Re: Becca

I made it back in less than a year!

2011-10-09T10:12:00.000+01:00

I doubt that anyone even checks my blog anymore...and I can't blame them!
I've been very busy since my last post.
I've been very busy making lots of things...

(He has his own blog... it's where I've been spending most of my free time!)

Checked Out-Checking In

2010-10-17T21:58:00.000+01:00

Our library checks out books for 3 weeks at a time, so on Oct 4, I checked out 3 books, determined to read one each week and actually get them turned in on time. (Luckily, our library doesn't do fines for overdue books!)
I met my goal!! All 3 books have been finished and are ready to be returned tomorrow. (Hopefully the library will have a new issue of Runner's World on the shelf tomorrow too!)
I checked out (and will be checking in tomorrow):

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, by Judy Blume. Lately, I've been interested in re-reading a few of the books that I remember reading when I was a kid... maybe since I'm almost 30?!?!?!?! Earlier this year I re-read Island of the Blue Dolphins, and I think maybe this might be a project for next year???

Dating Hamlet, by Lisa Fielder. This one caught my eye while I was browsing in the teen section. I have found some of my favorite books in the teen section, and it's usually a sure bet for a quick, easy read! This story was fun & makes me want to ask my dad to send me my big ol' Shakespeare anthology. The story is written in Ophelia's point of view, and I just saw that the author also has another similar story, Romeo's Ex. Will have to see if that one's there tomorrow. Or maybe I'll stick with Hamlet and see if "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein is available.

How to Be an American Housewife, by Margaret Dilloway. I read books for grown-ups, too! The endpaper summary had me hooked-- this is the story of a Japanese woman who married an American military man after WWII and tried to assimilate to an American lifestyle. I loved that the descriptions, words and names in the book took me back to Okinawa! I loved the writing style, the characters, and the story.

I'll let you know what I check out tomorrow!

From the Fitting Room

2010-10-15T23:05:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow, I'm going to a party.
So today, I went shopping.

My wardrobe pretty much consists of "teacher clothes", "camp counselor clothes", and jeans. I've got cotton cardigans in a variety of colors. I've got a billion t-shirts. I have a decent little collection of button downs or shells to wear under cardigans. I've got fleece top layers. And I have jeans. Tons of jeans, most of which seem to be too big for me, since I always buy jeans when I am in the states and I'm usually eating a lot while I'm in the states.
I'm okay with my wardrobe. Except for when I have a party to go to. Then I wish I had something a little more trendy. I don't want to wear my almost-2-sizes-too-big jeans and an Old Navy fleece to a club in the city. I want to wear a purple mini dress, grey tights, black boots and a long strand of grey pearls. Unfortunately, I only have the tights and boots, I don't know where the nearest fabric store is, and my aunt who would be able to help me make my party dress is about 4,000 miles away.
So I had to go shopping.
I don't hate shopping, but I don't love it. I'd rather shop for yarn, books, or scrapbook supplies--things you don't have to try on. I hate trying clothes on. It's hard to find things that fit me right, and sometimes, I don't even know what the item is supposed to be. I tried on something purple today and I still don't know if it was a shirt or a dress. It was shapeless and pretty much transparent, so I put it back on the rack.
Since there were no suitable purple dresses to be found in town, I ended up changing my "vision"-- black top (that I already have), skinny jeans (don't have), black boots (have) and a long purple necklace (don't have). And so began the search for skinny jeans. Let me tell you that when you've been wearing almost-2-sizes-too-big jeans for a long long time, you feel a bit ridiculous trying on skinny jeans. I ended up buying a pair of the same jeans in each of two sizes, so I could make my decision about which to wear at the very last minute. And I might even keep them both, because the bigger size doesn't actually have the "skinny" fit, so I can see them becoming just another "regular" pair of jeans for me. Best of all, the jeans are grey! I was just wishing that I had some grey jeans the other day. And second-best of all, this clothes shopping should be just fine to hold me over for a while so I can save my shopping energy for other things-- like Christmas decorations!

12 of 12: The Can't Find My Camera Edition

2010-10-13T08:29:00.000+01:00

Well, I sure am glad that this is NOT going to be the final year for the official 12 of 12 after all, because I have not done well at participating each month!
I don't know where my camera is! I had it on Sunday, I do know that... but it's not in any of it's usual hangouts.
So my 12 of 12 exist only in my mind--

1. 0705- Woke up, checked watch and actually remembered it was 12 of 12.
2. 0745- Dressed & ready for a run to my friend's house, a walk & run with her, and a run home. I'll go ahead and count that as 3 runs for the day.
3. 1045- Breakfast-- Special K. I'm saving my last box of Frankenberry for later.
4. 1100- Washing dishes, until I decided not to wash anymore dishes.
5. 1300- Commissary, where I tried to pick a pumpkin but they were all displayed so you didn't notice the dented, moldy side.
6. 1500- My pretty pink & yellow flowers outside the front door. Unfortunately, the rosy smelling roses seem to have died as suddenly as they appeared.
7. 1600- Organizing coupons & throwing out the ones that expired 7 months ago. The commissaries only accept the ones that expired less than 6 months ago.
8. 1740- David comes home from work.
9. 1815- Our dinner looks tasty and beautiful-- Penne w/ Salmon & Asparagus.
10. 1820- We watch tv while we eat... tonight is How I Met Your Mother.
11. 1900- I decided to knit, but...
12. 1910- we researched travel ideas instead.

