. So I decided I was ready to move her to her own bed. Not her own room just yet - she's in a basinette next to our bed - but holy cow, our bed is huge now! Plus the co sleeper seems to have trained Alfred to stay on his own side instead of migrating to the center of the bed at night. Suddenly I have what feels like acres and acres of room at night. It's fabulous. That combined with the fact that I can now sleep through absolutely anything, including Alfred's alarm, means that I've had a couple of really good nights of sleep. I can sleep through anything except for Tabitha, I mean. She makes the tiniest peep and I'm awake. Seriously, she wakes me up by breathing loudly. But she only wakes up once or twice a night, so I'm not complaining at all. I might have to rush to get things done during her 35 minute naps during the day, but girl can sleep at night.

On a completely unrelated note, our house seems to produce massive amounts of dust these days. I used to sweep every couple of days, swiffer once a week or so, and it was fine. Now if I don't swiffer every other day at least there are copious amounts of giant dust bunnies all over the floor. It's disgusting. I don't know if it's because Tabby and I are supremely dirty people or what, but it's kind of disturbing. I just swiffered and am currently enjoying a dust free floor for the next 12 hours or so before it needs it again.

2 months

2011-11-09T11:53:00.005-05:00

If there's one thing that I've learned about myself over the past two months, it's that having some sort of goal or project ever day helps keep me sane. I found that to be the case even during my (almost) 2 weeks off of work before Tabby was born. I'm not talking anything big - my goal most Fridays is simply to watch the episode of Vampire Diaries from the night before - but it definitely helps my mental state. The point of this is that I think I'm going to start posting here again, if only to give myself something to do on days when I have nothing else planned.

So! I have a two month old. She's generally pretty cute. She has a well developed gag reflex; I have managed to gag her and make her vomit twice this week. Once by trying to give her a pacifier (hopefully our next kid likes them because this one certainly doesn't, and we got like 10 of them as gifts), and once trying to give her medicine. We're talking projectile vomit here, it's like something out of The Exorcist. It's gross. She's a great sleeper at night, has always had 1 longer stretch of sleep right from 1 week old. She typically sleeps 6-7 hours in a row when she first goes to bed now, which is awesome. Her daytime naps are not so awesome, but we're going to be working on that soon.

Tabby had her 2 month check up the other day and had her first vaccinations, which were not fun. She didn't quite get a fever, but her leg was all red and sore the rest of the day, and she was cranky the next couple of days. She seems to be pretty much back to normal today, but we'll see how she by tonight. Before her shots she was getting really smiley, but since then we haven't been getting as many smiles out of her. Baby smiles are like crack, you get one and it makes you do some pretty stupid things to get more.

I'm becoming more familiar with daytime TV. No soap operas yet, thank God. Lots of TLC and Discovery channel so far. I spend a lot of time on the internet, too. At least now I'm talking to Tabitha instead of just talking to myself all day though. I guess that about sums up my life these days. In closing, a funny baby picture. She gets enthralled with the pattern on her little activity gym sometimes and gets all cross eyed as she stares at it. Cracks me up.

TJ2

2011-09-27T13:43:00.009-04:00

As I mentioned in my last post, there has been an addition to T & A. First, a little back story. I found out I was pregnant on Christmas morning, we had the confirmation ultrasound a few weeks later, and it finally really started to sink in a couple of weeks after that. Everything went very smoothly throughout my pregnancy: no morning sickness or heartburn to speak of, just the typical aches and inconveniences as I got bigger. I felt the baby move for the first time when I was about 16 weeks along (she became quite the little acrobat as time went on), and we found out shortly after that that we were having a girl. Towards the end of my pregnancy, the doctors became concerned that the baby was measuring small, but she was growing consistently so they finally relaxed a bit about it.

I was due August 26, which came and went with no baby. August 26 was also my last day of work, so I got to enjoy some time off with no job and no baby. I was having contractions on and off most days and was trying various methods to induce labor on my own (walking, eating pineapple, etc). At my appointment on September 6 I was scheduled for an induction the morning of the 8th. Alfred and I did not want it to come to that, so we decided to take some more drastic action. So on the 6th I had an acupuncture appointment, and drank a couple of ounces of castor oil. At about 7:00 that evening contractions started. Since this was the fourth or fifth night in a row that this had happened, I wasn't too hopeful. Alfred had a meeting with someone at 8:30 and I convinced him to go, sure the contractions would taper off again. Not this time!

Alfred left the house a little after 8:00 for his meeting, and my contractions kept getting stronger and closer together. They were 5-6 minutes apart just before 8:30, when my water broke. That was probably the scariest part for me, because I was alone and suddenly didn't quite know what to do. I texted both Alfred and our doula, then texted a bunch of other people to try to distract myself. That didn't last long though, because the contractions started getting even stronger. Alfred got home shortly afterwards (he cancelled his meeting and sped home) and started coaching me through and timing the contractions. We spent most of the time in the bathroom, since I was feeling sick from the castor oil on top of being in labor. He rubbed my back, talked me through each contraction, and kept my spirits up when I felt like I couldn't do it anymore and was getting discouraged. At one point I became convinced that it wasn't working because the baby was facing the wrong way (she was facing my front instead of my back). Alfred kept me calm and cheered me on. He also kept updating our doula, who assumed that since I was a first time mom labor would take awhile.

By about 10:45, my contractions were only 3 minutes apart, and sometimes there was no break between them. Suddenly, my body started pushing. To say it's an urge to push is quite an understatement; it was like my entire midsection was just seizing and moving completely out of my control. That was when I said we were going to the hospital. Alfred threw everything into the car as I made my way there slowly. I got in the backseat on my hands and knees and he started driving. He called our doula on the way and put her on speakerphone so she could hear me. Once she heard me grunting and groaning as I tried as hard as I could not to push, she realized it really was happening that fast. She told Alfred she'd meet us at the hospital, and that if he needed to pull over to deliver the baby to call her and she'd meet us wherever we were. Once he heard that, he really stepped on the gas! We were going over 100 mph with our hazard lights flashing. He made the usual 25 minute drive to the hospital in 13 minutes flat.

We pulled up to the emergency room entrance and someone ran in to get a nurse for us. I somehow got out of the car and into a wheelchair, was wheeled into a room and transferred onto a gurney. They checked to make sure the baby wasn't already coming out, then whisked me up to labor and delivery. I was put in a room, moved to a bed, and checked: 10 centimeters dilated and ready to go. By this point it was just before midnight. For some reason, the answering service hadn't contacted the doctor on call when we called to say we were on our way, so he was finally called and told to come in. They made me wait to push until he got there, which was probably the hardest part of the whole ordeal. At some point our doula arrived and they put an IV port in my hand, but I was pretty preoccupied. I was clinging to the side of the bed, trying with everything I had not to push.

Finally the doctor arrived and I was allowed to start pushing. After pushing for about half a dozen contractions, maybe 10 minutes, everyone said they could see the head. My doula told me to reach down and feel it, which was the trippiest thing. Another push got her head half out, the next push got her head all the way out, then one more and she was born, at 12:37 am on Wednesday September 7. She was covered in meconuim (fetus poop) so they immediately rushed her over to the warming table to work on her. I didn't know it until later, but they put a tube down her throat 3 times to pump her stomach, and used a hand held respirator pump thingie to get her to start breathing. Alfred was watching them work on her (he even ended up cutting her umbilical cord!) while I was getting cleaned up and stitched up. I had a small tear from her coming out with her hand up to her face.

Finally, maybe 10 minutes later, the baby was cleaned up and breathing fine, and I got to see her and hold her for the first time. I had her on my chest and she sort of baby army crawled down so she could try to eat. With a little help, she latched right on and breast fed within an hour of being born. Those first few hours went by pretty fast, between all the medical people coming in for the two of us, her going to the nursery for some tests (accompanied by her dad), and just looking at her. Finally the adrenaline started to wear off and we all decided to take a nap.

The next morning (which was really just an hour or so later) we officially decided on the baby's name: Tabitha Jean. Alfred and I had gone in with a few possible first names (Jean was set before this kid was conceived), though Tabitha had been the front runner since about halfway through my pregnancy. We had to stay in the hospital for 2 days so they could monitor her and get some test results back since her birth was so fast. We got home around noon that Friday and have been settling in to our new life as a family of three ever since.

Tabby's a pretty good baby; she has her fussy moments (who doesn't?) but she's a good eater and (usually) a good sleeper. It's been pretty tough at times, but overall we've been doing really well. She was a little peanut, only 6 lbs 8 oz at birth, but has been chunking up nicely since: she was already 7 lbs 13 oz at her doctor's appointment yesterday! Tabitha's a pretty awesome baby, and Alfred and I are so lucky to have her!

well...

2011-02-26T11:46:00.004-05:00

Yeah, so that trying to blog every couple of weeks thing didn't really pan out. I guess I'm just done. I mean, I did start this almost 3 years ago (actually next week will be exactly 3 years) so I think it's just run its course. Who knows, maybe I'll be struck by inspiration again some day, but for now I wouldn't bet on it. I've got too many other things to take up my time now! Which is a good thing, I'm in a good place right now. We're in the house that we'll be starting and raising a family in, in an area close to friends and family (which means having a social life, which I'm loving!), with lots of big and exciting changes coming up this year. I think (and hope!) everyone who may read this already knows, but I've gone and gotten myself knocked up. I'm 3 1/2 months along, which means its kidneys are now working. In other words, I have something inside me that's capable of peeing. Which is pretty cool, if you're into that sort of thing. I imagine it's in there marking its territory all the time now that it has the ability to do so. It's all, "this is my uterus, bitch! Step off!"

Right now I'm heading out to do some shopping for Ella's birthday gift. She'll be 8 next week, which is just insane. I'll be enjoying the gorgeous FL spring weather as well, it's supposed to get close to 80 degrees today. All you poor northerners take note! We have 2 spare bedrooms! And with that, I bid you farewell. :)

birthday party!

2010-12-21T21:26:00.007-05:00

I've decided to keep blogging, at least now and then. It probably won't be so often, but check back every couple of weeks, I'll try to post at least that often. And so, my birthday party!

There was lots and lots of chocolate. I mean, lots and lots of chocolate. We still haven't finished all of the dessert we had for that night.

Katie, Ellie, and Rowdy all became pretty good friends. I don't know if you can see the glow bracelets and glow necklaces, but there's lots of them around.

Mike stopped by for a bit to say hello.

As did a whole bunch of other friends. I think we figured we had about 16 people there that night.

We ate lots of delicious bad things, drank lots of wine (LOTS of wine), played some games (this is a few people playing a new version of Drunk Driver, adapted to be played by several people at once). We also had a hell of a dance party in the living room. I danced as hard as I could for hours.

And my cake! It was made by the same woman who made our wedding cake, so we knew it would be fantastic. She even remembered me when I went to go pick it up.

All in all, a great birthday. It ended up being almost a week-long celebration, just what I was hoping for. I need to have birthday parties more often!

my birthday surprise!

