end of the year as we know it

well, the new year is almost upon us.

and frankly most people I know are incredibly happy for that. I think it is an understatement to stay that this year was a horrible one for those in my industry. I for one am happy to have a home and a job; which is something that many people today no longer have after this parachute-less dive we have experienced this year.

Not that the year hasn't been good to the many people that I know and love, including myself. There have been babies born happy and healthy, vacations taken, people married. It is this bigger picture that has to be remembered. Money and wealth are a means not an end. I feel incredibly blessed in my life and I hope you all can feel the same way.

To all of my family and friends who read this I love you guys and I hope you have a fun and safe New Years Eve and a 2009 that brings you health, happiness, and many blessings.

Home Sweet Home

http://sandbsadventures.blogspot.com/2008/12/were-back.html

merry christmas

http://sandbsadventures.blogspot.com/2008/12/merry-christmas.html

we're here

http://sandbsadventures.blogspot.com/2008/12/safe-and-sound.html

snow day

So we knew a storm was coming yesterday. and it really didn't produce much snow, but the ice and sleet was spectacular. So much so that our train line was shut down out near my house. Which meant that while I did have to work from home today, I was able to start my Christmas vacation early --5pm on the button. I have now finished another book (this one took me two days) and will need to got to the library again tomorrow.

I was thinking about making the sausage that is in the fridge for dinner.... but tonight feels like a pizza night. I think i might go check our my basement freezer and see what I can scrounge up.

Anyway, We'll see if I have time to blog tomorrow. If not Merry Christmas!

Christmas

http://sandbsadventures.blogspot.com/

this is the other blog that Bill and I both have rights to. I think I might use this to do some updates during Christmas. If you can't remember the link i have it on my side bar

happy birthday

you probably won't read this until tomorrow, but happy birthday dad.

Outside of dad's birthday the last two days have been much better, my eye is 90% better and work is going fairly smoothly. Christmas is coming fast and a week from today we will be in Epcot with the family having dinner in Germany and listening to the Christmas Story.

The bitter sweet thing is that Winnie will be dropped off at the vet's for boarding on Saturday, which means that the anniversary of us getting her will be spent away from her. Good thing she won't know, because I feel pretty bad already.

I can feel the temperature dropping in the house tonight, and according to noaa.gov tonight's low will be about 8` with a windchill around -3. tomorrow we are supposed to get the trifecta for wintery weather. lets just hope we have no problem on Sunday with all the snow forecasted.

snow!!!

it's really pretty out. the snow is all sparkly and soft.

This afternoon i had to go run to the post office and now that I am at the corner of the loop one side of the office building is very loud and noisy, while the other is the Chicago river. The post office is in the merchandise mart across the river so I got to shuffle through the snow on the bridge. it was so pretty, quite and white ... it almost made up for yesterday.

sarah's terrible horrible no good

very bad day.

It might not have been as bad as Alexander's day in one of my favorite children's books, but yesterday wasn't very good.

To start off with the sty that was killing me all weekend but I had thought was getting better kept half of my right eye closed when I woke. It hurt as bad as it had two days before.

Then Bill tells me the the temp has dropped from 50 some degrees the day before to 5 with a wind chill well below zero.

Ok, so I dress for warmth and eschew most of my make up (fear of irritating my eye).

We get ready and leave facing the bitter cold and walking to the train. we get to the platform in about the same time we normally do, which leaves us about 3 min before the train comes. so we wait on the platform. and we wait. It wasn't surprising that things were a little behind considering the cold. and then we wait and wait. and when a train finally does come 25 min after ours we get on. Lucky for us all trains stop at the last two stops because after we are on the train we find out that this is not the train we were waiting for, but the 7:18 . the intermediary stops for these trains differ so some poor souls had to get off and wait some more.

By the time we got on the train the cold had numbed my feet and fingers to the point past pain. After we go into the city I still have to face my new and annoyingly longer walk to work. I got in over a half hour later than usual.

So now I am cold, I have an aching eye and I have this generally flutter in my heart that happens when I am late -- I hate being late!

I settle down to work only to find that my printers aren't working, my files can't be made, and I cannot login to one of the computers that I need.

The rest of my work day generally follows that layout - won't work can't find it, permissions denied.

Exasperated , I bundle myself up and mentally prepare myself to the walk to the train. The walk wasn't as bad as I thought it could be and I got to my train after very brisk walking with about a min and a half to spare.

On the train I cozy up to my book of short stories, and before I know it I need to re-bundle get out my house keys and get off the train. Only problem is I can't find my house keys. Yup that's right coldest day of the season and guess whose house keys are sitting in her purse she used on Sunday... oh that's right me!

So I txt Bill who is up to his ears in work and tell him of my forgetfulness. I try to reach our pet walkers because they do have a key and I would gladly pay to get into my house especially since Mondays are one of the days that they currently do not walk the dog.

After no returned calls, I head over the the Public library to wait things out. Bill gets home and lets me in about 2 hours after I got off my train. (Poor Winnie!) and we start up dinner. I usually love Monday night tv, but since our DVR portion of our dish broke over the weekend I sadly was unable to watch the finales to Heroes or Chuck.

I spent the rest of the evening writing Christmas cards and trying to ignore the pain in my eye.

Hopefully today is a new day and things will be better.

merry christmas

we had lunch to celebrate Christmas with Bill's parents today. we also had the car tune up and went to looks at glasses. so we should both have new glasses by Christmas.

Winnie is barking at us right now, and when she gets exasperated that we aren't paying attention to her she starts this growl/whine/bark. but today she is trying to get our attention by doing all of that plus passing some gas for emphasis. (she is a little stinky pot pie)

ok i have to go pay attention to the fuzzy one.

chillaxin

i took the day off to use up some of my vacation days today. so i am chillin on our couch watching the dog attach her stuffed squeaking squirrel. i think if she ever caught a bunny/other fuzzy animal the first think she would do is poke it all over with her nose looking for the squeaker.

we have a lot of cleaning still to do around our house and bill and I still haven't gotten the motivation to unpack everything in the basement.

I plan to hang out maybe pack for Christmas a little run some errands get a hair cut pick up something for dinner and clean up the bedroom.

we had to have the bathroom tile removed and then re-tiled because the first time around the tiles were uneven. so i haven't been in our upstairs bath since Monday night and i think we won't start using it until the week end. (even when you think a project is over it isn't)

grey

it is nasty outside today. and I am high enough now that the cloud cover is eerily close to my window and with every passing minute it is actually getting even darker.

i can't beleive that I'll be off to the house of the mouse in 11 days.

back to work

pictures

4 hours

of sleep. having that dentist appointment 45 min away the day after Bill;s Christmas party wasn't the greatest idea in the world (but technically we have had the appointment set since June)

I think bill is going to load photos at some point today, but right now I think we both might need a nap.

playing dress up

bill's party is tonight and I will be playing dress up in my pretty new dress and shoes.

tomorrow we get to go to the dentists and get our teeth cleaned (i love that feeling)

don't think we really have any other plans.

much ado about nothing / *kathunck*

This is a two part post because i didn't post what I had wanted to yesterday.

