changes, changes

life has changed so dramatically over the last six months.
six months ago, i was 36 weeks pregnant, working full time, eagerly anticipating matson's arrival "any day now", and nesting like crazy.

five months ago, i was 40 weeks pregnant, home on early maternity leave, eagerly anticipating matson's arrival "any day now", and nesting like crazy.

four months ago, i had a two week old baby who had just started sleeping through the night, loved him and was glad to have him, but also kind of thought i may have ruined our happy life by deciding to have him and felt totally crazy.

three months ago, i had a snuggly seven week old baby, had put in my notice at work, was slowly but surely finding a rhythm in our new life, and was eagerly anticipating our first roadtrip with matson (and 10 whole days with scott!).

two months ago, i was kind of reeling from the fact that i had asked the previous week to go back to work part time but my office said no, trying to figure out ways to get plugged into ministry and volunteer opportunities with matsy so that we'd be doing something productive and not just sitting around at home alone, but also realizing that eleven weeks is an awesome age and feeling sad for people who have to go back to work at that point - mats was just starting to get so fun!

one month ago, i was back to feeling nice and settled, looking up new recipes, desperately trying to avoid housework, and driving mats all over the front range with my mom and brother visiting.

which brings us to today: realizing that this is real life and not just summer vacation or maternity leave, sometimes still missing having a full time job but knowing that it wouldn't be the same, loving playtime with matson and seeing him discover life - like spend twenty minutes trying to grab his feet through his footie pajamas, glad that scott's starting his mba program this week but not looking forward to him being tied up with school work, and trying to figure out what the future holds for us and where mats and i should get involved.

i realized this week as i was reflecting on the ups and downs of this summer:

1. leaving work and having a baby are two huge stressors and it's normal to feel these ups and downs.
2. most of my friends who are now full time moms had either been working from home or had already left work prior to having their baby which is somehow very different than leaving a full time job at the same time that you have your baby and potentially why i felt like none of my friends had experienced quite what i was going through (although they were still very supportive).
3. i was at my job for four years - the same amount of time i was in college.  even though it had been "just a job", that's still a significant length of time to get used to the relationships at work and that certain rhythm of life.
4. i'm grieving my job and "old life" - and that's good!  i want life to feel happy and normal rightnowplease, and it really truly does most days.  mats and i genuinely have a great time together.  but, scott and i had a really good thing going and i'm glad that i enjoyed my job and our pre-baby early marriage years enough to miss them when they're gone.  grief leads to healing, and even though there are moments (moments now, days and weeks earlier this summer) where it's hard, it's a good thing to go through.
5. god has blessed me pretty significantly.  for some reason, when i feel stressed i also feel lonely.  yet one consistent theme of this summer has been friends.  hanging out and talking with old friends, meeting and getting to know new friends, etc.  on one particularly lonely day, it suddenly occurred to me that i had put five new contacts into my phone that week alone - god has truly given me an abundance of friends to remind me that i'm not alone.  (i know i'm not alone ever in that i always have god to rely on ... but i really like the tangible reminder.)
6. we have a pretty awesome life ahead of us.  things i'm looking forward to this fall and winter include in no particular order: starting to attend mops and a women's bible study at church, playdates with my new mom friends from nourish, hiking and camping with friends this next weekend, matsy starting solid foods sometime in the next six weeks (okay, that one makes me mopey - i like him being my tiny baby who nurses exclusively!), christmas with my parents at their house back in illinois, my parents visiting us here for a whole week in october, hosting a mom brunch, a friend from college stopping by for a few days on a roadtrip west, taking mats to things like free museum and zoo days, a fancy dinner with my sweet husband, seeing scott be excited to learn things in his mba program, and on.  this is life, and it'll change without warning, but it will be good.

mice

pardon the interruption to my normally scheduled blogging; my life has contained much drama over the past few weeks, including things like friends visiting from out of town and mice in my pantry.

