month in review

merry belated christmas!  we spent the week before christmas packing and cleaning and wrapping and finishing up last-minute shopping.  and getting our shower fixed - i tried to turn it on one morning only to have water spray out from behind the handle.  no good.  the plumber came the next morning and had to replace the handle because some valve ring behind it was broken and he couldn't get a replacement as the handle is so old.  i had to take the morning off of work to be here for that, and while i had found myself thinking that i wanted a few extra hours at home to clean and wrap, i really hadn't expected it to come in the form of a $300 plumber bill.  (plus we have to have someone else out to fix the drywall and tiles where he had to cut out to access pipes.)  be careful what you wish for!

all of that got taken care of, though, so we left bright and early the saturday before christmas to drive back to illinois.  we stopped on the way in columbia, missouri to see our dear friends matt and alison and had a wonderful time catching up and hanging out, even though the visit was short.  then on to springfield - we had five full days there, and it was relaxing and fun.  we taught my parents how to play settlers of catan, saw my brother a few times, watched a few movies, and generally just had a good time.  i made a lasagna for christmas eve dinner - it was a little overdone because i set the oven's timed cook feature, but the christmas service at church started 30 minutes later than we thought, whoops.  still tasty, just not as gooey on top as it should have been.  oh well.  christmas day, i made the pioneer woman's orange marmalade rolls and some fruit salad for breakfast, we opened presents, i watched "julie & julia" on dvd with my mom in the afternoon while snacking on cheese and crackers, and then made a cranberry orange pork loin with mashed potatoes and gravy and steamed broccoli and rolls and a peach cobbler for christmas dinner!  so tasty.

the drive back yesterday was mildly more dramatic than the drive out to illinois - all was going smoothly, we used my handy iphone to find a pizza hut in oakley about 20 minutes away and called in an order, and the low fuel light popped on.  no biggie, we figured we could stop in oakley and fill up on our way to pick up dinner.  driving, driving, then suddenly the car starts shaking and scott says, "oh crap."  we were running out of gas.  we put on the hazards and got onto the shoulder in case the car stopped - i could see the lights of the oakley exit, but didn't know how far away it was.  i think we made it about two miles after wally started shaking, and managed to coast down to the bottom of the oakley exit ramp.  thankfully the gas station was right at the opposite corner of the intersection that we landed at, and it was a big travel center that had gas cans for sale.  the can was unfortunately a child-proof model that is highly frustrating to try to use when it is a) dark, b) approximately 0* with wind chill, and c) you have big gloves on, but we got it worked out in the end.  it was definitely one of those moments that you recognize god's hand of protection on you - we could have run out of gas miles from an exit or a gas station, or landed at a tiny gas station that didn't have any gas cans available, etc.  and we learned our lesson that highway speeds combined with high cross winds really eat gas - we didn't let wally get below a quarter tank for the rest of the trip.

for the bargain hunters out there

i give you: coupon geek.  i know there are a ton of coupon/bargain shopping blogs and sites out there, this just happens to be one that i've discovered in the past week.  some of her posts are freebies, some straight coupons, but most combine coupons with current sales, so that you can get things like swiss miss hot cocoa packets at target for free (which i just printed off).  have fun!

brr thru grey's

(i wrote this entry, reread it for general clarity editing and realized that it is very stream of consciousness, so i added some transitions.  that's literally how my brain works.  only when i'm talking, i don't usually add the transitions, and most of this would happen in my mind, so i'd be prone to tell you how cold it is today, then skip straight to grey's anatomy.  scott thinks it's hilarious.  oh, and speaking of mental narration, i've been listening to the sweetness at the bottom of the pie on cd book during my commute - it's set it england, thus has a british narrator.  as a consequence,  my mental narrator has had a bit of a british accent for the past week or so.  tally ho.)

i am so glad i'm inside today - it's currently 8* (feels like -9*!) with a high of 13*.  and, of course, snowy.  i don't think i have ever been so grateful for my attached garage at home, or my garage-under-my-building at work.  speaking of cold ...

we cut our christmas tree on sunday.  we were supposed to drive up to winter park with friends, but the snow storm began late saturday night and we didn't feel like risking our lives on berthoud pass just to cut christmas trees, so we found a tree farm up near greeley and went there instead.  it was cold, but fun.  we all got our trees, played on the sled with kinley, and got to watch our trees be shaken and baled to tie onto the top of the car.  all things considered, though - and i feel like a total grinch saying this - i think i'll be okay if next year we just go to a tree lot and make plans to go sledding with friends separately.  i'll probably change my mind on that by the time next december rolls around, though, so don't hold me to it!

when we got our tree home, scott chopped a few extra inches off of the bottom to get rid of some dead branches, then we took it in to put in the stand ... and it wouldn't fit!  we found a bigger tree stand at home depot, but by that point, we were running late to go back up to mike and maura's for dinner and hanging out/watching kinley decorate their tree, so we went straight there - we put our tree in the stand when we got home around 9 that evening, but have yet to decorate or light it.  maybe tonight.  we couldn't decorate it last night because ...

last week, scott would come home from work and say that he'd been bored all day (mainly because his coworker and boss just didn't have time to give him any training or set him up with files or data that he needed to get anything done).  yesterday, they evidently got things figured out, because the poor guy was at work until 9pm!  i say "poor guy", but honestly, i think he kind of liked it.  in a slightly overwhelmed sort of way, but he did like it - which is good, because it's his career, and i want him to be happy in it.  speaking of busy at work ...

i, on the other hand, am more or less alone in the office all week - one coworker is here, but all the executives are out at meetings this week.  thus, i have a few things to do, but in the 1.5 work days i've had thus far, i've caught myself up on the last 5 episodes of grey's anatomy on hulu.  i don't love the show enough to tivo it, but i do love it enough to make it my go-to show for watching at the office when it's just me here.

things to get excited about

1.  scott started a new job on monday!  he had been toying with the idea of moving on to a new job for the past few years (mostly because a larger company would provide more room to move up), of which i was generally unsupportive primarily because i don't like change.  (great wife i am!)  he was also toying with the idea of going back to school for an mba, of which i was more supportive because it involved less change, but it just wasn't happening at his old company.  anyway, this fall came and we realized that while the job market isn't amazing, overall it's a good time to move on, so he started putting his resume out there, looking online for job postings, and got set up with a recruiter.  he ended up finding this job through the recruiter - it's another financial analyst position, at a company that does i.t. infrastructure consulting.  i think both of us recognize the highs and lows of the job, but we're also both excited about the opportunities that it'll provide.  and yes, they do have a further education reimbursement plan, so hopefully he'll be settled in enough by next fall to start taking a class or two!  oh, and also - their current office is like 5 minutes from our house!

2.  i found my white scarf in the closet this morning.  i misplaced it probably two weeks ago, so i was very excited when i found it in there - it's the little things.

3.  we put up outside christmas lights for the first time ever this weekend.  (first we spent about two hours shopping around for lights - we wanted the big bulbed multicolor led lights: target had them but we wanted to get a price comparison, so we tried walmart, home depot, lowe's, and sam's to no avail ... then we found out they were on sale at target after all, whoops.  oh, and when we got home and i got out the box o' christmas decorations from the basement, i realized that i had purchased white icicle lights on clearance at walmart last year.  whoops again.  we put up the multicolor ones.)  i took pictures but have neglected to upload them so far - it's nothing too amazing, just your basic single strand along the gutter/peak all along the front of the house, plus a string of smaller multicolor bulbs looped around the iron rail along the front porch.  i think it's a good start, though.  we can worry about the pretty light nets for the bushes once we actually have bushes we want to show off.  i will say that having outlets on the front of our house would make this whole christmas light thing a lot easier, by the way.  also, i'm very thankful for having a husband who's not afraid of heights and thus is not afraid to climb up on the roof to string lights.  i climbed to the top of our 6 foot ladder to peek into a gutter to see if i could figure out why it was leaking and i got dizzy.

4.  we leave to drive back to illinois for christmas in two and a half weeks!  so exciting.  we'll be able to stop and see our friends matt and alison from college for a night along the way - not to mention the fact that she's pregnant and will be about 21 weeks by that point, so i'll get to see her with a cute baby bump!  i think we'll be back in springfield for 5 or so days before we have to drive back.  i'm looking forward to it as i haven't been back to my parents' house since christmas '07, plus they've been doing a bunch of fun renovations and redecorating.  (and it means that actual christmas is only three and a half weeks away!)

5.  we got a new tv on friday!  it's a jvc 42" lcd tv with a built in ipod dock.  ooh la la.  scott had been wanting a new tv for basically the past year and i finally told him this summer that we could save up for one for ourselves for christmas.  with my handy dandy consumer reports online membership, i looked through the ratings, this one got great reviews, and sam's club had it on a smokin deal.  we didn't upgrade to hd cable, but even without that, you can tell that it has a way better picture.  as in, when scott's watching a football game, you can see that the score in fact ends in a 6 rather than an 8.