Need to find my camera for next month... November should be an interesting 12!

Holiday Dinner

2010-10-11T20:53:00.000+01:00

Happy Columbus Day!
Or, if you're Canadian, Happy Thanksgiving!

October-December (well, January 12, actually!) is my favorite time of year because of all the festive foods! Christmas cookies, all the yummy Thanksgiving side dishes, apple cider, pumpkin goodies, "creepy" Halloween foods, chili, tamales, pierogi, fudge, bark & brittle... it's a great time to eat!

Since today is Columbus Day (and Canadian Thanksgiving), I decided that we'd have to have Italian food for dinner tonight, in honor of that famous Italian who wasn't actually the first person to sail to America. (I don't know any Canadian recipes)
I planned a Giada DeLaurentis recipe for tonight-- Roman-style Fettucine from her Everyday Pasta cookbook. I don't know if Columbus ever went to Rome or if he ever ate anything like this, but it was good!

Unfortunately, I was baking apple bread (delicious!! from the Better Homes & Gardens classic "red plaid") while I was supposed to be cooking dinner, so David took over the dinner-cooking tonight. He's not exactly a great recipe reader, and I still chopped the veggies, herbs (the thyme was from our garden!), and garlic, but the dinner was great!! But, since David did the majority of the cooking, I have to do the dishes! :( Boo!

2010's the Charm

2010-10-10T10:11:00.000+01:00

I think I'm going to "pre-make" a December Daily album this year. Don't know what December Daily is? It's an Ali Edwards project and you can get an overview here.
The basic idea is that you build an album or pages for your album for the month of December, in advance, and then during December, you journal & take pictures of what's going on on a daily basis (hence the clever title, December Daily) and just add in your journaling & photos. In my case, I'll be adding my photos later because I don't print at home.
I'm going to make mine a mini, since I've been really into mini-albums lately. I've been so into mini-albums lately that I actually made one, bringing my collection up to 2. But I have plans for a few others, including this one.
During one of my flickr searches for mini-albums, I found this one made from a box of soap. I use the liquid body wash, but lucky for me, David uses bar soap. (Irish Spring, in case you were wondering.) I searched "soap box mini album" on google and the first link that popped up was actually this video tutorial made by the same person whose flickr photo had inspired me!

I have tons of holiday themed papers in my scrapbook stash and my mom brought me some more adhesive when she came to visit. I've chosen the format of my project and declared my intention to do it. So, there's no turning back now! (Unless I can't manage to clear a path from the doorway of my "hobby room" to my table...)

On the Needles

2010-10-09T20:33:00.000+01:00

On the Needles right now:
Helena (here's my Helena on Ravelry) -- I'm making this baby sweater for no other reason than to make room for more yarn! I'm so close to being finished.

It now has two sleeves and I finished turning the picot hem. My least favorite task lies ahead--picking up stitches around the front opening & neck.

Amused (My Amused on Ravelry)-- I am completely embarrassed that I started this project 360 days ago. And it's shoved, unfinished, in my step tansu.

It probably still looks a lot like the photo above. I'm frustrated by the color pooling, and I can no longer remember where I left off in the pattern. I don't know what I will do with this sweater...finish or frog??? But at least I've now acknowledged its existence.

Big Snugs (my ravelry project link)-- Another project that I can't believe I'm admitting to hiding in the step tansu.

I know that this is still the spot where this project is because, unless the little knitting elves sneaked in and fixed it for me, I'm stuck at this part. Literally. I did something really wacky when picking up my stitches and my needle is so very stuck in there. Like really, really stuck. I'm in this strange stage of the knitting-related grief process where I'm no longer in denial about the problem itself, but still dealing with a lot of denial with regards to the solution to this problem most likely involving a tiny pair of scissors. Or elves.

Also on the needles are a few swatches that I'm supposed to take to a knitting class I'm taking on the 23rd. Just 2 more weeks!! It's "finishing school" where I will finally learn the "right" way to seam those projects that do make it off the needles!

Coming up for air

2010-10-08T16:20:00.000+01:00

what have I been doing in the past... I don't even know how long it's been... since I last blogged??

