[Insert Snappy Title Here]

My Next Big Adventure!

2010-02-23T10:54:00.000-08:00

Hello my blog! Its been a while, eh? In the past, this blog has been the place where I've babbled on and on about various projects, be it the community garden, the house buying, or the landscaping, blogging seems to become more do-able to me when I have something exciting to tell you about. So today I'm here to tell you about my next big adventure!

Many of you already know about this, so I guess maybe I'm writing this down for more of journaling purposes rather than conveying info to you, my "readers" (aka: friends who I talk to in RL about all this stuff anyway). So, forgive me if you've heard all this before... but here goes.

OMG Guess What???? A big time fancy pants restaurant in downtown Chicago wants me to be their gardener! How did this come about, you ask? Well, back in November, I was attending a get-together of people in Chicago who are interested in urban agriculture (aka: growing food in the city) and it was at that meeting that I found out that the restaurant was looking for someone to run a garden for them. I immediately went home and started doing my research. I googled to find out what cuisine the restaurant serves and what types of produce items they have on their menu. The next day I went down the restaurant with a basket full of fresh produce, which was to serve as my resume. Despite all odds (despite my lack of years of experience or references), they seemed quite impressed with me and my basket of veg, and the project has taken off. Here's a pic of the "resume" I took with me that day.

So far, I've designed a garden space which will be built on top of a portion of their parking lot. The plan consists of several raised beds build from cedar boards and filled with organic soil and compost. I did a budget for materials, and, with the Chef's help, I decided what we'd grow in the garden and ordered seeds. Just this week I've finished (almost) a detailed planting and harvest schedule. We'll be building about eight 4x12 foot raised beds which I've divided into three rows each where I'll grow things like lettuce, scallions, carrots, chard, kale, mustard, purslane, shiso, broccoli raab, and a bunch more I'm forgetting. There will also be another four 2x12 beds built against the wall which will hold trellised plants such as yard long beans, Japanese cucumbers, and climbing summer squash. Finally, there are another four 2x12 beds devoted entirely to cherry tomatoes and various types of basil and edible flowers. All in all I've got about 50 individual rows of crops to schedule and keep track of. Thank GOD for Excel! I'm hoping to have harvest from the last week of April all the way through the first few weeks of November. That's the plan!

Despite the fact that nothing has been done to actually build the garden yet--that should get started in the next few weeks--I've already put in countless hours on this project and have been stressing out about it more than I've ever stressed about anything ever before! This reminds me of when I was stressing about getting the community garden started last year, except worse! What I've learned though is, if I can get through this stressful time, I'll come out of it feeling stronger and more capable. Here's hoping that next year, after having a full successful year of the restaurant garden under my belt, I'll feel like I can do this garden thing with my hands tied behind my back... no stress, no problem! Maybe in the future this gardening-for-restaurants thing will become a business, maybe sooner than I think actually.

So, that's the big news! As the project progresses I hope to make more regular blog entries. For now, here's a list of all the veggies, herbs, and flowers I plan to grow in the restaurant garden:

Wild Arugula

Purple Basil

Thai Basil

Yard Long Chinese Noodle Pole Beans

Borage (herb and edible flowers)

Broccoli Raab

Snow White Carrots

Suyo Long Japanese Cucumber

Chard, assorted colors

Apple Green Eggplant

Red Ursa Kale

Lemongrass

Lolla Rosa Lettuce

Marvel Butterhead Lettuce

Lettuce Mesclun mix

Baby Greens Mesclun mix

Mache Corn Salad (specialty salad green)

Tangerine Gem Marigolds (for edible flowers)

Mint (not sure what type yet)

Red Wave Mustard Greens

Mahogany Nasturtium (for edible flowers)

Blue Podded Peas

Purslane (specialty salad green)

French Breakfast Radishes

Red Meat Asian Radishes

Red Scallions

Tyee Spinach

Shiso (Asian herb)

Back Cherry Tomatoes

Yellow Pear Cherry Tomatoes

Orange Thyme

Trobetta Summer Squash

30!

2010-02-22T11:14:00.000-08:00

Hello blog. Since we last spoke (which was several months ago) I've reached one of those life milestones that people talk about. The "big 3 - 0." While I don't think its completely wigged me out, I can say that it hasn't totally gone by unnoticed either. I swear the day after my birthday I woke up and looked in the mirror and seemed to look older somehow... and not necesarily in a good way. I'm not totally having a turning-thirty crisis over here, don't get me wrong. But, it has been just a little weird.

People keep saying to me "so I guess you're an official adult now" which I find interesting. I kinda thought I was already an adult. I own a house; I'm married; I have one of those career-ish type office jobs. But apparently turning 30 makes it more official or something? I dunno.

So far I've gotta say that I'm pretty happy about where I am in my life at the moment. I don't feel like there's a bunch of stuff I haven't done yet that I've wanted to do. Other than then pretty much constant scheming that goes on in my head about my next big idea, big project, or big plan (ie: lets sell the house and move to a farm; lets start a gardening business; lets move to Canada or France or some place with better healthcare and less stupid politicians), I'm pretty content.

So, hello 30's. Good to see y'a I suppose. (But tell your friend "40's" that she can take her sweet time getting here... i'm not quite ready for the big 4 - 0 yet.

Bake Sale Time!

2009-06-16T06:02:00.001-07:00

This past weekend we held a bake sale for the community garden. I baked several different items, including pies, sugar cookies, totally awesome vegan chocolate chip cookies, rice krispy squares, brownies, and a couple cakes. I made a schedule for the whole week leading up to the bake sale that had me baking every night. By Friday night, I was completely sick of baked goods. Nevertheless, I pulled an all night bake-a-thon so that we could make as much money as possible at the bake sale on Saturday. When I was up making cookies at 3 AM, it started raining. It didn't stop raining until after 2 o'clock on Saturday, which meant we spent the entire 5 hours of the sale huddles in the rain under out totally ghetto tent we bought for 30 bucks at the grocery store. It was unseasonably cold, wet, and completely miserable. Sales were less than brisk, but we did manage to almost sell out and make $350 for the garden. A hot shower never felt so good as it did after spending half a day in the cold rain. Despite the miserable conditions, I think it can be called a success and I already sort of look forward to doing it again next year. Here are some pictures to document the mayhem:

Blueberry pies

My famous "totally awesome Earth Voice vegan chocolate chi cookies"

what my kitchen looked like at 4 a.m.

food cooling in the window... made me feel all old fassioned 'n stuff

flower cokies!

getting the table set up... note that it is already raining!

Its Earth Day!!!! (and other stuff)

2009-04-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

Today is Earth Day! Its also a beautiful day here in Chicago. The temperature is in the mid-50's, the sun is out, the tulips in my front yard are just about to open, all in all good times here. The only crappy part of today is that I'm at work. There's not much going on here--not much for me to do--and so I'd much rather be outside reading in the park, walking the dog, or gardening. But, no dice. I'd like to say that I can save all this outdoor good stuff for the weekend, but unfortunately it looks like this weekend is going to be a killer. On Saturday, I'll be running a yard sale table at the Forest Park Community Yard Sale on behalf of the Community Garden. I keep having flashbacks to the rummage sale I organized for my college environmental student group, however I hope that this weekend's yard sale is much more successful than the rummage sale was (we didn't sell much, ended up with a bunch of junk that no one wanted apparently...

Anyway, while I have some time, I thought I'd update you on some things that have happened since the last time I posted.

1) I had my hair chopped off! I LOVE it!

2) I've decided that I'm going to apply to the PhD program in Urban Planning. The application is due in January and if I get in, I'd start in the fall of 2010. I'm applying to the same school I went to for grad school, so I have many contacts there as well as (hopefully) a decent reputation, so I"m feeling optimistic, however I can't forget that they only admit 8 people each year which is not a lot and implies that the admissions process is most likely quite rigorous.

3) Both my grandparents on my Dad's side passed away; first my grandmother back in March and then my grandfather just last week. I wasn't extremely close to them growing up, and recently they had both been declining in health so it wasn't much of a surprise. But of course its always sad and upsetting to see people go. I think its contributed to my somewhat sullen mood recently and has definitely left me feeling much more aware of my own mortality.

4) The Community Garden project is going very well. We have several fundraising events coming up, starting with the yard sale I talked about earlier. We are also growng seedlings that we will (attempt) to sell in May. There are also two lovely ladies who have a landscape design business who are working on a site plan for the garden. If all goes well, we should have a plan and a small amount of seed money (haha... unintended pun) that we can use to plant some stuff and get some raised beds built. The garden definitely wont be in full swing this year, but if all goes as planned we will certainly make some visible progress.

So, I think that's about it. Thanks for reading and sorry it has been so long since an update. :)

R.I.P. Bo Dog

2009-02-09T08:06:00.001-08:00

Most of you probably know the news already, but I feel I should do a post about it anyway. We had to put Bodhi to sleep on Saturday. I'm not sure how much I mentioned it here in the blog, but he had been experiencing some health problems for the past several months. First, he went blind last summer, for seemingly no particular reason--not diabetes, not glaucoma, not cataracts, etc. Then he started having pee pee problems ie: he started peeing in the house more than he had ever done in the past. He was also drinking a LOT of water and his urine was very diluted. We'd taken him to the vet several times. Blood work was done, and although some odd protein readings were found, no definitive diagnosis was given. The vet's guess was that it was a problem with one of his abdominal organs, either organ failure or a tumor. We could have done an ultrasound to try to get more answers, but we had already decided that we didn't want to put a 10 1/2 year old blind dog through surgery and/or cancer treatment so we decided that the several-hundred-dollar ultrasound probably wasn't worth it since whatever it found would probably require surgery or chemo. We decided just to concentrate on keeping him comfortable and happy as long as we could. There was a brief unrelated incident over the holidays wherein Bo ate half a Costco sized bag of peanut M&M's. He definitely enjoyed himself, but he also got REALLY sick. We though he was going to die, but he pulled through. Then, about two weeks ago his abdomen began to bloat. It took a couple days to develop, so we knew it wasn't the stomach twisting disease often refereed to as "bloat" that can kill dogs in a matter of hours. By the end of the first week of his pot belly, we took him to the vet where they drained literally a liter of clear fluid out of his belly. They did an x-ray but couldn't find anything since his abdomen was so full. Again, we opted to just manage his quality of life and not do further exploratory treatment. The vet suggested we could feed him puppy food, since it is very high in protein. We went to Petsmart and bought a huge bag of puppy food. We also got some of the egg-whites-in-a-box thing from Costco and added that to his food. We were hoping that the bloat wouldn't progress as quickly as it had before. But, it did come back and probably actually came quicker than before. By Wednesday his belly was just as full as it had been when the Vet drained him. By Friday, he was huge, looked like an extremely pregnant dog having trouble walking and seemed unable to find a comfortable position to sit or lay down in. Friday night he started wining in a distinctive "I really don't feel well" sort of way. We could have taken him back to get the fluid drained again, but it was obvious that we'd have to do it every 5 days or so to keep him comfortable, which was a bit too much both from a financial standpoint and from a quality of life standpoint for him. Early in the morning on Saturday, woken by his whines, we decided that he wasn't going to get any better, and that maybe we should go ahead and put him down before it got a lot worse. So that's what we did. About 5A.M. on Saturday morning we took him to the emergency vet and put him down. It was very sad, obviously, but I think in his best interest.

So, no more Bo dog. :( We miss him a lot already. Its weird only having one dog around the house. Maggie (the remaining dog) is also having some adjustment issues since Bodhi was always the alpha dog. She always got her feed after he got his. She always followed him out the door. Now she seems a bit confused when she doesn't have anyone to follow. Despite this adjustment pains, she doesn't seem to be too depressed, so unless she becomes depressed, we're probably going to remain a one dog household for now. We'll see.

Nick got Bo dog 9 years ago when he lived in Rhode Island and was working in the dorms. Bo just appeared on campus one day. Nick had been looking for a dog and Bo fit his ideal dog profile quite nicely: short haired, medium sized, pretty calm. His name, Bodhi is short for Bodhisattva which means "enlightened one" due to his cool-as-a-cucumber wise-beyond-his-K9-abilities-andyears demeanor. Bo was an only dog until Maggie joined the family a couple years later. Bo was always the one in charge, though. He loved to watch out the window for squerrels or for anyone walking down the ally. He was sure to alert us if he saw anything. When the cats moved in, it took Bo dog a while to learn the difference cats and squerrels, which he did eventually. By last fall, the cats and dogs were cuddling together on a regular basis, although I'd like to thank Bo publicly for not biting the head of Keenan who would sometimes and for no obvious reason smack the Bo dog on his nose. Thanks for not eating the Keenan cat.

I met Bo four years ago when Nick and I started dating. Nick was always Bo's favorite person, although I think he liked me fairly well too... especially when I gave him treats or petted him. Bo dog LOVED getting affection from his people. He was a 55 pound lap dog. He was an exceptional dog and will we miss him... we already do miss him. Rest In Peace Bo.

Bo dog is survived by Maggie (who is trying to get used to not having her alpha dog around), Keenan (who will miss smacking Bo in the face, but in a loving way, he promises!), and Morgan (who will miss snuggling with Bo on the bed.)

Sorry to have to regale you with the details of this sad news, but thanks for reading.

Announcement: I Have Discovered The Secret To Life

2009-02-05T19:32:00.000-08:00

Ok, well not really the secret to life, but I did have a bit of an epiphany today regarding how to conquer my latest daemon: the diet killing temptress most people call hunger. Some background info: Nick and I started dieting New Years day so its been over a month now. For the first two weeks I found the diet pretty managable,--not too miserable--and I was actually losing weight. I droped 8 pounds in two weeks with NO trouble at all. But then, things just stopped. The scale hasn't moved since, and the not-eating-everything-I'm-craving-the-moment-I'm-craving-it has been getting more difficult. They say there's no motivator like succes, right?

I'll skip the part of this post where I wax on about the particulars of my diet (actually there aren't that many, we're just counting calories; I only get 1,400 per day) or the fact that Nick apparently has no problem quieting his hunger reflex and so easily eats well under his calorie allowance (1,700) and has already lost over 15 pounds.

Instead I'll get to the point. So, on the train ride home today as the little voice inside my head (the little voice reminds me a lot of that little annoying green dude from the second Lord of the Rings) kept screaming "Cheerios, Cheerios, You Want Cherrios!!!!!" it hit me that this little hunger voice in my head is very much like a nagging child or (something I have more first hand experinece with) a dog that wont stop trying to wake you up at 3 in the morning to feed him or her. Then I thought about the realitve success I've had with harnessing my magical powers of rock solid stubborness (this is the part of the blog where everyone reading this who actually knows me will smile or perhaps even laugh in recognition of this distinct aspect of my personality) to totally ignore the dogs when they're trying to wake me up. Then I realized, that in order to ignore my hunger all I have to do is pretend its one of those other things I stubbornly ignore with great success all the time, like the dogs, or like people who try to get me to watch movies or TV shows that I've already convinced myself I wouldn't like (insert more laughter from friends here).

So there it is, folks. My big discovery. Ok so its not quite the secret to life but I'm hoping it will be the secret to succesful avoidance of caloric temptations. I'll let you iknow how it goes.

Thanks for reading. :)

Blog "Way Back" Machine: Lake Front Biking

2009-01-14T18:27:00.000-08:00

In case you haven't heard, we've had some really freaking cold days here in the windy city, definitely the coldest of this winter season and probably the top five coldest days I've experienced in the 4 years that I've lived here. Right now its 5 degrees outside and they're predicting wind chills as low as 30 BELOW zero tonight. We've got about a foot of snow on the ground, which used to seem like a lot but now seems like nothing. Thanks to my awesome knee length coat--its pretty much like wearing a sleeping bag around town--and the facemask I got from REI a couple years ago, getting to and from work hasn't been that miserable.

Nevertheless, I was looking through pictures from last year and I found this video I took while Nick and I were riding our tandem bike on the lakefront trail on Lake Michigan back in August. Tonight, I'd imagine that being on the lakefront would probably be the coldest place to be in the city, so its hard to believe that just 5 months ago it looked like this. Cabin fever hasn't set in yet this winter, but its still nice to look back and have a little reminder of how great summer in Chicago really is.

Year In Review

2009-01-02T08:20:00.000-08:00

I thought it would be fun to look back at what I was talking about last year around new years time at yee ole blog. It turns out I used a meme I got from VBGirl to talk about 2007 and to give my resolutions for 2008. At the risk of being umbaribly boring to everyone except myself, I think I'll leave in what I wrote last year so that I can reflect on it and also give my answers for this year. Here goes:

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before?
2007- bought a house, sold another one

2008- wow, I can't belive its been over a year since the whole house buying/selling circus. Its DEFINITELY become apparent that we managed to complete both of those transactions about a mili-second before the declining housing market would have stopped us from moving. I feel so lucky that all that worked out.

During 2008 I did a few things I'd never done before: Visited the pacific northwest (Seatle and San Fransisco); took a ride on a sail boat; ate leeks, parsnips, and turnips for the first time (as a vegetarian this is really hard to admit); decided to rekindle my community organizing from college and try to start a community garden in my neighborhood.. on ongoing process; grew the biggest most succesful and fun garden I've ever grown; I guess that's about it.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

2007- Honestly, I can't remember what my resolutions were from last year, which may be why I have a HUGE list for this year....

2008- Well thanks to the blog I can no longer fall back on the "I can't remember" excuse regarding the success or failure of last years resolutions. So, lets go through the list and see how bad I sucked:

clean out the litter box every other day - FAIL
walk/run on the treadmill three times a week -FAIL
practice fiddle four times a week - FAIL and for all practical purposes I guess you could say I've sort of quit fiddle for now
be more patient with the dogs (yell at them less)- I think I did a good job at this. Also I don't know what this says about me, but I think Bo Dog and I have bonded a bit since he's gone blind.
get us on a budget, and stick to it - We did pretty good at this one although it still seems like we're just scraping by
continue with the diet - This worked for a while and I did reach my goal, but I've slacked off again and gained about half of it back. Nick and I have decided to become diet people again--starting today actually--but I'll say more about that later.
save more money- um yeah, FAIL
give more money away- FAIL- well I did do some microlending through Kiva so I guess it wasn't a totall loss.
spend more time with existing friends and maybe even make some additional ones- It seems like we saw just about everyone at some point this year so I think this was a pretty good success. I didn't make very many new friends though...
put away my laundry the same day that they come out of the dryer- Wow, I made this resolution a whole year ago? This is still hard for me but I'd like to think I've gotten better about putting the laundry away, even though I know there is still room for improvement.
have two days out of the week when we don't turn the TV on- we did this for a few months actually. I think this should be one we renew for this year and try again. It was nice to not be a slave to the TV every night.
set a daily schedule for myself (this will help me stick to the other resolutions like practicing fiddle and treadmilling) and stick to it.- FAIL I don't even know where my day planner is (OMG Nick just pointed out that the planner I bought myself was the Procrastinators Handbook... such irony you guys)
be more focused at work and stop "info snacking" while on the job (I'm at work right now.. oops haha!)- I think I did a pretty good job at this. The info snacking is definitely down and I have actually begun to take pleasure in working hard.

So, what are the resolutions for this year?

Continue to stick to the budget... this will be even more important since our property taxes doubled this year.
Yes, indeed, we've started dieting again. The difference now is that Nick's doing it with me now so I'll be counting calories for both of us. We've also made a commitment to start working out again, using a combination of the treadmill, yoga DVD's, and free weights.
We like to have an adventure each year. Our first adventure together was running the marathon. Since then our adventures have been kind of lame like: buying and selling a house. So this year I wanted to pick something unique and kinda crazy but something that would hopefully allow us to develope a new skill / improve on an old one. So, this year we've made a commitement to speak Spanish at home 1/2 of the time. Currently we're speaking in spanish the second half of each hour, but we could modify the rule so that we speak spansih for 3 hours straight and then english for the next 3 hours. Why not just go all spanish all the time? Because for two people who haven't used their spanish in a long long time and who weren't even really that fluent in the first place (particularly in my case) trying to speak only spanish is quite a frustraiting experience. We're afraid that if english was no longer allowed, that we'd just stop talking to each other, which probably wouldn't be so healthy for our relationship. So for now its a 50/50 split. We'll see how it goes.
Nick and I each have our own big project we're working on. For me its getting the community garden up and running. For him its continuing toward completion of his PhD program (first comprehensive exams and then the abhored dissertaton). So we've made a commitement to spend 5 hours a week working on our respective projects. Hopefullyt his will keep both of us making progress... at least that's the plan.
Finally, we'd like to bring back the no TV two nights a week. The evenings without TV turned out to be quite nice and relaxing, so we're going to bring that tradition back.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

2007- Yes- new niece YAY

2008- Ummm ummm.... *thinks to make sure she's not forgetting someone*... no. Niece is doing extremely well and is as cute as ever though.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

2007- Yes

2008- nope

5. What countries did you visit?

2007- None other than this one

2008- Still didn't get outside the country again this year...

6. What would you like to have next year that you lacked in this year?

2007- Focus and motivation

2008- I think my focus level, especially regarding work, got a lot better this year. Regarding what I'd like to have next year that I didn't have this year would be... more relaxation time and less stress about incomplete projects or goals.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

2007-June 29th, the day we closed on our house

2008-I can't think of any specific dates from this year in particular that I'll remember.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

2007- starting and sticking to a diet (I've lost almost 10 pounds yay)

2008- I guess the community garden thing. Last year at this time there were no plans to have a garden in my neighborhood, but now we've organized people who want to have plots and have gotten tentative go-ahead from the Village so I guess that's a noteworthy accomplishment.

9. What was your biggest failure?

2007- money management

2008- a bunch of little things combined: not practicing fiddle enough, not excercising enough etc.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

2007- no, yay

2008- again a year of good health.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

2007- the house, the house, I love our house!!

2008- I think it was technically this year that we bought our iMac and iBook and officially became a mac only household.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

2007- Nick, who totally rocks and does nice things for me every single day. :)

2008- Nick, again, was awesome. I hope I was pretty awesome too. Also I'd like the say that the collective behavior of this country that managed to elect Obama as president requires some celebrating too.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

2007- George W, the majority of the US Congress, the Illinois legislature (who STILL can't seem to give us transit funding), and our lovely Mayor.

2008- As good as the election outcome felt--I still can't believe it actually happened sometimes--there was a lot of stuff that took place during the election that made me wence and want to crawl under a rock somewhere in Canada. Sara Palin anyone? And don't even get me started on Prop 8 in california or the taxpayer financed bailout of banks and corporations....

14. Where did most of your money go?

2007- the house, selling the other house, buying stuff for the new house, did I mention the house? Oh yeah and some travel...

2008- to monthly morgtate payments, gardening supplies, tasty fresh local food, trave travel travel, house sitters, and unexpected animal care bills.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

2007- I got really excited about the holidays this year, maybe because we had several good snowfalls in early December. I was singing carols and thinking about baking cookies for weeks. .. oh yeah and I got really excited about the house

2008- I got really excited about the garden this year...

16. What song will always remind you of this year?

2007- ummmmm... several different songs for different reasons:

Falling Slowly- the theme song from the movie Once which I saw twice and totally fell in love with. We also saw Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova in concert, TWICE! yay
a few songs by The Postal Service and Death Cab For Cutee, since I seem to be obsessed with them since September and listen to them a LOT.
Britney's first single "Gimme More", obviously because it will remind me of all the entertainment news drama that's happened with her this year.