2010-12-09T19:37:00.003-05:00

So far this has been a really great birthday week. Alfred and I went out for dinner last Friday; I enjoyed a spa day on Sunday; we put up our Christmas lights and bought a Christmas tree; yesterday I had a birthday lunch with one of my friends at work and then a dual birthday dinner with Gara and Kevin (her birthday is tomorrow, happy early birthday Gara!) and then today came a bunch of surprises: first the flowers that Alfred sent (which I had told him to send), then another bouquet and a sister!

Yes, Katie flew down to surprise me for my birthday! I'm so excited, it's such a fun surprise. I walked into my office after a lunch meeting and there she was just sitting there. I was so shocked, she and Alfred and everyone else who knew have kept this a complete surprise. It's awesome. What I was afraid was going to be a hard/stressful/unfun birthday is turning out to be so, so great so far. I'm feeling very loved and mushy and sappy now. :)

6 days

2010-12-05T18:15:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving was fun; we drove a long way, had a blast hanging out with the family (lots of food, drinking, and Mario Kart on the wii), and then drove a long way again. My mom got us some 4 loko (3 cases, actually), so we've got those to enjoy now. We've got enough to last the rest of our lives, probably. Though I've heard that kids have been selling them at parties for $5 a can, so I'm thinking about selling them to the kids in the neighborhood behind the museum. No one would believe the lady in the historical costume was selling booze to underage kids. It's the perfect crime.

Only 6 more days till my birthday! It's a big one this year, I'm turning 30. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. Sometimes I'm super pumped and look forward to my new decade, but other times it freaks me out to be leaving my 20s behind. I'm trying to be positive about it. Alfred and I went out for my birthday dinner on Friday, and I'm having a party next Saturday. We're doing a dessert buffet, so I'm pretty excited. I haven't really had a big birthday party in a long time. I kind of invited a mix of people, from Alfred's family to our friends to friends from work, so it will be an interesting bunch. As long as there's lots of chocolate (which there will be), plenty of booze is flowing (which there will also be), and there's good music for me to dance to in the living room (which I expect there to be), it will be all good. I'm going to hit up the dollar store for some fun decorations and party favors this week. Think glow in the dark necklaces for the living room dance party. It's been stressing Alfred out, trying to get the house done in time to have all these people over. We've made really great progress though, it's really almost done! And just now we put up our Christmas lights outside.

This afternoon I got a massage at Lucy's birthday spa day (happy birthday, Lucy!) My shoulders and back had lots of knots, I was getting pretty sore from all the work we've been doing around the house, so it felt so good to have those worked out. I'm actually a bit sore now, which he said would probably happen. It just means I need another massage!

In other news, I was looking through my blog last week, trying to find a picture, and I realized that this blog used to be way better. I used to post so much more often, I used to have lots more fun pictures. For awhile now it's just not been as much fun, I guess. I don't have as much time to do it, it's become more of a chore. So I'm thinking about stopping. We'll see. Right now I have 10 minutes to get ready to go to dinner, so I'd better get moving!

happy birthday, Louisa!

2010-11-22T06:51:00.003-05:00

Exciting news for a Monday morning - Katie and Ingo's baby girl has arrived! Head over to Mein deutsches Leben to meet little Louisa and congratulate the new parents! (There's no baby post yet, but you can go congratulate them anyway!)

Guess where we are??

2010-11-21T13:43:00.000-05:00

in case you wondered

2010-11-16T20:46:00.001-05:00

I gave the guide all $20 of the tip. Mainly because yesterday a parent found a $20 bill on the ground and gave it to me in case someone came looking for it, and no one ever claimed it, so I kept it. So I figure that's my tip, and I shouldn't get greedy.

Moral dilemma

2010-11-12T15:18:00.001-05:00

One of the groups at work today left a $20 tip for each of the 4 guides who did their programs. 3 of those guides were still here at that point (it was a few hours after they had left, the administrator came back) so I gave those 3 guides their tips, but the 4th was gone and will not be back until next Tuesday. My question: do I give her all $20, give her maybe $10 and keep $10 for myself, or keep it all? Obviously the correct answer is to give her all $20, but what would you do?

there's always money in the banana stand

2010-11-10T19:32:00.004-05:00

The title of this post has nothing to do with the content. Sorry.

I got home from work today (a very long, busy day) and had all sorts of surprises waiting for me! My bathroom has a new mirror, light, and toilet paper holder, a ton of trash was out of the garage and waiting by the curb to be picked up tomorrow, we had groceries in the fridge, the laundry was done, and dinner was in the works! It was awesome! It's quite nice having a pseudo house husband. At least he's holding up his end of the bargain to keep getting things done around the house now that we're moved in, because I haven't been doing so well with that. We did a bunch this weekend, but in the evenings after work I haven't been very productive. Partly because we've been busy - we had/are having dinner with Alfred's family on Monday, with Gara yesterday, and with Ilya and Mercedes tomorrow - but also because, let's face it, I'm kind of lazy. And it's hard. And I don't wanna!

So I kind of hurt my wrist a few weeks ago with all this house stuff, so I've been wearing an ace bandage to work for the past few days. I came up with this great story about how I hurt myself while hunting pigs on horseback, nice and period appropriate and all. I was telling one of my employees this story, complete with Southern accent and ending with "we caught 3 pigs, which will feed my family through the winter," and she totally believed me. None of the gullible little kids I told even believed me, but she did. It was kind of awesome. Apparently it's totally believable that I'm that much of a bad ass. I told some little kid the other day that life wasn't fair. I was also asked this morning if the houses behind the museum were real. When I said yes she seemed surprised. She thought they were just models. Ha! Kids are dumb. And funny. I've really turned up the threats with them lately, which is fun. I have to entertain myself somehow. Anyway, dinner's ready, and I'm on my second Kahlua, so I'm out like a deaf kid in musical chairs.

Growler the Turtle

2010-11-06T21:21:00.002-04:00

Dang, how does an entire week go by so quickly without a post? Apparently I don't remember as often without Mike here to harass me about it. It's been a quiet week, it's been nice to relax a bit after the past couple of weeks. We've gotten some more work done around the house, gotten some more stuff unpacked. Today we got a bunch done, although it doesn't seem like it to look at the house now. I keep unpacking and putting stuff away in the kitchen, yet somehow the counter tops are still full. But you didn't come here to hear about house stuff, you came to hear about Growler!

So last weekend we went to K-Mart to buy some important Halloween supplies: colored hair spray (Gara and I sprayed our hair and Mister's tail pink and blue), Twizzlers, and a net to try to catch some wildlife in the pool. Mike spent a lot of time outside during the day, trying to catch various animals as they surfaced in the pool, but he wasn't having much luck. So he headed back out after it was dark and hit the jackpot: an alligator snapping turtle, and a Florida bullfrog! We put them in an aquarium and left it outside for Gara and Kevin to pick up the next morning so she could take them to school (she's a high school biology teacher). She has since let the frog go, because he wasn't eating, but the turtle is doing well and has been named Growler, since he was caught on Growler Day. Growler Day was a resounding success, by the way. Everyone accomplished the goal, and no one fell in the pool. We fully intend to repeat the holiday many, many more times.

quote of the day

2010-10-31T17:55:00.002-04:00

Gara: you wouldn't respect her anyway, because she's a girl

(p.s. Gara's a girl)

action shot

2010-10-31T13:41:00.002-04:00

We hit up a couple of bars last night, nothing too outrageous, but we got enough attention for our costumes to make Mike happy. We were rock, paper, scissors, and Gara, obviously. In case you don't know how Gara fits into the game, scissors cut her, rock bashes her, and she tears up paper. We realized last night that to really make the game work you need an odd number of items. Otherwise it isn't fair.

Today we have some things to make in the smoker, plus Gara and I just bought some hair spray paint. Also, it's Growler Day! So we're each drinking a growler (gallon) of beer. It's pretty cool that Growler Day and Halloween fall on the same day this year. Kevin and Ilya are both out of town (Ilya went to the big rally in DC that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert had yesterday, we watched for him on TV, didn't see him but did see a friend from college, which was pretty awesome) so Gara's been hanging out with us, and Mercedes will hopefully be able to stop by later. She wasn't feeling well the other day but she was going to try to come over later. Shaping up to be a fun day!

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-30T20:43:00.000-04:00

Alfred, Mike, Gara, and I are on our way out to hit up some sweet Halloween parties. I'll post some more pictures tomorrow probably. We're fired up!

2010-10-27T19:24:00.002-04:00

Guess what's got 2 thumbs and had the day off today? That's right, this girl! It was great, because I got to a) sleep in ( I got almost 10 hours of sleep last night, which I badly needed, having gotten less than 10 hours of sleep the past 2 nights combined), and b) work on cleaning and unpacking the new house. Our bathroom, the upstairs bathroom, and the living room are almost done, the kitchen and our bedroom are maybe 2/3 done, and the dining room actually has no boxes left in it. One of the upstairs bedrooms is pretty much set up too, actually, the one that Mike's currently staying in. (Oh, by the way, Mike's here. More on that later.) The office is a complete disaster, it's where we kept putting all the random stuff we had nowhere else to put as we were moving in. At least some of it's going to end up in the attic, but I probably won't be tackling it for another week or so. Anyway, we're much more settled in after today, which is nice. Hell, we're probably almost as moved in as we ever were at our last house.

So, Mike's here! He got in late Monday night (technically Tuesday morning, it was around 12:45am I think). He and Alfred have been palling around, as usual, though today I got to play a bit as well. Right now we're doing a power hour. It's our first, actually, which is kind of weird. Since it's been like 2 days. We were supposed to do one earlier but Alfred had a bunch of errands to run, so he was being all responsible and stuff. Lame. Last night Ilya, Mercedes, Kevin, and Gara came over for dinner. And Mister. He didn't eat, though.

On Saturday we went to Mercedes' and Mister's birthday party, which was fun. They had a barbecue party. It was all delicious. And an ice cream cake. And a dog food cake for Mister, which Ilya tasted. Apparently he tastes all of Mister's treats, too. Full disclosure: I tried one of Mister's treats once, it was peanut buttery, it was actually pretty good.

We're talking about Mike's trip to DC. Alfred and I almost lived in DC. True story. I sort of wish we lived there now. I'm going to go ahead and post this now, because I've been working on this post for approximately 40 minutes.

Movin on up

2010-10-24T10:14:00.000-04:00

Vehicles are loaded, currently making our first trip from the old house to the new house. One more trip should do it. Today we have 3 cars and a moving truck, which Alfred has not destroyed yet. And some really great friends :)

I'm practically famous!

2010-10-21T18:45:00.001-04:00

My former advisor at Cornell was just on NPR! Ritch Savin-Williams, in case you were curious. I'm sure you were.

Lame

2010-10-20T18:44:00.000-04:00

Sorry I've been so bad about posting lately, we've been pretty busy getting the new house ready and starting to pack. We're moving Sunday. Hopefully we'll be ready. I'm on my way there now to help install the flooring downstairs, as a matter of fact. The picture is of the train that I'm stuck waiting behind. I was lucky enough to be the first person in line. It's going a little too fast to jump onto like a movie hobo. We were out with some friends a couple of weekends ago right next to some train tracks and a train went by so slowly I could have stepped right onto it. Somehow I resisted.