Girl Scouts--to include a weekend trip w/5 tweens to Germany
Yuletide Bazaar committee-ing
reorganizing my scrapbooks
knitting
printing saved recipes & filing in a binder
looking at yarn online
tutoring
harvesting my cherry tomatoes and planning next years "crops"
buying plane tickets to Poland (but not researching hotels...need to get on that!)
catching up on Gossip Girl episodes
reading
running, but not as much as I'd like to

In all of September, there was ONE day that I didn't have anything on my calendar.
I'm going to make a conscious effort to blog more in October!

Progress Check

2010-09-11T10:28:00.000+01:00

I really need to make a point of blogging more often... it's a great way to save stories for future scrapbook layouts, have my lists collected in one central place, and get motivated to work on/finish knitting projects!

Today I wanted to check my progress on my travel goals for the time that we'll be here in England. (Currently, most likely until Feb 2013, but possibly until Dec 2013) I checked my old post, Thursday Thirteen-Places to Go for my list and I'm excited that I get to check some off already!

1. Southern & SW Ireland
2. Scotland (road trip!)
3. Paris, France
4. Normandy, France
5. Krakow, Poland
6. Spain
7. Copenhagen, Denmark (a stop on a cruise we're hoping to take!)
8. Russia (another stop on the cruise!)
9. Isle of Man
10. Switzerland (ski trip!)
11. Brugge, Belgium
12. Donegal, Ireland
13. Hungary

I'm hoping to try for Krakow in late October, but we'll see. There is a (really long) day bus trip to Brugge, so I might try to find someone to go on that trip with me sometime soon.

Ireland Day 3: Cliffs of Moher

2010-08-08T16:44:00.000+01:00

When I was planning our little trip to the Emerald Isle, I read that the Cliffs of Moher were Ireland's most visited tourist attraction. Then I saw that scenes from the Princess Bride & Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince were filmed there and that sealed the deal... I decided we had to go! I found a bus tour with the Cliffs as one of the stops and signed us up.

Before the first stop (Limerick), I was feeling really carsick. The trip was a mini bus/large van and I wasn't in the front. I started sweating like crazy and took my coat off...Lisa couldn't believe I was warm. We weren't scheduled to stop for an hour and a half and I didn't know how I was going to make it all the way... it was like my prayers were answered when the bus driver made an unscheduled stop so he could use the bathroom at a gas station! I told Lisa not to let him leave without me and ran in behind him! We went the rest of the way to Limerick and after a quick stop in the bathroom and quick photos of King John's castle, I switched seats with Joe (who was in the front) and we were off to the Cliffs!

I felt much better once I was in the front, but I was still suffering from some residual motion-sickness. When we got to the Cliffs of Moher, though, it was worth the carsickness!

After some time at the Cliffs, we headed to Irleand's "traditional music capital," Doolin. Unfortunately, we didn't hear any music! We just had lunch & then it was about time to head to our next stop.

We spent some time at the Burren, a "lunar landscape" of limestone. David found a great crevice in which to take a picture, but it was too scary for me to watch! I enjoyed the view of Galway bay from safer ground!

We wish Joe's leg weren't in this picture!!!
After the Burren, we went to see a really old tomb called Poulnabrone. To say it's old is an understatement... evidence shows that at least 33 bodies were moved from a previous burial site to this one in 3000 b.c.

Our last top was Bunratty Castle. We didn't go in... Lisa & Joe did some more shopping and David and I got ice cream cones. Then it was back to the van with our crazy driver to head back to Cork. Most of the time we were moving, I was sleeping... I hated to miss the Irish countryside, but I didn't want to be sick!

Kitchen Table Update!

2010-08-04T14:58:00.000+01:00

I have a feeling that this may end up being one of those stories that future generations tire of hearing, gathered around our table for a big family meal... the great kitchen table saga of 2010.

Remember when we built this table?

Well, during the building of the table, our neighbor came over and offered to assist when we needed to get it into the house. I joked (or at least I thought I joked) that we were not taking the table into the house, we'd just be bringing our chairs out to the garage and eating here. Would be easier to bring food out here than take the table to the kitchen!

But really, I wanted my table in the house.

I looked at the table, I looked at the kitchen. I measured the table, I measured the kitchen. I panicked.

I bought a few extra days as we varnished the table.

I bought a few extra minutes while we put my finishing touch on the table.

But, once our names were signed and our work was dated, I had to face the fact that I had nowhere to put our masterpiece.