*kathunck*

Yesterday I was sorta sleepy as I walked off the train. I like to walk pretty fast when I am trying to get to and from work, which often means maneuvering around hoards of slow moving people. So, I try to pass up the group of people slowly sauntering and go through a different door. Arms outstretched, I quickened my pace and pushed/ran into the plate glass divider between the two sets of doors. not only did i wound my pride, I also smashed my left foot/ knee, nose and mouth into the wall of glass. most of the injuries i shook off easily, but my toe is pretty hurt. I hope it heals up a bit before the Christmas party.

much ado about nothing

so we had maybe a half an inch of snow yesterday to today. All those winter snow warnings amounted to not much. And while it is butt cold outside, and icy as all get out, there is very little snow to speak of. and with those prediction models Skilling is saying today 8"-15.9" for the next two weeks.

fuzzy boots

no more snow today, but with the ice and snow on the ground I broke out my big fuzzy boots today. I love these boots. They are super warm north face boots that lace up so you can easily shove your pant legs in them. It sounds like I will have more chances to wear them. Snow all tomorrow (fun) about an 2-3" expected, but according to Skilling the models are predicting between 9.5 and 21" for the upcoming two weeks. Also, apparently Downers was the winner in the most snow contest with 5.7"



at least the fuzzy boots will keep me warm

hoober bloob highway

I don't know when mom recorded this for us kids, but as we had very few videos (all recorded from tv) i must have seen this short animated movie 100 times. anyway I was just flipping channels and here it is playing on abc family. Apparently they have a night of Dr. Suess tonight.

So work didn't kill me, but I am sure that the week will feel like forever by Thursday.

It snowed over night, which means Winnie got to play this morning. now she keeps whining because she wants to play more.

late breaking news

Bill says the sink works! Let's go brush our teeth!

Making up for yesterday

So reflecting on the last week of vacation or so has left me feeling pretty let down about the upcoming week: We are already moved so no excitement there. I have to work a full five days the most I have worked in a while. The days are still getting shorter. And as of right now Bill still can't get the sink to stop leaking.

Otherwise, we did get some stuff moved in the basement, but the couches still aren't back. I made the TJ's 17 bean soup with some of the leftover ham. And Bill and I watched Extreme Home Makeover, which, as usual made me cry. Oh and a big Congratulations to Angela and Jason!!! They are expecting their third baby due in June.

FAILURE

so i didn't post yesterday.  oh well I think i made a pretty good effort this month so maybe I can still get honorable mention.  

Last night we had Lily over for some pizza and then we went to see Twilight.  I think I enjoyed it more than Lily, but I think she had high expectations after the book.  I mean it is a long book and how do you capture a perfect human (not any more) being.  Well I enjoyed it and I really hope they are able to make the other books into movies.  And I hope Stephanie continues to write, as I enjoyed her other new book this year The Host.

We had the first sticking snow of the season today.  Winnie doesn't remember the snow from last year so she had some fun.  not a lot of it just enough to dust the ground.

Bill has been diligently working on his plumbing project.  things never go smoothly when dealing with pipes.  but lets hope by tonight I can brush my teeth upstairs.

Oh an something I have really been enjoying the last two weeks: Kristin Chenoweth's A Lovely Way to Spend the Holidays It has some christmas songs we all know and some new ones and her voice is so much fun.

bourne, black friday, little fib

So first I had every intention of posting that post yesterday, but it was 12 30 when i got up from moving things in the basement so i made my post time an hour before. Today However I really am posting at 11:40.

Bourne: we rented the entire bourne series from family video and are currently watching the second one. We also rented sex and the city. I love that closet.

Black Friday: we finally bought our snow blower today the box didn't even fit into the car we had to heave the machine in sans box. I bought a dress for bill's Christmas party, some shoes for the party and some slippers:

moving furniture

you thought i was going to wish you a happy thanksgiving, which, yes have a happy thanksgiving, but mostly I am posting about all the crap i just had to move in my basement so that the carpet can be put in tomorrow. owch! my back hurts. I think Bill's hurts more though.

so I hope you enjoyed your turkey gravey and all the rest and have fun shopping tomorrow

sleeping in

It was so nice to sleep in and enjoy a day off. Winnie and I took a nice walk and now I think I might reheat some lunch.

Bill will hopefully get off early today and I think i might try to get him to go see a movie with me. I do have to make my pies today so wish me luck on my crust making because it hasn't turned out the best in the past.

Tomorrow will probably be a short post, but maybe Friday we'll get some pic posted.

for all of you cooking tomorrow good luck. and all of you traveling fly/ drive safely.

long long weekend

I am so thankful to have this time off. Work and construction and moving and even the loss of sunlight have all taken a toll on me. So at 12 noon today, I cleaned up my desk and took the 1230 train home. I have taken tomorrow and Friday off as vacation days. And as Bill mentioned, the carpet people called as I was cleaning up at work so we will be getting our new carpet in on Friday yay!!!

So I come home and instead of being productive I am watching Jon and Kate plus 8. It doesn't seem to be a regular episode, but the story about her tummy tuck. It is amazing how much a woman's stomach can stretch when pregnant, but sextuplets really stretches it out. Anyway tomorrow I'll make some pumpkin pies and maybe I'll bake some cookies or some other treat for Bill.

Winnie is whining so I should do see what she wants.

mondays

today was my first day in the new space. overall not bad, the walk is a lot longer and i get much more easily distracted without nice solid walls, but i can sorta see the lake if I cock my head just right and i now have a nifty double 22" screen set up. ignore the mess in the picture... i had just finished unpacking.

Tonight I made some delish breaded pork chops and boiled potatoes I don't know what is with the home style cooking lately, but I have been on quite the tear.

Bobby and Ben wrapped things up late last night/ early this morning in my basement. Overall not bad, but you can totally tell when the fatigue hit. No news on the carpet, but hopefully there will be enough time for Bil and i to clean up a little and get everything moved over to the tile with out rushing it.

I must say a belated congratulations to my cousin Andre and her husband Terrance. They have a beautiful new baby boy named Ezra.

goodnight

my Sunday blogs are worthless....

tomorrow is my first day in the new space.

Bobby and Ben are still here painting (11:26), but we did take a break for a thanksgiving meal together. I opted for a chicken since is was just four of us, but i did make green beans, stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and some homemade whipped cream for a store bought pumpkin pie.

ok bed time more tomorrow

thanksgiving

did some shopping for the things we are making for turkey day (Brussels sprouts, yams, pumpkin pie) but i am also going to have a pre turkey day dinner with bobby since he is in town this weekend so i will attempt to make a roasted chicken (it can't be too different from turkey) with stuffing potatoes and pumpkin pie. yum

today while bill and i were shopping for my dad for some birthday/ Christmas presents we ran into an old co worker of bills who we haven't seen since June. he left bills work to go back to med school so it was cool to catch up with him and his girl friend.

Bobby and Ben are out (as previously mentioned) and they are working pretty hard to try and pain the whole basement in two days I don't think it will happen but here's to hoping.

Bill got to spend the whole day at home without working at all. yay.

guest blogger

I was going to blog today about thanksgiving, but I received such an awesome email from my Dad today that not only did i print it out to reread on my ride home, but I decided he would be my guest blogger today. So here is his email to me:

Hi Sarah,
After reading your blog, I thought as your father I should try to quell your unreasonable fear of some of God's little creatures.