Well, train's passed, guess I'd better drive. Between the move and Mike visiting next week I should have some good posts soon. Then maybe "anonymous" (really, Mike, why not just sign your name?) will stop heckling me.

Bear Cat!

2010-10-04T21:30:00.001-04:00

First, a little back story. I don't remember if I've mentioned this before or not, but we seem to have something lethal living in our new neighborhood. First a snapper turtle's bloated carcass was found floating in the pool. Those suckers are pretty mean. It was gone a few days later. So something was bad ass enough to kill it and then eat it. Also, we found 2 dead squirrels in the yard within a few days of each other. With that in mind...

On Saturday as I was walking out to the car at the new house, I saw a giant gray animal out of the corner of my eye in the backyard. My first thought was that I'd never seen a raccoon on steroids before. I went over to the fence to get a better look, and by the side of the pool was the biggest damn cat I've ever seen in my life. Seriously, if I was a little shorter I could ride the thing. It looked like a cross between a cat and a bear, hence: Bear Cat. I yelled at it, hissed at it, and banged on the fence at it. It laughed at me, then strolled off through a hole in the back fence.

This is clearly a very dangerous situation. Not only has the bobcat army that's been stalking me since I moved to Florida discovered my new location, but they've begun cross breeding to create an even more lethal strain of warrior. Bear Cat is only the first in a new line of vicious attack artists. Obviously it's terrifying. Bear Cat.

house update

2010-09-29T21:15:00.004-04:00

So, the house. It's going well, we've made quite a bit of progress since last weekend. If all keeps going according to plan we'll be done and ready to move in in about 3 weeks. Here's our updated to-do list:

repair roof - done
pressure wash house - done
scrape popcorn texture off ceilings - done
spray new texture on ceilings and paint them - done
install new AC - done
remove old carpets - done
install new lights in living room and kitchen - done
drywall repairs - done
paint walls
install new carpet
install new wood floors
install new toilets
install new kitchen sink
repair banister

That's it! Unfortunately everything we have left to do is pretty cosmetic, so the house looks like a total disaster right now. We start painting walls tomorrow though, and lots of painting and flooring will go on this weekend. It's going to make a huge difference. We're ordered all the flooring, and I've picked out all the paint colors, I think; I probably have about 1/3 of all the paint color chips that Behr makes. We were at the house the other day and Alfred suggested a color for a room, and I whipped out the suggested color from my purse, right on cue. Don't worry, we'll go on a virtual tour once it's done.

The really fun thing I got to do this weekend was walk around in drywall stilts! The drywall guy left them behind when he left on Saturday, and I was all over those like white on rice. It took a few minutes to get used to walking in them, but I got pretty good at it. I used them for a couple of hours that afternoon, and then again for an hour or so on Sunday. Literally the second the drywall guy left on Sunday I had those puppies on. Seriously, they're great fun. I felt like a cross between Forrest Gump and the Terminator. If anyone needs a gift idea for me for my birthday or Christmas, keep these in mind. Either that or a massage. Which I could actually use right now, my back and shoulders are awfully sore from all this work on the house.

Quote of the day

2010-09-22T22:11:00.000-04:00

Mike: Obviously I've been drinking, otherwise we probably wouldn't be talking right now.

Home Improvement Hints

2010-09-21T20:24:00.000-04:00

Today's Lesson: Scraping Popcorn Texture Off Of Ceilings

For this, you'll need some ladders, medal scraper tools, and a water sprayer thingie (not like a little bottle, something bigger and more hardcore).

So you've just bought a house. Yay! Unfortunately, you and/or your freakishly-observant-of-ceilings spouse hates the popcorn texture that's on every ceiling in the house. Sounds like you'll be scraping that off! Luckily, if you follow these 3 easy steps, it will all be over in no time!

Step 1: Climb up your ladder and start scraping the plaster off the ceiling. Scrape until your arm starts to hurt and you realize that this really sucks, which will be about 3-5 minutes. In this time you have probably scraped about 1 square foot. Unfortunately you will have only scraped off about 1/2 off the amount of plaster you need to remove, because it needs to be down to the drywall only, and that's super hard.

Step 2: Spray a bunch of water all over the ceiling. Go walk around the house for 10 minutes or so, thinking about how maybe popcorn ceilings aren't so bad, and how to convince your crazy spouse of this fact. If you're not thinking that, then you are obviously the crazy spouse.

Step 3: Go back into the room you sprayed with water. Spray it a little more. Climb back up your ladder and start scraping again. Try not to leap for joy as the plaster now easily comes off in wet gooey splats, because you're pretty close to the ceiling and will probably hit your head.

Repeat this process over and over and over again (except you can skip step 1, that was just so you could fully appreciate how much easier it is to scrape the plaster off once its wet). You will love life for the first couple of rooms, maybe even go as fast as you can to show off how easy it is now that you know this new trick. You'll walk around the house on your plaster coated shoes, leaving white footprints all over your old navy blue carpet (assuming your old carpet is navy blue, and assuming you're getting rid of your existing carpet, which of course you are, because there's no way you'd do this on carpet you ever plan on living on). You'll vow to help eradicate popcorn ceilings everywhere, now that you're such an expert.

It will dawn on you soon that though this is easier, it's still not easy, and that you will most likely not be able to move your arms the next day. If you survive. Maybe if you're lucky some wonderful people will bring you a 2 liter bottle of Dr. Pepper and save your life moments before you expire of exhaustion.

To summarize, make sure you marry someone who is either extremely short and nearsighted, and/or not overly observant of or opinionated about ceiling textures. In other words, someone normal. That way you never have to bother doing this. But if given a choice between this and doing something like installing insulation, go for this. Trust me.

#3

2010-09-19T18:25:00.004-04:00

It's official: we're home owners again! This has been in the works since the end of July. We actually got the call that the sellers had accepted our offer back when we were camping with my family earlier this summer, and we were originally supposed to close September 1. Of course there was an issue with the title, closing got pushed back, drama ensued. Then finally, this past Thursday, the bank calls and says the title's ready to go, we're closing Monday. Yay! The next day they call Alfred and say hey, you've been dicking around too long, close today or you lose the house! (Cause, you know, when they take 3 weeks to fix the title that's fine, but the 18 hours we've spent getting our loan in order from our lender is just unreasonable.) So at about 3:30 I left work, drove 45 minutes up to the bank to sign the paperwork, turned around and drove another 45 minutes back to work to close and lock up, then drove another 45 minutes back to approximately 1/2 mile from the bank we had closed at to meet friends for dinner. 90 mile round trip to travel approximately 3 blocks. But we have a new house!

This one is 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, 2 stories, attached garage, and a pool! Lots of nice big closets (this is the first time since Alfred and I have lived together that we'll both be able to keep our clothes in the closet in our bedroom!), attic space over the garage, tons of storage, it's great. It's on a big property too, nice big fenced in backyard, plus a shed and pool house (well, what we call a pool house anyway, really it's a little storage type room next to the pool). It also comes complete with some new pets. The pool hasn't been cleaned in probably a year or two, possibly more, so it's basically a nature preserve now. We've seen at least 2 frogs and at least 2 turtles. I think there are more turtles, but I only ever saw 2 at a time today. Here's a good picture of one of the turtles.

In this picture you can actually see 1 of the frogs and 2 turtles. The circle on the left is the frog.

This house is bigger than either house we've lived in so far, much larger than where we are now, which is going to be so nice. I can't wait to actually unpack all of our boxes! At least 1/4 of our stuff is still sitting in boxes in our house now, which makes it easier for this move I guess. This new house does require a bit of work, of course, but we actually did a bunch of work this weekend already. Our to-do list as of right now:

pass electrical inspection - done
repair roof
pressure wash house - done
scrape popcorn texture off ceilings - 99% done (except for one chunk over the stairs I couldn't reach with the ladder)
install new AC
remove old carpets
install new carpet
install new wood floors
paint
install new toilets
install new kitchen sink
install new lights in living room and kitchen

Whew! I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch of stuff that Alfred will remind me of as soon as he reads this. The goal is to be in mid-October. Then we sell the house we're in now ASAP. And live in one place for more than 6 months. It's going to be a busy few weeks.

ginnie!

2010-09-07T21:42:00.005-04:00

We went for one last hurrah this summer over Labor Day weekend: Ginnie Springs! It's another park where you go tubing down a river/spring, but this park is privately owned (as opposed to Ichetucknee, where we've gone before) and so drinking is more or less allowed. So we drank. The first trip down the river started out all sorts of innocent and fun loving.

There were 9 of us total. We had 2 floats, one that fit 8 people and then 1 that was basically an inflated armchair. I'm not sure that Mercedes touched the water all day; she could definitely have gotten away staying completely dry, that's for sure. The big float was fun to do back somersaults off of into the water, though. As the beer and camel back of margaritas started to kick in, things got pretty energetic.

We had a nice big lunch after our first trip down the river, complete with more beer. We played around on land for awhile (pretty sure there was a photo shoot on the beach volleyball court conducted by yours truly with Eric and Susan's camera) then headed back to the water. The second trip was pretty fun too, but by the third time we were all pretty wiped out.

I slept the entire way down. Seriously, someone woke me up and I thought I was supposed to move over on the raft to let other people on, but we were at the end. Whoops. Alfred and I actually did make it out to dinner with some other friends that night, but we were so spent we headed home early and crashed. We really had fun though, definitely a great way to spend the last big weekend of summer.

Quote of the day

2010-09-04T19:24:00.000-04:00

Eric: Taste the rainbow. It's mostly yellow.

Coolest truck ever

2010-09-03T18:55:00.000-04:00

the swim

2010-09-01T21:34:00.003-04:00

Last Friday we spent most of the day cleaning our old house for our new tenants. That's right, our old tenants broke their lease and moved out 6 months early. Punks. Luckily we were able to find someone else to move in, and we had 2 days in between tenants to clean everything and get it ready for the new people. Also luckily, those 2 days happened to be my days off for the week. Yay for me! They did a pretty good job cleaning the house actually, so it wasn't so bad, except for the guest cottage. The girl who lived out there sort of trashed the place, including smashing one of the windows. Jerk.

That night we went out to dinner with a whole gang: Ilya, Mercedes, Kevin, and Gara, with Phil, Lucy, and Ellie joining us after the meal to say hi. We feasted on barbecue and attempted to listen to some bluegrass from the band playing there, but they weren't very loud and we couldn't really hear it. The food made up for it, though. After dinner we went back to Lucy and Phil's house for some drinks and water sports. Their new house is right on the water, so they have a paddle boat. We attempted to fit all 6 of us on it (Ilya and Mercedes had to go home so they weren't there) and very nearly sank. As you can see by the picture to the right, even 4 people almost sank it. This was all leading up to Kevin swimming in this less-than-sanitary water to earn $31 from Phil. Which he did, with flying colors. He may have almost died, but he made it, and earned Phil's money fair and square.

