My Christmas resolution...

Cause you know, just having a New Year's resolution isn't enough for me. LOL

First off - I hope everyone in blogland had a fabulous Christmas!! We sure did. Last week started off a bit on the crazy side considering we had just come home from our trip to Mexico, had to spend plenty of time with the cats to make sure they didn't think we completely abandoned them while we were gone and begin the preparations for the Christmas feast. I spent Monday, Tuesday and most of Wednesday either baking the 5 desserts I had on the menu or prepping the many side dishes. So between rolling peanut butter balls and rum balls and mixing the ingredients for stain glass cookies and popcorn/M&M treats, I somehow managed to clean the house and make deviled eggs, a strawberry rhubarb crisp, homemade scalloped potatos, and eggplant parmesan. And that doesn't even include the ham and it's customary glaze topping! In all it was a wonderful meal (I finally got a chance to sit and enjoy everything I had been slaving over!) and everything turned out great.

And since I was so industrious during the week, I made a resolution to myself that I would FINALLY copy all my recipes to a set of recipes cards that J had given to me something like 2 Christmas' ago. Everytime I walked by those cards and album, I felt guilty that I hadn't started working on them. And my frustration over the bulging cookbook I had on the counter that was chock-full of papers, index cards, and other misc recipes I've collected over the past 8 years reached an all-time high when it took me over 15 minutes to find one stupid recipe buried somewhere in the middle of that mess. Something had to be done. And so I made a resolution to go through all that was jammed into that cookbook, throw away the recipes I never have and probably never will use and copy all the others so that I have a nice "easy to find" collection. I figure I've re-written about 45 so over the past few days and my hand is positively aching today. But I've got a good 60 more to go! My goal is to finish this before the New Year because that begins a whole new resolution timeframe and heaven forbid the old resolution overlaps with the new! My sequential little ordered brain could never handle such chaos!

Back from summer to winter...14" of it to be exact...

We made it back from our trip to Mexico on Saturday with very little delay which was rather impressive given the snow storm that was going on here in the northeast. So after spending the morning in shorts and a t-shirt in the 85 degree warmth, we arrived home only to see a little over a foot of snow in the driveway. I think my body is still in shock. The massage I received on the beach at the resort feels like it was years ago thanks to all the shoveling we did on Sunday. I'm ready to go back! Anyone care to join me??

Last week was definitely a fun-filled week (child-free fun too since B spent the week with my parents.) The ocean was warm and a beautiful turquiose color, the sand was so soft - it was every bit of heaven that I imagined it would be. We took 2 trips off the resort - one for some snorkeling in a lagoon and cenote (a water-filled sinkhole) and the other was a trip to Cozumel for more snorkeling and scuba diving. The rest of the time was spent either at the beach, at the pool, playing archery, eating, drinking (I am officially in love with all-inclusive resorts!!) and just soaking in the sun.

As soon as I get all the pictures downloaded from my camera I'll post some up.

Going from winter to summer...

I'm posting a picture of my travel ticker here (because it's all the way at the bottom of the page and I doubt it gets looked at!) Today is *the* day to look at it anyway since I'll be taking it down soon, for obvious reasons. :-)

We leave bright and early tomorrow morning for a week of fun in the Mexican sun! I'm trying to get myself mentally prepared to take in all the sights, even if they happen to include Christmas lights wrapped around palm trees and Santas dressed in surfer shorts. Both of which just seem so wrong according to this hard-core New Englander! So hopefully the weather doesn't get too cold for my friends back home cause with temps like these, this cold weather we've been having will be out of sight and out of mind!

And depending on the WiFi situation at the resort, I hope to be able to post some pictures while we're down there. So stay tuned!

I've been tagged! I feel so loved :)

How appropos that my first ever tag in blog-land came from someone who I probably played tag with in real life too. Although I can't remember if she was the first person I ever played tag with, I definitely remember running around the playground with sj (aka snowbird) back when we were 5 years old. Ahhh..the good 'ole days!











So here are the rules regarding this tag:

1. Link to the person where you received it - done, see above.
2. Share 7 random/weird facts about yourself - also done, see below.
3. Tag 7 Random people at the end of your post and include links - ok, this is going to be tough since I don't really know that many people I could tag. so I won't do 7 but I will tag a couple.
4. Let 'em know they were tagged. - done, see below.

My 7 random/weird facts about myself:

1.) Three years ago I completed 3 out of 4 levels of basic adult figure skating lessons. The 4th was all about jumps and my already bruised knees protested loudly enough that I just stopped after I finished the 3rd.

2.) My winter wardrobe includes a really nice scarf that I not only crocheted myself, but also spun the yarn with which it is made. It was just a pile of dyed Merino wool when I first started.