So I decided to do some research about the little centipede so I could put your mind at ease the next time you saw one. When I decided to do this I wasn't on my computer so I looked up centipede in the dictionary. About the only thing they said was they are voracious and predatory with many legs.

Well, I didn't think this would do much to quell your fear so the next time I was on line I looked up centipede in the on line dictionary. "any member of the class Chilopoda of long flattened many-segmented predaceous arthropods with each segment bearing one pair of legs of which the foremost pair is modified into poison fangs".

Well, I didn't think the addition of the poisonous fangs would help either so I looked them up on Wikipedia. In reading through all the information, the prospect of quelling your fear grew slimmer and slimmer. Not only are they voracious and predatory with
poisonous fangs, but I found that one species can grow 1-2 feet in length and can actually catch bats in mid flight. But, alas, I came upon a sub-section about the common house centipede. And I came upon some interesting things. First, 'The bite of most house centipedes is incapable of penetrating human skin. Those that can, give an effect no worse than a minor bee sting.' But more important than that is what they do eat. Their diet consist mainly of 'House centipedes feed on spiders, bedbugs, termites, cockroaches, silverfish, ants and other household arthropods'. So, even though these little creatures that we typically think of as ugly and disgusting, having them around your home can reduce the quantity and maybe the presence of many of the other little creatures that we really do not want in our home. That all aside, I can't say as I blame you for not wanting to share your shower with them.

moving

as you all know my house has been under construction. nothing massive, just enough to drag on and be very annoying.

what you may or may not know is that my office is moving to our parent company's office over this weekend. Which means that we have been packing and living in a general disarray for the last month at work too. well tomorrow is the day they will come in at 9 to start packing up the files and stuff and then start moving boxes into position for the move at 12 and then we lose phones and fax at 3 (but yes we can still work :-P).

What this means for me: I move from my nice window office to a corner cube near a window. my OK walk is now an extra 3 1/2 city blocks and near the icy river. I lose free coffee tea and pop but gain an armark cafeteria.

Overall the move is a good thing and I am happy with my cube especially with a new desk that isn't splintering down the side. I am excited to meet some of the people I work with all the time, but have never met. I also think the space is a better presentation and representation of our business to prospects and current clients.

However, if in the next few weeks you see annoyed posts by someone who started walking on autopilot to her old office, or someone who cant find her files, can't get her computer to work and is annoyed by the new space in general, please be patient. I tend to not like change or meeting people so this isn't easy.

tomorrow we discuss thanksgiving!

How to sharpen knives

http://steamykitchen.com/blog/2008/11/16/how-to-sharpen-your-knives/

i like this blog, came across it a while back from another food blog. anyway for total disclosure purposes this is to get a second entry for the beautiful knives featured in this post. check it out!

https://www.newwestknifeworks.com/store/fusionwoodknives
you can also check out the very pretty knives I am aiming for the mountain iris mini chopper.

yawn... bedtime story please

this week is dragging ...

Last night, I was pretty tired so I didn't post much including the exciting adventure of Sarah vs the 3 in long centipede.

So, Tuesdays are currently the days the health club offers Pilate's in the evenings (they also have spin, but usually it is hard for me to want to spin for an hour and then go do Pilate's for an hour). Last night, I went and had a lovely hour of exercise and core work. I find pilates a great way to de stress and relax while still getting a good work out. Of course, after that I want to continue the mood in a nice hot shower.

After I am home for a bit (take the dog out etc) I go upstairs and grab everything I need to shower downstairs (this is not because of the work in my upstairs bathroom right now --we have always used the shower downstairs (one of the reasons for the work being done)).

I always glance around the shower for spiders and centipedes as we have had one too many run ins with them; I don't see anything and so I pull the dog into the room (so she won't destroy the rest of my house), disrobe and take off my glasses. I hop into the shower happily singing "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," which I had just heard on the radio on the ride home.

I turn on the water ... and then see it... and SCREAM. the 3 inches of blurry centipede trying to out run the water -- he must had been hiding where the shower sprayer hangs down. Somehow, he gets washed to the side of the shower on which you enter (sliding shower doors) and I am now up against the wall with the shower sprayer. I turn up the hot water, but realize to wash him down the drain I am standing on I must move.

I am wet, my heart is beating crazy, and I can't see too well. I try to slip out the other side of the shower knocking over the garbage can and easing my way around the sink. At this point, I glance over to my poor petrified puppy, who is sitting the the corner furthest away from the commotion.

I think the centipede has been thoroughly killed by the scalding water by now and try to wash him down the drain. Unfortunately, the length and largeness of the creepy crawly has made him hard to move with the sprayer from the corner to the middle. Once I have maneuvered that part of the operation, I have to try and coax the lifeless body down one of the tiny drain holes. That takes a while, especially after some of his tentacles (legs antenna etc) get caught.

5 min later - I am trying to happily take a nice warm shower, but the relaxing mood was gone and I no longer felt like singing Christmas carols.

no sink

+no toilet = sarah is getting tired of construction

bill's been working lots of hours which has made him very tired and me tired by osmosis

i'll try to post more tomorrow goodnight

SNOW!

well we don't have any to speak of, but on the front page of CNN they are talking about the 2 ft that Lake county got. for those of you who didn't have to memorize the counties of Ohio (including the largest and smallest sitting right next to each other) that isn't that far from many of my east side family. but apparently there were no snow days to be had, because I spoke with David and he told me he sadly went to school today.

But then I started thinking about it, and though very few Clevelanders read my blog, it was that very same weekend in 1996 when the ice/ snow storm hit Cleveland leaving many without power and schools were closed all week. I remember it distinctly because I was away that weekend for MUN at the navel academy and ours was one of the last planes to land before Hopkins shut down. so i left school mid-day Thursday and didn't have to go back until a week from that Monday. (and then we had Wed-Sunday off a week after that for thanksgiving)

I miss snow days. that was the storm that bent our very tall arborvitaes into a great snow den that the boys and i dug out. again, I miss snow days. even if the city of Chicago shut down due to snow (never) i would be so busy shoveling that i wouldn't be able to enjoy it (time to get that snow blower Bill).

nick of time

phew... almost forgot to blog today!

Raked leaves, cleaned gutters, baked brownies, got to dog cleaned up, unpacked the living room/dining room from the painting, had some yummy lamb stew, ate said brownies.

I think that about sums up my day.

ok more details later i want to be in bed BEFORE midnight.

blogging on my phone

Just because I can. Heh

falalalalalalalala

so i have tried to ignore the signs that Christmas was coming fast until today when i turned on the radio and not liking npr, 1019, or 1011 i hit the preset for 93... the lite aka all Christmas all the time from thanksgiving onwards. but apparently it started playing Christmas music yesterday. Which means that instead of annoying commercials on the drive from the city home i got all i want for Christmas, Dominic the Christmas donkey, jingle bell rock, I'll be home for Christmas etc...