In other news, I am happy to report that I have spent most of my last 2 days off of work gearing up for the return of The Vampire Diaries next week. I believe I've mentioned my love of this show before. The second season starts a week from tomorrow, so I'm re-watching season 1 in preparation. I've gone through 15 episodes so far, 7 more to go. I can't wait for it to come back, it's seriously the show I'm most looking forward to. Mock me if you will, I'm not ashamed. I just feel sorry for those of you not watching it.

for Rosemary

2010-08-26T22:19:00.002-04:00

I just talked to Rosemary and she requested a new post so she didn't have to look at the picture of the watermelon anymore. I don't know why, since it's an awfully cute watermelon, but I'll oblige. I've had to go to work every day for the past 8 days, but in exchange I get 2 days off in a row, tomorrow and Saturday! I'm pretty pumped. Unfortunately I will spend most of tomorrow cleaning. Our tenants moved out of our house yesterday (breaking their lease, which makes me very angry and makes me want to keep all of their security deposit out of spite) and new tenants move in next week, so we have to clean in between. I'm really hoping they didn't mess it up too badly in the 6 months or so that they were there, but we'll see. We haven't actually seen the house yet, Alfred said that he noticed a few things that needed to be repaired the last time he was there though. Punks.

Today after work I met Lucy and went to a Lush party. Not for alcoholics, though I'd certainly qualify for one of those types of parties these days, for the cosmetic and skincare company. Some girl Lucy knows set up this product demo through the store in Orlando, and I've heard about this stuff from someone at work, so I wanted to check it out. We got facials, got little hand massage treatment things, and when I bought something (only 1 thing that I needed anyway!) I got free stuff along with it! There was some food and drinks and it was a nice little evening out. No picture for this post though, when you google "facial" some stuff comes up that you don't really want to see.

I carried a watermelon

2010-08-16T21:30:00.002-04:00

This watermelon happens to have grown in our garden. It's one of two that did; unfortunately the other one split open and started rotting while it was still on the vine. Also unfortunately, we brought this one over to Kevin and Gara's house on Saturday night and forgot to eat it. Very disappointing.

I've been quite the little social butterfly the past few days. Thursday evening I went out to dinner with a bunch of people from work, we hit up the 2 for 1 margaritas. Friday evening was claude's with some other work friends (he makes his own marshmallows now! Chocolate covered coffee flavored ones, mmm), then joined Alfred, Ilya, Mercedes, Kevin, and Gara for dinner at an awesome barbecue place. Saturday was a beach party for most of the day (flanked by visits to the museum to open and close, and pick up a couple bottles of wine for the road), then a power hour at 7 with the gang from the night before, plus Melissa and her new boy toy. Sunday was Turk's birthday, so we had dinner in his honor with Alfred's family after I got home from work. Busy, busy!

Sunday was also both Katherine and Jevon's anniversary, and Katie's baby shower. Many expressions of love and congratulations to all of them :)

Oops

2010-08-14T19:58:00.001-04:00

Not gonna lie, just forgot the second quote. Kevin said it, it was awesome, so unfortunate I forgot.

Quotes of the day

2010-08-14T19:56:00.000-04:00

#1 Lucy: what, are you going to the prom later or something?

omlg

2010-08-06T21:44:00.006-04:00

Honestly, we had a blast. It was such a nice relaxing week. We left our house Saturday morning, stopping to visit Katherine and Jevon and spend Saturday night in their log cabin. It was a really fast visit, but it was nice to get to see them at least. Sunday morning we finished the drive to the Thousand Islands to meet up with my family. We then proceeded to spend the next 7 days going out on the boats, laying (lying?) in the sun, and drinking. Lots and lots of drinking. We completed 4 power hours along the way. Played a bunch of games of Asshole, too. My uncle Bill even joined us for one of each. There were 2 days where we spent literally 12 hours drunk. It was great.

We did manage to get in a little physical activity as well. We played some ladder golf (a weird game, but my cousin Nick's friend Dean and I were on a team together and annihilated the competition), some bocce ball (Dad was mysteriously good at this), and lots and lots of frisbee. We were getting pretty good by the end of the week. There were quite a few impromptu dance parties as well. It was fun and relaxing, definitely a great week. I didn't realize how much I needed that. I felt so rejuvenated when we got back. And super tan. I'm approximately 60% of the way to being a different race!

Alex bay

2010-07-28T12:25:00.000-04:00

On the road again

2010-07-24T19:50:00.001-04:00

Yes, it's road trip time again! This day last year we were either in Vegas or San Diego, I just checked yesterday but I forgot already. Today we're on our way to NY to go camping with my family! We're currently in Pennsylvania, trying to find somewhere to grab a quick dinner. Our destination this evening is Katherine and Jevon's house to visit them for the night. Unfortunately Katherine has to leave super early tomorrow morning so it will be a quick visit, but it's better than nothing. Then tomorrow we have just a few more hours to drive to the thousand islands, where my dad's side of the family has gone camping every year for as long as I can remember. We haven't gone in a few years, so we decided to make the trip this summer. It was sort of a last minute trip, due in part to the fact that my vacation days run out next week and I need to use them up! It's going to be a fun week, lots of sunbathing, going out on the boats, and drinking. I'm fired up!

just for Mercedes

2010-07-15T19:51:00.003-04:00

She and Ilya are in Spain right now, so I don't even know when she'll read this, but we made gazpacho for dinner tonight! About 1/4 of the tomatoes came from my bosses' garden, about 1/2 from the store, and the rest from our garden. There's some sort of tomato thief afoot at our house that eats or knocks down our tomatoes before they're ripe enough to pick. The gazpacho also has jalapenos and parsley from our garden. It's really, really delicious.

In other garden news, I have 2 watermelons growing! They're little and cute right now, and I'm super excited for them to grow and to eat them. We also have some more eggplants coming along, and another banana pepper has finally started growing. Not as good a haul as we were hoping when we started this project, but not bad for someone who can kill a plant just by looking at it, like me.

it's tough

2010-07-08T21:04:00.008-04:00

I'm sorry about the lack of posts lately. It's just been a lot harder to post for the past couple of months for some reason. It's not that we're not doing things, because we have been. It's just that I'm not very motivated lately, I guess. I get home from work and just don't feel like writing and editing pictures and stuff. I have been doing this for almost 2 1/2 years, so I guess I just need a little break. I'm sure I'll keep posting, I just can't promise how often it will be for a little while. I'll try to do it at least once every week or so, and hopefully I'll get back into it at some point, but maybe not. We'll see.

Onward! We had a few open house events last week, 2 for hospitality and tourism employees and 1 for the general public. They were pretty successful, especially the general public one - we had almost 300 people despite rain and the road being closed right next to our entrance because of construction. After a couple of the events a few other employees and I helped finish some of the leftover alcohol. Because we didn't want it to go bad, you know. It was fun. A good way to end a few really long days. Here are some pictures! One of our employees came and took pictures for us, so we've got a whole bunch now, which is good. This first one just cracks me up, the woman is the wife of one of our blacksmiths, she's not even one of our employees but came to hang out one night for some reason. The Indian about to attack is one of our guides. The point of the spear he's holding is from a swordfish bill. I was playing with it the night before, spinning it around, he said something about how I was going to drop it and break it, I said "no I won't!" and spun it around again, and promptly dropped it and broke the end of the tip off. Hurray for super glue!

This one shows me in action, I'm showing them how to make a canoe. The real reason I posted this is because you can see the frame of the barn in the background. It's the last building that needs to be completed in the museum. It's freaking huge. Initially it was supposed to be done spring 2009, then by this past April 1, the new estimated date is the end of September, and reality is probably next March. We'll see.

This is the new blacksmith area, it's sort of in the middle of our fort. That little girl (who is the daughter of one of our former employees and is featured on a bunch of our advertising) is helping to work the bellows to keep the fire going.

This is my boss and some dude in the main entrance of the fort. When you enter the museum (at least for the general public, not the school groups) you go through this area first. At the left of the picture you can see the very beginning of the blacksmith area from the last picture. It's a neat little area. It's more fun to climb up onto the gun deck above this, but there's no ladder kept there because, you know, we don't want kids climbing up there and falling off or something. It's ok if the employees do, though.

Here's another one of our blacksmiths (not blacksmithing at the time, he was decked out in his Spanish finery instead) guarding Carlos, the ear of corn growing in the Spanish yard. Poor Carlos, all alone. The garden in the Indian section has at least 8 or 10 ears developing, but those were at least planted there by kids doing the school programs. Carlos started his life in a corn grinding bowl on the table that used to be in this spot, apparently he was one of the lucky kernels that fell off, got some of the oyster shell dirt kicked over him, and grew like crazy. All these damn corn plants at work look about 1000 times better than the corn in my garden. So unfair.

Ok, one more that amuses me: costumed employees hitting up the Weinie Wagon at the end of our shift! The trailer belongs to one of the owners, it's not at the museum full time but certainly came in handy on these evenings. The guy on the left is yet another blacksmith, he's also a bit of a racist. He told me I was being disloyal to my race the other day because I had music by black artists on my mp3 player. The girl in the trailer had a baby about 7 weeks ago. She looks fantastic. Her middle name and her daughter's middle name are both Jean. And her birthday is the day after mine. Obviously we get along well.
Ok, hopefully this post makes up for the past 2 weeks, at least a little!

awesome things

2010-06-24T21:35:00.005-04:00

Today was one of my days off of work for this week. My work schedule has been so screwy, with working some weekends and taking random days off during the week, that I have very little idea what day of the week it is lately. We spent a good chunk of the day hanging out at Lucy's parents' house, in and around their pool. I drank a bottle of wine. I was hungover by 6pm. It was awesome.

I'm sure I'm the last person on earth to discover this website, but it's funny. I like this article in particular.

Also, happy birthday to Mike and Ellery. We had dinner with Ellery last night, he lit his birthday candles with a blowtorch. It was awesome.

Harvest

2010-06-22T19:42:00.000-04:00

When I got home from work today I went out and picked a whole bunch of pole beans. I did have to use a ladder (the poles they're climbing on are a solid 8 feet tall, and those little bean plants just shot right on up there once we put them in), and I did get 14 mosquito bites in the process (yes, I counted), but I got them! I roasted them for dinner with a bit of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper, and they were really good.

It's so fun making actual meals and side dishes with stuff from the garden. So far we've used at least 2 dozen tomatoes, an eggplant, these beans, and the 2 jalapenos in the picture are going into chili this week. I've got a bunch more tomatoes ripening soon, the herbs are doing well, I think I have an actual ear of corn forming, and I counted 3 tiny butternut squash today. The only thing that's really not doing well is the zucchini. The stems are splitting and no zucchini have appeared yet. And of course that's what's supposed to be so easy to grow and so fruitful. Figures that's what I have trouble with.

long weekend!