3.) My dream is to someday own several alpacas so I could have my own supply of wool for spinning and crocheting with.

3.) During my freshman year of college, I remember constantly running into this really tall guy who wore a black suede cowboy-type hat on his head and a long black trench coat. I thought he was weird for walking around campus everyday with the same hat on his head. Who knew that guy would eventually be my husband! And he still has the hat. He bought it when he was in Australia.

4.) I have never watched a single episode of Survivor and never had any desire to really. Is that show even still on?

5.) I flew in a small single-engine Cessna for the first time last year. I had a blast trying to find our house when the pilot handed the controls over to me. Someday J and I plan on taking flight lessons together.

6.) I have also flown in a hot air balloon and would love to do that again!

7.) If I had the money for it, I would buy a small apartment in New York City cause I absolutely love the food and nightlife but hate the 2+ hour drive back home. It would be so much easier to just crash there!

Ok I'm going to tag...
Brit Gal' in the USA cause she's a dedicated blogger and her photography is amazing!
Emilie au pays de Heidi (i.e. Emilie in Switzerland) cause she's my cousin and studying abroad in Switzerland this year.

A Letter from srg...

Dear family of mice,

I am writing to inform you that your eviction notice has been processed and will be forthcoming. I hope you have all enjoyed living under our roof rent-free, but the time has come to find a new home. In case you haven't noticed already, several of your family members have already been displaced. You may be asking yourselves why this horrible landlord has decided to take action at a time of freezing cold temperatures and imminent snowfall after years of living in relative peace and harmony in between the walls and floors of the dwelling you have called home.

That question will be answered momentarily, but first I must send you my heartfelt thanks. Thanks for keeping our wonderful cats entertained. They will surely miss the many hours of fun chasing your furry butts around our home. You have provided them (but most especially my girl Hailie) with some much-needed physical exercise and for that I'm grateful! I must also thank you for somehow not getting into our food pantry. I have no idea what you and your rodent friends have been eating lately to keep you all so plump and fat, but I have yet to find ripped up bags or any other chewed-through food items in my kitchen. So thank you for not making me have to throw away my expensive food!

Now that I have thanked you so gratefully, I unfortunately must inform you of the reasons for this eviction.

1.) I am sick of hearing the pitter-patter of your little feet above my head while I try to sleep at night. Why the hell you keep running from one end of our bedroom ceiling to the other (while my son sleeps on the floor above you) is beyond me and it's got to stop.

2.) We were also not pleased with your decision to allow your dead relatives to decay and rot in between our walls. That was just gross and the smell was horrid.

3.) You may think you have access to free lip balm in my car, but think again. Those family members who were brave enough to dare enter my car have been removed from the premises.

4.) Lastly, you have recently invaded yet another room in my house. I pride myself in keeping this room clean and sanitary and the fact that I have had to spend the last several days scrubbing the bathtub because you thought it would be a great location to tease the cats at 3am in the morning, well that was the last straw! I don't care how well you clean yourselves, the fact that your dirty little feet were scurrying all over a place designed for humans to relax and soak in a hot bath is just disgusting. For that - you have to go. It's bad enough I have to clean up after 2 cats, a kid and a husband. I refuse to add your big black-eyed brown-furry self to the list of family members that I must tidy up after. So your days in our home have come to an end.

Please keep an eye out for the nice cracker slathered with peanut butter. Follow its scent and approach the room it is kept in with complete confidence. Once in said room, you will be trapped, but have no fear. You will be transported to a location far away where you can make a new home for yourselves. And hopefully you will be joined by your other family members who have already been displaced.

Sincerely,Your landlord whose patience is running out.


P.S. Just be glad you don't live in KAT's house cause showing your face there results in not only an eviction, but a death sentence!

It's a wild, wild world out there!

Even if the "out there" is no further away than our own backyard. I meant to write this post days ago, but I think delaying it has only allowed me to add more to it. Some of you may already know this, but for those of who don't, we live in a somewhat rural area. By "somewhat rural" I mean that we are in a nice populated neighborhood, but our property is set back a bit from the street. Basically we can't see our neighbors and they can't see us - which is nice! And the fact that we're surrounded by privately owned forest land (which hasn't been developed yet and we hope it never does!) is one of the main reasons why we bought this house 8 1/2 years ago. Hubby J actually grew up in this town and is very much used to all that the wildlife has to offer since his parent's house abutted a state forest. Me being a city girl on the other hand...well let's just say, I'm still adjusting to all the critters that live surprisingly close to our front door.