2008- This year I discovered that for me top 40 pop music is surprisingly invigorating and helsp to get me out of a bad mood / motivate me to do things like actually clean the shower every once in a while. So, I listened to a lot more of that type of stuff than I'd like to admit... so my list for this year is as such:

Kenye West's song about "Chi City" (although I don't actually know the title of it)
Britney's "Womanizer"
anything Rhianna
all those hip hop songs about Obama

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?

2007- happier, slightly thinner, and poorer

2008- happier, probably about the same weight wise, and probably as poor as last year (but with slightly improved budgeting skills)

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

2007- practicing fiddle

2008- gardening.. don't get me wrong.. I did a LOT of that this year but I also completely failed at getting a fall crop planted, so I'd like to do better on that this year.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

2007- watching reality TV

2008- being moody ... I think only Nick (husband) will know what I'm talking about...

20. How did you spend Christmas?

2007- we went to Indiana to hang out with my Dad, Step Mom, Sis, and college friends.

2008- we went to Nebraska and spent some lovely family time with husband's family... despite getting stuck in the snow on the way there and the dog getting really sick two days before our departure.

21. Did you fall in love in 2007?

2007- still very much in love with Nick, yay!

2008- I think I fall in love with Nick all over again several times a day... so I guess the answer is yes.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

2007- ummm... well we did watch Tell Me You Love Me (on HBO) regularly, but I also had my crappy reality TV staples including Bridzillas (and the other dozen or so WE network wedding shows), True Life on MTV, You Are What You Eat and How Clean Is Your House on BBC America, Gardening By the Yard, any house selling or buying show... that's probably about it.

2008- I really enjoyed Top Chef and Project Runway this year... oh and Daily Show of course... from a purely time-spent-viewing standpoint, Daily Show probably wins since its on 2 hours a week.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

2007- No

2008- No hate.. this is a dumb question lol!

24. What was the best book you read?

2007- Ummm... well I really enjoyed David Rakoff's Don't Get Too Comfortable; its a really funny quick read. I also enjoyed two Michael Pollan books, The Omnivore's Dilemma and The Botany of Desire, both of which I read twice.

2008- I read quite a few books this year so a) its hard to really say and b) I may be forgetting some of them but here's my try at a best-of list:

Best nonfiction science-y book= The World Without Us
Best garden / local eating related / pick something and do it for a whole year book = Animal Vegetable Miracle
Best fiction= Middlesex
Best comedy= When You Are Engulfed in Flames (close runner up: Ask a Mexican).

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

2007- Postal Service and Death Cab

2008- Zoe Keating (avant cello rocks the house, yalls)

26. What did you want and get?

2007- a house with a yard for the dogs, nearby shops and restaurants, and near transit.

2008- in terms of posetions, I'm not really sure that there was one big thing I wanted that I got, although it is true that I got an awesome still / video camera as well as my iBook, which is AWESOME.

27. What did you want and not get?

2007- a million dollars?

2008- still don't have a million dolalrs...

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

2007- Once, and then Juno (a not-so-close but still really good second; I just liked Once a LOT)

2008- ummm ummm ummmmmmmmm..... didn't Juno come out in 2008? can I still claim it? Yeah.. no real awesome movies this year... at least not that I can think of.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

2007- I was 27 this year and I have no idea what I did. lol!

2008- Dude, how am I supposed to remember what I did almost a year ago? Maybe I blogged it *goes to check* nope, didn't blog about it either. I turned 28 thought... I do know that much.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

2007- I'm actually really happy and feel really lucky to have what I have and be where I am in life right now

2008- Maybe its just the kind of mood I' in right now but I'm finding these questions slewed toward the pessimistic side of things... I guess what I'm saying is I'll have to agree with 2007 me and say that I'm already has a very satisfying year.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?

2007- Um, well, most of the clothes buying I did was for work and that consisted of what was on sale at Marshalls or Old Navy. I still am wearing the same two pairs of blue jeans that my mom (yep, that's right!) bought me two years ago. lol!

2008- Still wearing those jeans from mom. My most recent clothes purchase was a $2 black turtle neck shirt off the uber-clerance isle at Sports Authority... that pretty much says it all about my fashion sense.

32. What kept you sane?

2007- Nick, friends, information, time

2008- same as above plus KITTIES

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

2007- like, as in , have a crush on? Well, I was pretty obsessed with Glen Hansard (from the Once movie)

2008- not so much like had a crush on but more in the sense of admired and found interesting - Obama

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

2007- Dude, HEALTHCARE! And that reminds me that I need to add Sicko to the best movies answer. It is completely insane that people die because they are poor (which is basically what things boil down to in our current insurance-ruled healthcare system.)

2008- Prop 8 (booo!!!) and Obama's win (yayyyy!!)

35. Who did you miss?

2007- most everyone, since almost no one lives close enough to see them very often

2008- my friends who go to Target without me

36. Who was the best new person you met?

2007- ummm.. I guess I need to meet some new people.. lol!

2008- still not meeting cool new ppl apparently... and what do you mean by "best" anyway... ?

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.

2007- I realized this year (and its probably a function of my age) that my life is happening now, and that I need to think about what I want to accomplish in my life and then I need to start doing that. When I was young, I spent so much time waiting on my life to start, but now I need to realize that the starting gun has sounded and that this is ineed a timed race.

2008- Still in the "life is now / make it what you want" place... also had a whole new appreciation for how fast time goes and how "I'll do it tomorrow" can SO easily turn into "I'll actually do it in sic months"

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

2007- Dude, that's hard. I hate to end this survey with a "thud" but, I really can't think of a good answer to this question. :)

2008- "... fire works over Lake Michigan...." just a little piece of Chicago ambiance I like... (from the Kenye song)

Thanks for reading again this year. :)

Its New Years Eve, Is It?

2008-12-31T08:37:00.000-08:00

Hello hello. So its December 31st, 2008... 2008... 2008? seriously? Holy crap! Tomorrow it will be 2009, in two months I'll turn 29, and in two years we'll be commemorating the 10th anniversary of September 11th. Holy crap (again).

So I guess you could say I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by the new year this time. I'm not sure why, although this year I've definitely realized how it feels to be over-extended, to have too many hobbies, interests, commitments, and obligations. Not that its been a bad year; actually its been a really good year. And in the current age of layoffs, foreclosures, and gaps in health coverage, we certainly have a lot to be thankful for. But that was another holiday.

After ruminating on it for a few days over the countless open bar / food / music / $40 a head (and those are the cheap ones) packages offered around town, Nick and I finally decided that we'd spend our new years eve at home having chocolate and cheese fondue, which is what we did last year. Usually I get a bit twitchy about staying in on new years eve. I think its because I spent what seemed like an eternity during my teens and perhaps even early 20's sitting at home on new years wishing I lived in a cool enough place / had friends close enough to hang out with / was old enough to get into bars, all which I saw as pre-requirements for new years eve fun. I spent so much time envisioning flashy exciting new years eve party events that I think a part of me fears that staying home is a bit of a failure.

But you know what? I think perhaps I shall go ahead right here and right now and declare this fondue-at-home thing a new years tradition. There, that takes some of the lameness out, right? Fondue is fun because its something we don't do very often... as a matter of fact I don't think we've had fondue since LAST new years eve. Also, it gives us a chance to sit around and talk about our year and inevitably talk about our plans for next year and all those resolutions begging to be made.

Ok, there, I feel much better now. Tomorrow we'll of course be heading to one of our favorite restaurants in Chicago (Cafe Baba Reba) for Spanish style tapas. If you wear your pajamas then you get gift certificates equaling the amount you spent to use at some other point during the next year. Do I hear Valentine's Day anyone?

So that's it for now. Have a good new years everyone!

OMG, My Blog Hasn't Been Deleted....

2008-12-17T14:21:00.000-08:00

I wonder how long a blog has to go untouched before it gets automatically deleted off blogger... Apparently my recent lapse of over a month was not long enough. Neither is the hiatus of nearly six months I've taken from my garden blog. Well, good. Its not like I've been trying to get my blog deleted... I've just been... busy, um yeah that's it. Well I have been busy yes, but lets face it, I'm just a slacker by nature so I guess this is what you get.

I did want to make an announcement that I plan to do a my-2008-garden-season retrospective using the millions of pictures of the garden I took throughout the year. Even though I wasn't garden blogging since July, I kept taking pictures, having it in mind that I'd post them some day. Yes, this sounds like a good idea.

Right now I'm at work trying to kill some time before I can go home. We've been hitting it pretty hard around here for the past few weeks so don't even ask me if I feel guilty about the fact that I came in an hour late, took an hour and a half lunch, and will leave "on time" today. The way I see it, I've earned it. I'll get back to being productive tomorrow, at least that's the plan. But it doesn't help that I have my x-mas gift and chore list floating around in my head 24/7. I took care of two gifts today, actually. That what made me late and made my lunch break so long. This always happens this time of year and it seems to be ok. I'll make it up sooner than later when we have a big dealine and I'm in the office until 10PM for a week.

So, that's about it. I just wanted to check in over here, make sure my blog was still here, and let you know that I'm still alive.

:)

Ready Set.................................................. Go!

2008-11-07T14:30:00.000-08:00

Hey look, I'm blogging twice in the same week. Wow! Lets all try not to freak out. :) Anyway, I'm sitting here at work waiting for it to be hit the "minimally respectable going home time" notch on the clock, so I thought I'd take the time to blog and tell you some exciting news:

Remember the community garden I talked about like.. months ago? Well, it appears as though my attempts to kill the project via months of doing nothing and procrastination have failed... no wait... what I mean to say is that after months of playing bureaucratic phone tag, it looks like the various local and state agencies who had the say so have finally said.... YES! That's right, the community garden, in our first choice location, has been approved! So, now I've got to get off my butt and get to work making this thing happen. The most immediate concern (even before fundriasing the $15,000+ we'll need to build the garden) is that we'd like to take advantage of the season (and the offer of a dump truck of free leaves) and get a leaf composting operation started. The leaves are falling as I speak so our time frame on this is extremely short. We need to build some sort of composting structure to hold the leaves, so they don't all blow around or look messy. So, we've got a lot to do to make this happen. I'm still not even sure if we have the clear go ahead to start building things--like compost bins--on the site, so this may not work out at all... but we're gonna try. Here we go!

If you'd like to follow the progress of the community garden, you can check out our blog (and website) here.

Regrets

2008-11-05T20:01:00.000-08:00

In case there's someone who hasn't asked me already, I'll go ahead and say it again. Um, No, I wasn't in Grant Park last night. Why? Because I am apparently an idiot and chose to avoid a large (and potentially dangerous) crowd and instead stay at home. I think I said something like "I don't have tickets for the rally area so all I'd be able to do would be watch his speech on a jumbo-tron in the middle of the park. I can watch him on TV from the comfort of my own living room." How could I have anticipated how magical the scene at Grant Park was going to be. How could I have imagined that everyone I freaking know would call / e-mail / twitter me and beg me to tell them that I was in Grant Park. How could I have known that they would call the election in Obama's favor before 10:00 therby aliviating any fears of riots.

So yeah, I suck and missed out on being able to experience history... blah blah blah. I guess its lucky for me then that today was so unbelievable and euphoric that I barely had time to dwell on what I missed last night. I think I'll semi-quote Michelle Obama and say that I don't think I've ever been as proud of my country as I am today. I can't believe we actually did it. I can't believe that Indiana went blue (barely, but that's good enough for me). I can't believe that these past two years of pre-election craziness are finally over. wooo-freakin'-hooo!!!

However, I must say that my enthusiasm and patriotism today was tanted by some otherelection outcomes that I can't believe. At least three states, including California, passed amendments to their state laws that would make it illegal for same sex couples to get married. WTF California et. al.??!!??!! In the same election where we come as close as we've ever come to achieving equal rights for one group of people in this country, we simultaneously take rights away from another? Ugh... I could rant about this for a long time, but I wont, at least not now. This is my first blog in like... three months so I'll try not to totally take you guys off the deep end.

I think I'll leave it at that for today folks But, there's been a lot going on with me lately so I hope to start blogging on a more regular basis so that I can share it all with you.

Thanks for reading!

Hello From Suburbia

2008-09-11T10:42:00.000-07:00

Partally because of the intensity of what I'm feeling right now (and ok, fine, also because I need to do something productive on the internet in order to justify the fact that i just spent $10 bucks on an hours worth of internet access) I wanted to do a quick post just to say that

I. LOVE. PUBLIC . TRANSIT.

I'm at a conference today (its a one day session covering the new features of the latest version of a mapping software I use for work) that's taking place in Lisle, Illinois. Now, before I offend any people from Lisle, I should admit that today is my first experinece here, so I'm probably not getting to see the full Lisle Illinois experience. But, I can also tell you that this will--hopefully--be my last experience here. Why? Because this place--this hotel in which I sit that's surrounded by expressways) pretty much epidomizes everything I hate... well not EVERYTHING... but a lot of stuff. Like: no pedestiran access to anything along this main road and no bus to catch either. There's a commuter rail station about a mile away, but I'll have to rely on the hotel shuttle--or, if that doesn't work, a cab, to get me to the station. Once I get to the station there's a traina bout every hour that can pick me up here and drop me off close(r) to my house. After I get off the train I'll have to catch a bus, then I'll finally be home. Perhaps I'm spoiled now, after having living in the City for a few years now where there's pretty much always a bus or a train within walking distance--and sidewalks to allow you to get to them--that can get you anywhere in the city. Yes, they're often late, crowded, stinky, and in other ways unpleasent. But OMG, not having them at all is just, terrible.

I could go on about this for a while, so I'll go ahead and stop myself. I've got to finish my gourmet lunch of wheat thins and cheese I brought from home--since I don't have access to a car which is required to get to any of the restaurants around here. I'll enjoy the remainder of my $10 internet and count down the hours before I get to theve this sidewalk-hating, box-store loving, transit-free wasteland I guess they call suburbia.

Thanks for reading, and I promise to be less pissy next time. :)

Update: Grumpiness has diminished due to arrival of COOKIES to the conference room as well as confirming that the hotel can indeed give me a ride to the train.

Veggie Loaf

2008-09-09T07:49:00.000-07:00

Its not even 10 AM yet and I'm already looking forward to my lunch which is left over vegetarian meatloaf which I made for Nick's meatloaf contest at work. Since this loaf would be competing against actual meat meatloaves, I wanted to make something similar to traditional meatloaf rather than some of the really tasty yet not very much like actual meatloaf veggie loaves. I looked on the web and in my veggie cookbooks, but I had difficulty finding something that I thought would really fit the bill. So, the following recipe is what I finally went with. Its a modification of a recipe found in PETA's The Compassionate Cook cookbook. I sort of made it up as I went along so many of the measurements are approximate and open to your own likes and dislikes. Here it goes...

Makes 2 loaves

1 mild onion, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 package Morningstar Farms Griller Crumbles
1 package Morningstar Farms Sausage Crumbles
1/2 cup Italian breadcrumbs
1/4 cup almonds, chopped
1/4 cup pecans, chopped
1/4 cup cashews, chopped
3 Eggs
1/3 cup ketchup
1/4 cup Woostershire sauce
1/4 cup Olive oil
1 tbs dried thyme
1/2 tbs dried oregano
other savory spices and salt and pepper to taste
a bit extra ketchup to top the loaf once its in the pan

Directions: Saute the onions, garlic, and bell pepper in olive oil until soft. In a bowl, mix the Morningstar Farms crumbles (fully thaw them out in the microwave first), bread crumbs, and nuts. Then add the onion mixture. Then add the spices, ketchup, Woostershire sauce, and Olive oil. Beat the two eggs and add them to the mixture. Mix well. Fill up your loaf pans (I only have one loaf pan, so I do them in shifts). I recommend coating the pans with a nonstick spray or Olive oil. You can really pack the mixture into the loaf pan--really squish it in there--to create a dense loaf. Fill the pan to about half an inch to the top. Then coat the top of the loaf with a generous layer of ketchup. Bake at 3:75 for about 40 minutes. When its done cooking, it should be slightly crusty and firm to the touch. After removing it from the oven, let it rest for about ten minutes before cutting it. You can remove it from the loaf pan or you can serve it in the pan.

Variations that I have not tried but would probably work well:
-add some A1 steak sauce to the mixture
-add celery to the onion mixture
-use oatmeal instead of bread crumbs; this is the way my mom makes meatloaf
-use Quorn brand crumbles instead of Morningstar brand
-use TVP instead of crumbles
-add anything else (except the meat of course) that your mom used to make meatloaf when you were a kid. Meatloaf is a comfort food, so the more it resembles your mom's cooking the more you'll probably like it.

Enjoy!

Things I Learned This Weekend

2008-09-08T10:24:00.000-07:00

1. Apparently I am much better at Nintendo Wii bowling than I am at actual bowling. My Wii bowling score (185) was about 6 times higher than my real life bowling score ever is.
2. Barbecue "Chik'N" sandwiches made from Morningstar Farms Chicken Strips drenched in BBQ sauce are a surprisingly successful party tray item, even with the meat eaters.
3. It is entirely possible to give ones self a muscle strain from playing Wii Tennis.
4. Tomato season is now here. I picked literally a dozen huge tomatoes from the garden this morning and am now resorting to giving them away to coworkers.
5. While I spent all spring and early summer waiting on tomatoes and making plans for the dishes I'd make once they ripened, now I can't seem to think of what to do with them all now that I have them coming out my ears.
6. The movie "The Namesake" is waaaay more sad than the preview would lead you to believe (but still good).
7. Following running on the treadmill for the first time in months with a meal of two huge tomatoes from the garden is a bad idea.
8. It is possible for a piece of birthday cake to be too big and rich for me to be able to finish it.
9. Cats love wine bottle corks... and sitting on the keyboard of the laptop...
10. Making a dinner of fresh baget, goat cheese, Spanish tortilla, and wine is still romantic.

Open Letter to Whole Foods

2008-08-07T08:19:00.000-07:00

Dear Whole Foods- Its freaking the middle of summer and you seemingly refuse to offer locally grown produce. I go to the farmer's market every weekend and I know that there are TONS of berries, peaches, plums, onions, new potatoes, and so on available from within a 200 mile radius of our fine city. So, why is it that when I come to your store looking for a mid-week supply of fruit (since the farmer's market isn't until Saturday and I've already devoured the awesome Michigan cherries I bought last Saturday) that literally EVERY produce item (except for one) is from either California, Mexico, or South America? After searching the produce section for about ten minutes I did finally find conventional (as in not organic) peaches from Illinois, which I bought out of principal even though I still had peaches at home. Given your hippie-progressive-environmentalist image (see you talk about your commitment to locally grown food on your webiste right here) I expect more from you, really. I know that you can't buy local produce year-round and so that's probably why you turn to California etc. since they can provide you with a constant year round supply. But, not selling local stuff when it is in abundance is inexcusable. Get your thinking caps on and figure this one out, fellas. But until then, expect me, and other customers who care about their carbon footprint to avoid your non-local produce isle this time of year.

Chronicles of a Perfect Summer Weekend

2008-07-28T08:07:00.000-07:00

Its Monday morning and while I can't say that I'm all that thrilled to be at work, my grumpiness is slightly lessened by the fact that I had such a nice productive weekend. And now, here's an account of the completely mundane weekend that made me so happy.

On Friday evening Nick and I enjoyed hanging out the backyard, having a cold beer, admiring the garden etc. Of course, as usual, my admiring the garden quickly turned into working in the garden. There have been several garden projects on my "to do" list for a while, so, feeling abnormally industrious, I started pulling weeds, removing old chicken wire in preparation for the prettier fence that would replace it, and harvesting some new potatoes and carrots in order to make room for planting of fall seeds. We ate a dinner that was prepared on the grill, by far the best way to cook in the summer. The night ended with some ice cream and TV comedy.

Saturday morning I woke up and was ready to get out of be before 8:30, which is pretty early for me. We rode our tandem bike over to the farmer's market, which has now become our Saturday routine. As we rode toward the market, we became part of a bicycle convoy of hippie fuel conserving bike riders which warmed my heart. I love riding my bike, have I mentioned that? Unlike other Saturdays, however, we did actually make it there in time to get some of the fabulous freshly fried donuts that are usually sold out by the time we arrive. We filled our backpacks with produce: red onions, sweet peppers, tomatoes, broco-flower, mushrooms, blueberries, cherries, and peaches. We got out having only spent $24c, which is a victory for us. Later that day we took the bike out again to join our friends for a mid-day BBQ. After the food I feel asleep on the couch while everyone else talked in the kitchen. I love naps. We returned home for a pretty boring Saturday night of watching Mythbusters on TV which was the lowlight of the weekend (not that I don't like Mythbusters, I'd just already seen many of the episodes but couldn't think of anything better to go do.)

Sunday was the best day! We woke up around 9:30. I was craving pancakes so I made pancakes, waffles (for Nick), eggs, and fake bacon. Who needs to go to the Pancake House anyway? I probably cooked to much--who can realy eat nine pancakes in one sitting--but I knew that we'd be spending the rest of the day in the yard and would need the energy. After breakfast we applied the sunscreen, made a big pitcher of ice cold orange cool-aide type beverage, and headed outside. Nick washed the dogs while I planted some Coneflower and Black-Eyed Susan plants I got half off at the garden center. Other projects included: overall weeding of the yard, finally got around to putting in the new prettier fence to replace that chicken wire to keep the dogs out of the flower bed, built 6 tomato cages to wrangle overgrown tomatoes that had begun to flop over onto the ground, planted some broccoli. sugar snap peas, and edemame seeds hopefully for a mid-fall harvest, watered container plants using water from the rain barrel (felt so eco about that), and Nick cleaned and oiled the Teak outdoor table that we hope to sell on craigslist.... I think that was it. Around 5 I was exhausted, covered in sweat and several scratches (from the fencing I used to build the tomato cages); I decided I was done. A shower and a glass of iced tea never felt/tasted so good. I made a dinner of fajitas, which was followed by a walk up to our neighborhood ice cream parlor. Walking to the locally owned ice cream parlor and then walking back licking our ice cream cones is one of my favorite things to do in the world. It was a perfect end to an almost perfect weekend. This is why I love summer.

What are your favorite summertime activities?

Thanks for reading. :)

Book Review: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

2008-07-18T12:49:00.000-07:00

The latest book to grace my iPod was Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Lately, my garden obsession has been spilling over into my taste in books. This book caught my eye when I saw it on the City of Chicago Read Green Live Green summer reading program shelf at the Borders. There were actually a lot of books on the Read Green Live Green list that looked good, but this one also happened to be on Audible, so it was my obvious choice.

The short of it: I loved this book. I'll probably keep it on my iPod and listen to it again in the future. The only downside to the book was the narration which I found to be too slow, tedious, and just down right annoying. I was a bit disheartened (or maybe I felt guilty?) when I realized that the narration that was driving me nutz--she reads REALLY slowly, like she's reading to a 5 year old--was done by the author herself. Oops. Despite this, I did really enjoy the book.

The longer story: This book follows Barbara Kingsolver and her family from their home in the desert southwest to a small farm in Virginia (or was it West Virginia??) and take on a year of eating almost 100% locally. Having the advantage of fertile soil and a decent growing season, they grow most of their food themselves. What they can't grow or make themselves, they buy from producers within 100 miles. They do cheat a bit, allowing a few non-local items (such as coffee and spices from fair trade sources in Africa.) I liked the fact they allowed themselves to "cheat" just a little bit. If they had gone a whole year without coffee, tea, or olive oil, I probably would been left feeling much more discouraged about the idea of trying this local eating thing myself.