It would fit in the kitchen, but we'd have to turn sideways, crawl under or climb over to get from the kitchen door (British homes have doors on every room!) to say, the sink, the fridge, the washing machine, etc. And since I like going to the sink & the fridge (I could do without the washing machine), I was not looking forward to the inconvenience. Plus, people tend to gather in the kitchen. My old neighbor had a thing in her kitchen that said, "No matter where I serve my guests, it seems they like my kitchen best"... and it seems to hold true in my kitchen. In my tiny Okinawa kitchen, we'd all squeeze in there and chat over appetizers or cookies or whatever. And here, in my nice spacious kitchen, I finally have room to have a conversation with someone AND stir a pot without bumping any elbows. But if that table were in there, there would be no more gathering.

So, I had to think of something else. My friends here asked, "Why not the dining room?" My answer was, "The massage chair is in the dining room!" Our "dining room" had become sort of the "point of no return" room... empty boxes, massage chair, chair that matches our couch & loveseat but that I didn't think would fit in the living room (it does), entertainment center filled with board games, old television that hasn't been plugged in for 5 or 6 years (and yet, we brought it along), and a box of Christmas gifts that I never mailed...so I'm already all done with this year's Christmas shopping! WoOhOo!

I was at a loss for ideas. I finally allowed David to convince me that we could put the massage chair in the kitchen and put the table in the living room. Friends who were supportive of this idea tried to promote it by saying I'd be able to have a massage in my massage chair while I waited for pasta water to boil. It began to sound like a good idea. One evening, I came home from somewhere (tutoring, maybe? or a volunteer committee meeting? I don't know) and the table was in the dining room. And it looked gorgeous! It looked as if we had actually intended for it to go in there! And the massage chair was in the kitchen. And it looked TERRIBLE! Even though it is black and our floor is black, it didn't "blend in". There was no denying the fact that there was a 500 pound (I'm estimating), 3 foot long piece of furniture that was required to be placed 2 feet from the wall, near an outlet, and looks more suited to a dentist's office than my KITCHEN in my kitchen.
(The empty boxes were trashed, the chair moved to the living room--I made some measurements and drew a diagram, sent David an e-mail with my idea of how it could all fit, and when I came home... it was all in place! Isn't he the best?---the entertainment center hauled to the garage, where it now houses our tool collection, the tv given away or taken to the recycle center, and the board games stacked in a pile on the floor. The Christmas box is still there waiting to be wrapped & addressed for next year.)

David went golfing on Saturday and while he was gone, I set my plan in motion. I had to get that chair out of the kitchen. Well, I had to get David to get that chair out of the kitchen. In order to do that, I had to make a place for it somewhere else. I knew that David would agree to move it IF all he had to do was move it. If he would've had to move any other furniture, wait for me to clear a space, etc. my plan would not work.

I spent hours in the tiniest room in our house. Our former home-office/home-gym/half-laundry room or "multi-purpose room" for short. It's a tiny room, but with a little bit of magic and a LOT of determination to get the massage chair OUT of the kitchen, I made it all work.
I moved the dryer from one side of the room to the other, slid the digi-piano/keyboard down along the wall to the very end, got rid of the end table that once supported the printer & phone and put the printer on a little wire rack on the floor under the piano and the phone on a file cabinet. The weights & yoga mat went under the other side of the piano. And, there was a space just about big enough for the massage chair. It's cramped, but the door still closes, and the only people who will ever need to go in that room would be playing my piano, doing my laundry, talking on my vonage phone, or sitting in my massage chair. And if you're doing one of those things, chances are you know me well enough not to judge me for having a lot of stuff going on in one tiny little room.

David came home and moved the massage chair right away. Sort of. He had to remove the kitchen door in order to get the chair back out of the kitchen, and he had to remove the tiny-room door to get the chair into the tiny room. But some smarty-pants had painted over the hinges on the tiny-room door so instead of just taking the door off the hinges, he had to take the hinges off the doorframe!

But now, all is said and done and the massage chair is in its new home, where it doesn't offend me and where I actually use it.

I've got to do another post about building our benches...but we used the old camera (since David forgot our new camera's battery charger in Ireland) and I don't know where it is right now!

Ten on Tuesday: Things to do instead of watching TV

2010-07-27T12:10:00.001+01:00

The TV usually doesn't come on until David gets home. Every now & then, if I'm home in time for Jeopardy or Oprah, I'll tune in. Here are 10 things you'll find me doing when the TV isn't on...
1. Surf the web! One link just leads to another, and I could waste hours on the computer...
2. Wash dishes, do laundry, general tidy-up (that's what I did yesterday...all day!)
3. Read
4. Do a crossword puzzle
5. Listen to a podcast. I have about a billion-quatrillion podcasts that I subscribe to.So if I'm doing dishes, cleaning, cooking, scrapbooking, running, or driving, it's usually to the sound of a podcast.
6. Plan a trip, a party, or a grocery list
7. Run (only time I do this while watching tv is at the gym!)
8. Knit (I'm usually doing this when the tv is on too)
9. Sew
10. Scrapbook (I DO still scrapbook, believe it or not! I was just working on a project this morning. If the tv's on, I'll digi scrap!)