The best have been the family of deer that usually bed down in our backyard under the hemlocks in the winter time...awww...the family of raccoons that ravaged our recycle bin looking for bits of food left in the cat food cans...the possum that I found in the garage (after accidently locking him) who insisted on played dead under J's car until J got in the car and started the engine...the fox we saw running through the yard one day...the bat that accidently got into our house while we were pulling in a window unit air conditioner (that little bugger was tough to catch!)...the baby squirrel J found running in our bedroom one morning...the mice who always return when the weather gets colder...the black bear who came up to our front steps once...and the bobcat we saw high-tailing it down the driveway with what looked like a rabbit in its mouth. Yup - we've seen a lot here, but none of it prepared me for what I saw this past Sunday morning.

We were sitting down to a nice late breakfact when out the dining room window I saw a few deer galloping through the yard. Nothing unusual there, except for the fact that their white tails were completely upright. That's usually a sign to the others that danger is nearby. The next thing we saw was a very large buck being followed by what we first thought was a fox. How a fox could antagonize a buck as large as that one was beyond me. But after this fox came out from behind a bush we looked again and nope - it was not a fox...it was a coyote! A coyote was circling this buck about 30 feet away from our back deck...at 11 o'clock in the morning! We watched it for a few minutes but the deer headed off deeper into the woods (with the coyote nipping at its heels) so I didn't get a chance to take a picture of all this. Then I freaked out - one of our cats was outside! I grabbed our handy-dandy locator device (aka the homing device we have for the cats) and ran out the front door looking for him. Thankfully he was in the garage stalking something (another mouse I'm sure) so I grabbed him and ran inside. Now I'm trying to train our one outdoor-loving cat to be an indoor-loving cat, but it's not going as well as I had hoped. It's funny - after living here for 8 years, I never once heard (nevermind saw) coyotes up until this past summer. Since this summer, we've been hearing them at least once a week, so we knew they were nearby. And there is nothing more freaky than hearing a pack of them howling and yipping. It's the eeriest sound in the world! If you've never heard coyotes before, just listen to these recordings...

Coyote howling - this is a pretty cool sound actually. We hear this off in the woods quite frequently.

Hunting prey - this is the crazy hunting sounds they make to disorient their prey. Very freaky!

I just didn't think they were right near our backyard! And I knew they moved around a lot at night so that's why we always made sure the cats were in at night. But now it looks like the poor cats' daytime adventuring is going to get cut very short.

Since that Sunday, it's been wildlife central over here. We had a family of squirrels that ate up every stinkin' pumpkin that I still had out on our front porch. All 5 of them! At first I thought they were just going for the seeds, but no, they ate the WHOLE thing!! We caught one red (or should I say ORANGE!) handed.

You think the excitment ends there? Heck no!! I woke up this morning and staggered my bleary-eyed self into the bathroom only to find my girl cat Hailie stalking a mouse...in our bathtub...nice... I tried but failed miserably to catch it. The mouse...not Hailie...

So stay tuned cause I don't think the adventures are done here in Wilder Land!

The Holiday Season is upon us!

And to commemorate the season, I was especially industrious yesterday to get the rest of our Christmas decorations up (we put up the tree the night before Thanksgiving.) And what is a day of listening to Christmas carols while putting up decorations without a festive fire in the fireplace once the sun went down? Well here you go!

Happy Day-Before Thanksgiving!!

One good thing about not hosting Thanksgiving this year - I will actually have the time to watch this with B tomorrow morning! I don't care how old you are, parades bring out the kid in you!

My adorable Paco

My handsome boy Paco was being especially playful and photogenic this morning after I sprinkled some cat nip on his scratching post. Here are a few pictures of the king of the house.

In case you were wondering, yes that is a spinning wheel behind him. My friends have told me I should volunteer as an interpreter at an 18th century village so I can sit there and demonstrate wool preparation and spinning techniques. I have to say, the thought has crossed my mind...

A boy and his caterpillar

So B was given his first "real" homework assignment last week. And by "real" I mean it was something that he had to do by himself. Not a mom-or-dad-will-do-it-for-you kind of thing like we've seen in the past. Regardless though - homework in Junior Kindergarten?!? Crazy I know. Let me just say, I was just as un-enthused about the idea as he was.

The assignment was to pick a favorite teddy bear or other stuffed animal and draw it on a piece of paper which will be combined with those of the other students to create a book for them to share with their families. I think finding the favorite stuffed animal was the hardest part. B has a bunch of favs and makes sure that 3 of them follow him to bed every night. But for this project he picked an animal that he hasn't even played with much...a caterpillar made up of rings with a different number on each ring. He reaffirmed to me that this was indeed his favorite, so ok, on to the next task - draw said stuffed animal. Thanks to a very convenient dry erase/chalkboard combo easel that my parents got him one year for Christmas, he had a bunch of opportunities to practice drawing his caterpillar before committing it to paper.