As well as growing their own vegetables, they also "grow" their own eggs and poultry. This isn't the first book I've read that's described slaughtering a chicken, so it wasn't completely shocking to me. And, it is definitely true that the at-home slaughtering process is a lot less horrific to read about than what goes on in meat packing plants. However, her defense of meat eating was one time in this book--probably the only time--that I felt like her arguments fell a bit short. (Full disclosure: I'm vegetarian, I was Vegan for a few years too, so I have pretty set views about eating meat. I'm sure most people reading this blog will disagree with me and that's totally cool. I don't want to come off here as a veggie-Nazi type.) Anyway, her argument is: eating requires the destruction of life, be it an animal life or a plant life, its all life, and therefore if a person is vegetarian because they don't believe in taking a life,then they can't really eat veggies either. In a way, I actually agree with her. Plants are living things, yes, and harvesting them invovles them no longer continuing to live. However, she doesn't ever discuss the possible difference between a sentient being (animals) and those that aren't (plants) in terms of their ability to feel happiness, sadness, or pain. I'm vegetarian, and a lot of that is based on a distinction I make between the sentient and the non-sentient, but even I'm not entirely sure that this is a 100% valid distinction to make, BUT I think it would have been nice if she had at least talked about this a little.

The book and the writing style itself has a really good flow to it. When I picked out this book I had no idea who Barbara Kingsolver was or that she has written several other books before this one, I think mostly fiction, so I guess I didn't expect such a good story. The ending of the book is particularly good; who knew turkey reproduction could be such a nail biter!

So, yeah, this is a great read. If you want to learn more about growing food, preserving food, or eating locally, this is a great choice. If you're listening to the audio book, I hope you find her reading style more tolerable than I did.

My next read will be The End of Food by Paul Roberts which is also on the Read Green Live Green list. I'm looking forward to it! I can't get enough of this eating locally / food industry / gardening stuff.

Thanks for reading. :)

Once a Hippie, Always a Hippie?

2008-07-09T13:38:00.000-07:00

When I graduated college and pretty much abandoned the student environmental group that I started, mostly due to an overwhelming feeling of apathy associated with all activist / environmentalist pursuits, I wondered if I'd ever get back into all that. Well, I think its official. Jessica the environmentalist hippie activist community organizer is back! What's that? You don't believe me? Well, take a look at this.

Yes, despite the fact that my name is misspelled throughout the article (is that some sort of journalist code of ethics? must misspell everyones name?) and despite the fact that I think they could have chosen a more flattering picture (what's up with my hair?), that is indeed me, and my Forest Park gardening partner in crime, Gina.

That's all for today.
Thanks for reading!

The Big News

2008-07-02T11:17:00.001-07:00

I won the lottery! No, ok, I didn't.... which was particularly sad b/c I was really feeling it this time.... I just knew were were going to win $43 million on Tuesday night. I was already planning to call in sick to work on Wednesday. When Nick called in from the other room to tell me that we hadn't gotten a single number right I felt a bit more defeated than usual. So, no, that's not my news.

Now its time to finally tell you about something very exciting I've been up to lately. My new friend, neighbor, fellow gardener, and former Tennessee resident Gina and I have cooked up a scheme to start a community garden in our neighborhood. Gina and I, who met through blogging, have been talking about this idea for a couple months now. This officially became more than just an idea last month when Gina and I met with the Recreations Board in our Village to discuss our idea and potential locations for the garden. The Board had a very positive response to our idea, and they suggested four potential locations for the garden. However, we knew that this idea wouldn't go anywhere if we didn't have community support and other residents who wanted to participate. In what I think has at this point proven to be our tendency to set almost unreasonable goals for ourselves that lead to stress and ideas of jumping ship, we decided that we needed to get the word out about our idea and hold a meeting where interested individuals can learn more / tell us what they think. We hung flyers and posted on the web forum for our neighborhood and somehow managed to get 20 complete strangers to show up in one room last Wednesday all because they saw our flyer to discuss the garden. The group's enthusiasm was overflowing. People began to volunteer to help plan the garden and fundraise the funds we'll need to get the garden going. We also created a website and designed an online survey where people could tell us what they thought of our idea and what their vision of a community garden is. Yesterday, Gina and I, along with some of our new community garden supporting friends, visited the Recreations Board again to tell them about our progress. We told them about the wonderful meeting we had and showed them the website we've created. We told them that we had 15 people take our survey and express their support. We showed them initial site analysis we had performed for the three potential garden locations that had been discussed at the last Recreations Board meeting (the fourth location was judged to be too small). The Board was VERY impressed with all that we had accomplished over the last month. They gave us some ideas for our next courses of action: We plan to distribute a petition this Friday at our Village's 4th of July fireworks. We'll present the petition to the Village Board at the next meeting on July 14th. We're also going to get a soil test to look for possible toxicity at the preferred garden location to make sure that there's not a prohibitive amount of toxins in the soil. Lead contamination, we've been told, is a legitimate concern when it comes to urban soils, especially for land that's near high traffic area (the potential garden location is actually adjacent to the freeway). We also hope to organize a planning and a fundraising meeting sometime in July so that we, and our growing supply of community garden troops, can make more specific site / operational plans for the garden and start to solicit funds and donations. Our goal is to have the garden ready to plant by March of next year.

I just found out today that the local newspaper will be interviewing me about the community garden for their upcoming issue. This is great since it will be yet another way for us to get the word out about this idea. I'll post a link to the story once its up.

So that's what's going on... the big "news".... when I'm not working on this I'm usually working in my own garden (or shopping for purple dresses hahha!) so life is busy these days... but good.. very good. :) (a note to the universe: although, dont' get me wrong, winning the lottery would still be great too).

Thanks for reading.

Purple Dresses (Yes, I am still alive)

2008-07-02T10:58:00.000-07:00

Hi blog people!!!! Its been so long... sorry about that. Having two blogs is harder than I thought. Ever since I created my garden blog (which you should read / bookmark / subscribe to.. hehe) I've been posting over there a lot more frequently than over here. Gardening is pretty much taking over my life these days, which is in most cases a good thing. I've got some big news, actually, but I'll tell you about that later.

But first, I see this blog as a place for me to share little tidbits of interesting thoughts / experiences I have. This one is pretty lame.. but... I just wanted to confess.... that I apparently have an addiction to purple dresses. Recently, I had to buy a purple dress for an event (I was told that purple was required, so its not like I just randomly picked it out... but also I must mention that I FREAKING LOVE everything that's purple so the purple dress decree made me very happy). Of course, I waited till the last minute to buy a dress, so every afternoon after work for two weeks I'd hit the stores / mall on Michigan Ave. and State St. to look for a purple dress. Fassotion 411: Apparently, purple is out this season, folks. Hot pink is apparently in. Eggplant is allowable too. But purple.... purple is no where to be found. I've never had this much trouble finding a purple dress, but of course the catch is that I've never had to find one. When I'm not looking for them, they're everywhere. Case and point: Today on my way to work I stopped by the H&M to check to see if a skirt I've been eyeing had be discounted (answer: no... grr) when I came across a rack of dresses for $10 (actually, they were priced at $20 but the rack they were on said $10 so I went to the trouble of trying on the dress under the impression that they were $10 only to discover that they were actually $20 after I fell in love with it... I think H&M mislabels thing son purpose which makes me mad) ... but anyway, they had a purple one that was the exact color I had just spent the last two weeks looking for. The event I was buying the dress for has already taken place, so at this point I have no need for more dresses, especially this kind of dress that are not work appropriate. There was absolutely no reason for me to buy this dress, folks, but having just spent the last two weeks searching for purple, I find that my eyes automatically gravitate to anything purple anywhere so I'm going to argue that its not my fault but instead is a symptom of an unfortunate purple brain washing of some sort. So, yeah, now I own a cute not work appropirate possibly too teenie-bopper for me purple dress for $25. Its sitting int he bag right next to my desk right now. I look down at it and have to admit that despite all the reasons that I don't need this dress, I don't regret buying it. I'd do it again. Someone should start planning my purple dress intervention sometime soon.

Thanks for reading. :)

Notes From Lunchtime (I Found 10 Dollars)

2008-05-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

Today I almost didn't come to work. I seriously laid there in bed trying to conjure up a sickness for myself. Maybe I was suffering a stomach flue? No. It didn't work. I even thought about faking it, but then realized that I would majorly screw some people at work if I didn't show up today. So here I am. However, as a bit of Friday fun I decided to a) deviate from my usual frozen dinner lunch and buy it at an actual restaurant instead and b) take my lunch over to the beach and enjoy the sunshine. I went with Thai food, Pad Thai with tofu specifically. Its one of the cheaper meals I can find at lunchtime (its hard to stay under $10 these days) in my neck-of-the-woods (my office is in the way fancy and expensive part of town), and usually very tasty. Today was no exception. The Thai food restaurant is located in an upscale mall near my building. Usually I feel like an impostor when I'm over there... my grubby self with dirt under my fingernails, wearing my Khole's clearance wrack attire. Again, today was no exception. However, things did deviate from the norm when the way spiffy woman in the elevator with me complemented my hat.

fancy chick: "That hat is very cute, it looks good on you."

me: "Umm, thanks?" (is this a trick?...)

Usually at this point in a conversation about clothing I find it appropriate to tell the other person where I bought it. I blurt out:

"Its from Filine's" (as in Filien's Basement, similar to TJMax. I immediately regret having said this)

"I know" she says

WTF, what does she mean she knows where I bought my way cute hat?

I walk with my food toward the beach. This involves walking under a couple huge intersections via a dark, stinky tunnel often times occupied by people asking for money. Today it was yes to dark and stink but no to people asking for money. I arrive at the beach and am met with a decision: slightly uncomfortable bench four feet from the running/biking track or potentially icky/cold sand on the beach. I choose bench. I've eaten on these benches before. This time was pretty much exactly how I remembered it: slightly awkward due to my proximity to the runners / bikers passing by, a bit noisy due to the traffic behind me on Lake Shore Dr., and uncomfortable due to the narrowness of the bench seat (perhaps to dissuade people from sleeping on them?). I discover that if I take off my shoes and cross my legs into my lap, be bench becomes more comfortable. I briefly contemplate whether taking off my shoes is a good idea. What if someone came and grabbed my backpack from where it is sitting on the bench next to me and ran. Would I run after them barefoot? What if someone stole my shoes! How would I get back to the office? I try to remember if I saw any broken glass on the sidewalk or in the tunnel on the way to the beach. (this is just a brief example of the random weird and almost completely improbable things that my mind makes up for me to worry about). I tell my paranoid mind to shut up.

Food is good. As I eat I partake in some good old people watching. I decide that everyone at the beach this time of day fits into one of ____ categories:
-office workers eating their lunch or taking a lunchtime walk (business suits and tennis shoes, there's a combo!)
-people wearing professional biker clothes on really expensive looking bikes going really fast
-women with strollers
-couples walking hand-in-hand
-tourists tourists and OMG tourists!
I wonder if me sitting next to the track eating way greasy food is mean to the exercising people.
I wonder if its more mean to me since I'm like the slightly-too-round girl sitting on the bench eating fattening food while other more in shape people pass by me. There's a man with no shirt on who should probably have a shirt on. There's a guy going the speed of light on roller blades. There's a bird of indeterminate species sitting in the sand on the other side of the track squawking for no apparent reason. There are the tan buff frat boys playing beach vollyball.

Despite all this, Im having a good time. I really don't care about the traffic or people or uncomfortable bench. I'm still on that post-winter high that I think most Chicagoans experience. Its so cool for so long here, that we get euphoric in the springtime.

On the way back to my office, I throw my empty brown bag into a trash can. A man who didn't fit the typical image of people-who-dig-though-trash walks up almost immediately and grabs it out of the trash. He kinda looks at me, so I say "its empty." I realize he's holding what appears to be the leftovers from a couple different people's meal. "People can throw away some great stuff, you never know," he says. He walks away. Weird... but, he's right I guess.

AND THEN I FOUND TEN DOLLARS!
No, that's not true. That's just what I say when I get to the end of a story and realize that the story kinda sucked and had no real point. I might have even found $20 today. :) Thanks for reading, and I'll strive for something more witty next time.

To my surprise and somewhat horror, I finish it without any hesitation.

Shorts

2008-05-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

In case you don't get enough of me on this blog, you can now follow me on Twitter (in the sidebar).

Thanks to the Walgreens who was having a 5 for a $1 sale on seed packets yesterday. I need more seeds like I need a hole in my head, but still it made me happy... for cheap!

Dogs- STOP DIGGING UP MY FLOWERS / BEDS.... grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRR You're cuteness will only go so far to save you from my wrath...

We have still not won the lottery. I guess I'll have to keep going to work. But, in work news, I am happy to report that I've found a level of peace and acceptance about my job that I haven't had up until now, so I'm much less miserable.

Unfinished posts- Yeah, I know I never finished my reunion post from a couple weeks ago. Maybe I'll do that sometime... along with all those other posts I have "in the plans" but can't say when (or if) they'll actually happen.

And finally.... in case you didn't catch this on my garden blog:

Back From The Southern Henterlands

2008-04-29T13:27:00.000-07:00

Hi blog people. I just finished the week long work project I talked about in my previous post. My prediction of 10 hour days unfortunately turned out to be true. However, I did get my work done and was able to go to the HS reunion. Gong back to TN is always kinda weird and nice all at the same time. Here are some highlights (in fictionalized Twitter format):

9:15 AM Friday- Arrive at Nashville International Airport; see tourists taking pictures of themselves standing next to life sized photos of country music stars

9:45 AM- Get "upgraded" from a mid-size car to a full blown SUV by the rental car company. I hadn't planned on showing up to the reunion in a gas guzzler, but it does have XM satellite radio, which has the potential to be cool.

9:50 AM- Get on the road, headed to best friend J's house. The lack of aggressive driving and people in general as compared to Chicago is noticeable. Now that I've lived in Chicago for four years now, I really notice the open space "back home."

10:30 AM- We make a pit stop at the Shoe Carnival to look for some shoes to go with my dress. Despite my notoriously hard to find shoe size, I end up finding two pairs of shoes that are cute, comfy, and actually fit. Awesome! After paying for the shoes I experience what would turn out to be a pattern of me confusing cashiers by saying that I don't need a bag for my merchandise.

10:45 AM- Notice a Christian store in the same parking lot as Shoe Carnival. We don't have many of these in Chicago either. We think about going into the store and attempting to "buy some Christians."

12:00 noon- Finally arrive at Best Friend J's parents' house, which is even more beautiful than I remembered (a la 19th century plantation home, beautifully decorated, and with a totally awesome garden). The dogwoods are all in bloom in Middle Tennessee-- so so beautiful!

12:10 PM- Meet Best Friend J's BF; judge him to be made of awesome (especially after learning that he's a devotee of the Dish Network's "Chill" music channel). We have a lovely lunch with J and Awesome BF then head back to the house to get dressed for the evening's events.

4:00 PM- After getting all gussied up, we drive our SUV parade down to the lil' town where our school is located. We meet up with Best Friend H! yay! The three of us haven't been together in over 5 years. We promise not to wait as long for the next get together.

6:00 PM- Show up at Reunion fashionably late, but apparently not late enough seeing as we were the first people from our graduating class to show up. Yep. We're still the dorks.

8:00 PM- After pleasant greetings from old classmates and teachers, we settle in for a nice southern meal and the worst Comedian EVER! (Well, that's not really true. He was actually pretty funny, although he did insult "southern people" and "rich southern people" on multiple occasions, which didn't go over well with the predominantly rich southern people crowd. Also, who wants to shut up and have to listen to a comedian when they could be talking to people they haven't talked to in, lets say, TEN YEARS! At one point he asked "those people who want to continue the cocktail party to leave the tent." So, by the end of his set, about 80% of the audience had left. I really feel sorry for the guy, but there's no getting around the fact that it was a huge disaster all around).

10:00 PM- After surviving the comedian, we stick around long enough to get in the class photo. Out of a graduating class of 35 or so people, about 12 of us showed up. There were a lot of people who I would have loved to see who weren't there, unfortunately.

10:15 PM- Get accosted by an inebriated member of the graduating class of 95 or 96 who feels it necessary to repeatedly bring up an embarrassing aspect of my high school experience. It was a sensitive subject then and still is now. Thanks for making me relive that. At this point I retreat to the car and wonder why I bothered to show up.

11:00 PM- Am reminded that a meal of waffles and hash browns from the Waffle House, along with the company of Best Friends H and J, can cure any fowl mood.

11:30 PM- Spend about ten minutes driving around trying to find Best Friend J's parents' vacation house that they've so kindly lent us for the weekend. The numbers aren't clearly marked, so we end up looking in people's mailboxes for clues. Eventually we find the house completely by accident. YAY! We are so tired. We all stagger in and go to bed almost immediately.

Here ends Day 1 excitement!
:)
Stay tuned (for more marginally entertaining details of my weekend). :)

I'm Making It Short...

2008-04-21T08:04:00.000-07:00

I've got tons of work to get finished before I can leave to go to my high school reunion this weekend (which I am very much looking forward to if for no other reason than I'll be able to hang with my best friends who I haven't seen in a few years) so this is going to be a quick blog.

After a weekend of gardening (check out the snappy garden blog for further details). I am SO freaking tired and not looking forward to 4 days of inevitably 10+ hour work days as I finish a project while my boss is on vacation in Florida (although she was here at the office all weekend so its not like I'm getting shafted with all the work and none of the play).
We had another quote on the patio project today. The preliminary estimate is a couple K higher than the estimate we got from the first guy, so it looks like this patio project is going to be more expensive than we had anticipated.
Did I mention that its finally spring here in Chi-tundra-landia? They say it was 8th longest / worst winter in history up here. All the plants are so late in emerging, our tulips are just now starting to bloom.
I've met a new internet friend who has become my partner in crime. We've got our minds set on starting a community garden in the FP. I'll let you know how things are going once anything actually happens. :)

Ok folks, that's it! Thanks for reading :)

Bloglets (Little Blogs)

2008-04-17T14:17:00.000-07:00

Hi blog people. Today I have stories / observations which I will present in bullet form, as none of them warrant an entire blog by themselves. Don't get too excited. There are half assed stories at best. Nevertheless, here goes:

Nick's been working tons of overtime lately, but fortunately today is the last day of late nights at work for him. To celebrate the end of his work project, he wore his kilt to work today. Given his general quirkiness and the fact that he's worn the kilt to work many times before, I doubt anyone will look twice. And... I think its kinda cute :). So yeah, I'm a fan of the kilt. But, sometimes you never know how other people who don't know Nick will react. So, we were standing in the kitchen this morning and Nick noticed that there was a police car in our alley. I sent him out to go check on what was going on. I have to admit that the recent cougar sightings around Chicago had me thinking that maybe there was a wild animal going through our trash. So, Nick goes out the be all manly and protect the homestead. When he gets back he tells me that the cop was just sitting in his cop car in the alley and that when Nick had opened the gate to see what was going on, the cop had looked at Nick and asked "Are you coming out?" Nick, confused, just sort of stood there and looked back at the cop. The cop looks at Nick and then shakes his head and asks again "Do you need to pull your car out?" ... ... Get it? Get it? Nick, standing there in his man-dress momentarily thought that the cop was asking him if he was coming out OF THE CLOSET! haha! ok. Next:
If the woman serving soup samples at Cosco maintains that the soup is indeed vegetarian, even after you've pointed out that the first ingredient on the can is chicken broth, an appropriate comeback might be "Well, I'm pretty sure they had to kill the chickens to get the broth. Its not like they can just drain the chicken hot tub at the chicken spa."
Because Nick has been working such long hours, and because we have so much fun going to the grocery store together (seriously, its true, we really get into grocery shopping), we haven't been to the store in a couple weeks and I've run out of stuff to take to work for lunch. So, I've been "forced" to go out and buy my lunch every day this week. Its been nice to get out of the office and enjoy the new spring weather, instead of eating at my desk, so I'm not complaining. I just have a couple of questions: 1) If you're a white dude and you're in Chipotle (national burrito chain restaurant), is it weird if you attempt to speak in Spanish to the coincidentally Hispanic woman behind the counter? 2) Should I be mad when I order potato salad at Corner Bakery and they bring me what is basically cold french fries? 3) Restaurants that have that weird self service / wait staff hybrid thing going on stress me out. If I order my food at the counter, but you bring me my food to my table after I've ordered, does that mean I'm supposed to tip you? Also, is it expected that I will leave my dirty dishes and trash on the table for you to clean up? I don't want to be the dumb person walking around with her plate looking for a place to deposit it when I was just supposed to leave it on the table. But, I also don't want to be the asshole customer who lives their crap on the table when I'm not supposed to. Just tell me what to do. Put out some signs or something.
I don't know if any of the etiquette /advice people have ever had to put this rule in writing, but I'd just like to assert my opinion that (except for a few vocations) wearing underwear to work should be required... especially if you're wearing a man-skirt! I usually don't like to tell Nick what to do, but I just had to put my foot down on this one. I don't care how traditional or untraditional it is, we live in the Windy City for freak sake!
If you're having a good day and feeling pretty good about yourself, I don't recommend going swimsuit shopping. I don't care if you did just lose 12 pounds, you're approaching 30 and apparently things are just... different, now. I suggest shopping at the Borders instead.

AND THEN I FOUND $10!
(that's what I say when I tell stories/jokes that aren't very good and sort of fall on their face)
Thanks for reading anyway. :)

Its the Principle of the Thing....

2008-04-14T11:25:00.000-07:00

Earlier today I was looking through my bank account at my bank's online banking website when I noticed that I've been charged a $10 service charge since January on my savings account. WFT. I call the 1-800 number and talk to an insanely polite fellow who can't do anything but tell me that the reason for the service charge is because the balance on my account had dropped below the minimum requirement. For the record, this is an upgraded version of a regular free bank account. I realize that it is normal for most savings accounts to require a minimum balance, but I didn't know the minimum balance on this new account would different from the other not-so-super-duper first account. I signed up for this upgraded version last year after the banker at my local branch said to me, when I had come in just to make a deposit, "Oh, it looks like you're balance is large enough that you qualify for our Super Duper Free Savings, would you like to sign up?" After talking it over with him--the deal was, my interest rate earned would go up and there would be no monthly fee--and being assured that if my balance drops down below the original required balance that was needed to qualify for the account, NOTHING would happen/change--I switched to the new Super Duper account. So, what I'm saying is, a) switching to this new account was NOT even my idea and b) I was not told that the minimum balance required for this account is 10 times that required for the most basic account that I had before. And, to top it off, the "double your interest" promise, while technically true, is so small as to be inconsequential: a total interest rate of a whopping 0.5% APR... NOT 5%, but 0.5%. My total interest earned on this account year-to-date is like $8 bucks. So, I've been charged $10 bucks a month service charge since Jan just so I could rake in $8 bucks in a WHOLE YEAR? Why would anyone in their right mind, who had been given all the information, sign up for this account?