first the friends - we've actually had three sets of nu friends come through town over the past month, which has been so much fun!  first was chris and lesley, who graduated from nu a year after us, moved to wisconsin for her to go to grad school and him to work ... then up and moved to kenya for a year!  they just got back earlier this summer, and passed through denver with their moving truck on the way from the midwest to northern california, where they have lots of friends and family and she has a job.  we had a great time hearing about their time in kenya, seeing pictures, hearing what they're looking forward to in california ... just generally catching up for the four years it's been since we last saw them!

next was andrew and anne, a friend from nu and his new wife as of last labor day weekend.  they had originally planned to be moving from wisconsin to portland, oregon, but there are still some question marks surrounding andrew's job status there - but they'd already booked his mom a one-way ticket from denver back to illinois so that she could join them on the roadtrip through kansas and see her family with them.  since they knew they had to be in denver and didn't have any commitments until late july, they figured they may as well seize the opportunity to take a three week camping roadtrip around the national parks of colorado, utah, and arizona.  why not, right?  so we got to see them for a night between roadtrip with mom and camping adventure and had a lot of fun.  we went out for their wedding last fall, but hadn't really had any opportunity to get to know anne at all, so their stop with us was doubly fun in that we got to catch up with our old friend and also get to know his new wife who we thought was fabulous and perfect for him.

third nu friend of the summer was clair, one of my best friends from college (and my maid of honor), who was in town for a few days for a training seminar for her work.  i don't think i've seen her for more than maybe a day at a time at the occasional wedding over the past few years, and that was always in the midst of tons of friends coming together, so it was extra nice having her stay with us and getting more time to catch up.  we went out for pizza, took a long bike ride, ate ice cream, stayed up late talking, she told us all about her new boyfriend, and i tried to sell her on moving to colorado.  and, the night that she got to our house, i discovered a mouse in the pantry, which leads me to my next point:

we have mice in our pantry.  ick.  i had scott stop on his way home to get traps the first night i saw the mouse (last tuesday), and it took until thursday morning before we found him in the trap.  hooray!  we were mildly optimistic that he was the only mouse, since our kitchen's right next to the garage and we didn't think it was unreasonable that he might have hopped in from there when we left the door open at some point.  sadly, that night, we were in the kitchen talking, and scott saw another mouse scuttling under the stove - boo.  we went to home depot and got another 8 traps, which we placed throughout our pantry, next to the stove and behind the fridge, and in the crawl space under the kitchen, and got this thing that you plug in and it sends vibrations out through your house's wiring that is supposed to annoy mice that may be nesting between walls so that they want to leave.  no sign of mousey in the trap yet, and i saw him running into the pantry when we got home from hiking on saturday ... but last night, i bought a bunch of plastic bins, cleaned all of our non-canned goods out of the pantry, and didn't see anything that had been nibbled on other than an open bag of pine nuts (that was cleaned out!  the first mouse had found an open bag of chopped pecans that he had been going to town on) ... so i'm unsure what food they think they'll be eating from our house.  i'm hopeful that the mouse realizes that he's cleaned out his food sources and moved on, but i don't know how realistic that hope is.  any idea how long we need to wait to sound the all clear?

friends' babies

not one but two of my dearest girlfriends had babies this week - what a week!

jami texted on saturday night to say that her water had broken, contractions hadn't really started yet, but they were planning to head to the hospital by 6am sunday unless thing picked up pace that night.  i didn't hear from her or her husband naseem at all on sunday, but finally monday checked facebook and saw that her sister-in-law had posted online late sunday that they'd had their baby boy, kaiden, on sunday.  (i still have yet to see pictures or meet him, but she e-mailed wednesday saying they were a little overwhelmed with the adjustment and would be in touch when they're ready to see people, which is of course fine with me!)

then this morning i got a text from alison that miranda was born early this morning - wow!  from pictures and commentary that her husband matt posted on facebook later today, it looks like she went into labor late last night and things progressed quickly enough that miranda was born by 6:30am.  she is absolutely adorable and has a full head of hair - so excited to meet her this summer!