2010-06-20T21:49:00.003-04:00

I'm in the midst of a 4 day weekend from work! We decided to take a little mini-vacation and headed down to Fort Lauderdale to visit Alfred's grandmother, Egee. We left Friday morning, spent all day Saturday down there, and left to come back home yesterday morning. The three of us went out to dinner on Friday night. I wasn't terribly impressed by the meal, but the creme brulee we had for dessert was phenomenal. On Saturday we had lunch and dinner with Egee at the dining room in her building, spent a few hours at the beach, and watched TV in our hotel room. We used priceline to get a really nice hotel for really cheap, so we figured we should take advantage of it. Plus, I was on vacation! I wanted to be kind of lazy. It was a really nice little visit, and Egee seemed to appreciate us coming down.

Yesterday we had dinner with the rest of Alfred's family for Father's Day: lots of good food, as usual. Today is my last day off, and I have a bit of socializing planned. I'm having lunch with friends, a book club meeting later this evening, then some laundry and grocery shopping to do, maybe some ironing if I get motivated enough... busy, busy!

Robyn's birthday extravaganza!

2010-06-15T19:48:00.000-04:00

Today was both my day off of work, and Robyn's birthday! We spent the whole day with her. Well, most of the day. Alfred and I started out at the gym, then picked up the rest of the family (except for Emily, who had to work) and headed to an Indian restaurant for a lunch buffet. It was really good. After lunch Max and Ellery went home, and Robyn, Alfred and I went to the zoo. It was hot. But fun. My favorite part was the bonobo monkeys. One had a little 6 month old baby who was super cute, and the 2 other older ones in the exhibit were swinging on ropes and chasing each other around and playing. One even kept spinning around in circles and then rolling down the little hill into the water. We must have watched them for 15 minutes. There's a penguin exhibit there too, it's the weirdest penguin exhibit I've ever seen. First of all, it wasn't in a building with AC, just outside. Second, there was just a tiny little viewing window to watch them swim, and it was right at ground level so you had to bend down or sit way back to see them swim. And there were only like 7 of them. Lame.

After the zoo we went back to their house to start making dinner: the most complicated hamburgers ever, onion rings, and french fries. The burgers were really good, just a lot of work, and the onion rings were delicious. The fries were just ok. The picture is of one of the burgers, it has cabbage, special spicy ketchup, tomato, cheese, onion, and fried egg on it. They were huge. We're waiting to digest a bit before we have dessert: blueberry cheesecake! Hopefully we'll both fit in the car to go home later.

check it out!

2010-06-11T20:46:00.002-04:00

I think everyone who reads this regularly is my friend on facebook also, so you should go over there and check out the pictures I posted today. The museum is getting some billboards! It's super exciting, definitely more exposure than we've ever had before. Hopefully it works and we're nice and busy this summer. I'd like to have a job for the rest of the summer.

In other news, I passed a pick up truck on the highway doing probably 70 miles an hour, with 4 little kids in the truck bed. Ah, Florida.

What in the what?

2010-06-09T22:10:00.000-04:00

I just picked 6 or 7 of these juicy little bastards off of my tomato plants. They're as big around as my thumb and each one was somewhere between 3 and 4 inches long. I think. I'm not great at estimating measurements. Anyway, they're eating my tomatoes. And I think something else is climbing on my squash. Stupid wildlife.

Quote of the day

2010-06-05T19:54:00.000-04:00

Gara: I am sooooo drunk right now, guys.

par-tay!

2010-06-03T21:25:00.006-04:00

Last night was our annual end of the season party for work! Not to brag, but I totally started this tradition 5 years ago. I planned the first 2 annual parties, then my replacement planned it the year I was gone, then last year we didn't have one (it sort of fell through), then this year it was all me again. We set the date about 2 1/2 weeks ago, I ordered all the food within the past 3 days, then got all the decorations and got everything set up yesterday afternoon. I did have help with decorations and set up. It was pretty fun, I do like doing this sort of thing. It was pretty simple too. We had about 70 people RSVP yes, and probably about 50-60 showed up. I'm not sure, I could try to figure it out but haven't bothered. It started out all normal and innocent.

After the first couple of hours, people started leaving, and the people who were sticking around started getting a little tipsy. (We had 3 cases of beer and 20 bottles of wine.) At some point my maintenance guy started singing along with the music using the microphone that was attached to the sound system. It all went downhill from there.

I may or may not have performed "Baby Got Back" for the benefit of a few of my employees. I was smart enough to stay far, far away from the microphone. It was really a lot of fun, I had a blast! It was a great way to end our busy season and go out with a bang.

memorial-ness

2010-06-01T20:06:00.002-04:00

I actually took a holiday off - I was off yesterday for Memorial Day! More because I'm working this coming Saturday than because of the holiday, but that's ok. It meant that I/we could go to Ilya and Mercedes' for their Memorial Day picnic! A whole bunch of people ended up coming, and we had a whole bunch of really good food. Ilya made ribs (which are always awesome), we brought smoked pork (which Alfred chopped instead of pulling, also good) and smoked wings, and then there was corn on the cob, potato salad, cole slaw, a couple of dips, and a variety of desserts. It was all delicious and I ate too much. But, what else is new?

We also spread the fun of speed Uno to a few new people that have never played before. You know us, never missing a chance for speed Uno. I've actually tried getting people to play at work a couple of times, but somehow our jobs keep getting in the way. Anyway, Ilya and Mercedes also bought Connect 4. I used to play in like 4th grade and loved it then, and apparently still love it now. So, it was fun. Of course we did not take any pictures, so no pictures again with this post. I'll have to work on this for my next post or 2. Sorry.

Notes

2010-05-27T10:21:00.001-04:00

I found a chunk of oyster shell in my sock as I was putting it on this morning. Not many people have a job where that's not entirely unexpected.

I've been at a conference yesterday and today for work. Schmoozing is not really my thing. My boss is supposed to be here too, but I've seen him for about 30 minutes so far. Right now I'm pretending to be busy while waiting for the next session to start. Then I get lunch. So, not bad. Plus I get out of the office for 2 days. The only drawback is that it's freaking freezing in this building. You win some, you lose some.

There's a rumor floating around here that a certain Orlando theme park is doing a soft opening for their big new attraction next weekend. I'm tempted to go check it out before the official grand opening in the middle of June, but I'm trying to get some more info first, in case the rumor is not true. If you don't know what I'm talking about, ask google. I don't want to write it here in case someone else is asking google and google thinks I know what I'm talking about.

Guess I'd better head over to my next thing. They're giving out tickets at each session and are doing a drawing for free airline tickets tomorrow. Don't want to miss out on that.

Quote of the day

2010-05-23T18:54:00.001-04:00

Alfred (to me): You have so many boyfriends, it's hard to keep track.

my poor car

2010-05-21T20:58:00.006-04:00

As I was attempting to leave for work this morning, I made the oh so pleasant discovery that I had not one, but two flat tires. Tires which were brand new, by the way. Hurray! Luckily I was able to take Alfred's car so I could get to work. He investigated after I left and found slash marks in both of them. So apparently someone came by our house last night and slashed both of my driver's side tires. Alfred had a suspicion of who it was, but he talked to the guy and , so I guess it's just a random occurrence. I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or worse.

Luckily I have a wonderful husband who took care of everything for me and got me some new(er) tires, and (most of) the people I work with are pretty awesome and cheered me up. (The situation put me in a pretty bad mood this morning, as you might imagine.) So first my car gets broken into by that dude who tried to break into our house last fall, and now this. It's been through a lot. Poor thing.

reaping what we've sown

2010-05-20T20:04:00.001-04:00

We've used stuff from our garden in 2 meals this week! It's been pretty awesome. This Sunday I used a bunch of basil, oregano, and parsley in this turkey and vegetable casserole thing I made, and then yesterday we made this pasta, tomato, shrimp, and basil mix. Both meals were quite delicious. It's been fun being able to use stuff already. Not much is ready to pick and use, mainly just herbs and some tomatoes, but it's still cool. I can't wait for more stuff to be ripe enough to eat. Oh, and blueberries! We've picked and eaten like a couple dozen blueberries. It's awesome.

Speaking of the garden, it's growing out of control. Like seriously, the eggplant leaves are bigger than my head. The zucchini have overpowered the strawberries, though the strawberries seem to love it. I guess they like being in the shade, it keeps them cooler. It's pretty exciting that I have yet to kill anything.

In other news, it's starting to slow down a bit at work. Finally. After next week we're done with school groups; then we just have to figure out how to get some more tourists in to keep us busy. Otherwise I'll go crazy with boredom after a couple of weeks. People keep asking me if we're going to take another trip this summer. They say they need something to read.

There's probably more going on, but honestly, I've been working on this post for about an hour and can't come up with anything else. Luckily I have this entire weekend off from work, so hopefully we'll go have some adventures and I'll have something to write about.

Road rage

2010-05-18T08:45:00.000-04:00

So I'm on my way to work right now, sitting in traffic because of an accident. The SUV in front of me just changed lanes and almost sideswiped a car in the next lane. The man driving the car honked and swerved around her. He then rolled down his window, held his arm out and made a motion with his hand to indicate that she was talking, then shook his fist at her out the window. Next he held a sign (ore-printed and in a plastic cover, so he apparently uses it often) that said "hey blondie," (incidentally, she was blond) "shut the hell up and drive." I have to admit, I laughed. Next he made some more angry gestures at her with his hand out the window. Then he threw something at her car. I couldn't tell what it was, something small, it kind of looked like a battery. That's when I stopped laughing in case he looked over and got mad at me, too. Finally he gave her the finger. At that point my lane started moving faster, and I couldn't see them anymore. The lesson I've learned this morning: people are frigging crazy.

Our first harvest!

2010-05-10T18:13:00.000-04:00

It's our first little tomato from our garden! We got this plant for our anniversary (I think) from Alfred's parents, so it's already a couple months old and bearing fruit. The verdict: yummy. There's another bigger tomato that will be ready to eat in the next day or 2. I'm so excited!

Happy cinco de Mayo!

2010-05-05T18:59:00.000-04:00

It's been a great day, mainly because I had the day off of work! Huzzah! The other big news of the day is that I discovered a way to clean the well water marks off of my bathtub - borax! Works like a charm.

So anyway, I cleaned the bathroom, went to the gym (and was jealous of all the super toned people there, so I worked pretty hard), slept in until 8am, all sorts of good stuff. We went and hung out with Lucy and Ellie for awhile. Got to see the new house they're buying, which is pretty nice. Ellie and Alfred played with a bottle of tequila in the backseat. She was a fan.

Right now we're celebrating with Alfred's family. We've got funny hats, margaritas, and (presumably) lots of food. I smell something delicious, at least. Definitely a good day off. Cheers!

The graduate

2010-05-01T11:46:00.000-04:00

Congrats Emily!

2010-05-01T09:48:00.000-04:00

We're at Emily's college graduation this morning. She's graduating with honors! Way to go, Emily. We haven't actually talked to her yet, but we found her in the crowd. Also, someone just busted out some hot dogs in the audience. I might go jump them and steal one.

garden update

2010-04-28T19:37:00.004-04:00

This is impressive. It's been a week and a half and nothing's dead in my garden yet! Things are actually surviving! Dare I say they're doing well? I dare! Check this out!