My argument is, no one would, including me. So, after talking to Mr. Polite on the phone I'm told that I have to go to the branch to get this sorted out. Over my lunch hour I go to the branch near my office and they tell me that I'll have to speak to the branch manager at the location where I started the account. They take my phone number. Someone from the other branch does indeed return my call about an hour later, but she's only the assistant manager and the actual manager will have to call me back tomorrow. I tell her, as I told the people at the other branch and Mr. Polite on the phone, that until this point I've been really happy with this bank. I've recommended them to many people. I told all the bank people I spoke to today that "I love you guys, and I'd like to continue to love you, but right now I feel like I've been misled."

So, we'll see what happens. I mean, I realize I'm not Bill Gates here, but I did say that what they needed to do to make me happy would be to refund the service charges since January. If they do that, I'll go back to loving and recommending them. If they don't, I'll take my not-so-much-like-Bill-Gates account somewhere else. But, I totally hope I don't have to do that. Beyond the obvious headache of changing all my automatic banking info will everyone who bills me for stuff on a monthly basis, I would like to also be able to continue to believe that not everyone and everything in the world is completely evil. Com'on, Bank, prove me wrong, please?

One lesson learned already: if it was the bank's idea, it probably isn't a good one.

Also, check out a new garden post at my garden blog.

Get Your Bloglines Button Ready

2008-04-11T08:41:00.000-07:00

Hey blog people. This is a very short note to let you know that I have decided to create an additional blog where I will be posting all my gardening antics. Here it is. There are not posts as of right now, but I should get started on that shortly. Yay. Awesome! And happy Friday to everyone!

2 Slightly Bitchy Letters (I really am a nice person, I swear)

2008-04-10T08:30:00.000-07:00

Dear dogs and cats who live with me-- Ok... I dunno who started it or even who the participants were, but to whoever got the idea to start a pee-a-thon on the basement floor--STOP IT! There's only so much of going-downstairs-at-midnight-to-water-my-plants-before-going-to-bed-to-find-multiple-puddles-of-bodiyly fluids that I can take. Sure, I like my share of who-done-it mystery novels, but no, having to stick my finger in a puddle and then smell my finger in order to figure out if its pee or throw up isn't anything like Clue. I know that a rivalry seems to have developed between cats and dogs as to who gets to sit on our laps during nighttime TV watching time, but have things really gotten to the point where species dominance has to be proven through urine? Good thing for you that you're all so freak'n cute (and that you chose the easier-to-clean tile floor) for your showdown. I shall let you live, this time...

Dear people who work at the Dunkin' Donuts near my house- I know your job is probably not all that fun. I'm sure you don't get paid enough to sustain a household in the Chicago area. So, I'm sorry for having to be another pain in your ass, but, seriously people, HOW HARD IS IT TO GET MY ORDER RIGHT? I know you're not new to this job--I've seen the same crew of people there for the past like.. six months at least. I know I have to be all difficult and ask for my sandwich w/o the meat on it and then I also have to be all difficult and not need a beverage... Yes, no meat, no beverage, thanks. But, for the sake of all that is holy, how difficult is it to remember my order between the moment I say it and the moment your finger is hovering over the register to enter it in... and is it really that hard to believe that I don't want sausage AND that I made my own tea at home? I've already learned that going through the drive-thru is completely futile. Apparently it is necessary for me to stand in front of you so that we can have a whole conversation about my order (since you seem to need a whole conversation's worth of explanation in order to understand the concept of "without the meat") and so that I can stand there and correct you when in inevitably select the wrong item on the register (no, not the number 4, because I just want the sandwich, no drink). And , of course I must come inside so that I can stand in front of you and double check that what I orderd is what you've just given me in the bag before I actually leave. blah.

List 'O Crap

2008-04-09T10:09:00.000-07:00

Ok, VBGirl, I'll bite:

1. What is your occupation? urban planner, transit planning specifically

2. What color are your socks right now? black with yellow toes

3. What are you listening to right now? NPR

4. What is the last thing you ate? am currently right now at this very moment eating left over stir fry from last night.. not bad

5. Can you drive stick shift? can't drive at all

6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? PURPLE

7. Last person you spoke to on the phone? ummmm... my oldest friend from 2nd grade, H

8. What’s your favorite yoga pose? the one where I get the lay down at the end and go to sleep.... and Dancing Sheba (spl?)

9. How old are you today? 28 (holy crap)

10. Favorite drink? tea... all sorts.. hot cold caffene green herbal etc

11. What is your favorite sport to watch? ummmmmm ummmm ummmmm hmmmmmmm I guess Baseball

12. Have you ever dyed your hair? nope (mostly because I'd have to bleach it first cuz its so dark and I don't have the balls for that)

13. Pets? 2 cats 2 dogs and one freak'n huge fish

14. Favorite cake? OMG CAKE!!!!! Oh, how I love cake... mostly the sheet-birthday-cake variety.. any flavor is fine

15. Last movie you saw? ummm.. like, at the theater? U2 3D

16. Favorite day of the year? I'm not sure that I have a one favorite day, but I do like x-mas day quite a lot (yay food, gifts, and hanging with family)

17. How do you vent anger? talk about it, make grumpy sounds, pick my fingernails, CRY

18. What was your favorite toy as a child? I had a million stuffed animals and I think I was equally obsessed with all of them

19. Autumn or spring? I love them both, but its April right now so my answer today is Spring!

20. Hugs or kisses? mostly hugs

21. Cherry or blueberry? blueberries pretty much all the time, but dried cherries are also awesome

22. Living arrangements? I live in a modest house that I love with my hubby and our aforementioned beasts

23. Last time you cried? Um, I think a couple months ago with I got chewed out over the phone at work by someone I didn't even know

24. What is on the floor of your closet? Ummm... nothing is actually supposed to be there, but you probably would find animal hair and sometimes two sleeping kitties

25. Who is the friend you’ve had the longest? H

26. Favorite smell? ummmmmm Freedom? Yeah, I have no idea... baked goods is pretty nice though... and Chocolate... here is Chicago we have this weird phenomena where the streets smell like chocolate pretty regularly (despite the EPA)

27. Who or what inspires you? people who work to make a difference in the world (I'll agree with VBGirl here)

28. What are you afraid of? being a failure at my job and losing my loved ones

29. Hamburgers? VEGGIE BURGERS YAY!

30. Favorite car? public transit! haha... my feet? (I like to walk)... my bike? all of them! Ok... and our pickup truck is ok too. :)

31. Number of keys on your key ring? 6- 2 work related, 4 house related

32. How many years at your current job? almost two years (20 months)... but i'm not counting .... ok yes I am

33. Favorite day of the week? Saturday

34. How many countries have you lived in? just the US... well ok I did "live" in the UK while studying abroad for four months.. does that count?

35. Dream job? one where i can play outside, hang with my hubby and friends, and sleep LOL... can someone please arrange that?

Thanks for reading. :)

Spring! OMG!

2008-04-07T14:10:00.000-07:00

Finally, finally, FINALLY. Dare I speak to soon, but I must report that spring has FINALLY sprung here in Chi-town. We have bulbs coming up everywhere in the yard. Since this is the first spring that we've lived in the house, we don't know where the bulbs are planted or what they even are as they emerge from the soil. Its also been about two weeks since we've had any snow, which is awesome! In honor of the lovely weather we had over the weekend, Nick and I spent pretty much all weekend working in the yard. Some people might call it chores or yard work, but we call it a weekend of fun! We also discovered a really awesome (and cheap) authentic taco place near the house. They taste especially good after a day of working on the yard. We also cleaned up the sunroom, which involved cleaning out five months of mud and grime. Sitting in the sunroom with the windows open listening to the birds and the water fountain outside feels like being on vacation. Yep, a truly great weekend.

What's that you say? Its supposed to be like twenty degrees cooler next weekend? Booooo!!! Hissssss!!!! *sigh* Well, I guess I'll just have to deal.

Was It The Leg Hair?

2008-04-02T07:32:00.000-07:00

So, you guys, I have a secret... well I guess its only a secret to my current employer. I had a job interview yesterday! Don't get too excited though. The exclamation point there is only to honor the amount of stress I felt about going to the interview and having to make up a story (I used the old "have a doctors appointment excuse)to tell my current job. So, yeah, I can't tell you that I have a new job about why I was leaving two hours early, but I can tell you that the interview was actually a lot of fun (despite having three people in there interviewing me--I've never had that happen before). The job is a market research position related to urban planning. I have a good foundation in research methods, but if they want an expert in market research, they probably wont pick me. So, yeah, I'd be surprised if I get an offer. I'll let you know when I know.... but don't hold your breath.

But yeah, funny story... So I'm sitting there in the lobby of the building (I arrived about half an hour early so that I could go into the public restroom on the first floor and change from my kinda icky cord pants into my suit skirt... I didn't want to show up at my current job dressed in my suit cuz that would have been hard to explain considering my usual slightly hobo-meets-business-casual look... Anyway, I change into my skirt and take off my dress socks and put on the beige-ish panty hose I brought from home. I had tried them on that morning to make sure there wasn't a run in them and everything seemed good. So, I get dressed... skirt, hose, high heels, brush my hair, eat an breath mint... am sitting in the lobby thinking about what I want to say during the interview and THAT's when I NOTICED that I had completely forgotten to shave my legs (ok: here's a confession: I don't shave my legs at all during the winter... ). Apparently my lack of shaving over the past few months had led me to completely forget that the concept of leg shaving even exists or that leg hair (at least, the big course dark kind I have) will show through panty hose. So, there I am, with my spiffy suit and shoes and ANKLE HAIR showing through my hose. ACK! What to do , what to do? I call Nick. Using the wonderful powers of google he tells me that there's a Walgreens three-ish blocks away. I could go there and buy something more opaque. But, I have like fifteen minutes until my interview and I don't think I can make it. Nick and I have a debate about how much leg hair would affect my chances of making a good impression/getting the job. We decide it could go either way. So, I compromise and decide to go to the 7 Eleven next door to see if they have some hose.. if they do then I'll get 'em and hope they're better than what I have currently, but if they don't, I'll just suck it up and try to forget about it. So, I go next door... all I see is food... doughnuts, sandwitches, coffee, sodas, and then finally at the very back of the store I see the little squat shelf that has toothpaste, deodorant, and (THANK YOU GOD!) two packages of panty hose--one black size "extra long" and one baige of size "regular". Having no indication of the thicknes sor opacity of the baige ones, I go for the black, even though the extra long size may not fit. I take the package up to the counter and the guy at the register says "do we sell these here?" Yes, yes you do... for $6 for a package of ONE pair of hose that probably wont last more than one wearing. Yep. Whatever, I gladly paid, went back to the building where my interview was, went into the bathroom again (I think the security desk people are going to get suspicious if I keep coming out of the bathroom in a different outfit), change into the black pair. YAY! They fit! AND do a much better job of hiding the hair. Yay! Now I could concentrate on the interview. Fwew! Thank you 7 Eleven!

Sidenote: I don't want you guys to think I'm a body hair natzi (well.. I guess the fact that I admitted not shaving at all during the winter probably precludes me from that). Shave or don't shave... its all cool. For those (women) who can embrace their natural hairiness, more power to you (although, if you're blond, you totally have an UNFAIR advantage! j/k). And for that person I know (and you know who you are) who is lucky enough to just naturally have like, nearly zero, armpit hair, you SUCK! j/k again.

Oh, yeah, I should probably also mention that the interview took place at a conference table, so none of my interviewers saw my legs, except for the 5 seconds it took me to come in the room and sit down. Much ado about nothing? Maybe.

Ok... thanks for reading.. sorry of this was TMI. :)

Books

2008-03-27T10:50:00.000-07:00

Holy BLEEP you guys, its been OVER A MONTH since I blogged. I guess its cuz I've been busy... been doing a lot of sleeping waiting on winter to end (still not done yet; we're getting snow right now)... but, yeah, I really don't know why I've been so neglectful of the blog. Anyway, I was sitting here at work (probably looking for something else to do other than actual work) and I thought that I'd do a blog entry about the books I've read since we last "talked." So, here goes:

Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides- This book totally captivated me. My husband told me that I was saying the main character's name in my sleep one night. It was a real page turner and I'd highly recommend it. Maybe this speaks to how good the book is (or maybe it speaks to my dumbness), but I read about 3/4 of this book before I realized that it was a novel and not a memoir. Oops...

Once Upon A Quinceanera by Julie Alvarez- Good book... I definitely learned a lot about the "quince" tradition. But, not quite as captivating as Middlesex. Also, I wish the author would have given more of her personal story up front rather than waiting until the latter half of the book. I just think her story gives her more credibility, or something. I dunno. Yeah, a decent read, but I probably wont read it again.

The Millionaires by Brad Melzer- OMG! This book definitely picked up the entrholling pae turning pace that I felt with Middlesex. The book was an itunes free download at some point. I found it on my iPod and couldn't remember buying it (cuz I hadn't, it turned out) but it only took about one minute before I got totally sucked in. Not sure that I'll read this one again either, now that I know "who done it."

The World Without Us by Alan Westman- This is what I'm reading currently. All I have to say is: Dude, we're SO gonna die! You might point out, as Nick did, that isn't it the premise of the book that we're already dead and the book explores what would happen to the earth once humans are gone? Yes. This is true.. but... after reading the chapter on plastics and petrochemicals, the only thing I can say is "dude... we're TOTALLY gonna die, and kill the Earth along with us." Did you know that many skin products that exfoliate actually contain microbeeds made of PLASTIC! They send up in the ocean. Dude, yeah, its not going to end well. Great book though! I'll probably read this one again at some point.

The End. :)

[Instert Farting Sound Here]

2008-02-25T07:59:00.000-08:00

So.... yeah.... I haven't blogged or vlogged in like... two weeks. *lame*. I did a valentine's day vlog (well, I shot the footage at least), but the editing portion of it has taking forever and ended up largely unsuccessful. And then, the other day one of the hindges on my laptop broke, which was an annoyance. But, yesterday, when, after smelling that "something electronic is on fire" smell I removed the power adapter cord from my laptop only to receive a minor-yet-still-painful burn in my finger, it was obvious that Mr. Laptop was having trouble. The plug in portion of the cord had actually begun to melt, causing it to bend at about a 20 degree angle. Also, I think it melted some of the "innerds" of the power supply inside the laptop too, as evidenced by the gunk that's on the end of the cord. I got out my old power cord, which I had replaced by in November b/c the old one had such a bad connection that I'd practically have to push it in with my hand the entire time it was charging to maintain the connection. Due to the melty-melty, the old cord works even worse now. So, I have a laptop with about an hour's worth of power left in it, a propensity to melt shit, and a screen that much remain stationary.

Blah!

Is it really dead after 3 1/2 years? Are we really about the pony up over a grand for a new computer? *sigh*. In the exciting news category, I think we may go for a MacBook this time, rather than a PC. Nick's always been a fan of Mac's, and I must say that I do look forward to the possibility that having a Mac will make my vlogging life easier, since a) MacBooks come with webcams, b) I wont have to convert my quicktime videos into windows media player format anymore and c) I'll have the advantage of using iMovie which, while not pro-level, still is probably better than Windows Movie Maker. MacBooks also have magnetic power cords... Word!

Anyway, that's the news, yo. Boring.. yeah... sorry :(.

Bad Haircut , Animals, y Espanol

2008-02-13T08:27:00.001-08:00

Notes About YouTube

2008-02-07T10:50:00.000-08:00

Hey blog people! :) Thanks for your positive response to my venture into V-logging. Its still weird for me to talk to a camera (I have to ask Nick to go to another part of the house, listen to music, and pretend he can't hear me when I'm doing my videos) but all in all I think its safe to say that I've been bitten by the video bug, so you will see more Vlogging from me in the future. .

A couple of you have had some questions about how to find me on YouTube, so I'm going to take a minute to talk about that. First, my YouTube homepage is:

htp://www.youtube.com/user/snappyjdog

You can see all my videos there, although most of you have probably already seen all of them (consisting of the three Vlogs I've posted here as well as to additional house tour videos.) Also, I want to mention that you can create a free profile with YouTube and then you can "subscribe" to my videos and YouTube will notify you when I've uploaded new videos. Also, of course once you have a YouTube profile, there's nothing stopping you from making and uploading your own videos too! :) It would be extra cool if I could interact via video with some of you, especially those of you I don't get to see that often. Also, if you view my videos on YouTube directly, you can get a bit more info about the video itself. For instance, the last video I did about the hippie bags was a video response to another YouTube video and if you watch the video on YouTube directly it will link you to the video I am responding to.

I'll also probably continue to embed my new videos into my blog here.

Finally, VBG asked me to post a link to the girlinthemirror vlog I talked about in my last video. Here is a link to her YouTube homepage:

http://www.youtube.com/user/gir1inthemirror

Ok... that's all for now. Thanks for reading/watching. :)

A Video Post Entirely About Grocery Bags

2008-02-05T07:42:00.000-08:00

Vlog 2

2008-02-02T17:47:00.000-08:00

Blog: Met Vlog

2008-01-29T05:31:00.001-08:00

What Are You Looking At?

2008-01-08T19:09:00.000-08:00

So, yeah, I know that I haven't posted in over a month and a half. So much for NaBloPoMa, huh? Other than a possible allergic reaction to posting every day for about four days in a row, haha, I can't say that there was any real reason for my blog neglect. But whatever, I'm here now, right? lol

I could give you a few bullet points about what I've been up to in the last month and a half, but I think that would be less than entertaining, so instead I think I'll do the next laziest thing and steal a new years resolution survey from VBGirl. Here goes:

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before? bought a house, sold another one

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Honestly, I can't remember what my resolutions were from last year, which may be why I have a HUGE list for this year....

clean out the litter box every other day
walk/run on the treadmill three times a week
practice fiddle four times a week
be more patient with the dogs (yell at them less)
get us on a budget, and stick to it
continue with the diet
save more money
give more money away
spend more time with existing friends and maybe even make some additional ones
put away my laundry the same day that they come out of the dryer
have two days out of the week when we don't turn the TV on
set a daily schedule for myself (this will help me stick to the other resolutions like practicing fiddle and treadmilling) and stick to it.
be more focused at work and stop "info snacking" while on the job (I'm at work right now.. oops haha!)

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes- new niece YAY

4. Did anyone close to you die? Yes

5. What countries did you visit? None other than this one

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007? Focus and motivation

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? June 29th, the day we closed on our house

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? starting and sticking to a diet (I've lost almost 10 pounds yay)

9. What was your biggest failure? money managment

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? no, yay

11. What was the best thing you bought? the house, the house, I love our house!!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Nick, who totally rocks and does nice things for me very single day. :)

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? George W, the majority of the US Congress, the Illinois legislature (who STILL can't seem to give us transit funding), and our lovely Mayor.

14. Where did most of your money go? the house, selling the other house, buying stuff for the new house, did I mention the house? Oh yeah and some travel...

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? I got really excited about the holidays this year, maybe because we had several good snowfalls in early December. I was singing carols and thinking about baking cookies for weeks. .. oh yeah and I got really excited about the house

16. What song will always remind you of 2007? ummmmm... several different songs for different reasons:

Falling Slowly- the theme song from the movie Once which I saw twice and totally fell in love with. We also saw Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova in concert, TWICE! yay
a few songs by The Postal Service and Death Cab For Cutee, since I seem to be obsessed with them since September and listen to them a LOT.
Britney's first single "Gimme More", obviously because it will remind me of all the entertainment news drama that's happened with her this year.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer? happier, slightly thinner, and poorer

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? practicing fiddle

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? watching reality TV

20. How did you spend Christmas? we went to Indiana to hang out with my Dad, Step Mom, Sis, and college friends.

21. Did you fall in love in 2007? still very much in love with Nick, yay!

22. What was your favorite TV program? ummm... well we did watch Tell Me You Love Me (on HBO) regularly, but I also had my crappy reality TV staples including Bridzillas (and the other dozen or so WE network wedding shows), True Life on MTV, You Are What You Eat and How Clean Is Your House on BBC America, Gardening By the Yard, any house selling or buying show... that's probably about it.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? No

24. What was the best book you read? Ummm... well I really enjoyed David Rakoff's Don't Get Too Comfortable; its a really funny quick read. I also enjoyed two Michael Pollan books, The Omnivore's Dilemma and The Botany of Desire, both of which I read twice.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery? Postal Service and Death Cab

26. What did you want and get? a house with a yard for the dogs, nearby shops and restaurants, and near transit.

27. What did you want and not get? a million dollars?

28. What was your favorite film of this year? Once, and then Juno (a not-so-close but still really good second; I just liked Once a LOT)

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I was 27 this year and I have no idea what I did. lol!

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? I'm actually really happy and feel really lucky to have what I have and be where I am in life right now

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007? Um, well, most of the clothes buying I did was for work and that consisted of what was on sale at Marshalls or Old Navy. I still am wearing the same two pairs of blue jeans that my mom (yep, that's right!) bought me two years ago. lol!

32. What kept you sane? Nick, friends, information, time

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? like, as in , have a crush on? Well, I was pretty obsessed with Glen Hansard (from the Once movie)

34. What political issue stirred you the most? Dude, HEALTHCARE! And that reminds me that I need to add Sicko to the best movies answer. It is completely insane that people die because they are poor (which is basically what things boil down to in our current insurance-ruled healthcare system.)

35. Who did you miss? most everyone, since almost no one lives close enough to see them very often

36. Who was the best new person you met? ummm.. I guess I need to meet some new people.. lol!

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007. I realized this year (and its probably a function of my age) that my life is happening now, and that I need to think about what I want to accomplish in my life and then I need to start doing that. When I was young, I spent so much time waiting on my life to start, but now I need to realize that the starting gun has sounded and that this is ineed a timed race.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. Dude, that's hard. I hate to end this survey with a "thud" but, I really can't think of a good answer to this question. :)

Thanks for reading. :)

My Trivial (Sometimes Maybe Not So Trivial) Life Photo Gallery

2007-11-27T18:45:00.000-08:00

First, I have a picture of what happened the other day when Keenan wanted to sleep in the kitty box, but his brother was already in it. Did that stop him? No. He just piled on. Morgan didn't seem to care. Keenan also didn't seem to mind that almost half of his body is hanging off the side of the box.

Second, I wanted to show you a picture of animal nirvana (although it must be noted that mag was trying to run away cuz she's afraid of the camera, so I guess it was nirvana-licious for everyone except Mag.

Third, here's another example of puppy/kitty bonding. If you can't tell, Bohdi's head is actually resting on Morgan's back. I'm not sure if Morgan realized that it was Bohdi's head (instead of my hand or something), but he didn't seem too disturbed.

Fourth, guess what I made? An apple tart. It was super easy and turned out really yummy, even though the crust totally fell apart as I was trying to transfer it to the tart pan. Here's the recipe. If I had it to do over again, I would have rolled the dough out onto a pastry cloth or maybe one of my flexi-plastic cutting boards.. just something to make it easier to transfer. But other than that, the recipe is great.

Fifth, Nick found this almost perfectly round egg in our most recent Coscto "happy egg" carton.

Sixth, I skipped work for two hours today to go see the Once movie people, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova at the Apple Store. I was about twenty feet away. It was awesome, although they didn't play for too long cuz they kept having technical difficulties. Nick and I had seen them in concert on Sunday night. We were about ten feet away from them then. They rocked out both times. Here are a couple of pictures, but it was hard to get one that wasn't blurry or dark from where I was sitting.

Finally. Guess What?

I MEET THEM AND GOT MY PICTURE TAKEN WITH THEM!!!!!! I said the routine stupid person-meeting-celeb-musician thing "Hi... you're awesome... etc etc... can I have a picture.. etc etc." I think they were tired--they've been touring for a month of two--and glad to see the line of people seeking autographs ending a few people behind me, but they were nice and the picture makes us look like we're old pals.