6.  we got up at 4:30am on friday (yikes, right?) to get to sam's to see if they had our tv on an extra sale.  they didn't, of course, but we figured we were up, so we may as well hit up the black friday sales ... and got probably 75% of our christmas shopping done with, most of it on great sales.  yay!  i think we came up with some good ideas of gifts for people.

how did i not know this?

scott's parents got us a nice digital camera a few years ago for christmas - i think i posted a few months ago that i realized that i can play with the aperature and shutter speeds and things like that.

fast forward to this morning, i was looking at flip video cameras because a tiny pocket sized camcorder sounded like a fun thing.  i was checking out the video resolution, then wondered what kind of resolution we have on our current digital camera (which also takes video!) - found our camera's manual online, and it turns out that we have 640 x 480, which is the same as the non-hd flips, thus, is probably not too shabby.  nix the flip from the christmas list.

as i continued to scroll through the online manual, though, i got to pages 108-109 and stopped short.  could it be ... ?  no ...  wait, but that picture  ...  i can get lenses for my point-and-shoot camera!  fuji sells a special lens adapter that fits around the existing lens, then it has special lenses that fit onto the adapter.  i think that they only have two lenses - a wide angle and a tele angle - but still, that's better than my current nothing!  i frantically googled around, and heaved a giant sigh of relief when i found that you can still buy the lenses and the adapter.  i've been itching for a nice dslr, and maybe someday will get one, but in the meantime, i've got a sweet point-and-shoot with lots of pseudo-slr capabilities.  i'll probably continue stalking the pioneer woman's site in hopes that she'll do a dslr giveaway again someday, though, not going to lie.

sorry so remiss

wow, this is not a month of inspired postings on my part, is it?  let's see, things going on here:

1.  this last saturday, we got to drive down to c. springs with mike and maura and kinley to see our old friends lori and aaron and their daughter (now 8 months old!  this is the third time we've seen them since they moved back in july) and their new house down there.  the visit was a lot of fun, as usual, but it started snowing early in the evening, so the roads coming back to denver were not fun.  we made it home alive and in one piece, though.

2.  thanksgiving is a week from tomorrow and i'm trememdously excited.  in part for the food (mike and maura are having us over for dinner - her parents are in town for the holiday this year), but also for the 4 day weekend.  love it.  plus, thanksgiving means the start of christmas music season, and that i can put my pretty red berry wreath (from the martha stewart collection at kmart a few years ago) on my front door.  also, and i guess this goes back to the food, i get to make green bean casserole, and that's never a bad thing.  i'm debating making an extra green bean casserole for my fridge since i'm not sure if we'll have any leftovers from dinner, but i think that might be considered glutonous.

3.  on saturday, one of the girls in our sunday school class is having a craft and cookie afternoon at her house, and i'm a little bit excited for that, too.  i can't precisely decide what to bring - on the one hand, i started a little knit scarf for kinley like two years ago that i paused on because i realized that kids shouldn't wear scarves until they're two, so i need to get that finished if i want to get it to her for christmas.  on the other hand, i'd really like to start cutting my quilt squares for my picnic quilt and that might be a good motivation to work on that.  knitting might be more portable.  (the scarf is cute - it's a pale yellow, because i started it before kinley was born and they didn't find out the gender beforehand, and ribbed.  each row is something like 3 knit, 3 perl, etc, which makes a nice fat ribbing when you do it right.  i'm going to see if i can get some bright yarns and make brightly colored pompom tassels on the ends.)

4.  in a stroke of dinner genius last week, i made spicy honey-brushed chicken thighs for dinner on wednesday, then chopped up the leftover thighs on thursday, added rice, black beans, chopped tomatoes, lettuce, and sour cream - and voila, chicken burrito bowls!  (spicy honey brushed chicken thighs are basically the easiest thing to make - especially if you use my generous sprinkling method of seasoning, rather than measuring out spices and rubbing them on.  so what, like 10 minutes of effort for two dinners?  sweet.)  unfortunately i decided at the grocery store last time that i would give dried beans a try, and despite soaking for about 10 hours during the day and then simmering on the stove for close to an hour while we were at the gym pre-dinner, the beans were pretty tough.  i've heard that slow cooking dried beans all day works well, though, so we'll give that a try next time.  i saved the leftover beans for slow cooked chili this next weekend, i'll call that my trial run.

the dump

a few weeks ago, after finishing trimming our bushes for the fall, we loaded up all of our yard refuse and a few old sections of fencing that were laying around the yard from when we had the wall redone, i think, into scott's truck and headed to the dump.  (which, by the way, is not cheap - $45 for us to unload our bed full of bush trimmings.)

anyway, it was my first time being even remotely near a dump, and i have to say, it's probably one of the more humbling experiences i've had in my life.  from the outside, driving up, it almost looks like a ranch - rolling grassy hills surrounded by fencing.  once you get inside, driving back on the dirt roads toward the dumping point, it still almost looks like a ranch, but with much taller grassy hills.  i commented on how pretty it was, then realized, oh wait, that hill is probably made of trash - just older trash that's been covered and seeded.  we drove up to the dumping area and parked alongside 4-5 other pickups (with a line of trucks waiting for us to vacate our spots).  you get out, and you're standing on dirt, but if you look, you can see plastic grocery sacks mixed in with the dirt, and pieces of trash sticking out the top.  there are giant machines with enormous spiked tools on the front churning up dirt to break down and cover the trash as people dump it.  then you drive away and realize that the dumping area is itself on top of a hill, and that hill is probably made up entirely of trash mixed with churned up dirt.

garbage seems very sanitary when you throw it away at home.  put it in a plastic bag in the cupboard, when it gets too full, move it to the canister behind the garage, take the outside cans to the curb once a week and it disappears while you're gone at work.  put most of your recyclables in the green tubs in the garage, except when it's a margarine container and you don't feel like cleaning out the bits of margarine left on the sides of the plastic tub so you just throw it in the trash, or the junk mail when you're cleaning off the counter and the tiny recycle bin in the cupboard is pushed to the back and you don't want to kneel down and retrieve it - then you just put those in the trash.

somehow actually seeing the landfill and realizing that your curbside bags of trash combine with the other 2.3 million people in the metro area's trash puts it into perspective, though.  the stuff i throw out is actual trash, does go to a real landfill, and will sit there for a long long time, making giant hills while it decomposes.  i'm trying to get better about actually putting recyclables in the recycling bin, but it's a little frustrating that there's really only so much that you can do - part of being a consumer is that you consume things, and unfortunately, a lot of things right now have giant plastic cases and styrofoam included.

voice

now that we have paid $50 or whatever for qwest phone service to be installed in our home (+ $27/mo after taxes and fees), i think i have a brilliant idea for cheap phone service:

google voice is more or less here, and basically its function is to give you a single phone number that people can call which will forward calls to ring on any and all of your phones - home, cell, work, you name it.  that's kind of awesome because that means that people don't have to try each of your numbers individually to track you down.  the downside is that in terms of home phone service, you still have to have a landline.  in reading the comments on an article about the service on cnn, though, i came across a user who combines google voice with a magicjack and bypasses the normal monthly landline charge.  color me intrigued.

according to magicjack's website, you pay $40 for a little flash drive sized gadget that lets you plug in a normal home phone on one end and plug the device into a usb port on your computer on the other, and voila, home phone service.  $40 for the gadget and first year of service, $20/year after that and you get unlimited local and long distance calls plus call waiting and caller id.  there are pretty mixed reviews online - some people think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, others can't get it to work for the life of them.  but there's a free 30 day trial, apparently, so i think i might order one and give it a whirl.  there are definitely downsides - 1) we have laptops, rather than a desktop, which means that having our phone plugged into a usb port could be a little bit cumbersome; 2) the magicjack only works if your computer is up and running with good internet signal, but ours usually are.  if it works, though, it could easily save us $280-300/year - and would let us place long distance calls from our home phone.  add the convenience of google voice's free single number to reach us anywhere, and you've got a pretty sweet setup.

foodie

another new recipe for your tasting pleasure: whole wheat pasta with broccoli sauce.  pappardelle's pasta is a local "gourmet" pasta company (seriously, i just checked their little online store, and it's like $7.50/lb for their pastas) - i've never had their pasta, but my coworker picked up some pasta at a farmer's market this summer, and it came with this recipe.  i just used barilla whole wheat fettucine, and normal broccoli instead of broccoli rabe.  (primarily because a) i'm not entirely sure what broccoli rabe is - some type of green?, and b) i don't think my across-the-street grocery store has broccoli rabe, and i didn't feel like going down the street to whole foods.  plus i like broccoli.)  oh, and i used reduced fat cream cheese.  and i added italian sausage since scott basically boycotts meatless meals.

my edits aside, though, it's a really easy/tasty pasta recipe.  the cream sauce is really light - it's mostly chicken broth with a little cream cheese melted in, so it's not heavy and thick like an alfredo sauce.  the sauce is almost more like a glaze on the pasta; it gives a nice flavor to every bite without being overwhelming.  i did a 1.5 recipe since there were 8 of us total for dinner, but we have probably enough for a good lunch or dinner for both of us left (we served salad and garlic bread with it).  i'll have to figure out how to reduce it down to be suitable for a dinner for 2, but i'll definitely be making it for us again.  maybe like 1/2 box pasta, 1/2 cup ckn broth, 1 onion, 1 broccoli crown (since 2 was about a pound), and 3 tablespoons cream cheese.  anyway, i recommend it highly.  (particularly if your husband makes homemade creampuffs drizzled with chocolate icing and with strawberries on the side for dessert.)