Here is snapshot of what I thought was the best one. And you can sort of see the actual stuffed animal in the foreground. He was quite proud of his accomplishment!

Propeller blade, anyone?

It's not something you find everyday. Unless of course you're KAT who's dad has left quite the armament of cannon in their front yard. But a propeller blade sitting in your living room? Yup. I guess we are now the proud new owners of a rather cool-looking blade. The rainbow graphics on it are quite amazing actually. And of course it's airplane-related, so for B it was love at first sight. I'm not quite sure what we'll do with it, but we'll have to thank J's father (who might be reading this from his new home base in Oz) since it was his company who designed and manufactured it.

We'll have to see if we can incorporate it into the new man-cave that J is hoping to turn our partially-finished basement into. Actually it will go quite well with the assortment of turbine airfoils I salvaged from one of my previous jobs at a large jet engine manufacturer. We were moving from one plant to another so I brought home a few "souvenirs." Hey, we never claimed to be normal...

My new friend...

I had a friend waiting for me in my car this morning.
I promised him we'd go for a ride, but I made sure not to tell him where we were going.
Didn't want to get him all scared or anything.
I couldn't help but notice his adorable eyes, his quiet nature.
He was a lot bigger than I pictured him.
I was really glad he showed up this morning.
I had been wanting to meet him for quite some time.
Must have been the cracker with peanut butter that I left for him last night.
I'm sure that was way better than the mint-flavored lip balm...

Yup - I caught a mouse in my car this morning. After discovering yesterday that something had chewed through a container of lip balm, I figured it must be a mouse. But I really don't want a mouse chewing through the wires or whatever else in my car, so we set a trap for him last night (one of the humane ones with doors that flip down to create a cage.) The cracker smothered in peanut butter worked like a charm. I was pleasantly surprised to see his big black eyes staring up at me this morning. That's when we went for a little ride. I dropped him off a few miles away at wooded spot near the reservoir on my way to work. We may have to set that trap again cause I have a feeling he's not the only one making a home out of our garage these days...

Happy Friday!

Ok - it's Friday and I'm beat, so I'm stealing sj's lazy post and using it for myself. And since I stole it from her, you can read this from the perspective of her asking me the questions.

1) What would you say your most fundamental flaw is?
i care way too much about how others perceive me.

2) What was your dream growing up?
i totally wanted to be an actress

3) What talent do you wish you had?
i wish i could play violin

4) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
pomegranate martini

5) Favourite vegetable?
water chestnuts - wait is that a veggie? anyway, no matter how much you stir-fry those babies they still stay nice and crunchy!

6) What was the last book you read?
Lord John and the Private Matter by Diana Gabaldon

7) What zodiac sign are you?
the mighty lion

8) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
no tattoos, but i do have a naval piercing

9) Worst Habit?
biting my lower lip when i'm nervous or stressed. i don't recommend it - leads to horribly chapped lips!

10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?
Sure thing! For you, sj, anything!

11) What is your favourite sport?
umm...figure skating. that's about it.

12) Do you have a Negative or Optimistic attitude?
i try to be as optimistic as i can, but it really depends on the time of the month. LOL

13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
i'd dare you (sj) to pick up the emergency phone and talk all sexy to whoever picks up at the other end

15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
when i make homemade frosting for a cake, i like to save the extra and eat a spoonful at a time when no one is watching.

16) Do you have any pets?
yes - 2 black cats - duh! Paco and Hailie - they were the last 2 black cats from the same litter and I couldn't decide which one to take. so i took them both! and there will probably be a fish sometime in the near future...

17) What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly?
i'd be thrilled! but watch your step - our house is littered with toys 99% of the time.

18) What was your first impression of me?
umm..kind of tough to think that far back (we did meet in kindergarten you know!) i do remember your long braids though and thought they were pretty cool.

19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
very creepy. they were great until i read Stephen King's IT.

20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
my height - another 3-4 inches would be great!

21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
i'll be driving the getaway car!

22) What color eyes do you have?
blue, but they tend to look gray at times depending on the weather.

23) Ever been arrested?
nope

24) Bottle or can soda?
bottle, but i hardly ever drink soda.

25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
probably buy some company stock while it's still in the crapper.

27) What's your favourite place to hang at?
i'll ditto sj on this one - my living room.

28) Do you believe in ghosts?
actually yes i do. i have had too many unexplainable things happen to me to not to.

29) Favourite thing to do in your spare time?
spare time, what the heck is that?? if i do have a moment to spare, i'm usually watching a movie or reading.

30) Do you swear a lot?
not as much as i used to, but B is always there to remind me when i let one slip.

