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