speaking of amazing dinners, we went out for indian last night, and wow.  there's an indian place in a little strip mall that's basically in the parking lot of the home depot near us that we had seen and wondered about, then we got a coupon in the mail and figured we'd give it a whirl.  apparently the newspaper restaurant reviewer gave it an a-, and i'd say that's spot on.  we tried the chicken ticca masala and the chicken curry (yes, both mild, we've been burned before by too-spicy indian food) and the plain naan, and it was SO GOOD.  so good.  so so good.  good to the extent that i can't express in writing how tasty it was - i think "mmmmmmmmm" is the only phrase coming to mind that sums it up.  apparently our coupon is only good sunday-thursday (whoops), but we were not at all sad that we'll just have to go back another time to use it.  we shared leftovers today at lunch, and still loved it.

oh!  and another terrific recipe that i tried and loved this week: tilapia tacos.  i've always made fish tacos with tuna steaks before, but tilapia was so much cheaper at the grocery that i went for it and figured i'd make do.  i was really pleased, though - the tilapia cooks quickly since the filets are so thin, and it has such a mild flavor that you think more "mm, good tacos" than "ah yes, i'm clearly eating fish tacos that happen to be tasty".  (i almost didn't make them because i was just so not in the mood for fishy smell/taste.)  i'm not much one for measuring my spices, nor am i one for spice blends, so i just threw some cumin, coriander, chili powder, cayenne pepper, and maybe some garlic powder and salt and pepper on the tilapia (on each side), then squeezed some (bottled) lime juice in and let it cook.  my filets fell apart in the cooking process, so i just used the spatula to flake it up in the pan.  very good!  i had an avocado in the fridge that was about half-good still, so we chopped up the good parts, added some cherry tomato, and sour cream - yummy.

i'm impressed, we've eaten well this week.  okay, monday night we had the mini cheese pizzas that came with our jack o'lantern pizza from papa murphy's last saturday - they weren't amazing - and tuesday night i made cheeseburger crescent rolls.  but hey, three days in a row of good food is not too shabby.

i like budgeting

for the past few months when i'm done with reconciling and budgeting, i've been doing a tally of how long it will take us to meet various goals at our current savings rate.  right now on the board i have a full 6-months-of-expenses emergency fund, paying off my student loans, and getting a small retirement account started.

when i first started the projection back in july, we were 15 months out from meeting our goals, which would put us at completion in october '10.

between getting better about staying on budget (thus increasing monthly savings) and an anticipated bonus, i think we're now about 10 months out, which is august '10.  however, as we're currently on the last month of throwing money into our savings account, i think the most exciting part of my projection is that my student loans will get paid off in july '10!  it feels very satisfying to know that this set of goals is very much within reach - and to know that by our 5th wedding anniversary, we'll be debt free except for our mortgage.

ode to walden and snow

wally definitely earned his keep in the last two days!  with not having his snow tires on yet, there's no way scott would have been able to get around town in his truck - he said the interstate wasn't really plowed yet when he went up to a meeting in lowry around 10:30am.  honestly, if we didn't have wally, neither of us probably would have made it off of our street - we live on a tiny side street that will never be plowed, and the intersection with the secondary street we live off of just gets so snow and ice packed, erma wouldn't have been able to make it out.  this morning, scott left at the same time as me with the intention that if he got stuck, we would try to rig up a tow so that wally would help haul truck out of the ice.  he managed to get through on his own, but still - it's nice to now that we have an option like that.  (although it might be a more solid option if, you know, we actually had a hitch on the back of wally.)

we measured the snow on the driveway at about 5pm last night, and there was actually 1/2" less than there had been that morning despite the fact that it had been snowing all day.  i think the snow yesterday was a lot heavier and wetter than the snow from wednesday, so it sort of compacted what was underneath - i noticed, too, that along the back wall, the drifts had fallen about 2" by yesterday night from where they were in the morning.  so i'll estimate that we got maybe 17" of snow all told, which really only equals about 1-2" of rain!  isn't that crazy?  it kind of makes sense, though - i had wondered how colorado has so many drought/water issues when we get such ridiculous amounts of snow in the mountains every year, but the 300+" of snow the mountains get equals probably 20-30" of rain - most likely closer to 20" since so much of it is the dry powder.  granted, that is over the entire high country, which is pretty big - colorado has the most land over 10,000 feet in the u.s.  i checked aspen, steamboat, and telluride's annual snowfalls, and they're all over 300" of snow, and the three towns are very spread out.  hmm, although this other site says like 136" of snow annually for aspen, which is pretty different ...  either way, a ridiculous amount of snow doesn't necessarily mean a ridiculous amount of precipitation.

snow day!

i'm currently enjoying a snow day at home!  we shoveled 8" off of the driveway last night at around 5pm, and by 7:30am today had another 7" built up.  i haven't measured since then, so we'll call it 15" and counting.  we closed the office at 1:30 yesterday, and i'm off today, too!  the office is technically open today, but we don't have the snow tires on scott's truck yet, so he needs the forester to get around today.  we were just planning that i would drop him off at work and then pick him up afterward, but it turns out he has a meeting this morning up nearish my work then needs to get back to his office down south.  we were trying to figure out the logistics of both getting to where we need to be, and i was planning on asking my coworker who lives near us for a ride back down here after work, but she took pity on me and told me not to worry about coming in since they really don't need two people there today.  yes, i do feel a little bit guilty ... but i'm still going to enjoy my pajama day.

check out my facebook for snow pictures.

around-the-house weekend

dinner last night turned out well!  i was skeptical at how the bread would turn out - i felt like i had to add a lot of extra flour to make the dough non-sticky - but it was good!  the recipe turned out two big round loaves, and our small group (8 adults plus a 2 year old last night) pretty much polished them both off.  definitely will add extra cornmeal to the baking sheet next time, as the loaves stuck pretty thoroughly after baking.  green beans were very tasty, but not as much of a hit as the bread.  squash was also quite good - even scott ate two pieces, and he normally won't touch squash with a ten-foot pole!  i probably should have cooked it an extra few minutes, but it's hard to tell how long to cook stuff when you have an oven crammed full ... plus my oven door sort-of broke (a very important screw fell out) mid-cooking, and i was tired of trying to hold the door together to check on the squash.

oh, and the beef stroganoff from saturday was also super tasty.  the downside of cooking dinner in the crockpot all day while you're at home is that you can smell dinner all day and thus you're hungry all day.  it's definitely a recipe i'll keep on hand for future use, though.  (the reviews on cooking light's website said that they thought the sauce on the stroganoff was a little bit runny.  i added probably an extra cup of liquid - plus a little worcestershire sauce - because i didn't think there'd be enough liquid to keep the stroganoff from burning over 8-9 hours of cooking, and we thought the sauce was perfect.  oh, and i used dried parsley instead of fresh, and some rosemary and tarragon instead of dill because i didn't have any, and it was still good.)

anyway, this leads me to a list of things we broke this weekend:
1.  two wine glasses.  the pretty green pottery barn ones that we bought after our wedding, that i had carefully stored in a cabinet for three years, then happily put in a wine glass rack above our sink when we moved into the house.  we started with six, and now have three.  (and no, pb doesn't make them anymore.)  scott was doing dishes, thrust up his arms to get his sleeves out of the way of the soapy water, and knocked two off of the rack - which is, ironically, precisely what happened to the third one back at easter.
2.  my favorite cutting board.  it was a gripperwood board, so it had lovely little rubber feet on the bottom so that it didn't slide around the counter when you cut.  acorn squash are evidently very dense and hard - i was using my biggest, sharpest knife to cut them for dinner on sunday, but the knife became wedged mid-cut.  my ill-advised solution was to grab the handle of the knife, pick up the whole thing - squash and knife wedged together - and smack it on the cutting board a few times to try to make the knife finish cutting through.  it did finish chopping through the squash, but also broke my cutting board in half.
3.  an extension cord.  scott was out front finishing trimming the bushes saturday morning, i heard the electric (corded) hedge trimmer start up, and 10 seconds later scott was inside with a sad look on his face - he'd accidentally cut through the extension cord.  yes, this is the second time it's happened in the year that we've owned the thing - i think the first time was within the first few minutes of its use - but to his credit, it is easy to accidentally do.  i used the trimmer to cut back the barberries that overhang the driveway, and almost cut the cord a few times myself.
4.  oven door.  well, we didn't really break this, it more sort of broke itself.  one of the screws at the top inside the door fell out while i was cooking for small group - i had to hold the door together with an ovenmitt every time i opened it until we found the screw (in a little lip on the drawer under the oven).  it's fixed, now, though, thank goodness.
5.  my tire.  again, didn't really break it.  friday night while we were out, the low tire pressure light came on - the last time it came on a month and a half ago, the tires were just a little low, so we didn't think much of it.  got to church on sunday, i'm standing by the rear of the car waiting for scott to get his stuff out of the back seat, look down, and see a squished tire.  whoops.  it was at 14psi, we filled it up and by this morning it's back down to 26psi.  wally's at goodyear right now getting patched up.

inspired!