31) Biggest pet peeve?
slow drivers

32) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
today? sleepy. any other day - cooky.

33) Do you believe/appreciate romance?
yes i do. it has happened to me, on more than one occassion. but i'm with sj, it does fade after a while.

35) Do you believe in God?
i do believe in a higher power, but i do not believe in any organized religion. i blame my scientific brain for that one.

36) What happened to question 14?
i have no idea, but apparently sj can't count!

Congrats Obama!!

Well as you can all see from my handy-dandy widget below - Barack Obama will be our next president! YAY!

And the race is on!

Here's a cool little widget to track the election.

{{Ok, I'm removing this widget cause the election is over and we all know who won!}}

Happy Halloween!!

Just wanted to post a few pictures before we head out to my parents for some trick-or-treating.

Here's a blond version of Harry Potter!

That wand is the best - it lights up and makes sounds if you wave it around.

B wanted a skull on his jack-o-lantern and I have to say it turned out pretty neat!

Hope everyone has a wonderfully spooky and fun Halloween!

B through the years

I was flipping through some baby pictures of B last night and I thought it would be neat to put some pictures up of B from when he was born up until now. It's amazing how much they change in a just a short amount of time!

Just a few hours old...
Homecoming - 12 days old...At 6 months...One year old - his first costume! He is so adorable in this picture.
18 months old...2 years old...
3 years old...4 years old...And now at 5 years old...

Happy Birthday B!

Five years ago today, at about this time (~8 am) I was on my way to the hospital after being pretty sure that my water broke in the shower. I still remember like it was yesterday. I was sitting on my pilates ball counting the minutes between contractions wondering what the heck could be going on because I still had 6 more weeks to go! Thankfully I did manage to eat breakfast (maple and brown sugar oatmeal) and left for the hospital after J got out of the shower. Once we got to the hospital it was determined that I was in labor, my water did in fact break and we were having a baby - today! Before my baby shower. Before I had anything prepared for this poor kid! So off they carted me to another hospital (as the first one did not have a NICU) and during the 20 minute drive (which seemed like an eternity to me) I dilated from 3 cm to 9.5 cm. Had I been sitting up, he would have been delivered in the ambulance! Immediately upon arriving to the second hospital I was whisked away to the delivery room and 30 minutes of pushing later he was born at 11:39 am weighing 4 lbs, 7 oz and 17.75" long. He was small, but otherwise quite healthy for being born so early. Thankfully he was only in the NICU for a couple of days, then he spent a little over a week in the special care nursery so he could gain weight. He came home on Nov 9th.

And here he is now - at 43" tall and almost 45 pounds -

And yes, I made that cake myself - Lightning McQueen from Cars. It took me 4 hours to frost it... It took them 10 minutes to devour it...

B and his cousin - they get along so well together!

Need feedback

Ok - no one commented on my post that contained a snippet from the book I am writing and I am dying to know what people think - good, bad and indifferent. So if you have a moment to read it, please shoot me a comment and let me know what you think!

**One more thing - keep in mind that the intended audience for this book is between 5-10 years of age. And keeping with the theme of one of my all-time favorite movies, The Princess Bride, it is meant to be read aloud to said audience.

I know we have a lot of black bears around...

...but I never thought I'd see one in the back of a truck! Luckily it wasn't real. I was on my way home with my mom Saturday morning after getting our hair done for my cousin's wedding when this truck pulled out in front of us. Hilarious!

Update on house happenings

This past weekend went by like a whirlwind, but despite all the craziness, my cousin's wedding came together wonderfully! More on that (including pictures) later on. For now, I wanted to give an update on the house stuff. Our masons are almost done on the tall gabled-end of the house. These pictures are almost 2 weeks old already, but I will take more once we re-finish the gable vent so they can finish putting up the rest of the stone.

From here you can see the door and windows to the basement.


And the upper window here is actually the 1st floor. The 2nd floor windows are hidden by the scaffolding, but regardless - that's a lot of stone!