Winnie is sitting here with me... she was eating a leaf. i would have taken it away from her, but by the time i realized what she was doing the leaf was no more. typical puppy.

progress is happening in leaps and bounds in my basement. the epoxy was put in yesterday and this morning the rest of the insulation and drywall went up along with grouting of the tile that was laid yesterday. we signed the contract for the carpet today and it might just be here for thanksgiving. Bobby will paint next weekend before the carpet install and i hope that my basement will be enjoyable long before Christmas.

dinner at the gage and then the bond movie. it will be fun to hang out with Brian and Christie tonight.

yeah, whatever

the sun went away again.

but progress is happening in my basement and it's Friday so i am in a pretty good mood. last night i made myself go to spin class despite the lack of sleep and overall tiredness (maybe from the flu shot?) but that means that along with going to bed again after 12pm (7 days in a row!) all of my leg muscles are protesting this morning.

This weekend Christie is in town to visit Brian, so tomorrow we are going out to dinner and then to see the new bond movie.

Work has been busy and a bit depressing lately (more on that some other time). We move a week from today into our new digs at 333.

Obama's office moved into the federal building kitty corner to mine and now at least once a day (usually around lunch time) my quite typing is interrupted by the blaring of a hundred different cab horns as they block off the street for some reason (maybe our president elect feels like some jimmy johns, or, more likely, harold's) Anyway, I am happy for Obama and such, but I am glad to be moving away from all these federal buildings... no more protests, marches, homeland security trucks etc.

and like that...

...the sun finally comes out

another day with no sun

November has been a pretty gloomy month... aside from all the glumness i talked about yesterday we have gone without sun for far too long. i think it has now been over a week of over cast. add that to the dark when i get up dark when i leave work time change problems and i am craving some sunlight.

i might post more later

glum

As we all know, the markets have been down for a while and many people are starting to get calls that no one ever wants to get. I don't know if we have had a sunny day here since election day, but it certainly feels like the weather in mimicking the mood around the city. Yesterday while waiting at the station, I over heard one of the women from my stop talking to a gentleman about the layoffs at her company and she said she was jealous of the two women on maternity leave right now, because the company won't lay them off, and then jokingly she said, "maybe I should get pregnant -- its great job security!" The fact that this would even be a joke is sad.

So, while I am excited for the holidays, pardon me if I seem a bit more like a party-pooper than normal.

OWCH!

i got my flu shot today, and while it doesn't hurt as bad as that DTaP that I had two weeks ago, my upper left arm is pretty darn sore.

I also got to see our new digs at the main office today, and am really impressed and excited. I know that the change will be hard and very different, but I have come to accept it ( it took a year or so, but there it is)

Last night we picked up our new tile for the basement and the upstairs bathroom. work begins tomorrow yay!

4 pieces

of pizza is just way tooo much. especially if you are trying to keep that weight off.... and to think that the week had started off so well with the 17 bean soup.

but really i haven't had papa johns pizza in years. and i have missed it. darn you Bill and your tempting suggestions.

monday morning catchup

First off, let us all congratulate bill who has almost doubled his amount of blog posts this year in the last week. Way to go!

Second, I did see the suggestion that I buy Bill a GPS for Christmas. While that is a great idea, I like to always be right(as Bill unfortunately knows), and that little unit is probably more accurate than me, I could not abide by its contradictions.

Third, and on a very serious note, my coworker's daughter Christie will begin new treatments for cancer on Thursday. She has been battling cancer for 4 years. I know some of you believe strongly in the power of prayer/ positive thinking. Please keep her in your thoughts. Christie's daughter is now 4 1/2 and I know that she is battling this cancer with every fiber of her body, not just for herself, but also for her daughter.

hard work

this blogging daily thing takes effort and commitment, like a pseudo relationship.

Yesterday ended about how it began, except that Bill was able to join Brian and me for dinner.

Today I feel like I accomplished very little. I guess when you sit around for most of the day that feeling comes natural.

I did get to make the bean soup I've been looking forward to, so that was good, but I wimped out on the bread, instead buying some rosemary round loaf. Oh, and I made waffles for the first time ever, using that waffle iron dad gave Bill and me. They were de-lish!

So tomorrow is back to work, and I think Bill and I are both in for another long week.

long week

so its been a very long week, and for poor Bill it isn't over. he is currently at work.

Since I was going to drive Bill in and out of the city anyway, Brian and I met up for some breakfast. It was good to hang out with him for a bit.

Then I spent about two hours in the cold windy weather raking.

Now I am vegging out and watching the disney channel which is showing the new version of freaky friday.

thats all for now...

bill is out of hiding

www.speakingofbill.blogspot.com/

by request only

this is for Malesa

A few weeks ago some of you might remember that Bill and I walked in a breast cancer walk. Just like last year, it was a smashing success, much of that due to the incredible generosity of our co-workers. My office is rather small, so as a thank you I went to the local bakery and had them make pink ribbon sugar cookies. Not cheap but very tasty.

Bill's company is about 4 times (maybe more) the size of mine, so the cookies were not an option. Bill thought about Munchkins, but people like to complain about donuts (i.e. ugh this is going to make me soooo fat I can't believe you brought these in, but i guess I'll eat 3). So like a true pastry lover Bill's mind turned to pie. And it was just a little jaunt from pie to Bakers Square (where else can you get pies for under 9$?) So, he make up his mind and we hopped in the car (with the dog) around 10pm on a Thursday.

Bakers Square closes at 11, but that wouldn't matter, because it is only 3 block away... ...so we thought. We drive up to the building: lights are off, no cars no people. Hmm ,we think even if they closed at 10pm there should be lights on and servers still around. As we drive around the building I notice that the name have been pulled off. When did this happen!?! It was only in mid July that we had last enjoyed a pie from this store. We didn't remember hearing anything about Bakers Square going out of business or going into bankruptcy. And I had looked online to find store hours... wait, the store I looked up was on Ridge... this is Dixie. Could there be 2 pie places in our area?

As I use my cunning and wiles to ferret this information out of my blackberry, Bill turns the car around and heads north to ridge. I knew it had to be east of us so he head is that direction and I find a town and address. Hmmm I have heard of this Lancing before... it can't be too far.

So it is now about 10:15, remember they close at 11, and we are heading into uncharted territory. As we pass the last signs of familiar places, we drive past the cemetery that is across from the side entrance to Home Depot. We keep driving... there are no lights as the other side is forest and I guess street lights might not be wanted near a graveyard. Wow this graveyard stretches on for a while I think to myself, but whats that? More grave yard on the other side of the street? still no lights and no cars on the road. Bill is just trying to concentrate on diving and I am trying not to be a scardy cat.

We emerge out of the woods and it is now about 10:30 and we have a problem the road does a 90* turn and then dead ends into another road. How in the world is this on Ridge if we have just hit the end of Ridge?!? Bill keeps driving as we go past some type of factory. Then we come into more woods and a herd of very big deer some in the street and some on the side of the street. We turn down a residential street and Bill is ready to give up before we end up in Indiana. But I am now taking this very personal, so I grab my street map of northern Illinois and look up Lancing. Lo and behold, Ridge starts up again all we need to do is make a left at the next light and the make another left onto Ridge.

10:35, back on track, but still worried about the massive amount of deer we hear out with new enthusiasm. Win my great sense of navigation (yay maps!) we make our way to Bakers Square with 15 min to spare. Bill orders his 6 pies and we head home, now knowing our way we happily smile at the "deer forest" and distract ourselves as we go back past the unlit expanse of graves (still no cars on the road).