overview

ooh la la, a non-bargain-hunting post!  as i find the boundaries provided by numbering things comforting, i'll do list form (also to keep my verbose narrative in check):

1. we officially have our camping reservation for yellowstone in august!  plus, i spent the morning reading my frommer's yellowstone guide, and i'm getting steadily more excited.  there's just so much to see and do, i'm starting to wish we'd planned more than three to three and a half days there.  our campground is near the grand canyon of the yellowstone, and near the upper and lower falls, which are two of the things that i'd most hoped to see.  it's going to be challenging to balance getting out and hiking and experiencing the nature of the park with driving and wanting to see everything because it's all so cool and beautiful.
2. whoops, went onto facebook to find a link and got totally distracted!  our friends zach and casey, who were our first friends in denver, are moving to africa to work with friends at the recreation project.  their website explains it better, but basically uganda has tons of kids (and adults) really emotionally scarred from the history of war in their country and from being forced into fighting, so they're building a ropes course and sports rec leagues as a sort of recreational therapy, to help the kids channel their aggression and competition and passion into constructive things, and help build leadership.  we went to a fundraising bowling night last night to see them before they leave.  (we haven't seen them as a couple in ages, and casey and i haven't hung out since we both left our first apartment complex, but scott and zach still play poker, watch football, and do the occasional sports team together.)
3. in celebration of being alone in the office today, i had a diet coke with lunch (which i just finished drinking now, four hours later - i'm a slow drinker), and i've totally got the post-caffeine jitters.  i hate that feeling.
4. scott and i pulled our first weeds of the season yesterday.  we do have some more to do, but thankfully it's way less bad than last year - i'm hoping that if we start early, we can keep it under control and not have a thistle forest in our sideyard by mid-june.  we're also planning to call our tree trimmer who also does general landscaping work to get a bid on taking out some dead aspens and pulling out one of our dead-bush-and-dirty-river-rock areas so that we can start making our yard look pretty.  (it desparately needs new weed barrier and bushes, and we're debating whether to clean up the river rock or switch it out with mulch - either the traditional wood stuff or the rubber stuff.)  we're undecided how much to do ourselves vs hiring someone else to do ... it's just so much easier to write a check to someone else, but also obviously more costly.  also, we're excited to start re-planting trees this year!
5. tonight is my last night of tutoring gerardo.  (actually, not tutoring - it's the end of year celebration/dinner.)  he's ending 5th grade, which means that next year he starts middle school.  whiz kids is thinking of opening up a middle school tutoring site in the area since there are so many 5th graders moving up, but i'm not sure if he'll continue with it next year.  we shall see - it could be my last night with him ever, or i could get three more years!  (when i asked him about it last week, he said that he wants to not do it so that i can stay with the elementary school kids and tutor his little brother, who'll be in first grade next year.  how sweet is that??)

weekend review

we made it to kinley's birthday party on saturday night - so fun!  our friends lori and aaron came up a bit earlier in the afternoon and hung out at our house with us for a bit to catch up before the party. maura's sister brook and her family were there, as were mike's mom and step-dad, so it was a small party, but still a good time.  we got to eat kinley's favorite foods, which consisted of macaroni and cheese, calzones, lil smokies in bbq sauce, and fresh fruits and veggies - very diverse, no?  it is amazing to watch 2-year olds open presents, by the way.  brook's oldest boy's bday is today so maura got him a few gifts to open while kinley opened her presents, and between the two toddlers, it was like a whirlwind of shredded paper and flying boxes and squeals of delight.  sadly the two cute outfits we got kinley were nowhere near as big a hit with her as the giant legos and babydoll outfits she got from grandparents - alas.  maura liked them, though, which counts for something!