In this picture you can see a) my watermelon seeds coming up, in the far bottom right corner, b) my butternut squash seeds coming up, to the left of the watermelon, and c) a strawberry that's turning red, on the left, resting on the wooden frame. How awesome are all of these?? That zucchini's looking pretty good too, it's between the butternut squash and the strawberries.

In this picture you can see a) my corn coming up from seed, on the far left, b) my pole beans sprouting, surrounding the sticks (i.e. their poles), and c) my eggplant that has freaking doubled in size! The eggplant is on the other side of the pole beans from the corn. It's grown like crazy. Oh, and the blueberries are totally forming. Everything is actually looking really good and healthy. It's pretty exciting.

My flowers are less than impressive. I planted some moonflowers (I think that's their name) by the back porch, but nothing's really come up there yet. I guess that's ok, at least the things we plan to eat are doing well. I just planted a swamp rose that someone at work gave me last night, so we'll see how that goes.

Party central!

2010-04-24T21:19:00.000-04:00

It's a weekend of celebration! Today is my mom's birthday (happy birthday, mom!) and we're currently at Chrissy's surprise 30th birthday party! It's a rockin' good time. I dropped the f-bomb in front of the whole gang, including parents. Luckily, they're cool. Anyway, tomorrow I have a baby shower, hence the "party central" thing. We're so much more social since moving!

our garden!

2010-04-20T22:11:00.000-04:00

We had a very productive weekend last weekend: we finally, finally planted our garden! We've had a bunch of plants for about a month now, and have been moving them around to make sure they're getting sun and not too much rain and stuff like that. Plus, Home Depot had vegetable plants and seeds on sale, buy one get one free! So we loaded up, built our garden bed, and went to town.

In the picture on the left, you can see the whole backyard, freshly mowed. You can see the fire pit that we've been using for weeks to get rid of the shed. You can also see the garden on the far right of the picture, and the citrus and fig trees we planted are in there too. The picture on the right is a close up of our vegetable garden box. We have a nice big tomato plant, which already has a bunch of green tomatoes coming in! About 1/4 of the garden is tomatoes, mostly just your basic red tomato, but I also got a black tomato that I'm super excited about. There's also a few different types of peppers, some eggplant, squash, and a bunch of herbs. I planted seeds for corn, pole beans, squash, and watermelon. Watermelon! I so hope I get a real watermelon this summer. Oh, and there are a couple of blueberry plants next to the box, with actual blueberries coming in! I am so, so excited about my garden. So if you come visit this summer, you can have some fresh home-grown produce on your pizza.

oh, my liver

2010-04-17T10:49:00.012-04:00

(FYI, I started this post Saturday morning. It's now Monday night.)

Actually, I haven't really had any beer since Tuesday after work, but I drank enough Saturday and Monday to last awhile. I'd say our booze fest was a success. Alfred and Mike both finished their cases on Monday, and I finished my half case. I think Katie was within a couple of beers, I'm not sure about Maureene. Lucy, Ilya, and Mercedes all joined in for part of the day too. We played a whole bunch of flip cup. Only a couple of puking incidents. Not bad at all. The rest of the week was fun, even though I had to work a lot and couldn't join in in all of the festivities. I could make pizza, though! We had it 5 times total, twice for breakfast. Katie left on Tuesday, and Mike and Maureene left on Thursday. Now it's just us again. But we have pictures!

Monday marathon

2010-04-12T16:56:00.000-04:00

Today is case day! We all survived and thrived Saturday after around the world. Today we're tackling a case apiece, except for me, who had to work today and so I'm only doing half a case. I had a bud light for breakfast. So far today I think they've done 2 power hours, and we played flip cup with Lucy. Don't worry Phil, Ellie was taking a nap. Just now we played survivor flip cup twice, first maureene won, then Katie. Now that we're all up to speed, I'm going back to my beer.

Roll call!

2010-04-10T21:09:00.000-04:00

All 7 of us made it to the shuttle bus stop! What an achievement!

Wow

2010-04-10T19:02:00.001-04:00

The cheese empanadas in Canada are AWESOME. The end.

Brothers from another mother

2010-04-10T15:14:00.000-04:00

Halfway there!

2010-04-10T14:59:00.001-04:00

We all just took shots of limoncello in Italy. It was a little tough, but I think this was a good discovery. Less stomach volume. 6 countries down, 6 more to go!

Let the games begin

2010-04-10T10:42:00.001-04:00

The festivities kicked off last night! Tony, Cathy, Katie, Mike, Maureene, Alfred, and I all met up in Orlando for a weekend of drunken debauchery. Last night we started out in the hotel with a growler of beer that Alfred brought. That party got broken up after someone complained about noise and they sent security up to tell us to pipe down. Since our beer was gone anyway, we decided to go to a restaurant/bar to continue drinking. $6 pitchers we're the highlight; a waiter that forgot about us half an hour into our meal was the lowlight. On the bright side, being forgotten meant not paying our bill. Hey, we tried. He was literally at the table next to us multiple times throughout the night and never came back to us. So the whole "free" thing helped improve our experience. Luckily there's a waffle house near our hotel for tonight.

Right now I'm waiting in line in epcot to get our tickets. Less than 20 minutes till the bars open, and we begin our travels around the world!

energizer bunnies!

2010-04-08T22:00:00.004-04:00

So yeah, another busy weekend and week. Last Saturday was Ellie's first birthday party, as you may have guessed by the picture. They had a keg of beer and a bunch of Easter eggs hidden around the yard with lots of candy inside. So yeah, a good party. Sunday we spent most of the day with Alfred's family. Robyn wasn't feeling well, so we got to learn how to make their traditional Easter ham loaf and tomato pudding. It came out ok. Not quite as good as when she makes it, but ok.

Every night this week has been full, too. Monday night we went over to Lucy and Phil's for leftover beer and barbecue from their party. Tuesday and Wednesday we scrambled to get various chores and cleaning done for this weekend. We did laundry, ironed, loaded and unloaded the dishwasher, washed dishes, and cleaned the whole house. We have a big weekend coming up: Mike's on leave, so we're having a big get together! He, Maureene, and Katie are coming for a long weekend, and Tony and Cathy are meeting us in Orlando for the weekend. It's going to be quite a boozy weekend. Expect some drunk posts. We'll be in Epcot for Around the World on Saturday, then a Case Day on Monday, and who knows what else. My liver is trembling in fear!

Happy birthday Ellie!

2010-04-03T18:21:00.001-04:00

our ghost

2010-04-02T21:59:00.003-04:00

So I think we have a ghost at the new museum. It's not a mean ghost or anything, just sort of a playful one. For months now, when supplies get moved somewhere they're not supposed to be, or something disappears, we jokingly blame our ghost. In one of our programs, we have about 8 ball and cup games (the kind where you try to catch the ball in the cup, hence the name). From time to time, the strings of those games get so tangled and knotted together that it takes a good 10 to 15 minutes to untie them. I always blame that on the ghost. To be fair, one of the construction guys is convinced that kids from the neighborhood hop the fence during the night and screw around in the museum, moving things and stealing things and stuff, so it could be someone like that doing it to be annoying. Once, a few weeks ago, the owner went in on the weekend and saw someone running out of the front gate as he came in the side gate, so apparently someone's been in there at least once. It could reasonably have happened more often that we don't know about. And that person could be a huge jerk and spend a ridiculous amount of time tangling up ball and cup games. It might not be a ghost.

However, one of our newer store employee claims that several times in the past few weeks she's been tidying up the store, putting things back in order, and will turn her back for a minute, then turn back around and something will be moved by several inches. Generally the store merchandise is arranged in straight lines, so it's fairly easy to tell if something's been moved. She said it's happened more than once. She blames the ghost.

All of this build up brings us to my story from yesterday. I got to work early, and was in the office alone. The office is a one end of the store, so I can see all of the entrances and the entire store from my desk. We have a display of loose marbles for sale right in the middle of the store, and one of the most distinctive (and obnoxious) sounds throughout the day is when kids run their hands through the marbles and swirl them around. It's kind of a rattling, clanking noise. Well, yesterday morning, I was at my desk working, and heard what sounded like someone moving the marbles around. I assumed it was my boss, though I hadn't heard the door open, so I looked up to say hi. The lights in the middle of the store were still off, and I couldn't see anyone. So I got up and went to the office door. No one was in the store. Immediately I thought of our ghost, and the show "Ghost Hunters," and did what they would have done: gone investigating! I walked to the other end of the store, where my boss's office is. He wasn't in there and his truck wasn't in the parking lot (which I could see from his office). I checked all the doors: still locked, and I was still the only one inside. I went outside and found the construction guys. They had been in the area kind of behind my office, in the opposite direction of the store. I asked if they had been using a chain or any equipment that might have made a rattling noise. They told me I was crazy, that they hadn't been using any tools or anything yet that morning. So, after eliminating all of the possible explanations I could think of, the only one that remains is our ghost. Which is actually really exciting! I maybe heard a ghost!

time flies

2010-03-28T15:08:00.003-04:00

I didn't realize just how long it had been since I posted last. This week was the official start of our busy season at work. I worked 58.75 hours, if you pretend that I took half an hour for lunch every day, which I certainly did not. I spent one night at one of my employee's houses, just to save the almost 2 hours of driving. Wednesday we actually set a record in the store, which is pretty neat. But, in case you couldn't tell, it also means I have a lot less time for posting. So, sorry about that.

This weekend we've done a whole lot of not much. Well, Alfred did a bunch of stuff for work yesterday, but I did not. I did a load of laundry, cleaned the bathroom, and we hung up some pictures. Other than that, I've been sitting on the couch, watching TV. And I slept in both mornings. It's been fantastic.

Last of all, this past Thursday was a really big day: it was Katie's 21st birthday! Happy birthday, Katie!

go Big Red!

2010-03-19T20:55:00.004-04:00

Cornell's basketball team is in the NCAA tournament! And they won their first round game today! Against Temple, who was totally supposed to win! (at least, that's what I'm guessing, since they were ranked higher, plus who really expects an Ivy League school to be any good at sports? I went there and I don't expect it. Except hockey. But I digress.) They're even playing here in Florida, though today's game was in the middle of a work day so obviously we couldn't go, but I think their second game will be on Sunday which means that MAYBE we could go! Alfred totally hates basketball, but really, how often does something like this happen? I really want to go, but we'll see if he's willing to. Although I could totally go by myself. I'm not a huge basketball fan, but I did go to some games back in high school so I can sort of follow it at least. It's definitely better than baseball, although that's not saying much. And I bought a Cornell t-shirt and visor this summer that I could wear to the game! Oh man, I totally needed an excuse to wear my visor again! Obviously it will extend its magical properties to cover the team and help them towards another win! That's it, I'm going!