Back at home and am now angry that we didn't get a pie for ourselves and jokingly tell Bill we could head out again tomorrow night.

So, it is a long and probably not as interesting story as you thought, but when you were talking about the pretty graveyards all I could picture is this pitch black road with no signs of life driving afraid of deer jumping out at any moment and not know where we were going.

Quoth the raven, "Nevermore"

NaBloPoMo?

I was reading a corgi blog today and found out that this is National Blog Posting Month or some silly thing. I guess a bunch of people a committing to posting at least once a day every day this month.

I have already failed to do that, but i figure i can always try. I have only missed the 2nd and the 5th so far.

So lets see if i can actually keep you amused and not run out of things to say.

Yesterday our city was in full celebration mode... I tried to stay up to watch Oprah (its on when she tapes in the morning so they repeat at 11:15pm) She had a panel of people on and I could only stay up through the first two. (Might be because I was exhausted)

Yesterday we also picked out and ordered our tile with is the last major decision i hope to have to make about my house. We had the carpet people come to measure on Saturday and we have basically done everything else (or have it on contract to be done). It will be nice this weekend to clean up some more and get things like our guest bedroom in working order (in case any of you 3 lovely readers would like to come and visit).

Otherwise work is work and the dog is her crazy self. I love her to death but sometimes I really have to restrain myself (barking all crazy, hearing a command and then willfully turning around and ignoring me, playing with the Asian beetles until they are dead and then leaving them for me).

Alright I will try to get back tomorrow.

let me reiterate...

VOTE

vote

Don't forget to vote. I don't care who you vote for (well I do, but I won't complain if I don't agree) but if you don't vote, I don't want to hear your belly aching when you don't like the government.*

*Complain away if the candidate you like and voted for doesn't make it.

pics from the last week

slow

that is the progress report on my house. the projects seem to be of decent quality, but after 3 days not one of them is done. I crave the normal routine. Winnie isn't too happy either.

This weekend, in coordination with the work Bobby and Ben are doing we bought the carpet (though they still have to measure to get the pricing and everything), we got a new sink for the upstairs along with a new curtain rod (we had already bought a new light) and a new light for the downstairs hall way. we are still looking for new sconces for the dining room and we'll need new curtains for the dining room. redoing your house is very hard work.

outside of the house work not much is new these days. i am reading two books right now The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and The Host i am enjoying each but the reading is slow.

I saw Brian and Bobby in the same place and time for the first time since last year's wedding in September. both boys are alive and well (i think) and i will see them together again at Christmas time. Brian will hopefully come visit once everything is done.

the market depresses me

i can't even stay home and avoid it.... i am sitting here watching cnbc. geez.

weekend update

i figure i can ride on snl's coattails and use their new found ratings to title my post.

The walk on Sunday went great. It was a bit chilly out, but it was a great turn out and Bill and I have exceeded our goal raising $2,900 before company matching. I think next year we will try to each raise $1,500. We are very lucky to have such generous family, friends and co workers. Also, if you are hitting you head saying "I forgot to donate" don't worry, you still can.
http://main.acsevents.org/goto/sarahyoung2008
http://main.acsevents.org/goto/bill.young

Sunday was also the fuzzy one's bday. she got a special treat, and since we were out raking leaves she also "jumped" in our leaf pile. She was very into the leaf blower... quite cute.

On Saturday, we saw Bill's folks, ran a tone or errands and tried to, again, find a new sink for the bathroom. We also spent a few hours trying to hammer out our paint selection. If much of our house seems like it was painted in the same "cream" color, that's because we gave up and decided to get 3 gallons of that paint for all the areas we didn't know what to do with.

I'll try to get the photos of the walk and our leaf pile up on Picasa later this week.

updates

Thanks to everyone who has donated for the American Cancer Society Making Strides walk. Bill and I have met out team goal, though each of us have not yet hit our personal goals. The walk is on Sunday, and it isn't too late to donate, in fact it is never too late to donate to a good cause.

here is my page

In other news, Bill and I are in another round of construction and touch-ups around the house. After this, though, we really will have done everything we had hope to do (and some things that were unexpected and unwelcome). But, what that really means is that you should not hear the words painting building patching or totally redoing in reference to my house for quite some time (except maybe about a bigger and better garden for next year).

As most of you would expect the rollercoaster of a market has kept me busy at work lately. Bill is also pretty swamped. In other updates this little furball is going to be one on Sunday.

This is one of the photos the breeder took when she was 4 weeks.

Almost There!!!

Goal: $1,350.00

Achieved: $1,260.00

i need a new doctor

sign 1: i waited an hour at my last visit for 5 min of face time with the doctor (that included the entire exam and time for questions or concerns)
sign 2: i only had one lab done while at that visit, but i am seeing two lab charges on my insurance website
sign 3: i was left a message yesterday and told that the person to call back would be in the office 9-5 today, but upon calling i was told the office was closed, as it is closed from 12-2 every day and closed all day Thursday and all weekend. a two hour lunch break??!?? seriously?!? is that why the patients have to wait an hour plus to see the doctor? and seeing as it wasn't my doctor that called why wasn't there an option to leave a message for the person who did call?

oh well i am already doing the search and cross referencing with Angie's list. hopefully my next doctor will have real office hours and maybe I'll only have to wait a half hour.

Brrr

So fall has really started to take hold. We had to turn on the heater, pull out the sweatshirts, and worst of all those creepy-crawlies have all started to reappear. We had a nice weekend, watched dream girls again on Friday (got to love HBO) and then made a trip out to naperville on Saturday. (as a bonus we got to have dinner at RA which is the type of Americanized sushi i like). I was hoping to use my birthday present gift certificate that mom gave me but everything i seemed to like came in a size tow or twelve. neither of those were my sizes, so we will just have to use the GC some other time. Today was cleaning and getting ready for the week like most Sundays.

____

I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has already donated to the walk we are doing. there is still time to donate, and since that do-dad on the side bar doesn't update I figured I would share that Bill and I are about $500 away from reaching our goal. Truth in advertising we will each have some matching types of monies from our employers, but our goal is something we would like to meet outside of that money.

Bill and Me at the 2007 Making Strides

pictures

some pictures of Jed's visit, Disney, Birthday, and corgi picnic

So far so good

I have currently raised about half my goal ($1000) for the Making Strides walk and Bill is 80% there (though he might need to increase his goal). they little graphic on my side bar doesn't update itself, so i figured I would just give my update via my blog.

The walk is 3 weeks from Sunday, and I really hope Bill and I can reach that $2700 or even pass it as a team.

Sarah

Making Strides!!!

Bill and I did this last year and I figured a little cross promotion couldn't hurt! I will keep my new layout until after the walk.

oatmeal

I have nothing to say about oatmeal other than it is sitting in front of me and I couldn't come up with a title for my post.

I know many people proudly tell each other that they don't watch tv that they can't stand to sit for an hour and waste their time.... well I love tv. no bad reality shows or canned laughs that are misplaced, but other wise i might be up for anything. I always get excited for a new season of shows.... it's like shopping for a new wardrobe without the cost.