also this weekend, i finally bought myself a food processor!  i've been debating the purchase for approximately 3 years, and had purchased a small 1-2 cup food chopper at wal-mart a while back in an attempt to convince myself i didn't need an expensive kitchen appliance, but hated it and thus never used it.  in reading reviews of food processors on consumer reports, though, i found that kitchen aid and cuisinart food processors are basically ranked the same - but bed bath and beyond has a $20 mail-in-rebate on their kitchen aid food processors!  so between a b3's 20% off coupon (which doesn't exclude kitchen aid - i was surprised!), a $24 in-store credit leftover from christmas, and the $20 mail in rebate, i got this normally $200 food processor for $115 + tax, which is 44% off.  awesome!  i haven't used it yet (although i should have last night - i had to chop two onions and a bunch of celery and cilantro for the pioneer woman's thai chicken soup), but i'm very excited.  homemade pesto here i come.

i've been fighting a cold for the past week, and apparently my body decided to add a stomach bug to that last night.  i made dinner, started feeling gross and took my temperature to find it at 96.15*.  what?  i then spent the rest of the night curled up on the sofa under three blankets, with a bottle of pepto by my side, a packet of saltines on my lap, and watching my gilmore girls season 3 dvd.  by the time i went to bed, my temperature was a normal (for me) 97.6*, but this morning as i was getting ready for work, it was up to 99.4*.  i took some tylenol and headed to work anyway, and so far i'm surviving the day.  i'm tired and my tummy still hurts, though, so i'm debating canceling tutoring for tonight ...

food brain

we went to our 5280 dinner at the restaurant kevin taylor on sunday night with our small group - so fun!  the portions were a little on the small side (which is par for the course at a fancy restaurant), but oh so tasty.  i got the asparagus and gnocchi in a truffle parmesan sauce for my appetizer, lamb loin and ravioli with artichoke and gouda for my entree, and for dessert a cookies and cream semifreddo (which is basically like a chilled cookies and cream mousse with an oreo crust on the bottom).  yummm.  i'm hungry just typing that out.  the guys were all a little disappointed that the food didn't come in greater quantity and threatened to make us go to outback steakhouse (where you get four huge courses plus beverage) for 5280 dinner next year.  it's entirely possible that they were just spoiled by rodizio's all you can eat meat last year, though.  (personally, i'd rather take advantage of eating at amazing fancy restaurants that i would never go to normally when i have an opportunity like 5280 - dinner for two for $52.80 from a pre fixed menu.  i think scott's of the same opinion, so we'll have to work on the rest of them.)

on a much less fancy-food note, i made my favorite cooking light baked potato soup last night and it was sooo good.  if you haven't made it yet, please do so tonight - you will love it.  i bake my potatoes in the microwave because it's way quicker than the oven, use the baggied 'real bacon' bits from the grocery so that my house doesn't smell like bacon for the next week, and skim milk because that's what we have - it is so quick and so easy.  heat flour and milk, dump in potato, cheese, sour cream, seasoning, and green onion, and serve.  mmm.  i'm a little bit jealous because we had leftovers and i had scott take them for lunch today.  yes, my job buys my lunch so i don't have to bring leftovers, but it's just that good.  i basically keep sour cream and bacon bits in the fridge solely for the purpose of this soup.

let me see - non-food related things going on in my life ...  i sent the check off to our mortgage company last week to have it endorsed and returned, but they just called and said that our adjuster stopped filling out the amount of the check midway through, so they have to send it back to us, have it finished, and then return it to them.  sweet.  it's fine, though, we're really not in any imminent rush on the roof thing - it's not like we have any leaks in the house.  the gutter guy is coming out to revise his estimate on thursday (apparently the gutter industry is hard up for work - as soon as we mentioned getting a comparison bid, the gutter guy said he could drop his price for us).  we'd rather use this guy since they work with our roofing company on a normal basis so we think communication would be easier, but we also want to make sure we're getting a good price.  i feel guilty sometimes when people drop their prices for me because i know that they need the profit to make a living, but i have to be a wise consumer and trust that they're being a wise business person.  if i only had unlimited cash, i'd happily be fleeced by every home repair person in the metro.  oh, and we're having a house painter come out to give us an estimate on doing our trim on thursday.  we really need to figure out colors.