i was googling around this morning, trying to figure out how to recover glider cushions, and i am completely inspired now.  isn't this the cutest glider ever??  i love the colors, and the patterns.  those are amy butler fabrics, in case you're curious.  (if you ever want to know what the trendy fabric of the moment is, go to a trendy diy site like, say, etsy, search for a trendy item like, say, a wristlet, and read the descriptions of the cutest looking ones.  amy butler, my friends.)  i'm not sure that scott would go for a crazy floral turquoise glider in our otherwise mostly green and brown living room, and i'm not sure that i want to pay amy butler prices (which granted i've only checked out online), but seriously, that is a piece of furniture that i would not be ashamed to have in my house.

for real, though, i'm not letting myself start on that until i'm done with my picnic quilt, and with making a collage for a friend.  i think sometimes that i like ideas better than i like projects.

why i like family, among other things

so i have to confess that the number one reason why i enjoy family coming into town is entirely self-serving: free dinner out.  scott's half-sister (yes, that makes her my sister-in-law, but as i have four of them i thought i'd specify) and her boyfriend are in from california for a work conference and offered to take us and goo out to dinner.  we originally thought they'd be in denver, but turns out his daughter lives in boulder, so they're based up there for the week - who are we to pass up a free dinner just because of a 45 minute drive, though?  we're driving up to boulder after work.  :)  i have absolutely no idea how nice we're talking, or where we'll be going, so i'm wearing my normal jeans and cardigan to work, and brought a skirt in case they take us someplace nice.  i even wore a necklace today.  (edit: scott just told me that the angels playoff game is tonight, his half-sister is a huge angels fan, so we're going to this sports bar called the lazy dog up in boulder to do dinner and watch it.  i'm possibly more excited about that than i was about a fancy dinner because i love the lazy dog.  there was one in denver when we first moved out and we went there all the time to watch games, but it closed a few years ago.  they have amazing bbq chicken pizza, and i get to wear jeans.)

other exciting things this week:
- i bought a chair for $25 off of craigslist.  a glider and gliding ottoman, to be specific.  it was just such a good deal, i love gliders, and i have the perfect nook for it in my upstairs living room.  (right next to the stairs in the big empty space.)  the cushioning is in really good condition, and it's going to be the comfiest place to sit and read once i get it recovered.  the current fabric is plush and shiny, sort of gray with blue and pink streaks in it, very early 90's.  if i can convince scott to let me out of house project duty for a while on saturday, i think i'll run down to joann fabrics and see what sort of upholstery fabrics they have available, and how much it's going to set me back.  i'm very excited about my project.  almost as excited as i am for the picnic quilt that i already have fabric purchased for.

- i spent a good 5 minutes both last week and this week arguing with the kid i tutor about how old he is.  he was born in december of '98, so he's 10, right?  except he thinks that because he was born in 1998 and it's now 2009, that makes him 11.  *sigh.

- we got to use my office seats for the last pre-season nuggets game on tuesday night.  we used them a few weeks ago when they played belgrade (which is in serbia, fyi), and i will confess that watching two american teams play each other is much more exciting.  we ate dinner at home before the game with the solid intention of NOT getting junk food there ... but you can really only sit in the presence of things like nachos and hot dogs for so long before you crave something.  scott got us a churro in the 3rd quarter.

-  i got to work out, eat home made chicken pot pie, and have a 2 hour long phone date with my friend alison last night.

- and i'm very excited about cooking this upcoming weekend: i bought some stew beef on clearance sale a while ago, and finally had a brainstorm last month that i can use it to make beef stroganoff.  i did some investigating today and found a slow-cooker beef stroganoff recipe on cooking light that i'll be making for dinner on saturday.  then sunday night we're hosting small group, and the host typically makes dinner for the group to eat together beforehand.  i think the last time we hosted, i didn't feel like cooking, so we got papa murphy's pizza for the group.  this time, though ... oh, this time i'm making a small fall feast.  chicken legs, green bean salad amandine, homemade rosemary walnut bread, and the pioneer woman's sweet-roasted rosemary acorn squash wedges.  trust me, i'll let you know how it all goes.  and if you've never made chicken legs before, i highly recommend you give it a whirl - all you need is chicken legs and a canister of italian breadcrumbs which you can get generically for like $1.29 and lasts for forever.  dump out a small pile of breadcrumbs on a plate, roll your thawed chicken legs (yes, skin and all) around in it one at a time until they're coated, put them on a sprayed baking sheet, bake at 425* for like 35-40 minutes, and voila.  cheap, easy, seriously tasty stuff.

in case we ever have triplets

so last week on glee, there was a scene where a couple was discussing baby names, and the guy suggested the name "drizzle".  that made us laugh, and scott was commenting that it's the double-z that makes a name awkward.  (because the fact that the name is drizzle is not generally awkward enough?)  i asked what real names have a double-z, and he said, "oh you know, fuzzy ... wuzzy ... wuzzabear."

as in:
fuzzy wuzzy was a bear
fuzzy wuzzy had no hair
fuzzy wuzzy wasn't very fuzzy, was he?

if we ever have triplets, they're doomed.

the high school movie

scott had a bad cold last week and was still feeling sicky this weekend, so in addition to our previously planned tailgating prior to going to the airforce v. wyoming game with friends on saturday and yardwork on sunday, we ended up chilling and watching movies.  since we'd already rented two redboxes, scott consented to watching 10 things i hate about you (the fabulous 1999 teen movie, not the undoubtedly trashy new tv show that i haven't actually watched) on saturday night, and it got us to thinking - what happened to the high school movie?

the eighties had a zillion amazing high school movies, from the breakfast club to sixteen candles to say anything.  the nineties had instant classics like clueless, can't hardly wait, and she's all that.  this decade has had ... what, high school musical?  does that even count?  i guess bring it on was technically made in 2000, but come on, today's high school seniors were going into 4th grade when it came out.  yes, mean girls was made in '04, and it was a fabulous example of a high school movie until lindsay lohan turned into a trainwreck and most likely a "mean girl" herself ... it's just not so amusing anymore.  superbad?  yikes.  it just makes me feel bad for the current generation of high schoolers.

sheesh

i just finished madness, marya hornbacher's book about her bipolar - it was a much faster read for me than wasted and slightly less intense, but still, holy cow.  i am oh so very thankful that i don't have any mental illness to deal with, and also that my husband doesn't.  in college, i remember reading kay redfield jamison's an unquiet mind (among other memoirs about mental illness, like girl, interrupted and undercurrents), and while i haven't read an unquiet mind in probably four and a half years, the difference between bipolar i (madness) and bipolar ii (unquiet) is really startling.  to the best of my recollection, bipolar i is more severe and is typically marked by more mania and mixed episodes, whereas bipolar ii, while still clearly a major problem, is typically more treatable and involves more depression and fewer major manic episodes.  right?  either way, i feel like madness really rounded out my mental picture of bipolar.  not that it really matters that i have a well-rounded impression of bipolar disorder, but hey, i evidently find it interesting.

next up on my reading list is apparently the narcissism epidemic: living in the age of entitlement - i say "apparently" because i had placed a hold for it at the library and my copy came in this week.  then back to finish up the (i think) four books that i have sitting half-finished at home.  hmm.

and now, since i'm at work, i think i'll go do some work.  most of the office is out at meetings this week, so i'm just sending out some (and by some, i mean like 75) tax documents out certified, which is quite tedious work ... thus i wore my yoga pants and uggs into the office for maximized comfort, and plan on catching up on this season of grey's anatomy on hulu while i work.  i really can't complain.

glee and marriage philosophy

[quick preface: if you only read my blog via reader or e-mail, please go to my real blog site now to ooh and aah over my new format.  i'm very proud - i found the background through a blog, then decided i wanted to change the fonts, so i went to kevinandamanda.com, downloaded and installed her super cute free (free!) fonts, used her tutorial on how to change the font for the sidebar and post titles, and then used microsoft word and irfanview to create the text picture for the header.  it's way easier than you'd think to put the words on a transparent background - when you're saving as a gif, there's an option on the right to set a color as transparent.  anyway, go check it out - i like it a lot, and i'm quite pleased with myself that i was able to figure out how to do all that.]