Another attempt at a meme... Ten on Tuesday

2010-07-13T20:24:00.000+01:00

Ten on Tuesday
Let's see how long I stick with this one...

Ten on Tuesday, July 13--Ten Things You Like About Where You Live

1. It's in England
2. There's ruins of a 12th century priory about a mile away
3. Dogs & ducks roam the neighborhood and enjoy walking right into my house
4. David lives here too
5. We meet our friends every Wednesday at the pub less than 3/4 mile down the road
6. There are hanging flower baskets in the town center
7. There's a nice path for running/walking along the river
8. There's a nice path for running/walking to Tesco
9. When I drive to base, I often get to drive past a whole bunch of sheep grazing in a field
10. Lots of interesting places to go for day or overnight trips & easy travel opportunities for longer trips too!

12 of 12, July: It's my Half-Birthday!!

2010-07-12T22:15:00.001+01:00

The 12th of June was the first day of my trip to Ireland, so I didn't get to add my photos on time. You can see June's 12 of 12 here.

On the 12th of May, I was basking in the sun in Morocco... that 12 of 12 is here.

Everyone else's 12 of 12s for this month can be found here on Chad Darnell's blog.

And now, onto my July 12 of 12... (please consider visiting my links to my May & June 12 of 12s so you don't think I'm a boring hermit!)

1. 1225, Craft Room, Thetford, UK

I'd already been up for hours, wishing myself a happy half-birthday and ordering a couple more birthday gifts for David, but totally forgot about 12 of 12! Luckily I saw Helen's fb status! Anyway, this is my CLEAN craft room! I cleaned it last weekend and I just love the way I can walk on the floor now!

2. 1230, Craft Room, Thetford, UK

One of the most exciting parts of cleaning my craft room was cutting my yarn down from 5 plastic bins to 2. It's unimportant that one of them is a gigantic 40-gallon tote. Anyway, I decided to bag up the yarn so I'm more likely to find it in that big ol' container and also so it doesn't get quite so tangly. I worked on the last of the bagging (and adding to my ravelry stash!) today.

3. 1240, Craft Room, Thetford, UK

Needed to take a break from stashing and clean off the table. My little friend (she's 13 and at least a foot taller than me!) came over to work on some scrapbooking & cards today and we needed a place to work! So I didn't get around to making an apron from this cute tea towel I bought at Tesco the other day. I don't really know what tea towels are for, so I figured I might as well make myself an apron!

4. 1757, Bedroom, Thetford, UK

David was so excited to receive this package, he couldn't even part with it while he came upstairs to change out of his uniform. So, we opened it in the bedroom... a big box full of heaven! Coco's Curry straight from Okinawa!!! Yum, yum!

5. 1757, Bedroom, Thetford, UK

Then I made David look at the cards I made today. He was a little less excited about the cards than the curry, but he still told me that they were very nice!

6. 1758, Bedroom, Thetford, UK

Then David gave ME a card! After all, it IS my half-birthday!!!

7. 1802, Bedroom, Thetford, UK

My mom sent US a card... for the 4th of July. Wonder where my 1/2 birthday card is!?! God Bless the USA...and you know what? God Bless the IRS too... our tax refund checks were in our 4th of July card!

8. 1905, Kitchen Thetford, UK

Even though I'd had pulled pork in the crock pot all day, David insisted that we have the Coco's for dinner tonight! We learned that while I need David for things like moving furniture and getting rid of bugs, he needs me just as much for making rice. Poor guy messed up the Minute Rice!

9. 1909, Kitchen, Thetford, UK

Since I let David choose the dinner menu on MY half-birthday, I was in charge of dessert. I assembled Banana Boats while David salivated over the idea of our favorite Okinawan fast-food.

10. 1915, Kitchen, Thetford, UK

I know I'm making it seem like David is the only one who loves Coco's Curry...but that's really not an accurate representation of what was going on here tonight. We leaned in to smell the curry and HUGE smiles came across both of our faces!

11. 1944, Kitchen, Thetford, UK

Who has to wash dishes on her half-birthday??? I didn't have to do them all, David did all of the other ones, I just rinsed our dinner plates so we could eat dessert off of them.

12. 1946, Kitchen, Thetford, UK

David's first ever Banana Boat. I don't know why we haven't had them before, they're one of my favorite treats... we had them out of the oven tonight, and they were ooey, gooey and delicious but they're much much better cooked in a campfire!

Thanks for stopping by! Don't forget to check out the ones I didn't get to post on time-- May-12 of 12 in Morocco & June--12 of 12 in Ireland!