and, unrelated to both food and my roof, i have a sore throat today.  it's been building since sunday, but has definitely progressed to full on sore for today.  i woke up a few times last night with a cramp in my forehead muscles because i was furrowing my brow so tightly because it hurt to swallow in my sleep.  i took some advil and scott dug out the chloroseptic strips for me, and i'm pretty sure i'll survive.  95% chance, at least.  hmm, maybe if i complain about my sore throat enough, scott will leave the baked potato soup for me and my achy throat to enjoy!  mm, except that i had already planned to make this bacon and mushroom pasta for dinner tonight ... and, well, mushrooms and bacon and pasta just sounds so tasty.

(for the record, no, i do not cook like this all the time.  last week on the menu: papa john's heart pizza, tuna casserole, smashburger/mcdonald's, and three nights where i assume we must have eaten leftovers because i cooked nothing.)

why i love kinley

kinley (mike and maura's little girl) turns two this next weekend - crazy!  she is having a curious george themed party to which we are invited, which is very exciting as it is the first kids' birthday party i've been invited to since i was a kid.  since she has taken to stripping off all of her clothes and her diaper whenever her diaper gets the least bit wet, they decided that they may as well start the potty training process.  on saturday, they took her to target to get the cool sesame street potty insert (it sits on top of a normal seat so that the kid doesn't fall in) and some big girl undies.  when we went over to their house on saturday night, kinley was happily running around the house at top speed wearing her undies and a t-shirt.

anyway, at some point maura took kinley back for a bathroom break, but kinley just stood in the hall waiting for me to join them - apparently her auntie m is special enough want to show off new tricks to!  so cute, right?  when she was getting ready for bed a little bit later, maura had her get out her jammies and diaper, but when kinley brought them back out to the living room to be changed, instead of taking them to maura, she set them down in front of me and sat in my lap so that i'd get her ready for bed!  adorable and heart melting.  you just can't say no to a request like that.

baby's butt

scott's board meeting was last night - hoorah!  he left the office when the meeting started at 4, and was on his way out the door to meet our friend zack for poker when i got home.  and yes, that's fine by me - he's been working hard and deserves the time out with friends.

anyway, my good friend jami's baby shower is this weekend, but since we have no mutual friends, i had to go baby shower present shopping by myself and had been putting it off.  since i had no excuses last night, i finally decided to brave babies r us by myself for the first time ever to find her a present.  she has, i kid you not, a 12 page registry, so it took a while to wade through the options, but finally i came up with this: pack of diapers, tube of boudreax's butt cream, and a pack of wipes.  i still had a few dollars left to spend and was trying to come up with something else to go with my theme of "everything for baby's butt" - tried to find some cute onesies (you know, to cover the butt), but didn't love any of the options, looked through the registry list again ... and found a listing for a baby rectal thermometer.  bingo!  (get it?  baby's butt, rectal thermometer?  i crack myself up.)  i actually called scott at his poker game to see if he thought that was too over the top, but he thought it was hilarious.  sadly, babies r us was out of rectal thermometers, so i ended up just getting another tube of butt cream and a pack of diaper pail deodorizers.  i might run to target tonight to see if they have one, though.

and then i came home and watched three episodes of gilmore girls and ate girlscout cookies.  i highly recommend the lemon chalets.

sportsfan

i am sleepy today ... we went to the suns v. nuggets game last night, and while the original tip off time had been 7:00, it got pushed back to 8:30 so that they could televise it.  8:30 start time meant that we didn't get home til almost midnight.  thus, now sleepy.  it was a good game, though - suns won 109-97!  and we got to meet the guy that goo is dating, which was very fun.