Excerpt from the new book

Just wanted to let you all know that I am in fact putting together a children's story as I first mentioned here. The progress has been slow (I only have 8 pages so far) but I'm about a third of the way through the story. So for those of you who are interested, here is an excerpt from chapter 2 -

********************
After a nice breakfast of oatmeal and fruit, Brady quickly finished his glass of milk and headed for the door to put on his shoes. He was so excited that he was finally going to see the tree house. He was still putting on his jacket as he ran out the door and started down the driveway.
“Come ON mom! You’re going too slow!” he exclaimed.
Near Brady’s swing set at the bottom of the hill, they turned onto a little path that the deer use to cut across the yard. Brady started running towards the tree house, making sure to jump over the branches and rocks that were on the path. It had rained the night before and the ground was quite wet and muddy in some places. As he got closer to the house he realized just how big it really was. And high up too! It was a very cloudy morning, with drops of rain falling from the leaves of the tree. The entire area seemed to get darker as he approached the house.
“Whoa!” Brady said as he got closer to the tree, “that’s a really big tree house! I wonder who built it?”
“I don’t know,” his mom replied, “it was here when we bought our house. But I’ve never seen anyone play in it.” Just then there was a loud rustling in the bushes behind Brady.
“What was that?” he asked as he whirled around to look at the bush, but his mom had already started walking around to the other side of the big tree and hadn’t heard him. So Brady quickly followed his mother to the other side while looking cautiously back towards the bush.
“Mom, there’s something in that bush over there,” he spoke softly as he walked up next to her.
“Oh, it’s probably just a squirrel or a chipmunk,” she replied. “They’re pretty busy this time of year getting ready for winter.”
“Oh, ok,” he responded, although Brady thought that whatever made the noise in the bush had to be bigger than a squirrel.
As they approached the other side of the tree, Brady ran over to the ladder and quickly forgot about the rustling in the bush.
********************

So what do you think? Good, bad, whatever - please comment!

B's new bike

B got his birthday present a little early this year, but with the great weather we had this weekend, we really couldn't resist! In a few weeks from now it's going to be too cold to really enjoy it, so we wanted him to have fun while it was still nice out and before the snow starts falling! (I still can't believe it's the middle of October already!)

Anyway, here he is enjoying his brand new bike!

New Digs

Just wanted to post a quick note with a picture of my new desk in our brand new office. I apologize for not having a "before" shot except for the boxed in image below, but honestly there wasn't much else to see. These new desks are much larger, have way more storage space and I personally love the locker cabinet! It reminds me of the lockers we had in high school. And those chairs are super comfortable!

Boxing up

I don't usually post work-stuff on my blog, but this is an exciting week for our team, so I figured it would be worth sharing. First things first, we're moving!! Our office that is. This is our last week of work in the current office building. Next Monday we settle into a brand spanking new building and I couldn't be more thrilled! So this week I have been busy packing not only my own desk, but a teammate's desk as well since she is still out on maternity leave. By Monday afternoon, I had finished packing up my teammate, but just started my own desk.

Then I come in Tuesday morning to find this...

Yup - my cubicle is completely boxed in with packing crates! This is what happens when your co-workers are a bunch of pranksters. And it doesn't help if you are the first one to leave at the end of the day. LOL

Feeling like I'm 12 all over again!

It may have taken almost 20 years, but I finally went to go see my all-time favorite boy band last night - New Kids on the Block! And I can honestly say it was well worth the wait. The show was completely sold out and I think I could count on one hand the number of guys that were in that arena. There must have been close to 10,000 30-year old women in there. I even saw a few teenagers as well as a few much older women. I went with my BFF Chel and our other good friend Tracy and we had a blast. I never knew 30-year old women could scream like a bunch of 12 year old teeney-boppers until last night.

The performance itself was great, but I was a little disappointed that they played so many songs from their new album. I know they are trying hard to promote their new stuff, but I really wanted to hear more of their old songs. And of the older stuff that they did play, they never really finished an entire song. Somehow they managed to incorporate "We will rock you" in the middle of "Hangin' Tough." That was a bit strange. At the end they did a great job with "Please don't go girl" (Jordan can still hit those high notes with ease...sigh) but again, they sang the chorus twice and that was about it. They concluded their encore with "Step by step" which was awesome though! Overall the show was great. They do some awesome stage stuff with fireworks and steam and platforms that move up and down. They can all still dance and they're all still hot. Even Donnie although I wish he would have taken off the baseball hat that he wore all night. We know he's losing his hair... so why bother hiding it? As for the others, Chel and Tracy were fighting over who liked Jordan more, Danny's got great arms and broke out into some cool break dancing on the stage at one point, Donnie had to lose the hat, Jonathan didn't really do much (you could tell he was still battling his anxiety about being in front of a crowd), and Joey will always be my favorite!