(p.s.: On this blog, I have purposely remained vague about where we live, except to say that it's in Florida, and I realize that this post sort of gives away that we live within a reasonable driving distance of Jacksonville, but I would appreciate if no one that knows specifically where we live mention it in the comments. Can't have all my millions of fans figuring it out and mobbing my car when I leave for work or anything. Thank you!)

meet the neighbors

2010-03-16T17:41:00.005-04:00

So I'm watching this little drama unfolding outside my house. Our neighborhood is a dog neighborhood. As in, dogs next door, dogs across the street, dogs down the road, dogs everywhere. Dogs that bark when you go outside, dogs that bark when you get into or out of your car, dogs that bark when they hear other dogs barking. It's pretty damn annoying. Well, apparently a few got loose from a house down the street, because about 10 minutes ago I heard a bunch of barking and thundering animal running sounds in my front lawn. I looked outside to see 3 big dogs running across our lawn. 2 minutes later, along comes some lady yelling at them. The dogs run back her way. 2 minutes later, more barking and running, and the dogs are running away again. This happens several times, until she finally gets one of the on a leash. The rest sort of trail along with her, stopping to bark at and harass dogs in fenced in yards along the way. Just now she was back out front yelling for another dog to come back. It's kind of hilarious. She's wearing black stretch pants. Not the stylish kind, though.

Most of our neighbors are white, it seems, though a lot of the people in surrounding neighborhoods seem to be black. In the Publix supermarket closest to us, for example, we're generally the only white people there. I texted Alfred all excited the other day because there was another white couple in there. The other supermarket by us is usually pretty evenly split between white and black people. It's an interesting area. Luckily, I'm often in my work costume when I go to the supermarket around here, so everyone's equally staring at me. I bring the races together in my 16th century garb.

In other news, I had the day off today! I have to work all day Saturday, but let's not talk about that. I made strawberry cupcakes for Lucy, who came to see our house and joined us for lunch. The frosting was better than the cupcakes, although they looked pretty cute with a little strawberry slice on top. We drank a bottle of wine while she was here. Because really, what better time for a bottle of white wine than at 1:30 in the afternoon?

In closing, I'd like to share this link to a collection of the Celebrity Jeopardy skits from SNL. We used to sit in the hallway/ghetto my sophomore year in college and listen to the audio on our computers. They still crack me up. Enjoy!

Victory!

2010-03-13T10:58:00.000-05:00

I just found the iron, coasters, AND video clue! The day is mine!

2010-03-11T19:47:00.002-05:00

Remember the award I won last month for customer service for a NE FL tourist attraction? About a week ago my boss printed out a picture from the event, wrote a little note on it about the award, and posted it in the break room at the museum. Yesterday I noticed it was gone. So either one of my bosses decided I had had enough glory, or someone else there got jealous. I have my suspicions. I should have checked the trash or something, but by the time I noticed it was gone I think it had been gone for at least a day already. By the way, here's the picture. Not the most flattering, but you can see my award. There was one more of me on the official website, and it's hideous. It's of me walking to the stage. I have an extremely unattractive profile.

Last night Alfred had some super important big shot meeting that went until pretty late, so I was home alone for awhile. Not all that long, actually, because I had a funeral to go to after work (the husband of one of my coworkers passed away, cancer, very sad), then I had to go run errands for work, so by the time I got home it was almost 9:00. However, I was finally successful in my search for a bathroom rug yesterday, so I decided to surprise Alfred and finish unpacking and setting up the bathroom. It looks really nice in there now. No more boxes! Alfred still needs to put up the towel rack and toilet paper holder this weekend, but then it's totally done. Finally. This weekend I have big plans to work on the kitchen and find the iron. I have the ironing board, but no iron yet. It's becoming a problem, because I need wash my work clothes and they then need to be ironed. I'm running out of clothes. I want to go buy a window shade for the front door, too. But really, as long as I find that damn iron, I'll be happy.

Fred Flintstone day

2010-03-09T20:21:00.001-05:00

That's how one of my employees described it, and that fits so many of my days perfectly. I was busy all day, but feel like I accomplished so little. Like I was running in place all day. Suddenly it's March, and our busy season is upon me. One of my employees is out of town for a family emergency, one is scheduled for surgery later this month and will be out for 5 weeks, and another went into the hospital suddenly this weekend. And so, once again, I am short staffed as we go into our busiest 10 weeks of the year. This happened last year, too: half of my guides had sudden illnesses, or deaths in the family, or other emergencies that kept them out of work. And then i'm stuck redoing and redoing the schedule and doing tours myself and basically doing 3 or 4 jobs at a time. And then my boss will come in and suddenly take away some of the things I'm doing and delegate them on my behalf. I compared it the other day to a juggling act. I'm juggling 3 or 4 balls, doing fine, then some throws in another 3 balls for me to juggle. Then just as I get the gang of it and am getting comfortable with my new act, someone comes in and takes away 2 of the balls and messes me all up again. It gets a little frustrating.

Well, now that I got all that bitching out of my system, let me end with an amusing little story from today. We sell these little wooden pop guns in our store. They are both incredibly obnoxious and incredibly popular. This afternoon we had a group shop and as usual, many kids bought pop guns, opened them, and popped them like crazy both inside and outside the store. Well, apparently someone aimed one at a passing car with a paranoid driver, and the driver called the police. So a cop came to check out what kind of guns we sell and to give us a friendly warning about kids "shooting" at innocent cars. Those corks can be pretty dangerous, after all. Especially when they're attached to the gun with a string.

Milestones

2010-03-06T08:28:00.002-05:00

Lots of landmarks this week! First, a couple of days ago (not sure exactly what day to be honest) marked my second anniversary of blogging. Thanks to all of you crazy people who keep coming here to read this insanity. Second, yesterday was our fifth wedding anniversary. It makes me feel old. Yesterday we had exactly the kind of weather I was afraid of for our wedding: cold, windy, generally miserable for Florida in March. Alfred and I went out to dinner. Pizza and beer, nothing fancy, but it was somewhere I had been wanting to go and it was really good so that's all that matters. Third, today is Ella's seventh birthday! Talk about feeling old! We sent her a couple of sundresses for her gift. She's definitely old enough now to have her own opinions on clothing and stuff, so I hope she likes them. Happy birthday Ella!

We've been house/dog sitting for Max and Robyn the past couple of days. They're in Milan for about 5 days, Max went with a friend of theirs for work and invited Robyn to come. Lucky stiffs. Really, we're just keeping Ellery company while he takes care of everything. Although I have walked the dog a couple times, so I've been mildly useful. It's a whole different traffic situation going to work from here, but at least I had to go to work really early yesterday (yeah, that's really a great thing) so I beat most of the traffic. I get to go in today too, but the weekend should be fine traffic wise too. Oh, and speaking of traffic, I thought of something yesterday that I definitely do not miss about our old house: all the motorcycle traffic from Bike Week! They're loud and go too slow and band together so you can't pass them. But I don't have to deal with them this year!

in with the new!

2010-03-01T21:31:00.007-05:00

Here's an exciting treat: a virtual tour of our new house! I just went around and took pictures of each room, without doing anything to them first to make them look any different/nicer than they actually do in real life. So here we go. The tour begins with the living room. That's the front door at the left side of the picture. That's Alfred on the couch. He's on the phone with his dad and stirring the goat milk we're making yogurt with.

Next to the living room we have the office. The dresser and TV that are in the middle of the room were against the wall and set up until this morning, when we moved them to get the satellite cable run over to the wall.

On the other side of the living room is what we're apparently calling the sitting room. This is the second least unpacked room. Eventually I think the chaise lounge, the bookshelf, and the wine fridge are going to end up in here. Probably some other stuff too, but I don't know what yet. The washer and dryer, along with the new shelf Alfred installed this weekend, are in a little closeted off area to the right of this picture.

Beyond the sitting room is the kitchen. Pretty self explanatory. This room is proving the most difficult to unpack and set up. We have a lot of kitchen stuff and are going from a lot of cabinet and counter space to a little. We also don't have a working dishwasher yet, hence all the dishes drying on the counter.

Through the sitting room in the other direction is the hallway, which leads you to the other bedrooms and the bathroom. First, our bedroom. Alfred's closet is just out of this picture on the right. He gets that closet because the hanging bar is lower and my work dresses were touching the ground when I hung them in there.

Next is the bathroom. I'm still not convinced I love this shower curtain, but I guess it's a little late now. This is probably the room we're buying the most new stuff for. The shower curtain, for one, but we still need a towel rod, toilet paper holder, rug, and some shelves or something to put all of our crap on. Most of our toiletries are still in boxes, one of which is at the bottom left of this picture. Oh, actually, when I said before I didn't touch anything before I took these pictures, I lied. I opened the shower curtain a little so you could see the shelves I put in the shower. I originally bought one of those things you hang on the shower head to hold your stuff, but then I found this shelving unit that you can set up in the corner instead. It's awesome.

And last of all, the guest room. A complete and total disaster area. When we were moving, whenever we had no idea where to put something we put it in this room. We have big plans to make this a guest room at some point. Hopefully before we have any guests. I think we should put a lot of this stuff up in the attic, but we'll see.

The biggest thing we did this weekend was landscaping. Unfortunately I got home after dark, since I had to make a detour to do some birthday shopping, so no pictures of the new landscaping yet. At least this way there's still something for everyone to look forward to!

p.s.

2010-02-27T19:20:00.003-05:00

That last post took way too damn long to format correctly. I don't want to mess with it anymore, so I added a new post as a p.s. instead. Today is National Kahlua Day! Thanks to Rosemary for the tip. And now I'm about to go celebrate!

out with the old...

2010-02-27T18:21:00.032-05:00

Presenting: a photo retrospective of our old house. We bought it in July 2004. This is how it looked when we bought it:

We did a whole bunch of work on it to fix it all up and make it liveable. I guess "whole bunch" is a bit of an understatement.

Then we moved in, right before Christmas 2004. My family came to visit, and we had Christmas at our house. It was not quite done. Here's some baby Mason for you as well.

This one doesn't really show the house much, but tiny Ella pretending to drink a beer is too funny to pass up.

We did a lot more work over the years: flooring, kitchen counters, paint. And this is how it looked when we moved out. Finished, clean, and beautiful. It took a few long days and late nights to get it looking this good, but it's done and the tenants are in, so hurray!

non-moving news

2010-02-24T21:29:00.005-05:00

Actually, a tiny moving note first. My mom correctly guessed that we had 7 expired phone books in the old house. However, we have already arranged the furniture in our living room, so that prize is no longer an option. You can arrange the kitchen instead. Congratulations!

Last Thursday was Tony's birthday - happy belated birthday! I actually managed to call him on his birthday, and was even the first of his siblings to do so. Technically, Mike did email him before I talked to him, but he didn't call. Granted, he's in Iraq, but that shouldn't really be an excuse. This picture is from when we went to visit in 2008. He was a tiny bit drunk. I'm sure we'll get some new entertaining pictures when everyone comes to visit later this spring. Anyway, happy birthday!