an insurance adjustor is coming out next tuesday to look at the roof.  when he called, he offered that we could have our contractor out for the appointment also if we wanted ... not entirely sure what to do with that.  on the one hand, it seems like it could be helpful to have a guy who's knowledgable and sort of "on our side" at the appointment; on the other, he's the only roof guy we've spoken to, and while we really liked him, i don't want to feel completely committed to using him if we need to price compare.  we need to decide soon, though, so that we can get it on the roof guy's calendar if we do decide to have him at the appointment.  (and the roof guy did offer that if the first adjusting appointment doesn't get the result we want, that we could request a second adjustor to come out and have him there also.)

we're hanging out with some friends to watch the superbowl this sunday, and since dips are apparently the official food of football, i'm making both queso and spinach/artichoke dip to bring to the game.  the spinach artichoke dip because i had bought frozen spinach to make some like three weeks ago, never got around to it, so it's been sitting in my fridge and i want it gone.  the queso, because i like queso and have a handy small crock pot just perfect for making queso, so why not?  not to mention, i found this super tasty looking queso recipe - velveeta and rotel, yes, but also cream cheese, cheddar, chorizo, and black olives.  oh my!  (although actually, i decided to make queso a week ago and just found the recipe five minutes ago when i subscribed to the pioneer woman's tasty kitchen blog so that i can enter her cooking gear contests again.)

on another unrelated note, depending on the cost of this whole roof situation, i have a tentative brilliant idea for a long weekend getaway with scott later in the spring.  thus far it's a surprise (the destination, not that i'm thinking of planning a trip - i would feel super guilty spending that much money without getting at least a general consent from him), but i did tell scott that it would involve plane tickets, and that it's not to chicago.  i'm trying not to get my hopes too far up, because if we have to pay a lot out of pocket for the roof i think i'll have to dash the idea for now ... but it's definitely simmering in the back of my mind.

the hail state

well, we had the roof guy out yesterday, and things didn't go quite as planned.  we showed him the flashing in the back, but as we had also asked for an estimate on the whole roof, he set up his ladder up front and started looking around.  i think he'd been up there less than a minute before he came down, knocked on the front door, and asked if we knew that we had hail damage.  um, i'm going to go with no on that one.  well, apparently we do.  the good news is that that's the kind of thing homeowner's insurance covers, so i'm going to call them in the morning and find out what we need to do to get that process started, getting an adjustor out and all that.  apparently in addition to the loose flashing, though, we had some loose nails higher up that were likely letting in water, so there's a large-ish area of the roof that might need some work done ... yikes.  we have our fingers crossed about insurance panning out, but nothing's guaranteed yet.  (did you know that colorado is one of the biggest states for hail damage?  california has earthquakes, oklahoma has tornadoes, and colorado has hail.  sweet.)

as the roofer was on top of the house, scott and i were inside talking, and found the situation quickly escalating.  we had him out to look at a piece of loose flashing, and it looks like we may need a whole new roof.  scott pulled out the piece of wood we had meant to cut down and paint to replace a missing slat in the front shutters, and i mentioned that you can actually buy new vinyl shutters for less than $40/pair at home depot.  we were discussing the merits of that when scott asked if the color match on paint would be close enough ... which led me to mention that we really need to get our trim re-painted at some point, as it's, well, ugly in general, and really peeling on the gutters ... oh, and by the way, the gutters leak, so we'll need to think about replacing them at some point.  and, by the way, the soffits are looking a little bit worn, so i'm not sure if we need to replace them or just sand them down and paint them.  in my mind, i'd been pondering these things for a while, but in scott's he knew we needed the flashing nailed down, and suddenly found himself looking at a new roof, new shutters, new gutters, getting the trim painted, and replacing soffit board.  he wasn't very excited about the possibilities.  (which i get.  i really don't love spending money on house projects.)  the roof guy happened to also mention all of those things when he came down to talk about next steps and give us an overview of the roof situation.  we'll see.  the talk with the insurance company needs to happen before we make any other plans.  and regardless of what happens with the roof, i'm going to be so nervous every time we have a hail storm - i remember this summer's hail storm (particularly because i was at home alone in the basement when it hit) and watching the news with people out in aurora shoveling hail off of their driveways like snow and lamenting broken windows.  i had no idea it might have actually done anything to our house!