Then (Joey, Jordan, Danny, Jonathan, and Donnie):

Now (Joey, Jonathan, Donnie, Jordan, and Danny):

The good, the bad and the ugly of children's books

There are an awful lot of childrens books out there. Just visit any library and you'll see what I mean. Even the space dedicated to the children's section in a Borders or Barnes and Nobles seems to rival the square footage of our house. And you can pretty much find every book ever written for kids. From Baby Einstein books for the babies to potty training for the toddlers to learn to read books for the Kindergarteners. Some of them are great - classics even - like The Hungry Little Caterpillar, Good Night Moon and all the Dr. Seuss books. Some of them are so-so, like picture books with captions under each picture that just don't flow well (and leave you wondering, which caption should I be reading next?) And some of them are just plain BAD. I won't go into any specifics here, but any parent with little kids knows what I'm talking about. Those are the books that leave you wondering how they ever got published to begin with. Well it was those thoughts after reading one of those books that led me to begin my next project (yeah, like I don't have enough stuff going on now, right?) But I'm sick of reading B these stupid stories night after night, so I've started writing one for him.

I don't know how it's going to turn out yet, or if I'll even finish it. Writing has never been my strong suit (sj can attest to this fact thanks to that year of Honors English we took together in high school which she loved and I detested!) Receiving one assignment after another to come up with essays, poems, short stories, etc. - UGH! I prefer to write on my own time and on my own terms. And somehow I've managed to keep a blog going for about a year now so hopefully I've gotten better at getting my thoughts down on paper or Word or notepad or whatever program I'm typing in that day. I'm not the most articulate person in the world, but I do try. With that said, I doubt anyone will ever see or hear this little story except for J and B. And maybe my FunnyGal friends who I'm sure could offer plenty of constructive criticism on my grammar and some literary insight for my literary-challenged, techy brain. If it turns out to be pretty good, I might even post some of it here. So far I only have 2 pages, but last night B asked me to read the first page twice. So apparently someone likes it! I'm not going to give away the plot here, but it's definitely leaning towards being a fantasy. Oh and it involves a little boy and a tree house.

A few more house pictures

Here are some photos of the most recent updates around the house. The new front deck is beginning to take shape. What you see here is cedar boards surrounding the pressure treat frame. I just love the grain on the board that makes up the side of the steps.

The back of the garage is just about complete thanks to all the shake-staining we did last week. The last items left here is to install a flood light at the peak and replace the pane of glass in the middle. You can't see it in this photo but the existing one has a huge hole in the bottom of it.
Along the short side of the garage - more shakes.
The back deck is getting demolished to make way for the new deck.
The masons have been working rather quickly to put up stone on the far side of the house. This is going to take quite a bit of time - they have 3 stories to cover!
Over this past weekend we installed one of our new lights on the front of the garage. Copper...of course!
And it looks awesome in the dark!

The infamous Googlewhack

I have been spending quite a bit of time this morning googling oracle functions. I'm having a problem with one I created and it's bothering me that there isn't a lot of info out there about my particular issue. Well it might also be due to my strategically placed double-quotes to filter out some of the hundreds of results that get returned when you google anything with the word "oracle" in your search phrase. One particular search yielded one and only one result however. I thought - great... Not much help here. And then it hit me - I've just experienced a Googlewhack! Well actually it wasn't a true googlewhack as it doesn't fit into their 2 word with no double quotes restriction, but it came pretty darn close. That triggered a memory I had from my grad school cryptography course. One of our assignments was to come up with 2 unique words that, when searched in google, would return only 1 result. I have no idea how that fit in with the whole cryptography lesson, but I do remember spending HOURS trying to come up with a combination that worked. I think I finally found one after I pulled out my old Biology 101 textbook from my undergrad days to search for new words. Hmm...maybe there was a reason why I started my undergrad as a bio major before switching to CS... Who knew a bio textbook would come in handy during a graduate cryptography course!!

So if you happen to find yourself with a few extra minutes/hours/days (not to mention have an extraordinary vocabulary) try it for yourself. And if you do happen upon that rare singular result, be sure to record it in The Whack Stack

The dangers of home improvement...

Before leaving work on Friday afternoon I spent some time planning out my weekend (like I almost always do.) And this weekend was no different than the others - a mix of chores, house stuff, more staining, some down time with friends, etc. And things got even better after I got home on Friday to discover that our carpenter went ahead and stained the remaining boards which I had planned to do first thing on Saturday. Whoo-hoo! One thing down, 50 million more to go... So I spent Saturday doing chores, groceries and getting the house ready to entertain my sister-in-law and her boyfriend later that night followed by some friends and their kids Sunday for lunch. While I was doing all of that, J was busy outside hanging lights on the front of the house. Things were going great all weekend. Saturday night turned out to be a fun dinner and movie night with a chinese stir-fry and homemade eggrolls - yuummmmyyy!!! Sunday started out with a hike with a few friends and their kids followed by sandwiches, salad and cookies at our house. Poor J - we inundated the house with 4 women and 6 kids ranging in age from 11 to 4!!