Anyway, the premier season has started in earnest with last night's 2 hour Heroes premier. I am very excited for Ugly Betty (and to a lesser degree Greys). And then next week Chuck and Pushing Daisies will both start up (In the latter I am hoping for more Chenoweth time).

So yay for tv, and if you think it is a waste of my time, tough.

birthday weekend

i had a great weekend and here is the rundown:

Bill took my out to one of my new favs for dinner on Friday. I had a salad with crunchy fried rabbit (my first try at the little fuzzy hopping friends) and lamb. Everything was great and it was a very nice birthday meal.

Saturday we packed up the dog and a change a clothes and headed out to a corgi picnic. There we a bunch of corgi owners (many from mycorgi.com). Bill took some good pics and has posted a few on facebook. after the picnic we drove winnie to the doggy store where we get her food and bought her a halloween costume. this is only further evidence that we need to have children soon. I have pics on facebook of this. Next up was off to the bowling ally with lily to meet up with neil frank and lee jean. we rented one lane for 2 hours and had a lot of fun, again bill has pics (I should probably post some, maybe tonight). After bowling we went and played pool at Frank's sister's condo. That wasn't good for me (but neither was bowling) next year we play monopoly as I am good at that.

Sunday we got ourselves up and out on a trek across town to woodfield mall (about an hour away with little traffic). this was so that i could get what i wanted for my birthday... a tour of the DVC models set up at the mall. (If you don't know what DVC is just know I am nuts about Disney). I think Bill is weirded out by my love of all things disney, but he tolerates it very nicely. by the time we got home we we able to walk the dog and pick some peppers before Bill's parents and Lily came over for dinner and ice cream cake. by the time they left i was ready to go to bed. It was a fun and long weekend. Yay for birthdays.

Today i get one more birthday celebration.... cake at work... very exciting.

This week i am hoping for more sable markets and quick responses from my clients.

Birthdays

Happy birthday to :
Neil (belated)
Erin, Alana, me (This weekend!)
Mitul (next week)

cutting you out

Dear basement carpet:

I am sorry to say things aren't working out. Your padding isn't drying and your smell has gotten worse. I wish I could say "it's not you it's me," but really it is you.

I know you have provided warmth to the room an all those cold winter nights. And I know you have been with me since the beginning, which just makes this harder.

I am afraid that the only thing I can do at this point is cut you out. Not completely at first, I mean we can still be friends, but I will eventually move on and i suggest you do the same.

Yours,

Sarah

ha ha ha

i don't like mold

evil evil good for nothing (and don't start talking about cheese or antibiotics) bad smelling money grubbing mold.

time to get a shop vac and start thinking about solutions for the basement.

the aftermath

well after about 48 hours of record breaking rain, the sky finally cleared last night. Thank you to family that called after seeing pictures of the flooded areas.

We were relatively unharmed and lucky. we have some damage in our basement from some seepage (we don't know where it is coming from in part of the finished part), some damage to our ceiling in the living room (have to find out if it is the flashing as I hope it is), and some leaking in the unfinished part of the basement (from an exhaust pipe to our furnace, go figure)

our backyard has become a swamp which was great fun to take the dog out into, especially when she decided to chase the bunnies.

much of homewood had a lot more flooding. the underpasses from the train were all blocked off (we couldn't get to the grocery store we would normally go to) and standing water made some areas impassable for small cars. I heard today that hf high school is closed... with no kids I don't really pay attention to that.

because of the rain we didn't go out to a movie or really do much outside our house. we did get to see michael clayton on hbo though and yesterday i made enough chili to feed a firehouse and two nice baguettes and a yummy peach cobbler.

more rain

this rain has become depressing. And on top of it my dog won't go out on the grass because it is always wet.

this weekend there are tons of things going on around the city including celtic fest, wine stomping, and apple picking. all of these are out doors and all will be a lot less fun with gloomy rain. So i think bill and i will stay home for the weekend.

i am starting to gear up for our Christmas trip and thinking of resurrecting the travel blog to post some pictures of our disney family Christmases and such, we'll see.

otherwise i am still reading the duchess. I want to see some of the new movies that are starting to hit theaters esp this week's burn after reading. clooney and pitt... ... ...

ok back from day dreams and i should get back to my day. have a nice weekend.

7 years

borrowed from about.com's Pamela Skillings

freaking cold

when you wake up and the radio man starts the current temp with 40 anything you know summer is over and you can now anticipate boots gloves hats and scarves.... but seriously it's not even close to september 22 (when fall offically begins).

in other news my strange dog won't step on the grass any more. I am hoping it is a temporary thing as it is quite annoying.

maybe i am getting old

today I got into work only to be reminded that I was supposed to be 60min south of my office performing jury duty.

I hate not being punctual, so forgetting something like this just makes me feel awful. Luckily I called and I should be rescheduled without any problems.

I may not have remembered to call after 4:30pm yesterday because I was busy make bread and soup for dinner. I think my summons is now underneath my Joy of Cooking.

Outside of being forgetful this weekend, on Saturday we had lunch with the in laws and then went out in the evening. Sunday we had a baby party in Chinatown celebrating Steven and Clara's second baby, Spencer.

Today is extremely dark and rainy, to complement my mood after this morning perfectly.
-------

On another note on Friday I finished up Breaking Dawn (which came out while I was on vacation and I waited until i had finished all of my current books to pick it up). I hadn't realized that it had received so many negative reviews. So many of these were about being "realistic" or "anti-feminist". After reading the book, I will say it wasn't my favorite out of the series, but it's a book about vampires... the expectation of realism should stop there. and as far as anti feminist thing goes... since when is it anti feminist for a female to get what they want and achieve their goals (even if those are goals are of marriage)?
Either way it was fun to finish the series and then be able to watch the new show on HBO True Blood. Jury is still out on that show for me, but I may try that series next... currently I am reading The Duchess (what the new Kiera movie is based on). and then in my stack are these: Right Attitude to Rain, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, The Septembers of Shiraz, and Run.

As always if you have a good book to read let me know.

rain rain rain

so the remnants of Gustav have finally past us after about 24 hours of non-stop rain. So it was probably good that i had made a dash for the book store yesterday and gotten some new books including one i had been waiting for since May.

I must say not much excites me like a good book. TV, movies, music all pale in comparison. I feel lucky in my life that I was taught to love to read - to relish that moment of cracking open a new book by an author you love or the excitement of finding a new author to read.

It's just too bad I couldn't spend all of this cool gloomy Friday curled up on the couch, blanket around me and Winnie laying next to me, reading. Oh, well I guess I'll just be grateful for the 40 mins I get on the train both ways.

so far so good

September is always a good month...
I was one of those kids that liked going back to school (and getting new school supplies!) And as much as I hate to see summer go I also love crunching leaves as I walk down the street.
But this month has important birthdays (ehem) including some good friends from u of c a fellow blogger a nice number of relatives and some co-workers (important to know when the free cake days are)
September is usually warm enough to still enjoy outside, but cool enough to sleep with a blanket at night (my favorite.)
I know I have a cousin that was just raving about the month, but i must reiterate it. Even though September usually has one of the uglier/boring pictures on the calender, it holds a special place in my heart.