anyway, so that was yesterday morning - after roof guy finished up, we bought me snow pants and headed up for night skiing.  it was fun!  i did six runs on the bunny slope before deciding i really needed to do a real run.  scott took me on a blue, which was much better than last year, but i still fell twice.  then i sat out for a while to watch kinley while mike and maura skiied together - kinley and i made like five trips up and down the stairs and the "ella" - elevator - then played in a water fountain for a few minutes, during which she got very wet, whoops, then hung out in the bathroom for literally like 15 minutes because she was enamored with the enormo handicap stall.  oh the things that can fascinate an almost-two year old, who knew!  they came back and found a change of clothes for their daughter, and scott took me back out for an illicit green run.  for whatever reason, the resort has the greens closed during night skiing, but since it's right next to the blue, scott found a little trail through a break in the trees that we could use to get onto the green ... for the most part, there was enough light from the giant full moon and the blue run right next to it, but there were a few spots that felt a little bit eerie.  i could see the overall slope of the hill and knew that i was moving down, but i couldn't specifically see the snow or the grade changes, so i just went down slowly, enjoying the stars and the quiet and the amazing view and hoping i didn't fall.  i liked the green much better than the blue.  we all stopped for pizza at hernando's in winter park on the way home, so we didn't get home until close to midnight ... needless to say, i've been a little sleepy today.

as it were, though, i need to stop typing and go do dishes.  we had small group over for dinner tonight, and even though i tried to do dishes as i went, we inevitably have a counter full.  (on the menu for tonight: hot & sweet drumsticks, normal italian breadcrumb drumsticks, herbed basmati rice, broccoli, and brownie squares for dessert.)

late night and future fun

poor scott worked 15.5 hours yesterday.  8am to 11:30pm.  not fun.  he's actually been working long hours for the past few weeks, but i've been trying to adapt my schedule to it and hang out with girlfriends in the evenings so i'm not sitting alone at home.  it has been nice - i got together with girls a few times last week, and had goo and miranda over to watch "post grad" (which was awful, but really so bad it's funny) and have dinner on tuesday.  last night was my first night with scott working super late and no outside plans for myself, so after watching tv and sitting on my butt for a while, i actually managed to motivate myself to do the dishes, clean the kitchen, put away laundry, and wipe down the bathroom vanity.  i was pretty proud of myself, not going to lie.

not sure what his night tonight will look like, so i'm trying to brainstorm more semi-productive activities for myself.  maybe i'll finally get around to cutting the fabric for my picnic quilt.  speaking of, how cute is this quilt?  i love the circles on the edges of the squares.  all those round edges seem like they'd be a bit of a challenge, though, so i'm trying to limit myself to straight edges for now - i can work up to round.  and i guess i do have some jeans that need to be shortened too ... cutting fabric sounds more fun, though.  we'll see.