12 of 12 (June)--Ireland

2010-07-12T21:36:00.000+01:00

Hmm, well... I need to come back and post pictures from days 3-5 of our Ireland trip! But first I have to go back to day 1 of the trip, because it was the 12th...and I need to post a 12 of 12!!

0. I wish I would've gotten a photo of the clock as we pulled out of the driveway...at 0330!
1. 0815, Killarney Guest House, Cork City, Ireland

we arrived at our b&b bright & early and were served tea, coffee & Irish soda bread. It was all very yummy. I drank an entire pot of tea in under 30 minutes. I couldn't help myself... they had sugar cubes!

2. 0953, Courthouse, Cork City, Ireland

I'm still trying to figure this one out... a faucet on the outer wall of the courthouse urging those who use the faucet (for what?) to keep the pavement dry. We were out walking around in search of shampoo & soap since we didn't think to get any 3 oz. or less bottles before flying with hand luggage only!

3. 1050, Killarney Guest House, Cork City, Ireland

We weren't sure when Lisa and Joe would arrive, and we were exhausted! I was content to fall asleep sitting up, but David decided to pull off his shoes & make himself comfortable on the couch in the lounge. This behaviour encouraged the people at the b&b to have our room ready early.

4. 1526, Cork City, Ireland

Lisa & Joe arrived & woke us up from our nap (in our room, not in the lounge), we went out for lunch (David chose a Mexican restaurant), and then we walked around Cork City for a little bit.

5. 1531, Cork City, Ireland

We're getting ready to take a look at the Holy Trinity Church.

6. 1534, Holy Trinity Church, Cork City, Ireland

(At least I *think* it's the Holy Trinity Church... the signs were a little confusing) Ever since we went to Edinburgh Castle, I always notice when ceilings resemble the bottoms of boats. Speaking of boats...

7. 1551, Lapps Quay, Cork City, Ireland

Our next stop was the end of the Ocean to City Race and Maritime Festival.

8. 1729, Fitzgerald Park, Cork City, Ireland

Not far from our b&b, there was another festival going on... here's a guy who juggled fire and got a bunch of people disco dancing. He was either Canadian or American.

9. 1745, Fitzgerald Park, Cork City, Ireland

Joe had to use the bathroom and there was a LOOOOOOONG line for the 3 port-a-potties there. David went off in search of pretty pictures while we waited for Joe.

10. 1809, Fitzgerald Park, Cork City, Ireland

Probably the next best thing to the World Cup. Or maybe the next to next to next to next best thing.

11. 1815, Fitzgerald Park, Cork City, Ireland

This guy wins the prize for the creepiest street performer!

12. 1916, Bob Fox's, Cork City, Ireland

We found a place where David could see & hear the World Cup USA vs England game AND have his very first Guinness.

Ireland, Day 2- Ring of Kerry

2010-07-01T08:08:00.000+01:00

Our 2nd day in Ireland was spent touring the "Highlights of Kenmare & Killarney". Most of the tour consisted of the views from the bus windows as we rode around the "Ring of Kerry". Fortunately, we were the first 4 in line and we all got front seats on the bus! The views were green, hilly and full of sheep and cows... it was *just* what I hoped Ireland would be!

The bus driver dropped us off in the quaint little town of Kenmare to have coffee, but we opted to check out the shops instead.

We took a photo-stop at "Ladies' View," a place where Queen Victoria thought the view was so amazing that she summoned to her ladies-in-waiting to check it out. QV knew her stuff... it was a beautiful view of the Killarney Lakes & mountains!

Our next stop was Killarney National Park, where we had a view of one of the three Killarney Lakes. The park was very nice! Pretty flowers, big trees, nice paths, etc. And of course, beautiful views of County Kerry.

Muckross House is found within Killarney National Park. Distant relatives of Queen Victoria lived here at one time, but they went totally broke preparing to host Her Majesty and lost their house. It eventually ended up being a wedding gift, before it and its grounds were turned into a National Park. We decided not to pay the admission fee to go inside because we'd already seen the interior on Rick Steves'. And because I feel that if you've seen the inside of one Victorian-era estate house, you've seen them all. Unless you are into that sort of thing. I'm not. And I'm pretty sure that David's not either! :)

David enjoyed exploring the grounds at the park! I have no idea how he managed to get up this huge tree!

Muckross Traditional Farms are also on the park grounds. We paid admission for this, because I was really hoping to feed a baby cow with a bottle or shear a sheep, neither of which happened. Nevertheless, it was an interesting place to walk through.

There were recreated cottages and farms from the early 18-1900s across different "income brackets" The cottages were super-cute, their fireplaces were going and guides were warming bread for us to eat on our way through.

The guides kept telling us to watch our heads on the way through the cottages, but I didn't see the point! More proof that I'm not short, I'm just old fashioned!