In other news, the powers that control the exercise schedule have given me back my evening Pilate's class and two opportunities to spin every week. After a summer off, this is a great way to get in shape for our Christmas trip.

What a Great Weekend!

I don't remember have such a nice August in ages, and this long weekend leading into September did not disappoint. It was beautiful all weekend long, and Bill and I were able to really enjoy it.

Friday we tried this place for dinner. It was great. Huge portions of food, but very good and with lots of sides. We then meandered into Frankfort, as we had never been there before and discovered they have a huge art and craft fair every year on Labor Day. So...

Saturday after working in the yard all morning we cleaned up and headed over to check things out. We had a lot of fun, got a little something for our basement project and even scoped out some new restaurants to try ... in the future because we had to go home and eat our leftovers.

Sunday brought some cleaning and house work and then a great evening in the city celebrating RJ's birthday and meat (we were at a churrascaria after all).

Monday we finally made ourselves start our weekend project, after prepping our cookout and making homemade spaghetti sauce from garden veggies, and plunged into the basement. lucky for us by that time we only had an hour until it was time to go grill and spend a beautiful evening outside. We even go Bill's parents to join in some cornhole ("bags" for you Chicagoans)

As we sat on the couch with the dog later last night, I turned to Bill and said, "Is it Friday yet?"

shooting mosquitos

with an elephant gun

that is what using a 3d program to layout next year's garden is called.

where did august go?

Wow last night is the firsts night i really noticed how dark it is getting much earlier. goes to figure that i was caught off guard that labor day is this weekend.

But, alas, time marches on.

Now that the Olympics are over all that is on tv is the conventions, talk about the conventions or annoying political ads. I like how the road to the white house isn't paved with good ideas or past deeds, but with sleazy ads and low shots.

Ok well it is early right now so i think i will return to trying to keep the dog quite before she wakes Bill

end of summer

wow that went by fast, but the kiddies start school tomorrow in my town which to me means the end of summer.


after a week of catch up i finally feel ok at work (you always play catch up proportional to the vacation time taken). and this week i am finally cleaning up and digging out from all of the quarter end stuff.