 

so we were watching glee last night, loving it as usual, but at the end of the episode i found it really troubling that the main character is a married man, but you're completely rooting for him to not be with his wife.  i'm clearly anti-affair, and as a general principle don't think that divorce is a good option ... and yet when it comes to will schuester and his conniving wife terri and sweet co-worker emma - i want him to leave his jerk of a wife and go be happy with emma!  yes, it is just a show and they're just fictional characters, but i do think that the media we consume can shape our views and thoughts.  i don't know.  i like the show, and i have no plans of cancelling my tivo season pass for it (especially since it's not necessarily any "worse" morally than any other show on tv, and a lot better than many), it just made me stop and think.

food for thought: 

• does empathizing with a fictional character who you think "should" leave or cheat on his wife make a person more likely to consider the same behavior in real life?
• as a christian, i hold to the bible's teaching that divorce should really only be an option in instances of adultery (and, i'll add, abuse).  (disclaimer: clearly plenty of christians get divorced every day for reasons beyond those two, and while it makes me sad, i'm not going to condemn them for it.)  should marriages between non-christian hold to that standard as well?
• what is the purpose of marriage in a society where 50% of marriages end in divorce?
• for non-christians, is there any real difference between marriage and committed co-habitation?  which is preferable?
• realistically, are there any differences between the marriages of non-believers and those of christ-followers?  (here, i mean real, legitimate christians who are actively following christ - not people who claim the title christian but show no life change.)  what about non-believers and christians (by which i mean people who claim the title and may or may not actually put any belief behind it)?

because i'm a planner

so evidently working out doesn't make my legs immune to walking down ridiculous numbers of stairs. the last time i did the my building's full building evacuation drill (two years ago), i remember my calf muscles were in knots for a full week afterward - and so far, it's looking to shape up the same way this time, too. what a drag.

on a positive note, i discovered close to $1800 in my checking account that we had left over from transfers made for things like landscaping and purchasing walden that didn't get used! i had known for a while that the checking account looked abnormally full, but couldn't decide why and didn't feel like going back through my savings tab to figure it out until this week. even though it's clearly money we already had, it's still fun to be able to transfer it back into savings and mark it down on my spreadsheet. if all goes according to plan, our 6-month emergency fund should be fully re-funded by mid-november, which will allow us to put extra money each month at my student loans, and we could have those paid off by next august! *fingers crossed* at that point, we could throw money toward any number of things - saving for a new car for scott, retirement, paying down our mortgage ... the sky's the limit!

the treadmill ...

remember the pioneer woman? turns out she has a has a cookbook coming out later this month, and is doing a book tour. book tour? as in traveling to different cities to talk and sign books? yes, friends. i merrily clicked on the link to her book tour page to find out when she'll be in denver ... and found out pw will be in town on a monday night, which is when i have whiz kids. blerg. i was thisclose. alas!
__________

we've been working out at the rec center near us for the past year, and i have to say that other than the few weeks that we did weights in 10th grade p.e., this is probably the first time in my life that i've actually enjoyed and looked forward to working out. i'm glad for that, because a few years ago i really despaired that i would never enjoy exercising but felt like i should do it anyway.

along with enjoying working out, i'm also enjoying the benefits of working out - not that i've lost any weight (which doesn't really make sense to me), but that i'm definitely in better shape than i was pre-workout era. i remember the first time i used the elliptical, i lasted like 10 minutes and was huffing and puffing the whole time with a ridiculously high pulse rate; now i have to remind myself to get off after 25 minutes so that i can get some stretching and weights in before scott's done with his workout. the first time we rode our bikes last spring, i think we rode for a grand total of 20 minutes and my legs felt like jelly afterward; our last few rides of the season, we were out for close to two hours and went home because it was pitch dark out and we have no bike lights.

the point of this storytime, though, is that i very proudly reached a new milestone in my workouts last night. the past few times at the gym, i didn't feel like i was coming away feeling as pushed as i used to, so i decided to step it up a notch and hit the treadmill. the treadmill. i have only used a treadmill one other time in my life, when we lived at our first apartment out here that had a mini-gym in the community building. i think it went well, though. i spent about 25 minutes on there, half each running and walking, split up into several minute segments. the gym does have an indoor running track, too, and maybe i'll venture up there eventually; for right now, stepping out of my elliptical comfort zone within the safety of the cardio machine section is enough. when we got home post-gym last night, i realized that after spending an hour at the gym, i actually felt energized rather than ready to collapse. my legs (and ribs??) ache for sure, but in a good, i-pushed-myself-and-won kind of way. i guess getting out of your comfort zone every once in a while is a good thing.
_______

oh, and for dinner last night, i made stuffed peppers. they turned out well! i used a salt-free tomato sauce and felt like i added a ton of salt to the rice/meat mixture and that it was still bland, so i'll probably use a normal tomato sauce next time. and maybe add a few dashes of tabasco to the mix. i was skeptical, but one stuffed pepper each was really enough for us for dinner - scott did request that we have corn and/or beans on the side next time, which i suppose is a request i can accomodate. all in all, very tasty - i recommend it.

lazy lazy weekend

oh my, what a lazy weekend. we had planned on going apple picking with friends yesterday, but then that fell through so scott watched the football game with the alumni assoc downtown while i hung out at home and did laundry and baked. (pumpkin chocolate chip cookies - they turned out very well, even if the recipe does make them a little bit fluffier and cakier than i typically go for. i stepped out to run errands later in the afternoon, came home to the overwhelming smell of baked pumpkin, and found myself craving turkey and mashed potatoes.) we had my office tickets for the nuggets pre-season opener vs. belgrade last night, and scott looked up insults such as "you suck" in serbian on my iphone before i took it away from him. i made up for it by cheering for them - they only had like 40 fans in the entire audience (shocker), so i felt bad. scott tells me that i'm going to be that soccer mom who cheers for the opposing team if they're losing. haha!

today i did even less than yesterday: sunday school, church, lunch with sunday school, then home for a 2.5 hour nap followed by sitting on the couch watching tv and reading john grisham's the innocent man. scott did take me for a walk just now which made me feel at least a little less slothful. aaaaaand, that's my weekend.

i think as an adult i like summer for the same reasons that i liked fall as a kid: it's when new things happen. by mid-summer, i really just wanted a week of doing nothing on my couch at home because we were so busy and traveling and doing new things and hanging out with friends all the time, but now that fall has hit and things are calming down to the point where i can basically spend an entire weekend at home doing nothing, i really miss our fun active summer. and yes, i really was that crazy kid who loved fall because i got to go back to school and see friends and play soccer and be busy. i'm pretty sure i even told me 5th grade teacher that i liked doing homework on weekends.

scott just finished doing his spiritual gifts survey for the application to do children's ministry (we're working in the nursery together once a month starting this fall!), so i'm off to make an evite for a bbq for our sunday school class next weekend. and in case you were wondering, my "spiritual gifts" are administration 89% and servant/helps and hospitality each 78%; scott's are leadership 89% and administration and teaching each 78%.

revision of opinion

i stand corrected: apparently mackenzie phillips speaking out about the completely icky nature of her relationship with her father has led to an increased number of people calling into sexual abuse hotlines - which hopefully means that more abusive relationships are being reported and stopped. in that case, while i'm still super grossed out by the story, well done, mackenzie phillips.

bow ties revisited

so i was alone on the elevator with the bow tie wearer from across the hall just now, we exchanged hello's, and i then spent the next 45 seconds trying to figure out how to ask him how he decided upon bow ties. today's casual day at their office, though, so he was wearing jeans, a purple striped shirt, and a blazer - and no tie - and i just couldn't figure out how to phrase the question without making him think that i was a) stalking, or b) flirting with him. perfect opportunity lost; now the world will never know.

h1n1

h1n1 is closing in. hearing about it on the news, it's easy to think that i'll be able to get through this flu season without getting sick - but in the past day, goo told me that her roomie likely has h1n1 and so asked if she can camp out at our place this weekend, and our building managment sent out an e-mail that someone in the building got h1n1 this week. plus, whiz kids starts on monday so i'll be around 22 grade schoolers once a week every week, and we all know what a breeding ground that is. *sigh. i'm trying to resign myself to the fact that i'm almost definitely going to get sick, and i am not a fan of that. i hate puking and fevers and using personal days at work just to lay in bed sick.

also, i'm very sad to report that chicago did not win the olympic bid for 2016. scott had promised me that if the olympics go to chicago, we can make a special trip back for it. yes, that's in 7 years, but let's face it, it's a good excuse to see chicago in the summer and actually spend time in the city, not just drive by on the way to see friends out in the burbs at snowy chilly christmastime. so, i guess i'll need to think of another reason to get back to lovely chicago. i was reflecting yesterday that my whole childhood, i dreamed of either growing up and moving to chicago, or of growing up and living on top of a mountain (inspired by our two trips to colorado as a kid - was it two? or just 1?). overall, while denver is NOTHING like chicago, i think denver's a good mixture of the two. i've got the mountains, i've got the city. maybe the only thing better would be living in chicago, and then having a home on a mountain with a private jet to fly in anytime i want. i'll work on that.

bow ties, etc.

how does one become a bow tie wearer? i was just in the elevator with a guy who couldn't be much older than me in a bow tie. definitely under 35, and i hesitate to use that as an upper limit because he looks under 30, wearing tasseled loafers, gray suit pants, white shirt ... and a pink bow tie with a gray/black pattern. hmm. for the 50+ age group, it still looks a little odd in daily business, but it's a little bit more understandable - it's just so confusing on a person who's more or less my age. primarily because i'm just not sure how or when that develops - do you graduate from college, buy your first real business suit, and say, "you know what? bow tie," or what?

in other news, saturn is being shut down for good, and i feel oddly triumphant. i feel very unpatriotic saying that, but it's true. i do feel bad for the people who worked at saturn ... but as a brand, oh well.

i finished reading wasted this afternoon - wow, what an intense book. it's hard to believe the author was only 23 at the time she wrote it. at that point, she was 4 years into recovery, and by age 19 had struggled with full-blown anorexia and bulimia, substance abuse, extreme promiscuity, had been hospitalized and institutionalized multiple times, and weighed as little as 52 pounds. sheesh. like i said, intense. she apparently also wrote another memoir about her bipolar disorder, as she was diagnosed with that once the eating disorder stuff subsided. i have it on hold at the library; i feel so voyeuristic. (in the commonly used sense, not in the traditional sexual sense - ick.)