On to the next order of business. We had to say goodbye to a dear member of the family last Friday: Copper the Dog. He turned 15 in December, and has sort of been hurting for the past few years, so it's not like it was totally unexpected. This picture is probably kind of mean, considering he was just put to sleep less than a week ago, but it looks like he's trying to put himself out of his own misery, and it makes me laugh. Poor little guy. Now Munsen is the lone dog on campus, although there are still plenty of cats milling around. Why couldn't one of the animals I'm terribly allergic to have kicked the bucket? Farewell, Copper. Enjoy lying on all the couches you want in Doggy Heaven.

Update #4

2010-02-20T23:54:00.001-05:00

Everything's in the new house. It's all terribly unorganized and chaotic, but it's here. I just set up our bed, Alfred just pulled in the driveway, and we finally get to go to bed. Tomorrow: back to the old house to clean. The fun just never stops! :)

Update #3

2010-02-20T18:22:00.000-05:00

Everything from the first load is in the new house, and Mercedes and I have been unpacking and organizing. Alfred and Ilya went back to the old house to get the last of the furniture and the washer and dryer. Fun trivia question: how many expired phone books were in our old kitchen? Winner gets to come figure out how to arrange furniture in the new living room!

Update #2

2010-02-20T13:43:00.000-05:00

Max came, we packed his car, he left and will meet us at the house later. Alfred left a little while ago with the packed truck and trailer. Charles arrived, we packed his car, Alfred's car, and Ilya's car, and are now caravaning to the new house. Unfortunately everything didn't fit, so we'll be making another trip with at least a couple of vehicles, but we're making progress!

Addendum

2010-02-20T10:08:00.002-05:00

Update #1

2010-02-20T10:08:00.001-05:00

Ilya, Mercedes, and Mister arrived. The human men are loading up the trailer. I'm still packing. Mercedes and Mister are sitting on the couch in the trailer. I'm on my first beer.

D day

2010-02-20T09:11:00.000-05:00

D as in disaster, or maybe dreaded. Yeah, I like dreaded. We've been up and packing since about 7, and I'd say we're about 85% packed. Lots of random little stuff still needs a place to go. There was a slight issue with the moving truck, so instead we're loading up a caravan consisting of a borrowed pick up truck, a rented trailer, Alfred's car, Ilya and Mercedes' car, Charles' car, and Robyn's car. Alfred's already taken several loads of boxes in his car over the past couple of weeks, so really it's a matter of fitting all the furniture. Thinking positively!

Quote of the day

2010-02-17T19:10:00.001-05:00

"The men's room smells like a meth lab."

- my coworker

we're getting there

2010-02-16T21:03:00.003-05:00

We've been working hard on this whole "moving" thing. It's really not very fun. We spent about half of the day Saturday and then most of the day today at the new house, finishing up some cleaning and painting that needed to be done. We had painted all of the walls already, but needed to paint all of the white trim in the kitchen and bathroom. When we paint, I'm the one who gets to do all the edging, so most of my time was spent doing that. But it looks so much better now, it's amazing what a coat of paint will do. All we have left to paint now is a little touching up in a few spots in the kitchen. Alfred also put some insulation around one of the doors, there was a pretty big gap that is now much smaller. Our electric bill for that house was over $90 last month, and we weren't even living there! We do keep the heat on to about 58 or so when we're not there, partially to keep the pipes from freezing since it's been getting so cold at night, but that was still pretty crazy. To compare, our bill here was about $120. Little to no insulation + an electric company with the highest rates in FL = that sucks! Hopefully sealing the cracks around the doors will help.

Saturday afternoon and evening was spent with Alfred's family for Valentine's Day. Emily was home from school for the long weekend and had her boyfriend over, so we got to meet him. He seemed like a nice chap. We had Caesar salad (with dressing made by the incomparable Alfred, as taught by the incomparable Doug), some awesome red velvet ice cream cake, and then a whole bunch of fried things, thanks to Robyn and some of Emily's friends that came over after dinner. Then Sunday was spent mostly around the house, except when I had to go to work. Yeah, I had to work on a Sunday, on Valentine's Day no less, because of some stupid adult group that showed up 40 minutes late for an hour tour and then complained because they didn't get to do everything they were expecting to do. Here's an idea, move your asses out of the gift shop and get where you're supposed to be on time.

I finished a bottle of liquor tonight - 1 guess what kind it was! (hint: I still have some fat free half and half in the fridge...)

You might be white trash if...

2010-02-14T17:55:00.000-05:00

You spent February 14 taking down Christmas lights. From Christmas 2008. Guess what we did today??

A clean house is the sign of a boring person

2010-02-10T19:52:00.003-05:00

Our house has been kind of disgusting for awhile now. I've been putting off cleaning, since I thought we were moving this weekend and I'd need to clean like a little mofo next week, but our move date has now been pushed back to next weekend and I couldn't take it anymore. So when I got home from work tonight I donned my bleach-marked sweatpants (I'm so bad about getting cleaning stuff on my clothes), fired up my mp3 player, and got to work. I wouldn't call the house clean, exactly, but the bathrooms are at least. And the carpets upstairs are sort of vacuumed. I think our vacuum cleaner is shot. The hose part works fine, but the bottom part that actually vacuums carpets and stuff doesn't appear to work anymore. It doesn't appear to be clogged or anything, it just sucks. Or, more accurately, it does not suck. This is the second vacuum we've gone through in 6 1/2 years. Either we're abnormally rough on our vacuum cleaners, or we need to bite the bullet and splurge for at least the second-least expensive vacuum at Walmart. The point of this story is that I pretended to vacuum the carpets, then went back over them with the hose to at least suck up the noticeable stuff. Which included a cockroach graveyard we unearthed when moving crap out of the office. I'm telling you, we live in filth.

The downstairs is a total disaster area. At least the upstairs is now clean and shows very little evidence of the move, other than the nearly empty office. Downstairs, though, looks like all of our closets and cabinets threw up. And then all the stuff that came out fell in love and made babies. And invited their friends, the cardboard boxes from the garage, over to visit. It's sort of horrific. Oh, and the dishwasher needs to be unloaded, there's a load of laundry in the dryer waiting to be folded, and the kitchen sink needs to be scrubbed. Yet here I sit, listening to "Rock Lobster" and typing. Hell, it's not like that part of the mess is going anywhere.

While cleaning I was musing on one of the little things that I think makes my marriage happier: we thank each other for doing chores around the house. I generally get stuck with most of the inside cleaning, though Alfred vacuums maybe 1/2 to 2/3 of the time. He refuses to touch the bathrooms. I do more of the laundry, we split the dishes fairly evenly. He does most of the outside stuff, like mowing the lawn and cleaning branches off the roof. Clearly I think I do more, partially because our lawn gets mowed about twice a year and cleaning the tile in the upstairs shower sucks more than I can say. So when he does stuff around the house, I try to make sure to thank him, and he usually thanks me too. Of course we don't always remember, but I'm definitely very good about reminding him to thank me. Now, I'm only part of one marriage, but I feel like in other relationships chores may just be seen as jobs that need to be done to keep things running smoothly, not anything deserving of thanks every single time they happen. But I could be wrong. So, I pose a question for my cohabiting readers: do you and your significant other thank each other for doing daily chores? I'm quite curious.

how is it already Tuesday?

2010-02-09T20:55:00.003-05:00

First of all, congrats to Allison and her husband on their freshly born baby! Little Gabriel arrived Monday morning, safe and sound, though he caused a bit of drama by deciding not to cooperate and necessitating a surprise c-section. I stopped by the hospital after work today to say hi and visit, and to bring Allison some chocolate from Claude's. He's very cute, and she looked damn good, especially considering what she went through yesterday. So, congratulations all around!

We were actually quite social this weekend. Kevin called Alfred on Saturday and asked if we were busy, (which, other than packing, we were not) so we met them for an extended lunch (complete with plenty of colorful drinks) and then did a little sightseeing, for free of course. Then on Sunday we headed up to Alfred's parents' house for the Super Bowl. This involved even more eating and drinking. Plenty of frozen margaritas to go around. I think I watched about 10 minutes of football. So, plenty.

Other than that, most of our time over the past several days has been spent cleaning, organizing, packing, and getting things together to donate to Goodwill. They're really going to get to know me over there. So if posts are a little sparse for the rest of the week, that's why.

our new house

2010-02-06T15:17:00.000-05:00

I realized that I haven't gotten around to posting about our new house yet. My bad! So, here you go. First from the outside.

Cute, no? That's a pecan tree to the right of the picture, there's another one in the backyard too. Plus there's a really big backyard too, which means I get to have a garden! I need to start getting some gardening books out of the library or something, because otherwise I'll kill everything in minutes.

Anyway, the house has 3 bedrooms, which is nice, but only 1 bathroom. In general I feel like only having 1 bathroom is not so great, but then I think about how that means I only have to clean 1 bathroom. I like that part. The living room is a little small, and sort of weirdly set up. Three of the walls have doorways, and the fourth has a fireplace, so it's not exactly ideal for furniture. The carpet's all been pulled up now and the floors are wood.

Just past the living room is this weird dining room-like area. It's bigger than both the living room and the kitchen, which is unfortunate. The kitchen is through the doorway on the other side of this room and, again, is small. Not the smallest kitchen ever, but definitely a step down from our current kitchen.

The main benefits of this house are a) the location (closer to Alfred's family and job, and all of our friends who live down here), and b) lack of a mortgage. It's a little longer drive for me to work, by about 10 minutes, and it's an uglier and more boring drive. But I'm willing to take one for the team for a little while. It really is a cute little house. The plan is to move next weekend. Should be awesome!

I'm a winner

2010-02-03T22:08:00.000-05:00

My boss nominated me and another person I work with for these regional hospitality awards (we were in separate categories, so we weren't competing against each other). The awards banquet was tonight. And what do you know, I won in my category! I got this super fly plaque/trophy thing with my name inscribed on it, a lapel pin, and a bunch of swag, including free tickets to an attraction that I get free admission to anyway and a gift certificate to a liquor store an hour away! Seriously though, it was pretty exciting. There were 11 of us there total from our company, and our table made a lot of noise when they announced my name. It was a nice night. And I get to wear a lapel pin to work tomorrow!

birthdays!

2010-02-01T20:45:00.002-05:00

We've had a couple of birthdays lately: Rosemary and Ilya. Rosemary's birthday was on Thursday. This picture is from our road trip, when we visited her and Greg in LA. It's from the night we practically destroyed her brother-in-law's house. It was great fun! I've actually seen Rosemary 3 times in the past 6 months, which is pretty impressive. Once in LA, again in Ithaca a few weeks later, then last month in Boston. That's more than we've seen each other since I graduated, probably. Miss you, Rose!

Next up: Ilya. His birthday was yesterday. We celebrated with him and his family last night. Alfred helped drink an entire liter bottle of tequila. The food was good, as usual (Ilya's mom is a really good cook), Mister the dog performed some tricks for us, and fun was had by all. This picture is from when we went camping this past summer. Ilya was quite a fan of his gas lantern. The two of us got trashed off of vodka and Kahlua based drinks that night. Pretty sure he's drunk in this picture.

Tomorrow, one of my employees has a birthday. Not too exciting, because I don't have a picture of him, and even if I did I probably wouldn't bother posting it because no one who reads this knows him. Neato!