Even though I didn't get to shear any sheep or bottle-feed any baby cows, (we did see horses, cows, geese, a HUGE pig, a goat, and sheep... just didn't touch them or milk them) I was thrilled to spend lots of time petting this sweet kitty. I wonder why!?! Doesn't she look familiar??

We headed to the town of.... I don't remember! Killarney, maybe! And had lunch before heading back to Cork City for the night.

Ireland, Day 1: Cork City

2010-06-29T11:32:00.000+01:00

At 3:30 a.m. on June 12, David and I hit the road to Cork. Well, we hit the road to London Stansted, where we hit the air to Cork. Cork is the 2nd largest city in Ireland, 2nd of course, to Dublin....which I didn't care for AT ALL. Dublin was just a dirty, nasty big city with a real lack of the Irish charm you see in all the movies. Cork itself is not much better (a city is a city, after all!) but it did seem less crowded, a bit cleaner, a little less touristy, and best of all, was an excellent jumping off point for lots of other places. We stayed in Cork 4 nights, but we only stayed in Cork 1 day. Follow?
The first day in Cork was a very unorganized day. I didn't want to terrify our cousins Lisa and Joe by completely revealing my insane travel quirks right on the first day. When it's just David and I, I'm able to take full control, highlight routes on maps, write lists and plan an exhausting itinerary for the day. (Just wait until you hear about our upcoming 5-day road trip to Scotland... I have it all planned to the mile and the minute!) But it is one thing to subject David to this behavior, every day of our vacation, and quite another to expose poor Lisa and Joe to "the cruise director" right from the start. So we had an unplanned, casual, go-with-the-flow afternoon in Cork City. And it practically killed me. :)

We went for lunch at a Mexican restaurant, which Lisa & Joe didn't really want to go to, and didn't really think was very good, but for people who haven't been exposed to Mexican food for at least almost a year, it was simply irresistible. (Great, now I will have visions of very tall girls with their ponytails slicked back and bright red lips dancing through my head all afternoon!)

Anyway, then we headed to the tours office and picked up some maps, bus schedules, and tips. We went to a Maritime Festival and caught the very end of a boat race, and a very very very strange acrobat program. Then we headed to the Street Performers World Championships at a park very close to our B & B.

This was really creepy! This guy just floated there, hanging on to his cane with his eyeballs painted onto his eyelids. Weird! David and Joe knew just how the trick worked, but I was perplexed.

We went back to our hotel for a little bit and then went out in search of a pub (we ended up choosing Bob Fox's) where we could watch the US vs. England soccer/football game. And... David had his first Guinness.

It was very very hard to find a place to eat after the game! Everywhere that served food was either closed or had stopped serving already, but we were sent by a local girl to Liberty Grill and it was yummy. I had a Halloumi Cheese Burger, which was really a patty of cheese on a bun! With eggplant, peppers, etc. too, but I LOVED that cheese!! I'm pretty sure we were all fat & happy by the end of this meal and we walked back to the hotel to get some rest for the Ring of Kerry Tour that was on the books for Sunday!

Look what we made!

2010-06-06T23:11:00.002+01:00

A while back, I came across a link that changed my life... or at least my kitchen. Knock-Off Wood is a super-popular site where Ana, the blogger, provides plans & inspiration to build your own Pottery Barn (& etc.) style furniture for a fraction of the cost...and then you get to make it the color you want (if you and your significant other are fortunate enough to be able to agree on a color...) and modify it as needed (if you think ahead and wonder HOW on earth a 92" long table is going to fit in the kitchen...or through the front door.) and, most importantly, you get to love it and bat your eyes at it and hug it and take an extraordinary amount of pride in it because... it's YOURS. YOU made it! Not the Pottery Barn elves.

So, I've been totally stalking this website. Drawing diagrams of each room in my house and trying to figure out how I can incorporate one of Ana's projects around every corner. It didn't take much convincing (in fact, it only took the idea of getting some fancy schmancy power tools) to get David on board. And once I realized that I had a willing partner, I made my list.

My lists are SCARY. Let's just say that this weekend, we accomplished 1/63rd of the list. *blush*
(but it was a big 63rd...a 38.5" x 92.25" 63rd, to be exact)

We used Ana's plans to make a Farmhouse Table a la Restoration Hardware. And we made it our very own. (We kind of didn't have a choice). And we made it for WAY less than $2725. (Although, admittedly, we spent quite a bit more than the $10 Ana managed to do it for!) In fact, we spent WAY less than $2725 (+shipping... and + all the headaches and frustration trying to get the darn thing shipped to an APO would cause!) and got the table AND the power tools out of the deal! We were aware that wood in England would cost significantly more than wood in the good ol' US of A. And it did. We were pleasantly surprised, though, when our ticket got totaled up... the wood ended up costing us $168. Still not too bad... the cheapest rectangular table at Pottery Barn is $699...and two and a half feet shorter than our table. Even a table 22 inches shorter from Ikea (I like Ikea, but I think it's safe to say their furniture isn't the sturdiest...), would have cost $200. And you can't even argue that we spent lots of time on the table... just about 2 more hours than a trip to Ikea (2 hours in the car, 2 hours in the store, 2 hours coming home). And... we MADE it! All by ourselves!