also, i remember today why i do not typically wear dress pants. well, okay, a) because i don't have to. but b) because the ones i own come up way too high on me and dig into my stomach. not a comfy feeling. could be remedied by purchasing low-mid rise dress pants ... or by wearing my comfy jeans to work and yoga/pajama pants at home. stacy and clinton on what not to wear always say that they hate hearing people use the word "comfort" in relation to deciding what to wear, and i get that, really i do, but it's kind of a major player in my wardrobe choices. i try to look decent in my comfort, though - no flannel pants with cartoon characters here.

monday monday

my office closed at 1:15 today in honor of yom kippur - apparently we were supposed to have the whole day off, but the word didn't get out in time. ah well, still a fabulous half-day off! on the drive home, i had grand plans of going for a run, vaccuming, and doing some laundry ... but by the time i got home, that downgraded to reading in bed and making dinner before scott got home. haha. it was quite pleasant.

i'm reading a book called wasted , which is a memoir of the author's life with both bulimia and anorexia. it's fascinating, but super intense. i started reading it over the weekend in winter park, but quickly decided that for a quiet and relaxing weekend in the mountains, an annual re-reading of anne of green gables was more in order.

tonight was the first meeting of the year for whiz kids - tutors only this week, but we start back wtih the kids next monday. i'm looking forward to it, but i really want to be more proactive in deciding what i do with my kid this year. (i'm good with the reading, so-so with the math stuff, and usually just cop out and let him play the allowance game with his buddies during game time.) the pioneer woman has a homeschooling section that suggests some great games and activities to do with kids, so i think i'll take a look.

my weekend in the mountains

wow, so winter park was fun. jordan's parents bought a partial share of a huge house up there with a bunch of the dad's old frat brothers, and let me say it is the nicest timeshare i've ever seen. granite counters, 1.5 stove/oven, two dishwashers, five bedrooms totaling sleeping space for 19 (i think), six bathrooms, two living rooms, four big flat panel tvs, hot tub and gas fireplace on the bottom level deck, and dining area and sitting area on the upper deck ... wow. oh, plus, the house backs up to a wetland area or something so it won't be developed, and beyond that you have an unobstructed view over the ski runs. it was beautiful.

beyond the amazing house, though, we had a lot of fun hanging out with our friends. we went up to trail ridge road in rocky mountain national park and oh my goodness, what a view! from the little snow storm we had last week, a lot of the mountains have a light dusting of snow right now, and it makes them super pretty. also very chilly. goo had to get back to denver to babysit, so we split up and mike and jordan took her back to the house to get her car, along with mak so that she could get a nap, while scott drove the rest of the girls up trail ridge road. other than that, we played some games, i got a stomachache from too much diet mt. dew, and we sat on the patio and chatted. (the girls also did a short hike to a waterfall in grand lake while waiting for the guys to meet up with us - they took a wrong turn on the way from the house and ended up in kremmling!) oh, and kinley offered to let me chew on the ratty corner of her blankie that she always chews on, which was very sweet. haha. all in all, very relaxing. i'm working on getting the pics uploaded on facebook as we speak.

i'm not ready for this summer to be over! being up in the mountains, with all of the aspens turned bright yellow and the snow on the peaks, it's becoming painfully obvious that summer is done, fall is here, and winter is right around the corner. i know i like fall and winter, too, but summer's just so fun - particularly this last summer with all of our fabulous little vacations. fall makes me melancholy.

(and just to clarify from my last post, i'm not pregnant. i think we've established that i enjoy looking at baby-related stuff, and have several good friends who are pregnant, thus i extra enjoy looking at baby-related stuff. so the comment about the maternity yoga pants was merely a mental note, not a veiled hint.)

winter park in the fall

hoorah! we're off for a weekend of fun in winter park. a friend's parents have a timeshare up there that our friends were able to get, so 7 of us are headed up to hang out and relax and hike and have fun. i'm very much looking forward to it. i'm packing jeans because there's a good chance it's chilly up there, and we'll likely leave the house at some point - but other than that, yoga pants, baby. yoga. pants. which i do not use for yoga. (i sadly realized the other day that my favorite old navy yoga pants do not come in a short size in maternity. actually,

two things that make me extra excited: 1) goo is able to go. she wasn't planning on it originally because it can be awkward hanging out with married couples when you're not, but she decided last minute that she'll give us a whirl for a day. 2) the macs are able to go. they'd been planning on it all along, but last weekend, kinley mysteriously started crying, and didn't stop for like four days. they went to the doctor on day 2 to no avail. she's apparently very tired but recovering now, which means her parents are recovering, which means they're coming up.

now i just need to finish packing.

omega

i found this article on omega-3s vs omega-6s, today, and i thought it was super interesting. basically, the premise is that omega-3s are fats that animals tend to consume in the spring that lead to high energy, whereas omega-6s are fats that animals consume in the fall that aid in hibernation. the modern diet is far richer in omega-6s than it is in omega-3s, thus our bodies are storing more fat and slowing down which is causing our obesity epidemic. he even links the food that animals are fed to the problem - cows used to graze on grass, which is high in omega-3s, thus they produced milk, cheese, and meat that's high in omega-3; now they're fed grains, which are higher in omega-6s, so our consumables are high in omega-6. fascinating, no?

tmi

what is up with the american need to have everything in our lives out in the open? i'm on facebook and i blog, clearly, but that doesn't mean i post every detail of our lives - there are certain things i'll talk about with friends and family that will never be published on ye olde www.

mackenzie phillips, on the other hand ... wow. things i have learned about her this morning include: her dad got her into drugs, she had sex with mick jagger at a currently undisclosed age, and she was raped by her father the night before her first wedding, resulting in her having an affair with him for 10 years. EWWWWW. eew eew eew. why did i need to know any of those things, mackenzie phillips? you go to therapy to discuss these things, not try to re-launch your career by writing it all down in a book that will be a bestseller simply because it's too sensational not to. other than shifting some of the blame for her drug problems off of herself and onto her now dead father, i don't think the world knowing the sordid details of your severely screwed up life will solve anything.

fun facts about snow in september

alas, the dusting of snow we got yesterday was indeed not enough to be an "official" snow, but my handy local news station does have some fun facts about fall snow in denver:

- denver's earliest snowfall was sept. 3, 1961
- september averages 2.1 inches of snowfall in denver
- the average date for the first snowfall is oct. 19; last year, the first snow fell on nov. 14

i had no idea we average 2 inches of snow in september! we just washed our cars (by hand, in our very own driveway) on saturday - had i known we might get snow, i think i would have waited. except that wally is pretty and white again, so maybe not. anyway, i am yet again glad that we live in the denver metro rather than the foothills or the tiny towns around (particularly south) the area - they're predicting 6-12" in the foothills and along the palmer divide. we may get an inch or two, but most likely just rain. and thankfully after that, colorado will return to its normal sunny self - i say thankfully because we're heading up to winter park with some friends this weekend, and i would rather have the predicted 55-60* sun than the current 30* snow.

plot generator

i love online generators. i was just reading a review of dan brown's latest book on the slate online, and at the bottom there was a link to an interactive dan brown plot generator. i was intrigued, and i think it's hilarious. you can choose a city and a group - say, chicago and the boy scouts of america, and you get a plot line about an ancient and secret branch of the boy scouts and their plot against their mortal enemy, the vatican, involving lake michigan, the art institute, the clothier of the swiss guard, and davy crockett. it's pretty fabulous.

i think dan brown writes really good fun fiction, but as i was describing angels and demons to scott and started with, "so this researcher in switzerland has discovered antimatter and someone steals it to destroy the vatican," he just started laughing.

i also saw a generator last week for a kanye apology (in light of him stealing the mic from taylor swift during her acceptance speech at the vma's and saying that beyonce's video was way better than taylor's, then giving a really half-aced apology), but it wasn't quite as well constructed, so i won't bother with a link to that. the concept made me laugh, though.

comfy cozy

wow, so denver has now had it's official first snow of the year! official in my terms, at least - ie, i could see flakes of snow falling from the window of my office. weather people probably require accumulation or something, which we didn't get - i think it turned to rain by the time it got to the ground. a friend just south of the metro area posted picture on facebook of a good 1/2 inch of snow on her deck, though. i wore a sweater and close-toed shoes today (which is worth noting as i've work flip flops for everything except hiking since, like, april) but didn't think to bring a jacket to work, so i really hope i don't have to spend much time outside.

even though it was quite lovely out this weekend, i more or less spent all weekend in the same outfit - tshirt i got from target for $8 on friday and am smitten with, tank top because the v-neck is a little low cut for me, and yoga pants. i think i changed into that friday night as soon as i got home from target, wore real clothes to have coffee with a friend on saturday morning, but changed back into my comfy clothes to hang out with mike and maura saturday night, and back into it again after church on sunday. i've officially become "that person". and i'm okay with that. we went to coldstone to use our 2-for-1 coupon around 8pm friday night, both in our comfies, and the teenaged kid working the register was trying to make conversation, like, "oh, how's your night going, anything exciting?" we just kind of looked at each other and said, "mm, not much" - meaning, we reheated leftovers for dinner, were getting ready to watch wolverine from redbox, and using a coupon at coldstone. that's married life, and i like it.