Everything was going great until I saw one of the cats outside and decided to bring him in for the night. As I walked outside, a nasty smoke smell hit me and I looked over in the front yard to see a rag on our carpenter's bench just smoldering away. What the!?!? I ran to the back deck and got B's sand bucket (that had been sitting there for a while just collecting rain water) and threw the rag into the bucket. (Now that I think about it, picking up a hot smoldering rag with my bare hands probably wasn't the smartest move, but I was in emergency mode at that point.) My first reaction was - who lit this on fire?? All the kids were playing outside and the masons were busily working on the house, so there were plenty of bodies to potentially accuse. But after pulling the rag out of the water, it dawned on me - this thing lit itself on fire! It was soaked in stain and had been all wadded up on the workbench. The perfect recipe for spontaneous combustion according to any label on a can of oil-based stain. Thank god I caught that on time. Our nice newly stained boards were lying right next to that workbench. To say nothing of the nice newly wood-sided front of the house!

So from familyhandyman.com - ^Start Public Service Announcement^
CAUTION: Spread out stain-soaked rags and let them dry (or better yet, soak them in water) before disposing of them in a waste container. Piles of damp stain-soaked rags are a spontaneous combustion hazard. ^End Public Service Announcement^

Marathon staining week and adorable B pictures

I know I haven't been around much at all in the past week or two. But I have very good reason (or excuses, whatever) for not posting or being online much at night (sorry to my Myspace friends who look for a nightly status from me) or sitting down and watching any TV, you get the point. All I can say is it's a good thing I'm not into any of the new fall TV shows cause I would have missed most of the episodes this month. Although I do have TiVo...so I guess I don't have much of an excuse there, huh? Anyway....I'm going to blame last weekend's weather for this week's non-stop craziness. Because had it not been so rainy/humid last weekend, I could have gotten a lot more staining done then, rather than spending every night (until 9-10pm most nights) trying to keep up with our carpenter. But thankfully 4 boxes of shakes were completed in 3 nights! That's a record for us! And what's even better - WE ARE DONE with the shakes! Which is great because those things are a real pain in the arse and take hours to stain. I swear - it takes more time to stain than it does for our carpenter to nail them to the house. I think we went through about 11 boxes (and it takes about a gallon of stain per box) in total (with about 200 shakes in each box) just to cover the back and 1 (very short) side wall of the garage. Heaven forbid if we were doing the entire house with those things. I'd have to hire a crew to stain all that! But all of our hard work paid off because it looks great. I'll take a few pictures tonight to post up later.

In other house news, the masons are quickly working on the last part of their job - the far wall of the house that is a full 3 stories tall thanks to the walk-out basement. We're hoping they finish up before it gets too cold outside (can wet mortar freeze??) We have also been discussing the front and rear decks with our carpenter and decided to go with Brazilian redwood for the decking for both including the gazebo in the back. I'll have to see if I can post the plans on here so you can get an idea of what the back deck is going to look like. But basically, the retangular portion of the deck will be the same dimension as the old one, but on one end we are incorporating a large gazebo to provide some shelter from the sun since the it hits that area of the yard from about 11am until sunset. That will work out great for outdoor entertaining during the summer. The only downside to all of this is the fact that we will have get rid of a gorgeous japanese maple tree and a very overgrown but pretty white azalea bush. We were initially thinking about uprooting both and replanting them somewhere else, but I think they might be too big for that. It will be sad to see them go, but I think the sacrifice will be worth it.

Ok - now for some B news - he has been very much enjoying his Pre-K and Jr. K classes thus far despite the fact that he's caught a bit of a cold already. He is already writing out most of his name and has even started to read! It's amazing how quickly he picks things up.

Here's a picture of the rascal performing his latest trick. This is what happens when he's too lazy to get a glass and fill it with water...

Yup - you got caught mister!

Summer may be ending but the house stuff continues

My little boy is officially back in school! Since he's a full-week student, we enrolled him in a combination of PreKindergarten and Junior Kindergarten this year. So hopefully he'll be ready for Kindergarten next year. Although I think this year is going to be more challenging for us than for him since we're the ones who have to keep these class schedules straight! So far we had to attend 2 welcome day celebrations and 2 parent orientation sessions. By the time B is done at this school he will have attended almost all of the classes that they offer!

The long weekend enabled us to do some more work on the house. Three coats of cherry stain and three coats of varnish later and the front door almost matches the red windows. And you can see the supports are now in for the new front deck.

The masons worked on laying the bluestone on the front steps of the kitchen porch. It was so nice to finally cover up all that concrete!

And I absolutely love our new side door into the garage. The hinges were salvaged from a junky screen door that we're throwing away and the handle was the original one that went with the previous door. Two coats of black paint on the hardware and voila! It looks wonderfully medieval! Now if we can only find garage doors to match this, we'll be all set!