on other notes... i have been able to harvest a few tomatoes and more peppers and broccoli this week, so we are back to the pepper in everything diet
~~~~

Tonight was Winnie's graduation, and she did great! she passed all her "finals":
1.walking around cones with treats on top of them
2.sitting and staying next to said cones
3.sitting, staying and finally running through said cones only to come and sit in front of me and then run around me and "finish" sitting at my side.
4.She was taken out into the store to the back aisle Bill lined her up next to all the dogs and she was told to sit and stay and then Bill, with all of the owners, walked away and into the next aisle.

Every time Winnie did wonderful and we were both so proud, especially after how disappointing ending the puppy class was (she had regressed and wouldn't sit or stay at all.) The next level is the advanced class which tests for the Canine Good Citizenship (an accreditation from the ACS and a must for any volunteer/therapy). Most of the dog that pass that at about 1.5, and Winnie won't turn one until late October, so we might repeat the intermediate class in the meantime.

its a good thing this happens every 4 years

because after another night of staying up through the end I am starting to feel like i have been competing too.

outside of watching the Olympics this week has just been about getting work and life into routine after being gone. Winnie had her second to last intermediate class on Tuesday which mean another graduation for her next week. she has learned more but still has bananas in her ears when she gets outside.

thats about it for now.

happy birthday

Giddo (10th), Maddy and Brie (11th) Brian and Lily (today) and Jared (14th)

can't talk - olympics

so we had a great vacation but now i can't really talk about it... did you see the back to back to back golds in the cube? and may/walsh? and so far the men's gymnastics has had me out of my seat.... this morning as we were getting ready to leave i was watching basketball... last night it was the swimming and women's gymnastics... Saturday more swimming and whatever else was on... Friday we watched women's jousting... did i mention i love watching the Olympics?

Sun sun and mickey ears!

We are leaving tomorrow for our trip to the "world" as it is know in our house. a couple of things

We had a great dinner on saturday with Jed who was in town. and neil if you read this i will get you that picture

sunday was a nice day until bill had to go attack the yellow jacket nest in our garage. then it was mostly scary for him.

this week has been super busy. and on top of it the peppers wont stop.... i am excited to go away for a week and not have peppers featured in 80% of my meals.

i might post pictures while we're away... don't hold you breath though.

peppers!

last night's harvest of peppers yielded 5 nice sized green bells and 5 Italian peppers.... this week i have already had peppers in eggs and peppers stuffed with peppers. i believe we will be having grilled peppers and pork chops later this week. last week it was peppers in pasta and peppers in stir fry..... any other pepper ideas?

my tomatoes are not fairing as well as the peppers yet.... but my broccoli is continuing to churn out little trees for the second month.


Edit: Add to the list peppers with veggie dip and sliced peppers on my sandwich at lunch

getting too old for this

we went and saw the 12:01 showing of batman dark knight last night. Let me just say that with2.5 hours of sleep I am functioning exceptionally well... i can type and the words in my head are making it out in decent order on the page.

the hype for the most part was true.... even as tired as i was i really enjoyed the movie. even more so since so much of it was shot here in Chicago and i was able to keep turning to bill saying remember when that was shot or remember the upside down truck or the parade sequence? but it is unnerving when the driving clips together all sorts of places no where near each other ie how did he go from millennium station to Wabash? or lower Wacker doesn't come out over there!

this weekend is off to a good start.

it's wednesday?

so the month is half gone and so is the work week.... where did my time go?

Well the majority of last week was prepping our house and food for our deck shindig we had on Saturday. and then this week has been spent eating way too many burger left overs in dog buns as we ran out of dogs and out of buns.

Thursday i have a hair cut and then we are seeing a midnight showing of batman.... i am way too old to be doing this, but this is to make up for my lack of interest in the past few action movies bill has missed out on.

Friday is the day i look forward to for months.... it is the start of the Nordstrom's sale. i am getting excited to get some new cloths and new makeup and maybe even a cute pair of shoes.

I hope to go see mama mia with lily on Sunday and Saturday we get out new coffee tables delivered and have a wedding reception to attend.


I can't believe that i will be in disney world in 16 days... yay!!!!!

Back from Cleveland

and here are some pics

more training

this weekend we signed my little Winnie up for more training. i still haven't figured out if it is worth while or not, but i like to think she is a pretty well behaved puppy.

yesterday while waiting for bill to go to the taste (in the end Monday worked better than Tuesday, mostly since training will be Tuesday nights starting last week)i read most of this book at barns. I would have to agree with the one reviewer on amazon that says it isn't the ultimate guide. But I think it confirmed what i knew and made me feel better about the choices we have made in feeding our dog what we feed her. she still gets junky food, just like i still eat McDonald's, but i do make an effort to stay away from that kind of food both for myself and my dog.

we leave for Cleveland on the 3rd. will be there for the weekend. I will probably have pics of my adorable cousins and my doggy afterwards.

pics

waaaalllllll eeeeeeeeeeee

hmmm a socially conscious movie with very little dialog... made for children you say? and they enjoyed it?? and you did too?

well i did .... wall e is too cute with his hello dolly and his earth trinkets. and i think the distopia movie is a better message for kids that shoot em up over sexed movies. it might be a bit depressing but the warning isn't far off its mark and i don't think it's a bad thing for kids to learn.

Taste time

which translates to "its the hottest week of the year lets fill up the city will meandering tourists who don't know how to walk down the street or ride the train."

But really i love the taste of chicago. you couldn't pay me to go on the weekend or on the 3/4 of july, but next tuesday you will most likely find me milling about eating my fried ravioli, curry fries, pirogis and potato pancakes, frozen banana, and holy cow chips (so healthy i know) maybe ill have a slice of cheesecake to balance out the fried food

Have a great weekend i am working on not melting this weekend

deep in the hundred acre woods...

....where Christopher robin plays you'll find the enchanted neighborhood of Christopher's childhood days...

well, my Winnie the pooh is doing well, but I think this humidity and heat is bugging her, because she been acting a little off. she is just as cute as ever, and she has mastered all basic commands well. right now i am working on the stay command and giving her "false releases" as in I will say things like "bread, and banana and brain" and she knows she can't move until she hears the true release word "break"

Our long awaited deck was finished on Saturday, and on Sunday my dear co-worker Nancy gave us her patio furniture set. so we have been able to sit out and enjoy the deck this week.

the garden is doing well... i now have small little peppers and a few tiny green tomatoes.

outside of being outside, not much going on. work is as busy as ever for me right now, and bill's beach volleyball team is even going into tonight's game (match?).

I will get some pics up soon.

garden update

so my garden is growing nicely, and yesterday i was able to harvest my first broccoli head. it was de-lish! i think all of the broccoli was stunted a bit by the 40 degree weather we had when i first bought them, but they are tasty even if they are small.



My bean plants have little beans coming out on them the longest is about 3 -4 inches right now. again, the bean plants are on the smaller side, but that might be more due to the soil conditions. I am now thinking about if i should seed a fall batch of beans and broccoli. or seed something to put in these guy's place after i have harvested. i know i will continue to get some small side shoots from my broccoli, but with the beans i am not sure if they continue to produce as you harvest.



the tomatoes are like a jungle right now. my early girls being the biggest, but not that much bigger than my big boys. the romas are all about 6-9 inches shorter than their bigger siblings. and the potted ones look stunted.



the pepper plants are as big as i would hope at this point, especially since they are all flowering right now. i guess we'll just hope that i won't be eating 3in long bell peppers all summer :)



and lastly my deck is progressing nicely...

deck part 2

This is our deck as of Monday night

This is our deck as of Tuesday night

The planks weren't nailed in last night mostly just laying in place. it is very exciting to see progress though. I thinkWinnie is more excited than Bill or me because this will provide a quicker access to chasing the bunnies and once complete her bed will move back into the family room. I don't think she has appreciated the displacement.

deck deck deck

we real progress was made yesterday and as long as the weather stays as predicted (70s and clear all week) my deck should be enjoyable by friday. yay!

reunions left and right

so this weekend was my 5 year reunion with u of c. it was fun to go to the "dinner" event on Friday and see some people that i haven't seen in a while. more importantly it has made me start thinking about next year and my 10 year high school reunion. i still have a hard time believing it has been that long... so much has changed in the last 9 years moves, marriages, babies, school and more school, careers and other life changing events. a year from this September will mark 10 years of my life in Chicago -- it's crazy!

the other reunion was with friends for BJ's wedding reception. It was good fun and a lot of dancing to "Indian-ized" dance music.

because we were gone during the day and then well into the night for errands and the wedding we missed the tornado that ripped through right south of us. we have had so much rain recently that even if we had had a permit for our deck i am doubting if anything would have happened.

things are busy at work for bill and me. Winnie is doing well, I'll try to put up a pic of her new trick "dance"

later

adventures in building

yesterday i found out that our builders hadn't gotten the permit to build the deck yet.... had i not called the builder would i have found this out? nope.

but this whole permit business really irks me. had we just built our deck and not bothered with the village i would have a deck, but because of some "problem" with the village engineer we rule followers are stuck with 5 foot holes in our back yard and not allowed to proceed until the village figures out its own internal business.

Why do we need a permit? well.... because the village wants to make money.... why don't they just call it a tax, because then it would seem like they want to make money. this way they pretend to care about your personal safety by hiring an "inspector" to make sure whatever you are doing to your property is sound. now in theory i don't have a problem with protecting the people. but this is my property (or in the most legal sense partly mine and partly countrywide's) and if i want to hire shifty people and not make sure things are sound why make me? and if someone wants to buy my house without inspecting it first, then why "protect" future buyers. could a future buyer really sue the village for a unsound deck if they didn't have an inspection/permit process but can they sue if they do have a process but it isn't good and something happens to a structure that was inspected? (isn't that what had happened with the fire escape collapse?) this talk can go in circles i guess, but i just don't like village politics and antics. the permits and licences you need to obtain are all taxes but not called that so you can't write them off. and so they continue to nickle and dime you.... a large flat tax at the federal level would be so much better than all these stupid things.

wow ..that got me off on a tangent

aside from the hiccups the deck is getting there eventually. and the back yard is looking pretty good. i guess this means bill and i have to start thinking about our next projects.

yard work

here are some pics of the yard from the weekend and from the deck demo today.  i will have to get my veggie garden at some other point.

from dirt to this in three weeks!

ger-maim-me-mums

my new lilac 

oh nos! don't use those doors

pics from stavered rock

winnie was tired after bill carried her up all the stairs

a piece of starved rock

i thought this was cool
L: where is the rock F: this is the rock!
winnie playing in the water

...

i am sick of titling my posts... they are always titled the same things, so i am protesting.

This weekend was great, but tiring. On Friday bill and I finally got to see iron man. It was really good --I was surprised to say the least.

Then Saturday came. it started with getting flea and tick meds for Winnie (in preparation for Sunday) getting Winnie signed up for rovers run (the dog park) billy getting a hair cut and then spending from about 10:45- 7:30 in the yard. i never want to see mulch again... nor weeds nor bunny holes in my new grass! unfortunately when we finished we still had the whole veggie garden left to weed till and plant.

Sunday morning we got up bright and early. watered everything and made a run for the store. we needed some picnic items from jewel before out day trip. We (all three of us) had a great time with Frank and LeeJean at starved rock. when we got home we still had about an hour and a half of daylight so we did all the rest of the planting in preparation for the rain (predicted for Sunday night and Monday)

Well Monday morning we woke up to everything very wet, but the rain really never came all day. we used yesterday as a day to clean out house from top to bottom, putting away winter blankets cleaning off summer fans (after all it was 80 and muggy) -- this morning however we woke up to 45` weather. at least we did get to grill before it got cold.

back yard day two

Tuesday wasn't as much of a surprise but this will give you an idea of what our new back yard will look like:

I think i am most excited about what you don't see... ...new grass! which after a week of almost daily rains is looking awesome.

lawn pics day one

So last Monday i come home and look out my back door to see this:



it really didn't come as too much of a surprise since we had hired the company to do it. just that they said two weeks and I (silly me) assumed I would get a phone call. instead it was a week and no call.

Back!

Alana and Me  - outside nine fine 

Bill and Me on the strip

You know I can't resist a goofy picture

Ceasars - I was really impressed by their exterior not as cheesey as I had thought