I have some pictures I want to share with you.

Giving Thanks For Hot Irishmen

2007-11-23T11:08:00.000-08:00

On the day after Thanksgiving, I'd like to thank the official U2 website for finally releasing the never-before-seen 20 year old video for Red Hill Mining Town (off of The Joshua Tree) and giving me a piece of Bono cuteness perfection.

(I'll have a real thanksgiving post later on.)

Urban Gardening

2007-11-18T19:05:00.000-08:00

Part One: The Urban Garden In My Backyard; I've always said that fall is my favorite time of year, usually October in particular although this year October was so warm that we're just now getting into the major leaf displays, cold weather, and beautiful autumn clouds. I had a great "October" day today. Nick and I spent several ours out in the yard. In at least one respect, Forest Park is true to its name in that there are trees everywhere, and this time of year their leaves are everywhere too. We got a new toy recently--a leaf chipper shredder--that we hoped would help us turn our overabundance of leaves into compost. Today was the second time we used it, but we got less than perfect results (not-so-shredded leaves and clogging repeatedly). We had planned to shred all the leaves in the whole yard and maybe even take some of the neighbor's leaves too (you can never have too much compost) but the shredding went very slowly--I think it may have something to do with the moisture in the leaves--that we ended up just raking leaves into piles. Hopefully they'll dry out and we'll have better shredding luck in a couple of weeks. We also moved around river rock, dug up and replanted several perennials and a small Japanese Maple. All in all it was a productive day in the yard (as productive as we could be with such a short supply of sunlight.)

Part Two: Carrots in February? Yesterday I attended a workshop at the Chicago Center for Green Technology on techniques to extend the growing season. It was TOTALLY AWESOME. First of all, the CCGT is totally awesome on its own. It's a city run facility that's designed to demonstrate and teach people about eco-friendly building materials. The CCGT building itself is all pimped out with huge rainwater collection silos, solar energy panels, an indigenous plant prarie garden, and a bunch of other stuff. They also have exhibits and training sessions where citizens can learn about green building materials and techniques for their own home. So, CCGT was awesome, and the workshop I attended was awesome as well. I learned that I can use a passive greenhouse (meaning an unheated greenhouse) to grow cool weather plants (spinach, lettuce, greens, carrots, etc) even in the middle of winter. Did you know that spinach plants can freeze solid and then thaw out and be completely crisp and tasty? I'm totally going to have to build a greenhouse in the backyard so that I can garden all year round now.

Part Three: Urban Agriculture Saves The World- Another cool theme that came up at the workshop was urban agriculture (ie: taking vacant land in the city and turning it into organic vegetable production farm to feed the nearby residents.) This concept can be tied into work training programs for the homeless and can also help provide fresh healthy food in communities where the only place to buy food within a few miles is twinkies at the convenience store. I've always been pretty excited about Urban Ag. and community gardens, but this workshop got me SO hyped and SO ready to get involved. I'm going to start by becoming a Chicago Master Gardener. Have I told you about that already? I'll take classes next spring, then I'll volunteer 60 hours during the next year at community gardens and such. Then I'll be an official Chicago Master Gardener at which point I'll think more seriously about starting my own urban farm somewhere in the city. I think this could get me really excited! This could be a new version of my enviro-activism back in college. YAY. :)

As a parting note, here's my favorite Fake October Song:

Just Another Diet Blog

2007-11-16T19:15:00.000-08:00

I finally decided yesterday, mostly due to the boss lady incident mentioned in yesterday's post, that my roundness is getting out of control. I have an ever increasing collection of pants that I can no longer wear. Even the pants I bought last year that had plenty of room are now too small. Replacing my entire wardrobe would be expensive--at least $200 at the WalMart (this is a reference to the fact that I don't buy designer clothes or anything)--and losing some weight would have the added health benefit. And, to top it off, my tenth (ACK!!!) high school reunion is coming up next spring and it would be nice to look all hot and impressive (I'm making a mental note to myself now that I should explore my impending high school reunion neuroses in another post).

So, yesterday I signed up with eDiets. I didn't really do any comparative research on online diet sites, I just remembered their address from their commercials and was happy to find that they seem to do a pretty good job accommodating vegetarians. I signed up for the "vegetarian" diet and told it that I want to lose about 15 to 20 pounds (or, according to the obviously broken scale in our bathroom, somewhere between 5 and 30 pounds... ) and I'd like to lose it, well.. as soon as possible. It told me I can lose 10 pounds by xmas, which is a bit aggressive, but whatever, I'm psyched, I've done this diet thing before (S'outh Beach Diet back in 2004, actually worked pretty well), I can handle it.... I thought to myself. The diet plan tells me that I can have 1200 calories a day... easy as..... pie

cake....

cookies...

....

I can safely say that after a day of trying my hardest to stick to portion control and healthy low calorie choices, 1200 calories is NOT easy.. its actually quite painful... and I didn't even reach the goal. My total calorie count at the end of the day today is 1733.... holy crap! The workouts I can do (yoga or treadmill three days a week and hand weights four days a week), but this 1200 calorie a day thing, i dunno. I've been obsessing about food ever since lunch. I have a headache now, that I guess is also in response to the drastic diet change. I wasn't keeping track of my calories before, but I wouldn't be surprised if I was eating close to 3000 a day. I have been told by friends who've been down similar diet paths, that it will get better, that my body and metabolism are just going to take some time to adjust. But, geez, right now this SUCKS!

I"m going to try not to talk too much about my diet here on the blog, just cuz, I dunno, that seems kinda dumb and uninteresting and verging on TMI, but I'll give you an update from time to time, if you don't mind. Thanks for reading. :)

2007-11-15T09:15:00.000-08:00

I just need to get a couple things off my mind, and I've decided to use a blog technique I stole from VBGirl to do it.

Dear Boss Lady- Even though I've brought it up on my own in the past and even though its obvious, its still not okay for you to point out how much belly fat I have, especially if you want me to get any work done today rather than obsessing over my roundness.

Dear Really Annoying Dude On The Train This Morning- I dunno if you weren't aware of it or if you were intentionally being an asshole, but they make that "please be considerate when using electronic music devices" announcement for a reason. When I stepped onto the train car I thought "good, there are some empty seats" and about three seconds later, after I was assaulted by the completely unintelligible noise that was coming out of your radio speakers at a volume way louder than is appropriate, i thought "and I know why". Its a good thing you got off the train when you did because I was about the completely lose my cool.

Dear Burt's Bees- Since I heard the news that you've sold yourself to the Clorox corporation, I can't help but think of bleach and liquid plumber, and the environmental nastiness of many of your products, when I use your lip balm. I used to feel so happy and earth friendly when I bought and used your products, and now all I can think of is the fact that my purchase is now going to a multi gah-zillion dollar company. Maybe I need to find new lip balm.

Dear Whole Foods- Could you please replace some of the ultra-yuppy mags that reside in your check-out area magazine stand (ie: Palaties Living, Dwell, Alternative Healing) with a Newsweek or something that at least pretends to be cognoscent of the troubles in the world (and perhaps even care a bit) and would make me feel slightly less guilty spending ten dollars on a pack of organic throat lozenges.

wow, I'm feeling a bit bitchy today. All for now... :)

Ok, I Suck

2007-11-06T08:29:00.000-08:00

So, I did it. I officially and legitimately feel off the NaBloPoMo wagon. My excuse? After coming home (in the dark- yay standard time *sarcasm*) and moving all my winter container veggies and the greenhouse into the sunroom and then "cooking" (in the microwave) dinner, the couch, in all its covered-in-fluffy-animals glory, just looked TOO GOOD.. so yeah. I didn't blog yesterday. DOE! to make it up to you this morning (Ok, so fine, its more of a cop-out than a make up, but still) I'm going to direct you to this completely hilarious trip back in time--the 1977 JCPenny Catalog. Don't worry, it will be even funnier than you expect. Check it out. (PS: I have no idea who's blog this is, its just a link I was sent.)

What I Did With My Extra Hour

2007-11-04T15:12:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the total coolness of Freecycle and Craigslist, Nick and I have made it our mission to completly as many of our landscaping jobs while spending little or, better yet, NO money. Explanation: Motivated by the fear and generally suckiness that the quote for putting new windows in our house that we got earlier in the week gave us ($16,000, gulp), we've come to the appropriate conclusion that we need to chill out a bit on our home improvement plans. The list of things we'd like to do with the house include: build a new bathroom downstairs, new roof, new non-environmentally evil (meaning no vinyl) windows, new insulation pretty much everywhere, new wiring pretty much everywhere too, patio, walkway, huge pond, front yard landscaping, etc. I don't want any of you to get the idea that we're loaded, cuz we're totally not. But we have home improvement ambitions of a millionaire. So, in an attempt to tone down our spending, I decided to see if I could find any cheap landscape materials on the net (brick, pavers, etc). I did some investigating and I found out that there are actually a lot of people who are willing to GIVE AWAY a lot of materials. I discovered (well, I actually kinda already knew about it, but I'd never used it before) Freecycle which is an online community where people give away stuff they don't need and get stuff for free from other members of the group. I've thought a lot, and had a few conversations about, why Freecycle is cool and if it is any different or better than just donating stuff to a thrift store, and my conclusion is, that minus the charitable aspect of donating to Good Will and alike, Freecycle is a tad bit cooler because it allows people to get the stuff they need without having the buy anything, consume anything, throw anything away, etc. So far, I've given away an armoire and a rabbit hutch. I've also got a non-working drying that I'm going to try to give to someone. I've taken some used coffee cans (for a craft project). The river rock I got today was actually from an ad on Craigslist, which is also cool, but features a lot more stuff for sale than free stuff. I just like Freecycle because it lets me get rid of crap and replace it with stuff that I actually need. Did I already say that? Sorry, I'm just really excited. Freecycle is a national movement that has groups all over the country. Even if you're not in a "major" urban area, there's probably a freecycle near you. Click here to check if there's a freecycle in your area.

So, to get to the title of the post--what I did with my extra hour--the answer is, get up early, install two more raised planter beds (involves digging up the grass where the bed is going to go, putting the bed in its place, filling it with dirt from the dirt pile left over from when we had our fence done, and put down landscape fabric over the grass in between the raised beds which we will cover with river rock. Then, I went to fiddle class. (YAY fiddle class... a new 8 week session started today. We learned a new song and I managed not to embarrass myself.) After fiddle, we made the trip down to the south side of town to pick up the coffee cans and then the river rock. First, I'd like to point out the coffee cans are MUCH lighter than river rock. Second I 'd like the point out that there were only 12 coffee cans and about 1 ton (like, seriously, I'm not exhagerating here) of river rock. Yeah.. ok, I have nothing "thirdly" to say... Anyway, the guy was giving away river rock which he had dug up from his yard. He told me it was in a dumpster outside his house. After a breif interlude of getting lots in a forest preserve (we turned the wrong way), which was actually quite enjoyable due to the absolutely beautiful fall leaf display, we found the house and the dumpster. I was afraid that the rock was going to be covered in mud, but it was much cleaner than I had expected. TOTALLY AWESOME. We took two truck loads of rock--we figured that the cost of replacing the shocks, if we broke them hauling rock, would far outweigh the savings from getting the free rock--and let me tell you that loading and unloading and then loading a second laod and unloading that is HARD WORK... I am so sore already and I'm sure that it will be worse tomorrow. But, it was totally worth it. I think we'll have enough free rock to cover the ground around my veggie garden. If we had gone to the garden center and bought river rock in bags it would have cost us several hundred dollars, easily. Here's the proof of all the hard work we did (below). Ok so normally I'd write something after the pictures, but honestly I'm so freaking tired I don't think I can type any more. So. Goodnight! : )

One Extra Hour

2007-11-03T20:47:00.000-07:00

(Note: Ok so its Sunday and I go to my blog and see that this post, which I wrote entirely within the legal definition of yesterday and which I told blogger to post yesterday, is still sitting here in my "draft" pile... so... THANKS, blogger, you've made me at least in a small part already fail at NaBloPoMo. I'm hoping that the NaBloPoMo, and you, will forgive me).

So tonight we switch to daylight saving time (or away from it, I never can keep it straight)...

*brief pause in writing to argue with Nick about what "set the alarm for 8" really means*... "8 o'clock real time?".... "what does that even mean?"

sheesh

ok. So what I wanted to say was that I am SO excited about the prospect of getting a whole extra hour of sleep tonight. Man, I love sleep, and consequently I've been looking forward to this extra house of sleep like small children look forward to Christmas.

This is a short post because its 11 and I'm REALLY tired and also because I can't wait to experience that extra hour. I'll let you know if the reality lives up to my expectations.

;)

News Shorts of Lameness

2007-11-02T18:24:00.000-07:00

Ok so, if you know me or if you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that my cat, Morgan, has been having some pee pee problems. The problems mostly involve location ie: he's been peeing outside the box. So, a couple weeks ago Morgan went to the vet to have an ultrasound of his bladder. In order to do the ultrasound, they had the save some of his hair. Luckily, Mo is no diva and didn't seem to care that much, but I sure find it amusing. (you knew it was coming)-so here's a picture:

If you notice, I have definitive proof that, not only does Morgan have black and white fur, but he also has black and white skin. I guess I should also let you know that the results of the ultrasound were pretty good. There were several possibilities of what the vet could have found by doing the ultrasound--maybe we'd see hardening of the bladder walls, stones that would have to be surgically removed, or even a tumor. So we were happen when the scan only showed blood clots floating around in there... and while blood clots are normally a life threatening big deal, apparently in this case, they're not. We were told to keep him on the Rx food and also to start giving him distilled water (its supposed to help flush out the icky-ness that's going on in there. We'll take him back in a couple weeks to see how things are going. For now, he's happy and has only peed outside the box once in a whole month. (that's actually a big improvement).

Here's a question for you: So, its Friday night. You've had a tough week. You're at home. You've just had dinner. You want to relax in your favorite most comfy place. But, when you get there, you find that your brother has already taken up residence in YOUR spot. What do you do?

Casually, and completely without any hint of "what do you mean this isn't normal", you lay right on top of him.

And, because good things always come in threes... here y'a go (more cuteness).. (I think this is what Keenan had in mind in the previous photo)

There y'a go- NaBloPoMo day two. If you're finding yourself wondering "wow, that post was pretty lame. I wounder how much lamer she will get as the month progresses".. the answer is... the depths of my cute-kitty-picture-lameness has no limits.

(If you're quiet, you can hear people erasing my blog from their bloglines RIGHT NOW) :) :)

NaBloPROMo

2007-11-01T07:55:00.000-07:00

Its NaBloPoMo time! That means I'll be attempting to blog once a day (every day, including weekends) during the entire month of November. I'm fallowing the lead of a few of my real work friends who have blogs who participated in NaBloPoMo last year. Now, you may have noticed that blogging on a regular basis isn't necessarily something I'm good at. So, why, you ask, would I choose to do NaBloPoMo when (if past behavior is any indicator) I'll probably fail at the NaBloPoMo mission? Well, the answer is, Ive fallen off the making-a-daily-schedule wagon and I'm hoping that NaBloPoMo will help me get back on it. If I can designate a specific time of day to Blog--which I anticipate will be the key to success with NaBloPoMo--then maybe I can also designate a time of day to do all those other things that I want to get done... like treadmill, fiddle, a few minutes of house cleaning... etc. So, we'll see how things go. One of the major inhibitors to my scheduling success is my complete inability to get out of bed in the morning at any time earlier than the latest possible second before I'd be late to work... so trying to get up half an hour earlier so I can practice fiddle, seems a bit.... doubtful. But, we'll see. I'll let you know how it goes.

So, to live up to the title of this blog (ie: that its a ProMo for NaBloPoMo, not a spelling error), I guess I'll give you a preview of what I've got planned for this month in blogging.

Coming up on this season of NaBloPoMo:
-cool things I saw at the Chicago Historic Bungalow and Green Home Exop
-Mo cat belly update
-cuteness from the puppies and kitties in video format (if I can ever get Nick to upload it to YouTube...)
-What Do My Hippie Bags Say About Me?

So there, y'a go. Stay tuned! :)

Long Time No Blog

2007-10-28T18:36:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody. I know its been like... two weeks since I posted. And yes... I know that the post-every-day-in-November thing is coming up... in, well, three days to be exact. So, I better get my act together. Lets hope that this post is me climbing back up on the blogging wagon.

So, first I must tell you about our cool Halloween costumes this year. Usually I almost dread Halloween, since it usually equals me standing in the Halloween store a day or two before I need a costume trying to pick one out something that isn't lame. So, when Nick and I were standing in the clearance section of the local take-over-an-abandoned-strip-mall-space-for-the-month-of-October Halloween store, it appeared that this year was going to be no different than any other. Should I be the banana or the poo-poo-plater (seriously, I"m not kidding)... But THEN I got the best Halloween costume idea EVER! (at least the best one I've ever had, although I'm sure its not the best Ever EVER ever in the world. So, let me cut to the case:

OK, let me explain: I (right) am George W. Bush (aka: "The Decider") and to the left, that's Nick, oh I mean Darth Cheney (aka: "Dick") and he's holding my puppet strings... cuz I'm George W the puppet president who's secretly controlled by Vader and the Dark Side forces of evil. Get it? Get it? (This will make even more sense to those of you who are friends of the Daily Show and familiar with the Dick Cheney= Darth Vader bit .)

Yes, we could barely see or breathe out of our masks. I became acquainted with a phenomena that I had not experienced before:a rain shower inside the mask (aka: condensation). But, it was totally worth it. We had a great time at our friend's Halloween party and we even one the prize for most original costume (a bottle of Rum, yay!).

Who knew that Darth Cheney was an MGD guy?
(Nick bought the flex-y straws specifically for this occasion (they only come in packs of 200 so we'll have enough to last us for the rest of our lives) and he drilled a hole in his mask so that he could drink w/o having to take it off.... even though I think he was looking for any excuse to take the mask off after a while.)

And, if I've ever wondered what would happen if I dressed as a life-size kitty toy,. this is the answer:

And, there was even more kitty fun with the box that the Darth Vader mask came in....

There will be more Halloween fun on the actual day. We're expecting to get more trick-or-treaters than we're used to (there are a lot of kids in this neighborhood.) We even got a pumpkin to carve and put in the front porch (our attempt at symbolizing our non-psycho-killer-ness to the neighbors.)

That's all for now.

Oh- I should probably let you know that the Mo cat situation is fine (well, almost fine). He had his ultrasound and out of the possible outcomes, the actual outcome of the ultrasound was very good. I'll explain more later and show you pics of Mo's shaved belly. :)

Mo Update

2007-10-11T07:40:00.000-07:00

Thanks for all of the concern and well wishes I've received regarding the totally awesome Mo Cat. I wanted to give you guys an update to let you know that Mo will be undergoing an ultrasound next Thursday. Hopefully that will give us more answers about what's going on with him. In the mean time, he's being extra cute. All the animals have been extra cuddly since its gotten cooler. Lat night Nick got pinned under the blanket by all four animals (one at each corner of his body) who were in a snuggly mood, apparently.

Hang'n Out With Frank Lloyd Wright

2007-10-11T07:19:00.000-07:00

I'd like to thank Nick for being awesome and knowing people who own and live in a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Oak Park. Here's a pic:

Those of you who visited Nick and I back in August will probably remember this house. Its two houses down (on the opposite side of the street) as the FLW Home and Studio on Forest Ave. At the time, I had no idea I'd be hanging out in this house a couple months later.

We were there for a UIC graduate program in education policy get together. The house was totally awesome. I'm not a FLW expert, but I am acquainted with the basics of his aesthetic and I must say that the owners of this house have done an awesome job refurbishing the house in FLW style. This house is huge; probably eight of our houses would fit inside it (and coincidentally its probably worth at least eight times as much as our house too.) Even if it wasn't a FLW house, it would be an awesome house, but the fact that it IS a FLW house gives it a whole new dimension of coolness.

I wish I could show you some pictures of the inside, but I didn't bring my camera with me to the party and I can't find any interior pictures on the web. The basement is totally pimped out with a steam shower, pool table, 60+ inch tv, and a walk in wine cellar. There are poured concrete surfaces everywhere, and almost all the furniture throughout the entire house is of the FLW prairie design.

The owners of the house were telling us stories about having people stand at their front gate and take pictures on a daily basis. Once, they even had a Japanese TV crew sneak into their backyard and start filming a TV show right there.

I dunno if it was a function of the FLW design or just that the house was so immaculate, but while I was there I was surrounded by a feeling of "This is really liv'n the good life." Did I mention they had a grand piano in the living room?

Nick and I are pretty much in love with our house, and even if the opportunity came along to live in a FLW house, I'm not sure that we'd do it, BUT let me say that our house looks like a total piece of shit in comparison to this one.

Grass is always greener, right?

Thanks to Mark and Sally for a wonderful evening at their totally awesome home... and if my house is reading this blog: yes, I still love you!

Mo

2007-10-05T09:20:00.000-07:00

*tries to refrain from humming Britney Spears's new song "Gimme More" (cuz "Mo" reminds me of "more".. i dunno).... dude, I read way to much entertainment gossip*

anyway... So, for those of you who aren't aquanted with the ongoing saga of the MoCat, let me give you the 411: (note to those more sensetive readers: I use the word "pee" a lot in this post) So, Mo cat started peeing outside the box a few months ago.. at first we thought it was stress (moving to the new apartment and then into the house and having to live with the dogs) and then we thought he was just pissed off and THEN we finally thought "gee, maybe he's sick" ... so about a month ago we took him to the vet and, sure enough, the vet found crystals in his urine (a sign of kidney stones, I think) as well as blood. So, the big guy was indeed sick... apparently he was associating the pain of urination with the litter box so he kept trying to find a place where he could "go" and not be in pain... hence the peeing on the brand new couch which happened shortly before we took him to the vet the first time. So, we were told to feed him special (and might I add, expensive) prescription food for three weeks and then bring him back in. We did, and the next uranalysis found no crystals but still found blood... so THEN we were given a bottle of REALY gross smelling brown liquid medicine for inflammation that we'd have to shoot down his throat once a day.. at first he actually liked the stuff.. he'd voluntairly lick the medicine out of the dropper then I'd squirt the rest into his mouth.. but by the end of the first week, he was pretty much done with the stuff... which meant that we'd have to corner him, pry his mouth open with our thumb and squirt it in... he'd put his ears back and be afraid of me for a couple of minutes.... So after two weeks of that we took him back to the vet to have him checked again. We were hoping to get a clean bill of health from the vet. But, allas, poor Mr. Mo cat still has pee pee problems (still blood in the urine) so NOW he apparently needs an ULTRASOUND! of his abdomen so they can figure out if he has a stone, whether it will require surgery, or whether its something (far less likely but still possible) like a tumor. So, Mr. Mo will be getting his belly shaved (necesary for the ultrasound) probably within the next week. Our vet doesn't own an ultrasound machine, but she can call lin a specialist to do it, which will cost us about $150. The other option is she could send us to another vet's office where it might cost less. So, I've gotta call around to find out prices etc. At this point we (and our vet) are feeling very optimistic, hoping that its just a cranky stone that needs a few more weeks of the special food in order to desolve. Mo cat remains happy and he hasn't peed outside the box in a couple weeks now *knock on wood*

so yeah, that's the deal with Mr. Mo. Thanks for reading.