blowin' in the wind

we took flitty back to the airport last night, and it's once again officially just us at home. that may not sound all that unusual, except that scott's parents got into town two weeks ago yesterday, and with the exception of two nights, we've either been with his family at home or elsewhere, or sharing a hotel room with a friend ever since then. i almost don't know what to do with myself ... but then i formulated this lovely plan for this evening: 1) workout, 2) laundry, 3) tivo. doesn't it sound nice? three things that i haven't really gotten to do in the last two weeks - and since shows like glee and biggest loser have now started and are taking up valuable room on my tivo's harddrive, i feel it's only right.

also, last night we were discussing patrick swayze's death, and goo pondered who the other two celebrity deaths would be, since as we all know, celebrities die in threes. this morning, npr informed me that henry gibson and mary of peter, paul and mary are the other two. (p.s., i am a strong proponent of the oxford comma, and it kind of bugs me that peter, paul and mary don't use it in their name.)

my monthly personal responsibility rant

msn had a story this morning about a woman who has decided to spark a revolution against credit card companies - by not paying her bill. i get that she's now unemployed and frustrated that her credit card company has apparently raised her interest rate to 30% despite her working with them to try to lower the rate, and her always paying the minimum payment on time ... but here's the thing:

1. you can't NOT pay your bill. you just can't. when you get a credit card, you sign an agreement that for the privilege of using the cc company's money to buy things that you cannot currently afford, that you will pay them back in a timely manner at the rate that they set. emphasis on "the rate that they set" - not the rate that you think is fair.
2. one of the commenters at the bottom of the article said, "the bank has made its profit on her card use many times over," as a justification for why she should not have to continue to pay. right, because she agreed to let them profit off of her card use! that is the point of credit card companies offering the services they do - visa is not a non-profit company.
3. 30% is an absurd rate, and so is the 12.99% she was paying before, for that matter, which leads me to believe that a) she must be maxing out her card regularly, b) she's not in fact paying on time every month, c) she is an incredibly unwise person for finding such a high rate card, or d) she has a history of credit problems. yes, scott and i have excellent credit, but we were approved for an 8% card in the last six months or so. if you're frustrated with your card company for raising your rates, check out the competition - there are PLENTY of other lenders out there.

one of the other commenters (stlmo), left this note, which i think summarizes my thoughts nicely: "Ann Minch knowingly ran up her credit card bill, spent years making only minimum payments, then decides to protest the interest rate by NOT PAYING AT ALL. And this makes her a hero? I don't think so. If she really wants to protest the ungodly profit, then she should STOP LIVING ON CREDIT CARDS and PAY THE DEBT. PERIOD. If she can't, then she needs to see a debt counselor or see a lawyer about bankruptcy. And if she won't do that, then she's no better than the credit card companies she's protesting."

in her defense, i do think 30% is completely outrageous and unacceptable, particularly as she is unemployed and thus in financial hardship. credit card companies should have policies in place to work with the people they are lending to - i'm sure many card users are currently in states of financial hardship, but a 30% interest rate is not going to help them. personal finance classes will. and, you know, learning to live within their means. if your means don't provide much room for living, i'm pretty sure i pay taxes for a reason and that there are programs in place to help you until you can provide for yourself.

fedex

i love talking to fedex people - probably because they're the most out-of-my-bubble people that i interact with regularly: ie, they're (usually) not the college educated executive types that i primarily work with, and they're (usually) not the college educated christian types that i primarily hang out with.

i asked the new fedex girl - who is really very sweet and conscientious and has a dragon tattoo on the back of her neck, by the way - how her day is going, and she smiled and said, "good! i'm finally over my hangover, so it's great! you should never drink on sunday." LOL

the former fedex guy would tell me stories about the house that he bought and was renovating in a slightly sketchy area of town - like how one of his buddies was driving by one day and called to let him know that there was a car on fire in his driveway. (i think fedex guy kept his apt offsite for a while until the house was habitable.) apparently some druggies stole a car, put it in his driveway, and set it on fire - where it melted the siding on his garage, but thankfully didn't catch the house on fire. or how he and his fedex buddies would go tubing on the weekends, drink lots of beer, and somehow lose their swim trunks in the river. or something like that. oh my.

oddly excited for football season

it's officially september, do you know what that means? college football season! do you know why i put the exclamation mark after that rather than an elipsis (...), signifying excitedness instead of sadness? because football season = football games on tv = we get to have friends over to watch games = i get to cook for other people! duh.

man, my life has changed dramatically in the last few years - mike and maura had us over to watch a game when we first became friends with them four years ago, so i brought a book and sat in the corner. not that i'm super into football yet, but i am at least capable of watching an entire game. usually. don't quote me on this come the bowl games in december/january. or when scott only wants to watch games on saturdays and doesn't have friends over to amuse me.

anyway, foods i'm excited to cook for football games this fall include:
- homemade soft pretzels
- shrimp quesedillas
- buffalo wings
- cheeseburger crescent rolls
- chile con queso
- guacamole
- tomatillo salsa

not all at once, of course. unless we host a superbowl party next spring, in which case all bets are off.

welcome to fall

i have the greatest husband ever. need proof?

last spring, fox showed a 1-hour premiere of glee, which is about a high school glee club and is billed as a "musical comedy". read: very much my type of show, but scott groaned when i described it to him and told him how much i loved the premiere. anyway, just now, scott was setting up new tivo season passes online, asked me when community (nbc's new office-esque sitcom about a community college that looks hilarious) starts, then asked, "do we want to tivo glee?" i responded with a giant smiley and approximately ten exclamation points after my "yes" (we're on im at work), but seriously, isn't that sweet? not only that he remembered four months later that it's a show i'm interested in watching, but then that he proactively offered to set up a tivo for me - aww. it's the little things, i tell you.

we've had a very busy but super fun five days! this weekend was andrew's wedding in wisconsin/mini-college reunion. we flew in on saturday, out on monday, and in the middle had a wonderful time seeing some great old friends and catching up with people that were in our group of friends in college but that we haven't stayed in close touch with. it was really amazing to me how easy it felt to fall back into life with them. natalie and axel were adorable, and it was so fun getting to see two of my closest girlfriends from college as moms. it was crazy, though, because i think saturday night a bunch of us were crowded around a table for dinner, and i realized that no one lives in the same place anymore - we have people in birmingham, boston, chicago, portland, minneapolis, milwaukee, north carolina. i know everyone lives in the city they live in for a reason, but i have to confess i would love it if all of them wanted to pick up and move to denver. (which i say very selfishly, because i don't want to leave denver to move anywhere else - especially if that elsewhere has humidity. eesh. two days of that was enough.) anyway, it was a really great time, and i'll be getting pics up on facebook as soon as the photo uploader starts working again.

on monday, we flew back to denver and drove straight from the airport up to breck to hang out with scott's parents and sisters for a few days - also fun. we went hiking with them the last two days, then would get back to the condo and play yahtzee and spades and watch movies. very relaxing. for me, at least - i thought his sister wendy would have a nervous breakdown from the tension of our spades games!

so evidently the secret to making me want to blog is putting me in a really good mood. if it weren't for the fact that am a) 26 and b) at work, i'd totally be bouncing up and down in my chair right now. for serious. not really sure why i'm in such a good mood - it could have something to do with the fact that i have a 5 day weekend coming up, that i get to see some of my best friends in a mere 2 days back in the midwest, that it's gloriously warm and sunny but not too hot or muggy outside, and that i have a GIANT iced chai with lots of sugar and caffeine in front of me. oh my. i think i was bouncy before the chai, but it's definitely aiding the situation along quite nicely.

my in-laws got into town last night around 7:15 and had yogurt for dinner while we finished up our burrito bowls. (whatever!) flitty flew in this afternoon, which i'm also very excited about as i haven't seen her since last christmas and don't know when i'll get to see her again as we're going to my parents' in illinois this year for the holidays. (which i'm very much looking forward to as well, don't get me wrong.) i'm a huge fan of both of my sisters-in-law, and i don't think that i could choose a favorite between them since they're so different. we'll see all of them tonight, then i believe they're driving up to breck first thing in the morning for vacation, so we won't see them again until we head up there after we get back from wisco on monday.

things i found online

have you ever heard of peopleofwalmart.com? i hadn't either, until cnn had an article about the site this morning. it's basically awesome. these guys were walking around walmart one day, realized how many crazy people shop there, started taking pictures ... and voila! hilarious. if you have a free minute and you enjoy laughing (yes, at other peoples' expense, whatever), you owe yourself a visit.

relatedly, as i was enjoying peopleofwalmart, i saw an ad for a jesse and the rippers t-shirt. jesse and the rippers! if you don't know who jesse katsopolis is, you won't enjoy that at all ... but i think it's pretty awesome. too bad it's $20, otherwise i'd totally be getting myself one.

and, completely unrelatedly, i was perusing msn when i happened across an article about how state revenue workers are using social networking to track down tax evaders and make them pay up. since i'm all about personal responsibility, i thought that was pretty well awesome. if you want the benefits of tax dollars - you know, minor things like policemen, libraries, schools, roads, government - you need to pay your taxes.

guilty pleasure

so i have a confession, and you have to promise not to make fun of me for it. ready? here goes: i love looking at baby gear. it's true. totally not pregnant, but one of my secret guilty little pleasures for like the last two years is baby gear. there's just so much cute stuff out there: car seats, strollers, diaper bags, cribs ... oh my!

