bullet points!

• I left work at freaking 4:00 this afternoon! I had to stop at Home Depot on the way home, but still got here by 5:30. Amazing. I've been working a lot of (unpaid) overtime the past couple of weeks, so I decided to see what it was like to work only a 40 hour work week again. So far, it's nice. But judging by my schedule the rest of the week, I'm guessing the 1 hour I saved today is going to be swallowed up by Wednesday.
  
• We made a massive amount of beef stock yesterday. About 40 cups, to be exact. Which sounds like a lot less than it was. Alfred got a bunch of beef bones for free from our grass fed beef source, so we couldn't let them all go to waste. We froze most of the stock, but kept some in the fridge for french onion soup this weekend. We actually just went through the process of getting rid of the fat (it solidified in a thick, disgusting layer on top overnight) and packing it all up for the freezer. Messy.
• Yesterday I also made what might be my best loaf of bread ever. We cracked open a jar of our fresh strawberry rhubarb jam to try it with. Words fail to describe just how delicious it was. I could eat the entire loaf in one sitting. I'm trying to resist.
• We totally forgot about the shuttle launch yesterday. We were watching tv while dinner was in the oven and suddenly Alfred said "hey, when was the shuttle supposed to go off?" Answer: ten minutes earlier. Oops. We had discussed driving down to see it go up in person, but that damn stock needed to be made.
• I went jogging this afternoon when I got home from work. I also planted my new(est) azalea (I'm up to 5 now, and I think I'm killing them) and cleaned the bathrooms. I should work 7 hour days more often.
• Re: azaleas. Yeah, of the 3 I got last year, 1 looks awful, 1 looked great and had lots of flowers but the flowers and leaves have gotten all droopy, and 1 looks ok but has no flowers. I have 2 new ones now, both of which still look ok, but haven't been around long enough for me to really destroy yet. Give me time.
• I found a hilarious blog by this girl who was rereading all of the old Baby Sitter Club books. I loved those damn books when I was younger. She's not posting anymore, but I've been plowing through the archives. It's good stuff.
  

another reason living in FL is cool

After a quick dinner tonight we headed south to New Smyrna Beach, which is about 34 miles north of the Kennedy Space Center, to watch the shuttle launch. We got stuck in a bit of traffic, but ended up at the top of a bridge as the shuttle went up.

We just stopped in the middle of the bridge with a bunch of other cars and got out and watched the shuttle. It ended up working out really well, we had a great view.

You can still see the shuttle in this one as we're driving away, it's the light above and to the left of the moon.

And now, some videos:

shuttle launch

We timed our walk today so that we were on the beach in time to watch the shuttle launch. It was awesome, as usual. We've gone to see it launch from the beach by our house a few times now, 3 or 4 I think. This picture is from today.


It's from Alfred's camera, so it's not quite as good as the pictures we took of a launch last June. So I decided to put those on here too.



The coolest launch we saw was a night launch a year or so ago. The whole sky lit up. We didn't take any pictures though. Some day I really want to go to Titusville to watch a launch up close. We could have gone today, but traffic would have been awful. Ok, time for dinner, bye!