One of our favorite comedians has a funny bit about the ratio of how cute a girl is and how much he'll tolerate hearing stories about her cat... So if you've made it all the way to the end of this post, apparently you think I'm pretty cute. j/k :)

check him out:
the cat joke is at minute 3:05 , but the whole thing is funny

Fiddle Death

2007-10-04T07:35:00.000-07:00

This is the sad sad story of what happens when I try to be good and practice my fiddle like I'm supposed to...

Although this will probably ruin the arch of the story, I'll start by telling you that when I got home from work last night I found that my fiddle case, with the fiddle secured inside, had fallen off of the window seat (about a three foot drop). I blame Morgan since he's been cuddling up next to the fiddle case on several occasions recently.

So, after feeding the animals and experiencing the joy of the pepper discovery (from yesterday's post), I sat down around 7:30 to practice the fiddle... I was tuning it up when the E string snapped... if you've never seen a fiddle (or other stringed instrument) snap before, let me tell you that its a pretty noteworthy event; its fast and loud and makes me jump off my seat every time it happens.... So, I started googling... where could I find a replacement string near-ish to my house at 7:30 at night (or more around 8:30 since that's when Nick (the one capable of driving to the store) would be home..) I found an instrument store that was about 10 miles away that would be open until 9:00. Via phone I confirmed that did indeed sell strings, however their tech had left for the day so no one could help me install it. Sweet! When Nick got home I told him the "good" news that instead of being able to change clothes and drink a beer and then walk up to Madison street to have dinner at one of the restaurants up there, that we'd be driving 10 miles into suburbia to buy a violin string, that I wasn't even sure I could replace myself. I'd never fixed a string before... the other couple of times that its happened I'd been using a rental instrument so they'd always put the string on for me... But, after watching some YouTube lessons, I was convinced that I could do it myself. So, Nick is such a good sport. He was like "ok, sure" so we drove out to the store and got the string... I ended up spending like $60 bucks because in addition to geting the one replacement string I needed I also got a full set of replacement strings for when this happens again as well as a metronome. We stopped at Culver's on the way home to pick up some food.. not nearly the good meal we were planning on having.. but it was fast and it would do. (I had a salad in case you're wondering what a vegetarian eats at Culver's).

So, we got home, we ate, we watched the freaking hilarious Daily Show from Wed. night that we had DVRed... Nick went into the bedroom to watch TV while I set to fixing the fiddle. It took me about ten minutes, but I got the string on with not much problem. I was tuning up when all of the sudden BAM! something broke, flew up into the air, and landed on the table. Not another string!!! I looked and was confused to find that all the strings were still on the fiddle.. WTF. It took me about five seconds to realize that the BRIDGE had poped off. At this point a few expletives were said. Nick came out to see what was wrong... I started YouTubing again and soon discovered that the bridge isn't actually attached to the fiddle at all and is only held in place by the strings ... so all I had to do was loosen the strings and slide the bridge back into place underneath them (making sure to get it back into the precise place where it was before... I know that it might not be perfect, but hopefully I could get it close enough to practice and them have a real fiddle technician double check it for me later). Let me point out that by this time it was already 10:15 and I hadn't even begun to practice. I slid the bridge back into place, and, feeling a sense of accomplishment for having fixed things myself, I brought the fiddle up to my shoulder to tune it when I heard the sound of something ROLLING AROUND INSIDE the body of the fiddle. At this point, I knew that things were over. It took me about five minutes of shaking it around to get a glimpse of the 2 inch long dowel object that was inside my fiddle... I have no idea what it is or what it does or how to fix it (or how someone would even get it out of there; the F-holes in the fiddle are tiny...

More expletives where said... followed by some crying... Then, pouty and defeated, I went to bed.

Being the fabulous husband that he is, Nick volunteered to drive the fiddle up to the place where I purchased it (the place where I take lessons) to see what they can do. I have no idea how long it will take them to fix or how much it will cost. But I do know that the square dance that my fiddle class was supposed to attend and play in on Friday night is pretty much out of the picture for me know. Even if I do get my fiddle back before the event, I've already missed out on the vital practice time I needed to learn the 10 or so tunes that I don't know yet.

*sigh*

I find myself wanting to blame Morgan, since he knocked the fiddle into the floor yesterday... but the fiddle was inside its case and strapped in and the case is REALLY sturdy... so , I dunno if that's what caused this catastrophic instrument failure or not.... Or, what is me and my attempt to replace the string / bridge myself ... did I ruin my new $400 fiddle?

I'll let you know what happens....

UPDATE: Ok.. word on the street is that the thing rolling around inside the fiddle is called a "sound post" and that replacing it and the bridge wont set me back more than $50. No word as to who takes the blame for the injuries to the fiddle, although a third suspect is now being questioned: the humidity.

Surprise Peppers

2007-10-03T16:57:00.001-07:00

Dudes! Ok.. this is why I LOVE gardening! I was out in the "garden" (a small patch of the yard where I planted some sickly root bound veggies after we moved into the house around July... in retrospect, I should have started a fall garden from seeds... but whatever, I digress.) Anyway.. I was looking at the purple baby butts (baby eggplants) and the green tomatos (all five of them) on my tomato plants.... and as I went to say Hi to my pepper plant (a plant I bought at Costco and had felt cheated after it didn't bloom or anything and I convinced myself that it was just an ornimental plant... I bet you can see where this is going, right? So, there I was, looking at the plant and touching its leaves and, all oi the sudden, completely out of the blue... I found these:

When I felt them I got so excited that I immediately tore them off the plant... the one to the right is definitely ripe for picking (its as big as my hand) but the one of the left is a bit small and probably could have hung out there for a little while longer... allas! I was like "HOLY CRAP!" to the dogs, since they were the only ones around to hear news of my discovery. And to top it off, there are at least four baby peppers that I managed to NOT tear off, so I've got more to look forward to.

Dude, this is why I love gardening... there are always (mostly good) surprises!

Yay Yardwork!

2007-10-02T07:17:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend Nick and I had a great time working in the yard. I thought I'd share some pictures of our accomplishments.

First, we have a couple pictures of our new rain barrels that Nick installed on Saturday. These barrels will catch about half of the rain water that comes off our roof and store it so we can use it for watering plants later. The first barrel is connected to a diverter in the gutter. When the first barrel fills up, the second will fill. When the second one is full too, the diverter will switch and water will then go down the gutter into the drain. In case you 'd like to purchase your own rain barrel(s), we got ours at composters.com (where we also got our compost bin). YAY! (I think that Nick took these pictures around dusk, which is why the house looks so dingy orange/brown).

This is the "leaf turd" that Nick pulled out of the gutter during the process of connecting the rain barrels. To give you a sense of scale, this thing was about three feet long. We put it into the compost bin.

While Nick was busy installing the rain barrels, I was busy making executive decisions about the yard (hehe). We've been planning to redo our yard ever since we moved in. We've spent months talking and thinking, reading books and seeking the advice of friends in the know. I think I had a bit of a freak out this weekend; I felt overwhelmed by the never ending amount of different ideas we came up with, all of which I liked. Should we put the garden over here or over there? Should the pond be a geometric shape or should it be more natural? Should the path curve to the left or to the right, or should it be straight? I decided to just make a decision, put things where I wanted them, and see what I thought.

So, this is what I ended up with. We had bought several pannels of black medal fencing on sale at Menards. I decided that an arbor would make a nice entrance for the garden area. We were happy to find that the arbor that we had seen several times at Menards was still there, and was even cheaper than before (like $70 bucks). So, here it is folks, the begining of what will be my veggie garden area next year. I'm going to get several more of the square raised beds that you see in the picture. I'm going to also have to move several of the plants once they go dormant. And, of course the dirt pile will be used to fill the raised beds.... oh yeah and the chair is completely random; I dunno why its there. lol! Oh yeah, and we're also going to tear up the existing path and build a new one. hehe!

And finally... just because I find it difficult these days to post pictures to my blog without a picture of kitties... here y'a go. Kitties asleep on the sun porch.

Camping Is Fun!

2007-09-17T18:52:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, Nick and I joined the E-Vegasians on a camping trip at Turkey Run State Park in central Indiana. I was really looking forward to it--I like to hang with my peeps--but I must admit that I underestimated the amount of fun I'd end up having. I think the last time I went camping was in high school senior year on a backpacking trip on a portion of the Appalachian Trail in West Virginia. I never did tent camping (other than in the backyard) as a kid, so I don't consider myself a camping expert. I was even somewhat doubtful as to whether or not I actually like to camp. But, the jury is now in, and I'm glad to say that we had a great time and definitely hope to do a lot more camping in the future.

So, here are some pics of the trip. I didn't take a lot cuz my camera mysteriously got a case of the low batteries half way through the trip but then managed to work again toward the end, despite the fact that I didn't charge it at all. temperamental camera...

First, here's me sitting in the tent in our backyard. I wanted to make sure that the tent was in one piece, stink-free, and not missing any parts. Also, we sorted through some of Nick's old camping gear. Did you know that baby wipes, even if stored in a ziplock bag, will dry out and turn yellow after, say. at least four years of being in the garage? Needless to say, we had to trash some items, but for the most part, Nick was pretty well set up for a weekend of outdoor living...

OK, so its not the grand canyon, but Turkey Run does have some enjoyable hiking trails with some huge old trees... this used to be a huge old tree, until it was uprooted. Apparently it reminded Nick of an airplane, or ballet, I'm not sure which...

The weather was almost perfect, despite a couple chilly nights (in the low 40'). It was great weather for snuggling by the campfire.... with PopTarts...

Due to the cold weather on Saturday, we decided to forgo our canoe trip and hike instead. This is a picture of the poor souls who did decide to canoe that day, taken from the hiking trail above. I hope they weren't too cold.

Yes, we did have a great time, but there were also frustrations along the way. (This is the complaint portion of the slide show). So, Nick and I discovered that we are apparently too old to sleep on the hard ground with nothing under us but a sleeping bag. After a moderately miserable night of tossing and turning, massaging sore backs, and dreaming of the Temperpedic mattress we have at home, we decided to shell out $25 at the camp store (it might as well be called the "WE jack the prices up and sell shitty stuff because we know you're desperate" store) for an air mattress. Things were going ok; the camp store let us use their air pump for free to blow up the thing, instead of us having to do it manually. I thought that was so nice of them. But, when we put the blown up mattress in the truck and managed to immediately puncture a hole in it, we were no longer happy. I held my finger on the hole, while Nick went back into the camp store to buy a patch kit. This is a picture of the mattress with an attempted patch.

This is a picture of the patch kit which did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to patch the hole.

This is a picture of the mattress once we decided to go with what was our initial idea and put duct tape over the hole. Nick drove it back down to the air pump (notice this time, away from any sharp edges that might exist inside the actual truck bed, to try to fill it up again. It totally didn't work. Now we are left with the conclusion, and a conclusion that I feel it necesary to share with everyone, that Coleman air mattresses SUCK!

In the good news department, it did get easier to sleep each subsequent night. And, I must say that our new sleeping bags were GREAT as they managed to keep us warm and cozy during those chilly nights.

So, yeah, camping is fun, y'all. I have a feeling that the E-Vegas reunion will become a semi-regular event, which sounds great to me. If you enjoy camping and would like to coordinate a camping trip sometime, just let us know.

Although...

2007-09-12T11:35:00.000-07:00

In response to the puppy kitty nirvana picture from yesterday, I don't know if we'll ever get to this point:

Pcture Picture Picture

2007-09-11T19:01:00.000-07:00

Acrobatic squirrel goes for the bird food

Puppy / Kitty Nirvana

Mo cat vs. the dinner rolls

I have no idea why those captions were underlined (and why this sentence all of the sudden is not)... but anyway.. there y'a go.. just wanted to share some pics I've been saving up for bloglaned.

Super Mario Goodness

2007-09-07T10:42:00.000-07:00

I played a bit of super mario brothers this weekend while the gang was in town. Sitting at work today, I decided to "google" YouTube to see what weird SMB stuff I could find... here's a taste..

Classical guitar meets supermario...this dude has mad skills

Watch someone beat SMB in 5 Minutes

SMB Tellenovela (or something)....

Ok.. now we're getting to weirder stuff...

And finally... a news story about SMB and Nintendo... I can't figure out if this is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek or if they're being serious (and therefore.. completely hillarous)

Apparently, Its Crying Season

2007-09-07T07:52:00.001-07:00

Hi blog people.

...one of the blogs I've enjoyed reading recently (the comedian Mike Birbiglia's Secret Public Journal... which is freak'n hilarious) starts each post as "Dear Journal" and I like that and may start doing it here, since generally my blog is more of a journal entry (ie: sort of a self reflection as well as a way to document my days so that I can be amused when I read these accounts several years from now) ....

So yeah, Dear Journal-

(maybe I will use two different greetings depending on the nature of the blog entry (Hi Blog People for when I have information to pass to others and Dear Journal when I'm just babbling to myself...)

Dear Journal-

Ok so, as if crying of Pav wasn't bad enough (see yesterday's blog), today I cried ON THE TRAIN TO WORK in response to the fact that Nick decided to shave off his beard this morning. I dunno what the big deal is for me. The first year I dated him, he didn't have a beard. He didn't have a beard during last summer when we got married. It was a bit out of the ordinary that he decided to keep his beard throughout the summer (his beard usually comes and goes with the coming and going of winter weather), but still, I shouldn't be this weirded out about it.

So, what's the deal? Well, its not that I'm crying over the hideous site of Nick's face (he asked me if this was the case)... (his face is NOT hideous, of course). I think its just the feeling of unfamiliarity that it suddenly creates. Like, obviously I know he's the same person he was, with or without facial hair, but it makes such a drastic difference in his appearance that I can't help but do a double take "who is that strange looking person" when I look at him right after he shaves off his beard. This morning, I felt like my familiar friend had gone away and had been replaced by someone else. Then, of course (in my never ending ability to freak out over things that a) I have no control over and b) I have no reason to believe will happen in the near future) I started to freak out over the possibility of Nick dying or disappearing or something... and that's when the water works started.

So yeah, I cried when Nick shaved off his beard because it reminded me of how sad I'd be if something happened to him.

Sometimes I really get on my own nerves. LOL!

Added a few minutes later:

Here are two pictures for comparrison (with beard, without beard)

Pav

2007-09-06T15:11:00.000-07:00

OK, so I cried over the Crocodile Hunter (Steve Irwin, who, incidentally died just over a year ago), which surprised me. I mean, I liked the guy, his shows, I thought he seemed to be a cool dude and seemed to generally do good stuff for animals (shut up PETA)... but I was surprised when I sat at the kitchen table and balled my eyes out for an hour during his memorial service... for someone I've never met and, until he died, didn't really have an extraordinary interest or attachment to.

Well, it happened again.. this time with Pavarotti. The thing I associated most with him, until today, was the song he did with U2 and Brian Eno on the Passengers Original Soundtrack Number 1 CD back in 1995. I'm not really a big opera fan. I can't even name any of Pav's most famous (or not so famous) performances. But, I have always been impressed with his abilities. But, here I am, at work getting all teer-y-eyed over him. Maybe its all the tributes that have been on the radio today (and I'm sure plenty more will follow). Maybe it was something about being able to listen to two different Pav performances on two difference radio stations (one in the other room) at the same time (kinda like the moment of silence all the radio stations played... umm... errrr... was that for the first aniversurey of Sept 11th attacks?).

So yeah, I went YouTubing looking for Pav stuff and I found this, which claims to be his last public performance, at the winter Olympics in 2006.

and here's Pav with U2 + Brian Eno.

Bookapollusa

2007-08-30T07:35:00.000-07:00

Thanks to audible.com and my trusty iPod, I have managed to usurp my innate hatred of reading and have managed to burn through three books in the last few weeks. I thought I'd take this opportunity (before I completely forget what I read) to tell you about them. So here goes:

First, I read Sammy's House which is Kristin Gore's (yes, daughter of Al) second novel, a sequel to her Sammy's Hill book that came out a couple of years ago. (thanks to Bibliophile and others for introducing me to these books). The basic story line revolves around a 20 something woman who's managed to get a policy adviser job for a presidential candidate (in the first book) and a vice president (second book). So, if you get off on things like West Wing where you can pretend you work in some interesting and high powered job in DC, you'd like these books. But, be warned, these books are an extra-light version of West Wing, probably closer to being chic-lit, actually. Beyond the working in DC part of the book, there's also a lot of gossip, relationship drama, and dumb behavior and decisions by the main character, and so on. Some of her (main character) idiosyncrasies get a big annoying, in my opinion, toward the middle of the second book. Also, her ability to be a dumb, hormonal, irrational, jealous girl gets to be a bit much at times too (and I say this as someone who can be all of those things at one time or another.) But, nevertheless, I enjoyed this book.... Its like half West Wing political goodness and half Lifetime Original Movie in its relationship drama and general dumbness but inescapability.

Next, I read Interpreter of Maladies, which I heard about due to its appearance on several best fiction lists (particularly, and I hope I'm right, from the NYT best seller list). So anyway, I was very excited to read this one. Unfortunately, I managed to either forget about or all together miss in the first place the fact that the book is a collection of short stories. I was a bit disappointed to learn that, no, I don't like short stories that much. Just about the time I'd get into the story, that story would end, those characters would disappear, and I'd be thrust into a new story with all together new characters. Don't get me wrong, I think this is a great book with mostly really interesting and compelling stories. But, I wish it had picked to focus on one set of characters for more than a chapter or two. I guess I'm just not a short story kinda girl.

Finally, I read What Was She Thinking (Notes on a Scandal)... that's right, the book which lead to the movie. I never saw the movie, and only had a small understanding of the general plot, but I decided to go for the book based on what I'd hear about the movie. Somehow, I managed to miss the detail that the book is about a 30 something teacher in England who has an affair with a 15 year old student in her class. I dunno, I'm all for people doing what want and consenting adults and all, but this topic still kind of weirds me out. That being said, I am a total sucker for gossip, and this book certainly has it. It reminds me of having a long, revealing conversation with a friend in which your friend reveals the scandalous details of some piece of gossip worthy information. This book got me through an hour and a half delay on the blue line one day, so in terms of its pure entertainment, I can't say anything bad about it.

I'm now reading Death by Black Hole which is essentially a set of essays designed to explain certain aspects of astro-science and the historical evolution of scientific understanding. As you can probably tell, its a bit different than the previous three books I just talked about. It was a big shift; listening to gossip takes a lot less brain power to listen to someone explain Newtonian physics. But, it is very interesting and I am enjoying it. I think its good brain food, too. I'll let you know what I fully think of it once I've finished it.

That's all for now.

PS: just so you don't think that I'm completely crazy, the moon ransom post a few days ago was about a wash cloth that one of the E-Vegasvillians left at my house after their visit. I didn't know who it belonged to , so I thought I'd publish a funny post (well, I meant for it to be funny, anyway, although I think some of you were just confused) in an attempt to get the owner of the mr. moon washcloth to come foward. So, no, I'm not crazy. And, no, it didn't have anything to do with the luner eclipse (which I slept through a few days ago). ;)

Ransom

2007-08-28T05:53:00.001-07:00

Note: This will mean something to someone out there, although I'm not sure who that is yet. If it means nothing to you and is confusing, just ignore it. I'll explain it later. :)

Its A Boy!

2007-08-23T20:25:00.000-07:00

My new "vintage" 1971 German Fiddle, that is... How do I know its a boy? Because I gave it a boy name... err.. actually I haven't settled on a name yet... I know I"m going against the grain here--its my understanding that musicians usually name their instruments girl names (same as cars and boats I guess??)--but my fiddle is a boy... a sensitive , well rounded, handsome, resonating boy... man?... male? I dunno... I'm monstly just being silly.

Soi yeah, her he (it) is in all its (his) glory

Its sort of a middle range beginner/intermediate instrument, although I must say (and I was surprised that I was able to tell a difference, because I have doubts in my knowledge about fiddles generally) that it sounds a hell of a lot better than the model that I'd been renting ...and I bought it from the same place I'd been renting and they let me put some of my rental fee toward the purchase, so I saved some dough too.

Now.... all I have to do is figure out how to make my playing reach the level of the instrument (ie: my playing sucks and the instrument itself does not suck). So, that's what i'm working on now... not literally now, cuz i'd need four hands for that, but now as in, I'll be starting a new round of lessons in a couple of weeks... that is, providing that I practice like crazy between now and then and make up for the four months of not touching a fiddle that was my summer.

Chicago Botanic Garden

2007-08-22T07:56:00.000-07:00

Hi blog people. I wanted to give you guys a bit more detail (with visual aids) about the cool stuff I saw at the Chicago Botanic Garden. We saw many different kinds of gardens and displays, most of which are not represented here in these pics (like the Japanese garden or the Bonzi tree exhibit/sale). I seemed to be obsessed with the vegetable and fruit garden exhibits, so most of the pictures I took are from those. There's some other stuff thrown in there too. I look forward to being able to implement some of these ideas into my garden. I hope you enjoy the pics!

This is the coolest pine tree I've ever seen... I've never seen anything like it before.

Winding stream with ducks... I want a winding stream in my yard! (dude, my yard isn't nearly big enough for all the great ideas I saw at the CBG)

Grass alternative ground cover... doesn't require cutting... sounds great to me!

There's an entire water garden at CBG with tons of water plants. I love these water lilies! I want a pond!!!

Really pretty Canna Lily.. I have one of these in my front yard but it does NOT look nearly as beautiful as these.

Honestly, I didn't pay attention to what these plants are, I just liked the idea of creating a cool alternating color pattern... Wouldn't this look cool with alternating green leaf and red leaf lettuce?

I have no idea what these peppers are like to eat (how hot they are), but I think the plants are so beautiful... I think its the dark gren leaves with the red and PURPLE (my fav color) fruit. Love this.. yay.

Totally awesome (and I'm totally planning to steal this idea for my own garden) vertical planting method for herbs etc.

Here's a close-up of how they put it together... looks like a wood and wire frame lined with plastic of some sort (to hold in the dirt and plants)... I love this idea.

Apple trees being grown in cordons (I think is what they call this technique) where the trees are planted very close together and drastically pruned on a regular basis to force them to grow in tight vertical clumps... its supposed to be the most efficient way to grow fruit trees... and while usually I'm all down with big sweeping tree branches, I also think this is cool it its own right.

Less common Marigold variety. I think this one is awesome, but then again, I do have a larger than normal amount of affection for Marigolds... Maybe its a southern thing... I think these would look great in beds with veggies...

Really cool tomato cages (I want some, but don't know where to get them yet).

Pictorial: A Tourist In My Own City

2007-08-21T07:31:00.000-07:00

I love it when people visit, not only because it means I get to hang with my friends/family who I don't get to see that often, but also because it means that I get to be a tourist in my own city. This past weekend, I enjoyed a visit from five of my E-Vegas friends (VBG, Evilducky, the Bibliophile, the Apathetic One, and RabidMonkey). We played board games; ate tons of food; I feel asleep first (as usual); we did a lot of siteseeing, including three attractions that were knew to me. Here are some pics of our adventures:

First, we went to the Frank Lloyd Write home and studies in Oak Park, IL (just a mile over from my suburb). This isn't a picture of his actual home or studio, but this is a picture of an ENORMOUS house that he also designed located on the same beautiful tree-lined street that FLW lived on.