this week, i've been investigating the sub-culture of cloth diaper users. "sub-culture?" you ask. oh yes, my friend, sub-culture. they have giant message boards (which are actually really interesting - the faq post at the top of that board references lots of great resources), online distributors and shops, websites answering every question you could have on cloth diapering ranging from cost savings to accessories. there are heated debates on cloth vs. disposable to the point that i'm almost surprised no one's yet come out with tshirts labeled "team cloth" and "team disposable". there are even debates between the best styles or brands of diapers. do you go with the pre-fold, the all-in-one, or the pocket diaper? do you go one-size or fitted? fuzzi bunz or bumgenius? aah!

obviously i am interested in potentially someday using cloth diapers. i think the thought first crossed my mind because our budget will be tighter when we have a kid, and i was curious what the cost breakdown would be on buying a bunch of expensive but re-usable diapers up front versus paying as you go with disposables. turns out you can definitely save money using cloth diapers - how much depends on what type of diapers you go for; you save even more if you're able to use the cloth diapers for more than one kid. not to mention that while you are committing yourself to doing laundry pretty much constantly as long as you have non-potty-trained kids, you are definitely doing the environment a huge favor. i obviously have a while to figure out my strategy for cloth diapers, but there are some really neat programs that let you try out different types of diapers to see what fits best for you and your kid. once you, you know, have a kid and stuff. (they also have recommendations of what to use balancing what's most economical vs easiest.)

fascinating stuff, no? i was explaining my findings to scott last night and he called it interesting but pedestrian. pedestrian?? he said he meant that it was interesting on a purely factual level but that it didn't elicit any sort of emotional response from him. dictionary.com says pedestrian means dull, lacking in imagination and distinction, commonplace. i'm going to assume that a) he didn't know the full definition, and b) that he meant it about the topic rather than me and my interest in it. hmph.

my budgeting woes

so for the past few years, we did the dave ramsey budgeting method with taking cash out for certain budget categories (we just do grocery and entertainment) to keep better control on spending and make you think about what you're actually spending the money on. i really like the idea of it, and i think it's effective, but we've fallen out of the habit in the past year or so. every month, usually within the first few days of the month but sometimes as late as the 15th, i'll download all of the transactions on our account from the past month and reconcile them, add up each category (love excel!), and type in the "actuals" to see how we did with the budget, then set a fresh budget for that month. i'm currently reconciling the transactions from august, and remembering another reason why i like doing cash instead of debit: number of transactions.

looking back at previous months' transactions - back in sept'07, when we were good at doing cash, there were about 55 transactions to categorize. this month, not doing cash - 99. last july, when we were buying a bunch of random house stuff, didn't take out cash, ate out a lot, AND took our big 10 day alaska vacation? 130. really, my attention starts to wane after about 60, and that's with scott having set up my spreadsheet to have a dropdown menu of category options so that i don't even have to type in each label. *sigh. (and yes, we do go to the grocery store way too often for our own good.)

checkity check

we made an enormous to-do list on sunday, full of stuff to get done before scott's family gets here tomorrow. most of it is just general cleaning that needs to happen anyway, but a few things are projects that we've just been putting off. just little things, like shortening the blinds we bought and installed last year, and installing the new towel bars in our bathroom: towel bar installation - checkity check, blinds shortening - half of a check. anyway, we got a lot of the tasks done on sunday, so tonight is mostly just general cleaning - vacuuming, mopping, cleaning the bathroom vanity, etc. hopefully it won't take too terribly long?

in other tremendously exciting news, i picked out a shirt to wear to our friend's wedding this weekend! i got a cute pair of white capris at the outlets a few weeks ago that i'll wear with it, and gold flops. hey, the dress code is "look good, be comfortable, avoid jeans" - so i think i'll be fine.

my life is boring - house cleaning checklists and a new shirt. i haven't blogged in a week, and this is what i come up with? oh! i did find out last week that four people i know are pregnant! FOUR. that's a lot. i'm very excited for all of them (the women i know well, particularly), it's just a little crazy. talk about a baby boom!

shameless

i know very little about heidi montag, except for these things:
1. she got her "start" on one of those mtv reality shows a few years ago - "the hills" maybe?
2. she is married to a guy named spencer who has a gross beard, and they claim to be christians.
3. she is completely shameless - she posed in playboy, is trying to launch a singing career, went on "i'm a celebrity get me out of here" with blago's wife, and basically makes it her mission to be in as many tabloids as possible.
4. i find her to be one of the most annoying people alive. which is saying a lot since i'm pretty sure i remember writing a rant about paris hilton a year or two ago - if you're worse than paris, you know it's bad.

thus, i was very excited when i saw this headline on msn: "anderson cooper disses heidi and her talent". glorious. thank you, anderson cooper, for saying that. i know very little about anderson cooper other than that he has a blog (and apparently a show) on cnn, and that in pictures, he's usually posing with malnourished children in africa. i haven't looked up the video for this spot yet, but from what msn reported, i wholeheartedly agree with him. read it. you'll agree, too. particularly if you look through the pictures to the left of the article - just click the little pink "next" button. trust me on this.

_____

unrelatedly, we've had a busy week! we were at the rockies game with mike, maura, and kinley all evening on wednesday - as in, i left for work at 7:25am, and we got home at 10:25pm. it was fun, though. we spent an evening (maybe two?) stripping caulk out of the main bathroom so that we could get it re-caulked in time for scott's parents and sister to arrive next week. we got in a few bike rides, too. in fact, last night we biked over to a mall about a mile from our house to go to sears to pick up caulk, and look around. the mall's having its official grand opening this weekend, and it looks really nice - lots of little restaurants and shops and fountains. (it's an outdoor mall.) and a movie theater! we're hoping if we go there this weekend we'll get some coupons or vouchers. *fingerscrossed* i did get the tub caulked last night - hoorah! started at 9:30pm, finished at 10:30. we splurged and went for the "titanium silicone" caulk that was $1.50 more per tube in hopes that its super-duper-ness will mean that it holds better.

penne with pork tenderloin and summer squash in white wine

oh my, i just made a very tasty dinner. so good, in fact, that i feel the need to preserve my impromptu recipe for posterity.

penne with pork tenderloin and summer squash in a white wine sauce
(i need a better name for this)

8oz penne pasta

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 boneless pork chop, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
splash low-sodium soy sauce
salt, pepper, italian seasoning
(probably also good with a dash of crushed red pepper here - didn't think of that til just now!)

1 yellow squash, sliced
1 zucchini, sliced
5 cherry tomatoes, quartered
3 green onions, chopped

white wine
splash lemon juice
fresh basil, sliced
parmesan cheese

boil penne. dice pork chop, saute in olive oil with chopped garlic. splash soy sauce on cooking pork chop, season with salt, pepper, italian seasoning blend. when 50% cooked, add squash and zucchini to pan. cook until beginning to soften. add white wine (until bottom of pan is covered, plus a little extra) and a splash of lemon juice. continue cooking until squash and zucchini are cooked almost through. add cherry tomatoes and green onions. drain pasta, add to pan with pork/veggies/sauce. serve, top with shredded parmesan. enjoy!

i was actually planning on making something similar yesterday, but with swiss chard that i got at the berry farm's farmer's market instead of summer squash. apparently chard is very perishable, though, because in the 48 hours that it was hanging out in my fridge at home, it totally wilted, so i ended up tossing it. we made sweet and sour chicken instead. alas and alack.

(for dessert, i highly recommend leftover ice cream cake from maggie moo's that you took to small group and thought would get eaten up, but ended up with 6 pieces to take home. don't worry, we did work out tonight.)

i just want to enjoy the sunshine

my house is the place where phone service goes to die, i think. we tried all of the jacks in the house last night (which is a lot - at least one in almost every room), and alas, none of them picked up a line, so we get to pay qwest $85 to come fix the problem. hoorah! they're coming this afternoon, and i really really hope it's an easy fix.

i'm debating what to do tonight, still. scott's going off to a fantasy football draft party with the guys. the guy who's hosting it's wife is inviting the wives over to hang out and play games ... but i'd already told myself i would stay home and start stripping caulk in the main bath. i'm torn, though, because it would be fun to hang out, but it could also be nice to hang out by myself at home - and more productive, for sure. but there's not really so much of a time crunch on doing the caulking that not starting tonight would throw our timeline completely off ... we'll see. i meant to do the caulking before my parents got here in june (sorry, guys), so my next goal is to have it done before scott's parents get here a few days before labor day weekend. which is less than two weeks away, now. crazy - where did this summer go?!

i'm also going berry picking with the girls bright and early tomorrow morning. as in, meeting at 7:30 to leave early. it should be fun, though. berry picking and browsing around the farm's organic farmer's market is totally one of my favorite parts of summer. they put together bags of fresh produce with a recipes - like a bagged kit for pasta sauce, or salsa, or tomatillo salsa. i got the bag for tomatillo salsa last year, and it was amazing - i really hope they have it again this weekend. it made a ton of salsa, though, to the extent where after two weeks we made nachos for dinner solely because we wanted to get rid of the tomatillo salsa before it went bad.

i think one of my favorite things about denver is its great mix of midwestern and west coast life. you get casual clothes and lots of sun, fun things like tomatillos which i never knew existed before we moved out here, but still have comfortable oaks and maples and pines in the backyard rather than exotic palm trees.