very exciting on the planning front - denver has an event called 5280 restaurant week every year.  (5280 being denver's official elevation in feet: 5280 feet = 1 mile.)  technically it's two weeks (feb 20-march 5), but a bunch of restaurants across the metro participate with a pre-fixed menu, usually three+ courses for $52.80/couple (or $26.40/individual).  some of the restaurants, you have to wonder who goes during 5280 since you'd likely spend less there on an average visit (like the overpriced gourmet pizza place we went to on saturday - each got a little pizza and a beverage and spent $30).  some of the restaurants, however, are smokin deals.  last year we went to a place called rodizio, which is a brazilian steakhouse, so they come around with giant skewers of fresh meats and cut a little bit of whatever you'd like off for you, all you can eat.  so we spent $52.80 on that, whereas normally it was like $35/person + $5/ea for salad bar (although i just checked their website and i think they've lowered their costs, as it's now only $33/person including salad bar).  this year, our small group is getting together and going to the restaurant kevin taylor, which is the only four star restaurant in denver, and as such is supposed to be absolutely amazing.  two of my coworkers have gone there with their spouses, one ended up hitting it at the tail end of 5280 last year and said it was amazing, the other went during a normal time and said they spent close to $200 on dinner, with just a glass of wine each.  crazy!  (just checked the menu, and the appetizer and entree together are about $49/person, plus a dessert ... all of which we will be enjoying for $52.80 total!)  anyway, we're doing that opening weekend of 5280, and since my birthday happens to fall the monday after the closing weekend of 5280, i managed to swing a second fancy dinner from it this year.  as we typically celebrate my birthday with some sort of cultural event (since we've been married: symphony, ballet, underwhelming lifehouse concert, and art museum/night out downtown), i was looking around to see if anything struck my fancy in the local theaters - no ballets or operas, and the denver theater company downtown was doing mary poppins which i don't think i'd be able to drag scott to if i tried.  then i remembered that littleton has a theater company downtown, and it turns out that they're doing "guys and dolls" that weekend - perfect!  not to mention, there's a fondue place a few blocks away that i've been wanting to go to since we moved here, and it's a part of 5280!

actually, now that i think about it, we actually have quite a bit of fun stuff coming up on our calendar: night skiing with friends next weekend, suns v. nuggets game with goo and the guy she's dating the week after that, a baby shower for a friend from grad school (fun for me, and fun for scott in that he doesn't have to go), restaurant kevin taylor, kinley's 2nd birthday party, another nuggets game on my boss's tickets, and then my birthday date!  whew.  i'm feeling much more content with staying home and cutting fabric now.  (although i do still feel bad for scott having to work such late nights.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

fall is falling

whoops, it's been a while since i posted. two weekends ago we had my office's cubs tix for all 4 games in the cubs v. rockies series, and the cubs very miserably lost 3/4 games. i think between the disappointment of that and being overwhelmed by spending so much time around so many people, i didn't particularly feel like writing much of anything.

i've mostly recovered, though, and we spent this weekend camping with our sunday school class. it was very fun - we camped down near lake isabel in the san isabel forest, southwest of pueblo. we had a group site that would hold up to 60 people at night/120 during the day, and we only had 15 people, so we had plenty of room. it was a nice site, though - private (non-flush) toilets for our site, lots of big trees, plenty of fire pits and grills, big covered picnic area, and a nice creek that ran next to the site. plus, it was on a private road just for the 3 group sites, so there wasn't a ton of traffic running next to it. it was a good time - we cooked over the fire for dinners, and had a fun hike up to an abandoned mine and waterfall on saturday. a few people had trouble sleeping with the cold weather (lows in the low-40's both nights), but i think we've found a perfect system. from the bottom up: fleece blanket, foam sleeping pads, sleeping bags, quilt. oh, and i sleep with a fleece hat on - and our tent is a bit smaller than our friends, which keeps our body heat trapped a little better. it keeps us well insulated, cozy, and quite comfy.

last night when we got home, i noticed some leaves from our russian olives had fallen on the lawn, and it occurred to me that we're already past the middle of august. school is starting, nights are cool, labor day is three weeks away, we just finished our last summer vacation, and fall is just around the corner. i love fall, but it always makes me a little bit sad when summer is winding down. where is the year going?

our friends' kids

our friends keith and amy had their baby last night (natalie jean)! i was glad to hear the news, in part because i knew they were hoping to have her before next wednesday so that they wouldn't have to induce, and in part because i'll be able to remember her birthday (our anniversary)! also handy is that our friends abba and caleb's baby boy axel was born last month - on scott's birthday. kind of random that of the three non-national-holiday days of the year that are truly meaningful to us (our birthdays and wedding anniversary), two of them are now shared with good friends' kids.

we'll get to see both families at our friend andrew's wedding over labor day weekend, by which time natalie will be a month old, and axel will be two months old. crazy! (especially since they were originally due within a week of each other.)