Here's another FLW designed house. Remember, people actually live in these homes. I hope they don't mind having their picture taken. LOL

Ok, its true folks. I've lived i Chicago for over three years now, much of that time I lived less than a quarter mile from the Art Institute. A year ago, I got married in the south garden of the Art Institute. But, until last Friday, I had never actually been inside (other than the pee on wedding day). So, I went, I saw, I heard (yay audio tour), I got grumpy b/c the Warhol exhibit wasn't out. This is an example of some of the "you must look at this cuz its famous" pieces I saw. When I saw this painting, there was an actual french person standing there looking at it with me... I found that amusing.

My favorite attraction (and the one I'm most upset about not having visited before) was the Chicago Botanic Gardens. Its like a huge park with really awsome gardens (and signs telling you what all the plants are). Here's a picture of the beautiful landscape, some flowers, and yes, that's me petting Nick's head.

The CBG is the home of an awesome vegetable and fruit garden exhibit (which I will have to discuss in more detail later) , also apparently including the world's biggest (and really beautiful) cabbage.

The sheer size of this cabbage gave it a slightly demonic feel.. so Evilducky + photoshop = this:

A pergola made of totally awsome and also freak'n huge grape vines.

We ate some awesome (apparently "awesome" is my word of the day) Italian desserts in honor of the RabidMonkey's birthday.

And now for some randomness... because she has yet to make it on the blog, here's a picture of our dog Maggie (with Bohdi's butt in the way... and some random legs and feet of people apparently.)

And a picture of the Bo-Dog

And, to wrap it up.. some kitty cuteness.. yay!

@?

2007-08-16T07:39:00.000-07:00

Dude...

Hi Blog People!

2007-08-15T08:17:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am still alive. I've been really busy as well as a bit sick the last couple of days, so I haven't posted in a while. I've had this thing happen where I'll be going about my day and something amuzing will happen and I'll think to myself "I should blog about this" then I forget what I was going to blog about.

Oh, I just remembered one: Ok so the other weekend I decided to finally to through the assorted boxes of bathroom /toiletry products that had been sitting in the middle of our living room since the move. The highlight of this endevour had to be a tube of dog toothpaste that had an expiration date of 1998 and a back of pepto-tablets which expired in 2002.

Ok that's all I can remember for now.

Here's some bullet points to tell you what I've been doing over the past couple of weeks..

went to see Nickle Creek and Fiona Apple at Rivinia last week. Rivinia is an outdoor venue with a pavilion then with a large lawn area outside the pavilion where you can still hear (but, not see) the music... lawn tickets are much cheaper and the idea is that you bring a picnic and blanket and enjoy hearing the show. The NC+FA show was the first time I'd ever been to Rivinia. We got the cheap lawn "seats." Nick packed a great picnic dinner consisting of baget, cheese, tortilla espanola, fruite, chocolate, and wine. The place was completely packed. The show as good, but it was wierd not actually seeing the performance. We left a bit early, the beat the traffic, with the feeling that we had enjoyed our $75 picnic (food+tickts), but that we could have done the same thing in our backyard while listening to the radio.
became $200 richer thanks to Craigslist and strangers who wanted to buy our somewhat shitty old furniture for cheap. I said goodbye to the red futon (the one with the velcroe arms: some if you probably remember the red futon from my old apartments in Chicago and E-vegas) ... it was bittersweat.. but we definitely don't need three futons, and I always kinda thought that one felt like a pile of bricks to sit on.
Got a compost bin for the yard. Yay. Wish me luck with my vegetable decomposing skills.
Decided that Mandy Moore is my new girl crush, especially cuz she's curvey and not a size zero (at least, she doesn't appear to be) and she's totally cool with not being a twig
Saw the movie Once again, best movie this year. Word!
Have a house full of guests coming this weekend (word up to the E-vegas-ians) yay! I'm looking forward to a fun weekend! (and our first house guests to the new house.)

So yeah, that's about it... all that I can remember at this time. I think I'm going to have to start keeping notes of blog ideas as I get them, so that I don't keep forgetting them and resorting to possibly dumb bullet point accounts of my life.

:)

PS: still have some stuff left to sell/give away to friends. Anybody want a rabbit hutch (I used it to hide the cat box from the dogs) or a kitchen cart thingy?

UPDATE: wow , that was quick. Ok, VBG called dibs on the kitchen cart. Sweet!

Non-Registered Users Now Welcome!

2007-08-06T08:26:00.000-07:00

So, I finally decided to look through the settings/comments section of my blog and I realized that I can instruct the blog to allow non-google/blogger registered people to leave comments... which I have now done. So, now anyone should be able to leave comments, wether you have a google / blogspot login ID or not.

I hope to do an actual blog sometime soon.

Just started reading Sammy's House today. yay! for books on iPod

;)
Jessica

PA In Review

2007-07-31T10:33:00.001-07:00

Over the weekend, Nick and I traveled to his familial "home base" of Pittsburg, PA to attend the wedding of his cousin. We had a great time. Our trip out there went so smoothly(almost too smoothly), that I almost expected the six hour delay we experienced on the way back (we didn't arrive home until 3:30AM on Monday morning). Other highlights, lowlights, and general observations about the trip are as follows:

Hampton Inns (at least the one in Greensburg, PA) are surprisingly comfortable and accommodating. I highly recommend them.
People in Pennsylvania like their guns, as I found out when I entered a local REI-type place (I was looking for hippie sandals!!) to find a table at the enterence pilled with rifles. I didn't find sandals, but if you're ever in need of deer butchering equiptment, that's the place for you.
There's a really cool Frank Llyod Wright home near where we were called Falling Waters. Well, calling it a "home" is a bit of an understatement. It was built for a wealthy department store owner overlooking (more like, via cantalevered technology, hovering over) a beautiful waterfall in the middle of western PA wilderness. This is the picture we would have taken, had my camera not decided to die five minutes before hand.

People in western PA have a few language idiosyncrasies that I am not used to. For instance, the use quotation marks to put emphasis on a word, where I'd use an underline or bold or something. This leads to weird signs like Buy One Get One "Free"... they mean it is an emphasis on Free, but I take it as a "ok, what's the catch, what do I have to do to get that second one "free" *wink wink* *nudge nudge*. Also, I encountered people using the word "Yenz" (I dunno how to spell it so I spelled it like it sounded to me) which I was told is a Pittsburgh version of "ya'll" (the southern plural form of "you".)
During out delay in the Pittsburgh airport on the way hiome, I encountered (from a distance) some of the crankiest Southwest Airlines employees I've ever seen. THere were a couple different flights (all delayed) for which people were waiting in same gate area as us. Apparently, one of those flights was eventually bound for Los Vegas. At one point, the Southwest person working at the counter said to everyone over the loud speaker "Please understand that this is not our fault. Believe me, I want you to get to Los Vegas.... So you can lose all your money and have to come back here and work a real job like ME". Outch!
We used a new house sitting service to take care of the animals while we were gone. It went very well--animals seemed very well taken care of and happy when we got home. The house sitter left a "top ten funny things your pet did while you were away" list that, among other things, included: "Followed housesitter around house so that she didn't get lose" (our house is not that big, our dogs are just that clingly), "woke housesitter up at the crack of dawn" (yep, 5AM breakfast time woo HOOO!!), and "Barked for treats, continued barking for more treats after there were no more treats" (yep, pandora's box, man--once you get them to bark for food, they'll never shut up!).
Apparently airports do close. When we got off the plane at Midway there were signs saying "Midway Airport Is Now Closed"... no it isn't.. we're here aren't we?
Sudoku is fun. I did more sudoku puzzles while waiting on the plane than I've ever done before (completed six puzzles). Sudoku is cool.
CNBC has stores? Yes, at the Pittsburgh airport, the TV network CNBC has a retail store where you can buy magazines, candy, and CNBC paraphernalia. The poor woman who works (probably for minimum wage or something close) at the store is forced to listen to CNBC financial news all day and all night. That must be ironic.
Running down those "moving sidewalks" at the airport while barefoot is NOT fun. Nick and I had to sprint, after standing in the huge-ass midway security line for way too long, to catch our plane on our way to PA. We made it, but Nick ran half of the way barefoot (after having to remove his shoes at the security checkpoint, didn't bother to put them back on)... which also leads me to be surprised that an epidemic of foot fungus hasn't broken out among air travelers, since they make everyone (regardless of shoe type or presence of socks) remove their shoes at security.
Apparently there is a wedding tradition where, after the bouquet and guarder are tossed, the man who catches the guarder then has to place it on the leg of the woman who catches the bouquet... every inch past her knee is said to be five years of happiness for the new married couple.... I knew that the saying was that the woman who catches the bouquet and the man who catches the guarder are supposed to be the next ones to get married, but I didn't know that they were supposed to marry each other!

Yay for PA and a good weekend. Congrats to the Bride and Groom
The End. :)

Picture Time

2007-07-26T05:07:00.001-07:00

Hi there blog people. I FINALLY found my camera dock, so here's some of the stuff you've missed....

First, some cuteness

And now, for the much talked about fence....

Here's Morgan looking at me out the front door (I love the red door)

And, finally, some more cuteness....

Star Trek

2007-07-23T14:46:00.000-07:00

Watch out! This is a Star Trek related post.

So, I was sitting at work today (totally daydreaming) when I came to the question: if Star Trek were real (ie: in the actual future) how likely is it that they'd still use our (earthly) increments of time (second, minute, hour etc) as well as our 24-point-whatever hours-in-a-day clock? Like, when Cpt. Pecard goes "Jordey, how long will it take to fix the blah-dee-blah ?" (I've forgotten all my Star Trek lingo apparently, including the name for the engine parts on the Enterprise) and Jordey goes "two hours" and Cpt. Pecard goes "you have an hour".... it comes to my mind, would they really use hours? Surely there would be just as many time measuring systems as there are planets... so why aren't the Klingons and Ferengi complaining that their days are actually shorter/longer than 24-point-something hours? (Duh- the Ferengi totally would complain, they complain about anything). What's to say that the Enterprise would operate on an earth-based time system? I mean, they have star dates (made up star trek dates different from our millinium-century-decade-year system), so why do they use 24 hours? Well, now that I come to put way too much thought into this, I'm not quite sure that a day on the Enterprise is ineed 24 hours. Hmmm.... But they do use the words "hours" which I think is irrevocably related to earth time. Maybe in the future, once we discover life on other planets, all having their own time measurments and day lengths, we will compromise by creating a whole new time schedule based on our bio-clocks. But, then again, not all humanoids would have the same bio-clock. I'm not a scientist, but I'd wager that bio-clocks (when we wake up and go to sleep 'n stuff) are probably shaped by the planet where we live and its rotation around the sun. So, maybe humanoids would all have different bio-clocks based on the planets their species grew up on.

Wow, I've put wayyyyy to much thought into this.

Do any of you Trekkies want to put in your two-cents? (Star trek and money, now there's a topic ... sheesh).

Clusterduck

2007-07-18T11:56:00.000-07:00

A full re-cap of the drama associated with the installation of our fence certainly calls for a timeline:

Monday-
10am- dudes show up to start building the fence, they want to get the holes dug before the inspector was to arrive at 2pm.

2pm- inspector doesn't arrive, we learn he will be late.

5pm- by this time, dudes of dug almost all (over 30 of them) 42'' deep holes, only using a manual post hole digger. The inspector arrives and tells us to STOP WORK and that we can't build a fence where we're trying to build it because it abuts another (chain link) fence on either side. He says that he doesn't know why our permit was granted, that we'll have to talk to the boss man in the morning at 8:30 to decide what to do.

5:07pm- I leave a preemptive message with the fencing company, letting them know that things are really screwed up, that they told us that putting our fence next to the neighbor's fence would not be a problem, and that if this whole thing blows up, there's no way we're paying them. (probably a bit of an over reaction, but I was mad)

5:30pm- deciding that we should probably start talking to the neighbors to attempt to convince them to remove their fence, Nick goes next door to ask if any of the tenants over there have contact info for the landlord. They do, and as a matter of fact, they tell us that we already know her, her name is J and she was our attorney when we purchased the house. Furthermore, they say that she had told them that she was our attorney and then she told them not to tell us that she had told them that.

WTF!!!!!!!!!

5:45pm- Nick leaves a message with J (our attorney and, apparently also our neighbor) letting her know that we needed to talk to her about the fence. We don't mansion the "and we think you were wrong not to tell us" part.

7:00pm- I arrive home by which time I've managed to get REALLY angry about the whole attorney lack-of-disclosure thing. I think she was completely obligated (by any normal sense of ethics) to disclose to us that she owes the adjacent property to the property we're buying. We should have had been able to then decide if we were comfortable with her representing us. She could have been best friends with the person we bought the house from, for all we know. I feel like I might throw up.

8:30am- I leave for work the next day, Nick stays home waiting on the village building department "boss man" to arrive.

8:45am- nick calls to let me know that boss man has not arrived, we decide he should call the office. Nick calls the office, they say that they didn't know they were supposed to come out/call us at 8:30 this morning. They will call us back in a few minutes to let us know what to do.

9:00am- FP building department calls, tells us "you're good to go" according to "mr. boss man" (they gave us the actual name). We call the fence dudes, tell them to continue building.

later in the day I talk to J the attorney about the fence... tell her that things are resolved... ask her about some unrelated south house sale question, don't confront her about her questionable ethics. (I am a wimp, and also not sure how to handle it since she is now our neighbor.. we don't want to piss her off too much.)

So yeah, that's the drama. I'm still brooding over the attorney ethics issue. I think I may write her an actual letter to let her know that we didn't appreciate her lack of disclosure.

We don't really suspect (nor can we prove) and harm that came to us due to her potential partiality in the situation.

Our fence will probably be finished today. It looks great and we are very very excited!!!

Name That Bush (and more)

2007-07-16T07:44:00.000-07:00

In preparation for the fence installation (which is starting today), Nick and I spent all day yesterday (well, all day minus a nap and a two hour long shopping trip to the garden center) digging up plants that would be in the way of the new fence. These included, some arbor vita type trees, some ferns of indeterminate origin, and a huge bush/tree thing that we have no idea what it even is or if it was worth the trouble of digging up and wrapping in berlap. The soil in our yard, well to put it bluntly, SUCKS! Its very gritty and sandy. It doesn't drain or hold water worth a crap. Most of the trees and bushes we dug up are now sitting, bare rooted, in burlap. The soil would just fall away from the roots immediately, no matter what we did. When we water plants, we get puddles of mud and little rivers running through the yard rather than water soaking into the soil and watering the plants. Obviously, any attempt at vegetable gardening is going to require some serious soil fortification. I had planned to start composting our kitchen waste, but that probably wont be enough.

To the fence guys who arrived this morning to install the fence: I feel bad and guilty for the day of hard labor you have ahead of you. I thought you'd bring big automatic post hole digging machines, but instead, all you have are manual post hole diggers, a couple of wheel barrows, and a few five gallon buckets (oh, and approximately 28 huge 8 foot long 4'x4's. Although we're paying over 5K for this fence, I'm sure that whatever your share of that isn't worth it. Wait until you see how crappy the soil is. You'll probably hate me by the end of the day.

I no longer have a place to call home downtown. After a putrid 15 hours of cleaning (man, pet hair can get in crevasses that I didn't even know existed in the apartment), we turned over the apartment keys on Saturday. We actually met up with our landlord's friend instead of our landlord (cuz our landlord who is some IBM internationally-travelling probably-uber-loaded sales guy, is in Turkey for the next few months) which meant that the walk through inspection proses was way less of a big deal than we thought. I just hope we don't get a call in a few weeks telling us that our landlord got back, looked at the place, and decided that we actually owe him more money. The place was clean, the only thing we're worried about is the carpet situation. We had to get a large portion of the carpet replaced (the dining room/living room and hallways) due to dog bodily fluid problems, but the new carpet that we had installed isn't an exact match with the old carpet, which is particularly noticeable at the place where the new carpet in the hallway abuts directly against the old carpet in the bedroom. We spent 1,700 on the new carpet, and it is much MUCH better quality than the carpet that was in there when we moved in. So, in some ways, we did him a favor. But, then again, how big of a deal is it to have two slightly different carpets where you used to have identical carpet throughout?

We did have a nice lunch at our favorite Printer's Row neighborhood eatery, Hackney's, where we've become small scale regulars. We even bought Hackney's T-shirts to commemorate the occasion. We will miss Hackney's a LOT! (but we can always come and visit)

Nick and I had signed up for the LATE ride, (bike ride starting at midnight, going until sunrise, throughout the city, done as fundraiser for Friends of the Parks), but we were so tired from the past three weeks (and so in need of a few hours of unpacking time) that we didn't show up. This is the second time this year that we've signed up for a charity bike ride and didn't actually go. (the charities still got our money though).

That's about it. I still don't know where my camera dock is. I remember packing it in one of those "to make sure I don't forget it or loose it, I'll put it here" places that I immediately forget where "here" is. The search continues. :)

Emerging from the Shadows

2007-07-14T17:37:00.000-07:00

FINALLY we have gotten the Internet at our house to work. That's right folks, two weeks without Internet at my house was too much for me, apparently. Now, all I need to do is find my damn camera dock, then we'll be all set.

Random Notes

2007-07-13T09:17:00.000-07:00

Its weird when you're sitting in the neighborhood pizzeria (appropriately called PizzaRia by the way), dressed in grimy painting clothes, eating pizza, and a stretch Hummer pulls up outside, several stilettos-with-jeans girls get out and come in for some pizza. I guess, everyone has to eat?

If you ever fall asleep in your SUV while sitting at a red light long enough for the light to turn green, the ten cars ahead of you go through the light, several people pass you (w/o honking, I guess its a suburb thing), a couple on their way to the "L" see you, have a three minute conversation about if you're having a medical crisis and if they should do something, and that couple to approach your car to see if you're responsive, THEN YOU HAVE A PROBLEM!!! ...although it was a bit impressive how you were able to keep your foot on the break the whole time.

I think that Nick and I can agree that commuting to work together in the morning (at least together until the point where he gets off the train and I keep riding it into downtown) is cool. But, it is a bit weird because we're the only people on the train having a conversation. Does that make us annoying?

Mr. Clean's Magic Eraser is, indeed, magic. If you ever need to get scuffs off your wall and you don't want to have the repaint, I highly suggest it, although I have no idea what its made of or how toxic it might be. (Update: Click here to read the wikipedia article about what a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is made of. Also, click here to read the urban legend, or is it?, regarding the safety of this product.)

If you were me, and you had recently packed your camera doc in a box and moved it to your new house, which box would you have used and where would that box currently be located? (reason for no new pics on the blog, sorry)

:)

Off To A Rough Start

2007-07-12T05:52:00.000-07:00

Dear AT&T,

Don't let the fact that I recently signed up for new phone/internet/tv service with you for my new home lead you to believe that I like you. The truth is, I chose you because I loath you slightly less than your compeditor, namely, Comcast (hereafter refered to as "the evil-C". I am sad to report that, despite the fact that I've only had your service for four days now, you have begun to close the loathing gap between yourself and the evil-C. You'd think that before assigning me a phone number, you'd first check to make sure that it DOESN'T ALREADY BELONG TO SOMEONE ELSE! Also, you'd think that it wouldn't take an hour (the first half our spent talking to your really annoying voice recognition software... I HATE that stuff!!) on the phone with your customer service representative (who, by the way, obviously loves her job just as much as I love having to deal with lame utility companies such as yourself) for you to figure out that the reason my DSL isn't working and the reason my phone line connection is so full of static because you forgot to disconnect the number you gave ME from the customer who had it previously. Get ready to prorate my account until you get this problem fixed. Also, let it be known that it is because of you that we had to get up two hours early this morning, so that my husband could go to work early and finish some of the internet-based work he was planning to do at the house. I hope to receive a call from you soon letting me know that the problem has been resolved. I hope to be on the internet in the next couple of days. I hope you do not request that I return the DSL equipment to you at my own expense. I hope you do not change my phone number, since I've already told everyone that my number is the one you gave me originally. And, most of all, I hope this is not an indication that you operate your company with an amount of greed and incompetence as does the evil-C. Come on, AT&T, prove to me that you are better than the rest, please!

A Shout Out From the Technology Abyss

2007-07-10T09:32:00.000-07:00

HI blog people. So yeah, my blog has been sucking lately. Sorry 'bout that. :) I know I've been a bit house-obsessed, and unfortunately, I don't think I've got it completely out of my system yet (I've got some more house pictures to post shortly). Also, I've been without internet at home for the past week. We just got our new DSL service turned on yesterday, but we were so busy last night moving more boxes out of the apartment that we didn't have time to even open the box containing the router, which the UPS man decided to leave for us outside in the rain rather than INSIDE the sun room as our note requested... grr. So, we should get the Internet up and running in a couple of days. Then, hopefully, I'll be back to blogging more regularly.

Our village (its weird to say that I live in a "village" but its really true...) has some really weird (and annoying) rules. For instance, apparently there is a rule that says that dogs cannot urinate or defecate on any property other than that of their owners. So my question is: what if you're at the dog park and the dog pees on a tree... what are you supposed to do? What about people living in apartments who have dogs and don't' own any yard a all? This is obviously a stupid rule, and I can't imagine how it would be enforceable, unless they catch your dog in the act.

We bought a new dining room table over the weekend. (well, we paid for it over the weekend, but we don't actually posses it yet; it will be delivered in a couple of days). By far, its the most money I've spent on a piece of furniture, but it will better accommodate the onslaught of the in-laws (labor day) as well as the Evansvillians trip in August. The chairs are fake leather (vynl) so they're not very enviro-friendly. But, at least they're not dead? I know, its a pretty lame excuse.

So, yeah, herein I shall put an end to this, I fear, terribly boring post. *sigh* I gotta get better at this blog thing...

Blow Some S#$% Up

2007-07-06T08:16:00.000-07:00

Hi blog people. So, Nick and I were lame and didn't go see the Chicago fireworks this year. We are pretty much obsessed with our new house at the moment, so we wanted to spend time unpacking instead. Also, the lakefront is always so freaking crowded. You have to get there hours in advance. etc etc. So, I stole one of the many YouTube videos of this year's fireworks to share with you here.

We did see the Forest Park fireworks display the next evening (Chicago does theirs on the 3rd, and all the surrounding towns and villages do theirs on the 4th). I can't find a video of it, but I can assure you that it was actually much better than I expected. There was no musical accompaniment to the Forest Park display (that I am aware of anyway), but it went for about 20 minutes with several pseudo-finales. I approve. My suburb knows how to blow shit up.

We had a cookout on the night of the 4th along with 5 of our friends. Thank god we have a basement in which to hide all the unpacked boxes. It was nice to have our first gathering at the house. As usual, we bought way too much food.

We took out the hammock so that people could lounge on it during the cookout. Our neighbor was like, astonished, for some reason, by it. He called out other people from his apartment to come look at it. "Woa, that's cool. Look at that." It was slightly weird to have our stuff so idolized by the neighbor.

Can't wait to get that fence up. LOL (just kidding about the "so we can't see the neighbors" context of that .. although we will be glad to get the fence up so we can let the dogs out w/o leashes.)

Speaking of dogs, our friend Jen brought over her new poodle puppy to the cookout. At one point, the poodle was running around inside the house. Morgan sauntered into the room where the puppy was. Puppy runs up to Morgan. Morgan puffs up, gets his big "oh shit" scary eyes, hisses and blows, and then finally runs away. Need I mention that the poodle puppy is about one third the size of humongo-cat Morgan? It was completely hilarius. Keenan, on the other hand, found the puppy to be extremely intriguing. He'll follow her around, sniff her, maybe thing about pouncing on her. Ah.... animals. :) I totally forgot to take any pictures of any of the evening's events, so unfortunately I don't have anything else to share with you. :)

Moving Photos

2007-07-02T16:21:00.000-07:00

Morgan- "Where are we? If I get back into the carrier, will you take me back home?"

Morgan- "What about the white one... will you take me home now????"

Keenan- Feels at home right away "Wow, I'm up high"

Keenan- "Different house, but same perch on desk, I'm cool"

Come on Morgan, don't you want some dinner? (Keenan ended up eating Morgan's food, which NEVER happens.

more later. :)

Diary- Closing Day

2007-07-02T09:37:00.000-07:00

7:00AM- Nick wakes up after three hours of sleep to head to the closing. We weren't planning to go, but we want things to go as smoothly as possible, so its probably better if he is there. I sleep.

8:30AM- Good thing Nick went to the closing. I get a call from our realtor telling me that she is at home sick and that she has dropped her phone in the toilet and so is unable to get to her address book. She wants to know how the closing is going, I tell her that I'm not there and that I don't know. I call Nick, everything is going well at the closing.

9:00 AM- Thank god for Craigslist. I find a last minute moving service to help us unload the truck later today. We are so bruised and tired from loading the truck and have absolutely no desire to unload it.

9:30 AM- Nick, realizing that our realtor has the only set of keys that are not currently locked inside the house, calls me in a panic... how are we going to get the keys to the buyer.

9:31 AM- Call our realtor.. can't get her b/c cell phone is dead...

10:15 AM- finally hear from our realtor. She can either bring the keys to the closing or drop them off with the buyer's agent's office. Problem solved.

10:30 AM- The closing is over, the house is officially sold. SWEET!!!!!!

12:30 PM- Time for our walk-through. We find many things amiss, not least of which are the crappy temporary window screens they've provided to us. The cats could totally just knock those down with one paw and jump right out. Also, they have failed to properhy provide power to the washer and dryer, as we had asked. We are really annoyed. GRRRR

1:00 PM- Open gift from our mortgage broker. Its a serving dish from Crate and Barrel. Its wrapped in probably twenty feet of wierd paper bubble-ish wrap stuff. Our realtor also gives us free tickets to community theater in Forest Park. They perform outside in the county forest preserve. People bring booze, have a picnic, and watch a play, SWEET!

1:30PM- Arrive at second closing. Realize that we have no legal legs to stand on regarding the window screens. I am highly annoyed. But, we will ask for a credit for the wiring situation around the washer and dryer.

2:30PM- Sign LOTS of papers... lots and lots and lots... Then, sit and wait for closing to finalize. Am amazed by the hundreds of dollars of bullshit fees involved in buying a house. I wonder how I can get the "pay Jessica 20$, just because I said so" line added to closing charges. The sellers finally agree to give us $100 credit for the wiring situation at the washer/dryer

3:30PM- At last, I am officially a home owner! It will take a while for this to totally sink in. We get a ride to pick up our truck, drive truck full of stuff to house.

5:30PM- Start unloading little stuff from truck. Call some friends to come over and help (which really ends up meaning, drink beer, play with our friend's new puppy poodle, and talk while telling the movers where to put stuff, which is the best way to move, let me tell you)

9:00PM- Movers arrive. Turns out that it takes two very strong and very motivated guys with an appliance dolly an hour and a half to unload the entire truck, which it had taken us 10 hours to load. That was the best $200 (plus tips in beer) I've spent in a long time.

11:30PM- kick our friends out, drive truck back to truck rental place, have a really dumb conversation with a chick from Penske Truck Rental on the phone regarding weather or not we can drop the truck off tonight rather than tomorrow.

12:00pm- Truck is back, we drive the pick-up back to the house, stumble inside, fall asleep on the bare mattress on the guest bed downstairs. Fall asleep immediately. Sooo tired, but happy.

more to come
(don't have internet at the house yet, major pain in ass)

Day Before Closing Diary

2007-06-29T07:03:00.000-07:00

8:30 AM- wake up, take dogs to kennel where they will be for the next couple of days. Start packing odds and ends in apartment and disassembling furniture.

12:00 noon- Go pick up 24 foot truck from Penske, (way better than U-Haul, I highly recommend them), while picking the truck up, receive distressing phone call from our realtor regarding the walk through that the buyer did earlier today saying that the buyers were mad that our stuff was still in the house.... wtf... almost have first crying moment of the day

12:30- am impressed with Nick's driving skills as he wips huge truck in and out of Chicago traffic

1:00- load up the big stuff from the apartment... playing a guessing game.. how much stuff can we fit in the truck from the apartment but still enough room to clean out the entire house and garage which we HAVE to get done TODAY

3:00-headed down to the house... traffic SUCKS...I fall asleep on Nick's lap, taking advantage of the huge bench seat in the truck.

4:00- arrive at house... start loading stuff...

5:00-realizing that we're completely screwed in terms of how much crap we have to get out of the house and into the truck, have second almost crying moment of the day. Getting fridges that are too big to fit through doorways unless you take off the doors out of a basement is a ROYAL PAIN!!! literally.

7:00- Make second phone call to our friend Ed... trying to convince him to come help. We need rescuing at this point. Nick's been hit in the head, elbow, arm, leg, by various doors and furniture items... I'm already exhausted, and we have NO IDEA how we're going to get all the stuff in the truck and how we'll finish before the closing at 8AM.

8:00- get more visits and interaction from the neighbors today than we've had over the last three years combined. They are sad to see us go (thanks), they want to know if we have anything we want to sell (sure, please PLEASE buy something... $20 bucks sells the dining room table), they want to know if they can have plants for our yard (sure, here's a piece of pionie that it takes me WAY LONGER THAN EXPECTED to dig out of the garden)

8:30- Impending depression mitigated by arrival of master moving-truck-packer, Ed, who has come to help us despite having a cold (thanks Ed!!). Also, at this point realize that we own a bunch of complete crap and that we would have rather burned it in a bon fire rather than move it.

9:59- get "dinner" from Wendy's just as they're closing.. go home and eat while sitting on floor with cardboard box as table.

11:00- Things are looking up. Ed has managed to jam pack the truck floor to ceiling, it looks like we might have room for everything after all.

12:30 AM- have almost everything moved out of the house... a lot of stuff siting on the front lawn waiting to go into the truck...

1:30- Holy crap! Ed, you're a freaking genius. I can't believe we got all that in the truck... even the bikes and potted plants. We leave one potted plant as a welcome to your new house gift for the buyers.

3:00- After driving truck back downtown to get garage opener we forgot from the pickup, finally arrive in Oak Park (about a mile from our new house) where we park our truck in front of the home of Nick's boss (thanks Susan!) Take blue line home for some SLEEP!!!!!

4:00 AM- finally go to bed (and by "bed" I mean left over futon mattress on floor, but hey, who's complaining)

Day one over!

Stay tuned to day two report. :)

Packing With Kitties

2007-06-28T08:29:00.000-07:00

Keenan reaches new heights by climbing on the disassembled bed to hang on top of the closet door.

Hey, I needed that box!

more moving news and photos later..

2 Days...

2007-06-27T07:51:00.000-07:00

HOLY CRAP!
*puts the champaign on ice*
*looks for back brace to mitigate moving injuries*

At Least I'll Have Something To Blog About...

2007-06-26T07:32:00.000-07:00

... is what I thought after the lady in the elevator today said to me "When is your baby due?" to which I replied "I'm not pregnant, I'm just fat."

I can't blame her. As a matter of fact, I've been waiting on this moment for a while now. Just the other day I told my coworker that I even looked forward to it, because it would be funny. It was funny, but also kind of sad.

I think the lady felt pretty dumb. She was like "oh, I"m sorry, Oh, I'm so embarrassed... You're not fat!!!" LOL

I guess its just my luck that I got the gene that makes me carry almost all my excess weight right in front, creating a misleading foux baby bump.

At least now I know that other people do indeed notice too.... *sigh*

Pride

2007-06-26T06:41:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, Nick and I were happy to march in our third (Gay) Pride Parade here in Chicago. For the record, Chicago's Pride Parade totally kicks butt. Its so much fun! and... I continue to be amazed that Pride is such a mainstream event here. Any politician who hopes to ever be re-elected, is in this parade... along with random local government offices, like the Mayors office of the Recorder of Deeds (the weirdest and most random one I saw this year.) We marched with the ACLU group, which was great. I argue that marching in the parade is much more fun than just watching the parade (although it is true that I've only ever marched and have never been a spectator). Its one of those times where you can go up to anyone on the street and go "Woooooooo!!!" and they'll go "WooooooOOOO!" back at you. I'm not sure exactly what the Woooo means... but it makes you feel good. Its like everyone is cheering for everyone else.

For those of you who might be confused as to why Nick and I (obviously a hetero couple) would march in a gay bride (haha, typo.. I mean pride) parade, well the answer is, we march as supporters... we are the "A" in the GLTBQQA (Gay, Lesbian, Trans, Bi, Queer, Questioning, and Allies). We believe that everyone, regardless of their orientation or identity, should be loved and accepted, and should have access to all the legal rights and protections as everyone else. Word!

I'd like to thank the GLTB crowed for letting is "breeders" participate in such a great shindig. We look forward to next year. Check out the pics below.

the ACLU group- "A-C-L-U We'll Fight For Them, They'll Fight For You"

We would have added "and Families" to the sign, but we aren't the ones who made it... And a Kilt, just cuz its fun! (I think we'll have to find a rainbow kilt next year)

Statue of Liberty hat symbolizing Liberty for everyone...

A few floats ahead of us, the Chipotle Burrito restaurant float... this was so clever I thought... (for those of you who don't know Spanish, "Como Estas?" is a typical greeting which means "How are you"... "Homo Estas?" means "are you Homo?" which kind of doesn't make any sense, but it sounds funny.

4 Days Holy Crap!

2007-06-25T11:08:00.001-07:00

Thanks to my trusty blog countdown timer, I realized today that we have FOUR DAYS before we close on both houses. This means, we have four days to finish packing, pack a 22 foot truck with a house, apartment, and storage unit worth full of crap. It also means, in four days, we'll be shelling out more money than I've ever spent on anything. Just a bit nerveracking...eh? But all in all, we are VERY excited. We look forward to being able to share our new digs with all of the famly and friends visitors we'll have in the future. We already have a in-laws slumber party scheduled (Nick's mom and step dad and my dad and step mom) for Labor day weekend. (We didn't go about planning a multiple in-law party, it just sort of worked out that way... but it should be fun.) We're very excited to be able to now offer our guests a real guest room (instead of a bed in the unfinished basement or a futon in the living room) as well as a real door with which to protect yourself from flying kitties (Keenan liked to hide in the rafters in the basement and jump onto the heads of our sleeping guests in the middle of the night) and/or needy puppies. Eventually, we will even have a guest bathroom, too! I feel like I'm writing an ad for "nick and jessica's bed and breakfast"... haha. We like having visitors, can you tell?

So yeah.... we're so excited... we have LOTS of work to do, but I'm sure it wont be long before we're enjoying our new place.

:)

Why I Love the City

2007-06-22T09:19:00.000-07:00

Hey blog people. So, yesterday on my walk home from work (down Michigan Ave. a couple of miles) I stopped at an intersection, waiting on the walky man, looked to my left and say this.

A guy with a bullhorn and a sandwich board talking about how Russia is making hostile moves against the U.S. by sending Russian spies to "walk the streets" in America, spy on us, and plan our demise.

Yeah, I know, the sign is illegible.. sorry. I didn't take this picture (I didn't have my camera), but lucky for me, someone else had taken his picture and had posted it on the web. Isn't the Internet great? At least, I'm about 90% sure that this is the same guy I saw. LOL.

When the light changed, I crossed the street and left Mr. Russia Is Taking Over the Planet Sandwhich Board Man behind...

I have no idea what's he's talking about (although I have been noticing that the Russian governmemt has taken to dissing us in public, lately) but he did provide a bit of entertainment on my walk home.

Random Thoughts

2007-06-21T13:31:00.000-07:00

Hi blog people. I don't have enough of one subject to talk about to justify one big post, so instead, here are several (random) thoughts....

1) I tried something new and yummy this week. Don't let the "good for you"-ness scare you off. These little cookies (Kashi Chewey Oats and Chocolate Chips) are really freaking good, AND they are quite filling, which means I tend to only eat one, or maybe two, and then I'm not hungry for a couple of hours. The chocolate chips are all gooey. YUM

2) I hear on the radio today a story about a woman who, in an attempt to fully understand just how much trash one person produces, decided to carry around all of her trash for two weeks. Anything that she couldn't recycle or compost, she had to carry with her. This is a picture of how much trash she collected after ten days, which I find VERY impressive (how little there is). I think this is a cool idea. You can also read her blog here.

3) Dude. I'd like to say to whichever Hollywood exec who decided to film a movie outside my apartment (and therefore require that all the streets and alleys near the building be closed) during the same weekend that we had planned to move out of the apartment: you SUCK!

4) We harvested an onion from our garden a couple of days ago. Its about the size of a tennis ball. We haven't eaten it yet, so I dunno how tasty it is/will be.

5) and now for a little first world guilt, complements of YouTube

Ok, that's all I've got for now. :)

Welcome!

2007-06-19T19:06:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the world, Lily Bliss, my new niece (Nick's brother's new baby).

The Leather Dilemma

2007-06-19T10:53:00.001-07:00

Hi blog people. :) I am experiencing a conundrum. As you all know, Nick and I are moving into a new house in a couple of weeks. We've been planning to purchase a new (new to us, but used by someone else is okay too) sofa. We been living in Futon-landia for the last few years, and now we're ready for some "grown up" furniture. We're interested in a modern sectional with a chaise and a ottoman. We want to have plenty of room for all six of us (Nick and I, the two dogs, and the two cats) to pile up on it, as trying to keep the animals off it is a futile matter So, we know what style we want, we know what features we want, but we aren't sure what material we want it to be made of. The short story is: if we get leather then it will be much more durable in terms of dealing with dogs and cats on it all the time, and most importantly, animal hair wont stick to it. The problem is, I'm vegetarian, albeit a slacker. While I will eat food with "meat essence" (ie: chicken broth, fish oil etc) and while I do wear (am in fact wearing right at this moment) leather shoes/belts, I do still fancy myself a conscientious veggie and therefore am having conflicted feelings about purchasing a huge leather couch. The only reason I want leather is because of the animal hair repellent factor. If there was another material that would repel animal hair but wasn't the hide of a previously alive animal, I'd totally go for that. There is vinyl, but I find it uncomfortable and responsible for sweaty-bum and legs-stuck-to-seat syndrome. Also, vinyl has some major negative environmental implications. (for purposes of being fair, here is a pro-vinyl article provided by a PVC manufacteror)

So, what do I do? Kill some cows and feed more demand into the animal products industry? Or, go for the toxic synthetic material derived from a non-renewable resource? Or, do I just suck it up, get a couch with cotton (or whatever) upholstery, and just deal with the animal hair colony which will be a certainty?

Before I Forget

2007-06-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

So, when Nick and I got married last August, we told most of you that it was okay that we didn't invite you to our extreme-short notice wedding because we said we'd have a big party this year which would act as a sort of wedding reception (with a one year delay). We'll I need to let you know that we haven't made ANY arrangements for a reception, so we probably wont be having one. We are lame, that's right. :) Of course, you are all welcome to visit us at any time. I'm just sorry I wont get to have John Kamp-DJ play my reception, since there will be no reception.

The Burbs

2007-06-17T10:01:00.001-07:00

Nick and I took a drive (what else would you take?) through our future home in the burbs yesterday. We wanted to check out the area west of Forest Park. We found the following:

Kohls, that's cool...

Ok, its true. I get really excited about Olive Garden (like jump up and down excited)... so that's cool.

And THEN we saw THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think it jumped in the car when we were at a gas station. First, I thought I felt it on my foot. Then, I thought I felt in on my hand. But, since I couldn't actually see it anywhere, I (and Nick) managed to convince myself that I was just imagining it. BUT THEN, as we stopped at a red light a few blocks from our apartment... I FOUND IT crawling up the edge my my seat... that's NOT COOL. I totally freaked out... I jumped out of the car, shook myself off... and starting walking home. No way was I getting back in the car with that thing. I'm sure that the people in cars around us thought that Nick and I had just had a big fight or something... Its not him.. it CICADA OF DEATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Books

2007-06-15T08:36:00.000-07:00

Hey blog people. This is a post about books. A lot of my blog friends regularly write book review / book list blogs. I've tried writing a couple of book reviews, but they end up being lame, so I've decided to take the minimalist approach and smush all my book related stuff into this one post. So here goes...

Thanks to the wonders of Audible.com and my iPod, I've been knocking out books right and left (at least, in comparison to my usual "can't finish a book in less than a year" habits). In the past couple of months I've finished the following books:

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
Notes: I really enjoyed this book. It fallows the domestication history of four plants (apple, tulip, potato, and pot) and liked to throw around the idea that its not we who are domesticating the plants for our ends but instead it is the plants who are using us for their ends. This book taught me that Johnny Appleseed was a wierdo; Witches' broomsticks have a much less wholesome origin than you might think; pot and hemp are actually two completely different plants (despite the dumb laws we have that fail to recognize this); and that there used to be a futures market based on tulip bulbs in Holland.

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Notes: This was the second book I read by Michael Pollan (who I am becoming obsessed with). This book follows a meal from field to plate, telling you way more than you wanted to know about where your food comes from. This book taught me that: "organic" foods aren't necessarily environmentally sound; where the food is produced is just as important as how its produced; industrial agriculture is even more repulsive than I thought; Idaho potato farmers wont eat their own potatoes; Monsanto managed to get potatoes to produce their own pesticides; and (because this list can't go on forever, cuz I have to get to other books) the Yellow Delicious in my supermarket is genetically identical to the Yellow Delicious in yours.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Notes: Ok, so I finally read this because a) I thought it was about time I understood why the number 42 is so important to the bibliophile and b) because Nick threatened to divorce me if I didn't get with it and finally read this universally understood to be awsome book (just kidding). This book didn't teach me much, but it was funny and more entertaining that I expected.

On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Notes: I can't remember why I bought this book. By the time I downloaded it from Audible, I had forgotten what it was about or why I was ever interested in it. It has a slow-ish start but I ended up getting into it and enjoying it very much. There was so much drama and people sleeping with people that they shouldn't be sleeping with, that this would make a "great" movie or maybe even, better yet, a Lifetime Original movie. This book didn't teach me much either, but it does moderately successfully discuss issues of race (the main family in the book are mixed race) which was interesting.

Currently reading:
The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman
What I think so far: very funny at times, kind of teadious at others. Definitely not a plot or thesis driven book. I dunno how its gonna go over in audiobook format (the old fassioned paper and ink book might be more conducive... although I get the feeling that the audiobook itself is treated as a performace, complete with live music etc.)

Books To Read Next:
Notes on a Scandal: What Was She Thinking? by Zoe Heller
The Assault On Reason by Al Gore
A People's History of the United States by Howard Zin
Death By Black Hole by Neil DeGrasse Tyson
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

I also bought a book called The Chicago "L" by Greg Borzo at the Printer's Row Book Fair which was last weekend. Unfortunately I have to use m eyeballs to read this one (but it does have tons of pictures) so it might take me a while to finish.

So yeah, there y'a go. I hope that was entertaining. LOL

Finally Approved!

2007-06-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

Hey there blog people! I am happy because I just received a "Congratulations! It is my pleasure to notify you that your application for a mortgage has been approved" letter. I've been basically holding my breath waiting on this for a couple of weeks now. Wow, its really happening folks! I'm about to make a huge purchase and incur a massive amount of debt. Sweet!!!

The other big news is that we've changed the closing date for our purchase to June 29, so that the closing for the sale of the Loomis house and the closing for the purchase of the new house are on the same day. This is exciting because it means we get to move into the new house two weeks earlier than we had expected. Yay!

So yeah, that's the news. :) Hope you are all doing well.

Picture Time

2007-06-10T19:38:00.000-07:00

Hey blog people. I hope you all had a nice weekend. We sure did. We went down to the house to do some work (mostly trimming tree limbs which turned out to be a bigger job than we thought; man those limbs sure look bigger when they're on the ground and you're trying to squeeze them into a trash can) and also to water the plants and generally enjoy the yard. Our friend Ed came over and we had a cookout. It was so nice! Also, I harvested some veggies from the garden. It always amazes me how excited I get about harvesting actual food from my yard and eating it. Here are some pictures:

Collard Greens

Lettuce and Spinach

Yay for veggies.

Ok, amd now (just because its impossible to have too much kitty cuteness) here's a picture from a couple of weeks ago when I found the kitties enjoying a nice lounge and lick-fest in a tub of CLEAN laundry. (geez)

El fin. Hasta Luego. :)

Wardrobe Malfunction

2007-06-08T13:12:00.000-07:00

I had a wardrobe malfunction today... wanna hear? So, I knew it was supposed to be really windy here today, but it's also quite warm so I wanted to where a skirt. I chose one that hits me just below the knees... I thought that would give me plenty of room for the skirt to blow around a bit without actually causing a problem. Well, I was wrong. When I exited my building, about the first thing that happened was my skirt got caught on the vortex of wind between my building and the tall building next door. It tried to turn completely inside out, but I caught it before I flashed anyone. But then, I'm stuck wearing this skirt all day (I should have gone home and changed right then, but I didn't). So on my way between the bus stop and my office, I had to hold both sides of my skirt down. It was uncomfortable to walk like that, and I'm sure it looked weird. I was glad to make it to the windless comfort of my office. I went to the ladies room around 10:30 for my usual morning pee and when I sat down and pulled down my underwear I REALIZED THAT I HAD ACCIDENTALLY PUT ON A PAIR OF UNDERWEAR THAT THE DOG HAD EATEN THE CROTCH OUT OF... so there I was... a skirt that wanted to fly over my head and a pair of underwear with a huge hole in the crotch. I have no idea how I put on those underwear without noticing that half of them was missing. Sheesh. So, on my lunch break, I waddled (holding my skirt down on both sides) down to the H&M and bought a pair of pants. Because I wanted to try on the pants before I bought them and because I had no crotch in my underwear and I didn't want to inflict my crotch on clothes that I wasn't sure I was going to buy, I also got a pair of underwear there too.. I took it into the dressing room and put the new underwear on before trying on the pants... then took them off, put on my stupid skirt again and went and bought both underwear and pants. Then, because H&M doesn't have a bathroom and because I couldn't figure out how to change into the pants and underwear after I had purchased them without H&M thinking I was trying to steal something, I waddled next door to the Borders Bookstore and changed in their bathroom. Sheesh. What an ordeal!!! I learned a lesson today. NEVER WEAR SKIRTS WHEN ITS WINDY and NEVER WEAR UNDERWEAR WITHOUT A CROTCH (unless you're into that sorta thing).

Once

2007-06-07T14:53:00.000-07:00

Hey. Just a quick note to tell you that if you go to this link you can stream the entire Once soundtrack (that's the movie I mentioned here about a week ago). I highly recommend the movie and the soundtrack. Check it out.

I've re-posted the trailer again. I'm obsessed with the movie. Can you tell?

Also, don't miss my other post from today (below).