British 2x4s aren't actually 2x4. I'm SO confused... when you buy wood, you buy in meters, or millimeters or something. But when you buy nails, you buy in inches. Huh? Why not just stick with one? And why not have it be inches so I know what I'm talking about?? So, David and I are following the plans and then I get antsy. I want to see what the table is going to LOOK like. Because I'm easily excitable when it comes to this sort of thing. So before we screwed the legs together, I decided to show David what our table legs were going to look like when they were all put together. This is one time when antsiness REALLY paid off... because we realized that cutting 3.5" notches for a 2x4 to fit in weren't going to work with British 4x2s, which are really... I don't know... BIGGER than a 2x4. I'll have to measure one tomorrow!

Anyway, the important thing is that the difference in that measurement made EVERYTHING different... lots of extra cutting that we weren't counting on. Including David cutting one looooooooong straight line down an 81" piece of lumber. It was scary! I got yelled at for squealing. I was just so nervous though!

Another little setback when we realized that the 4" wood screws we bought were flat not Phillips. This was a problem because we didn't have a flat bit. So we went to the hardware store. The very very overpriced hardware store. And there, David realized that he DID have a flat bit. But just in case, we bought some Phillips head screws. Then we went back home and David got all sweaty. Screwing the looong screws in was definitely the most intense portion of the building. The Phillips screws weren't going in properly (I think the bit wasn't the right size for them? or maybe the threading on them wasn't right for the wood?) but the flat were too hard to keep on the bit without a "sleeve". (Hardware store didn't have one). Finally David got all the screws sunk, but we hope nobody inspects the inner underside corners of our table. Because it's not pretty under there.

But you know where it IS pretty? Everywhere else!

Tomorrow, we stain it... and add a little special something that I thought of all by myself. I am, after all, the brains in this operation.

And then... we attempt to get it through the door.

Around the Town Tuesday: Best Food

2010-06-01T13:12:00.000+01:00

I missed two weeks of the Around the Town Tuesday blog hop (one week I was in Morocco...the other ????)
And now, the blog hop has been discontinued (at least for the time being), but I'm still going to post the two posts I missed...and try to come up with a few "topics" of my own. I like getting out in town & I like that you can see what you're missing by not visiting me. :)

On to the Best Food in town...

I've eaten at a few places in town and haven't really had a bad meal. There's a place called Marvela's that David and I like for breakfast. Next time, I'm definitely getting "bubble & squeak". I was intrigued by the menu item, but unsure what it was, so I decided against adding it to my breakfast. I've eaten at Tall Orders, a little cafe/sandwich place in town and had some chips from the kebab shop.

Just this weekend, we went to The Bell for the first time. The Bell is a little bit nicer, a little bit pricier, and had yummy food! David wasn't that hungry (we'd been munching at the Cambridge Beer Festival all day) so we split "Chicken Wellington" which was served with a creamy leek and bacon sauce (although it was NOT as good as the creamy leek & bacon sauce I made last week!) and dauphinoise potatoes.

There's the Chase, where we used to go every Wednesday for 4.95 curry & a pint which I always enjoyed. We stopped going to the Chase (because it was always crowded & the guys in our dinner crowd wanted a more "pub-like" experience) and started going to the Dolphin.

The Dolphin had good food... but then it closed for a while and the staff from the Dolphin all moved to the Black Horse... so we did too! We eat at the Black Horse every Wednesday and my favorite things on the menu are the pies-- usually chicken & stuffing or chicken, leek & bacon...occasionally I'll have a seafood pie if they have it one the specials board-- and the bacon sandwich on a brown baguette. Yum yum!! Since we're regulars and pretty well-liked, the chef, Simon, makes us special appetizers not available on the menu and sets them out for us every week! On nice evenings if we're both home in time, we usually walk since it's only between 1/2 and 3/4 mile away from our house.

Our other "usual" restaurant is the Phoenix House Chinese Take-away place. We get delivery almost every Friday! We love it... David likes the Won Ton Soup & Vietnamese Spring Rolls and usually some kind of Chow Mein. I love the Singapore Rice Noodles & Shredded Chili Chicken!

There are lots of restaurants in town that we haven't tried yet... a few fish & chip shops, several Indian places, a Thai restaurant, etc. Unfortunately, between our Wednesday dinners & our Friday take-out, we don't get much chance to try other places in town!

(We don't have to try Subway in town... we've got one on base!)

BBQ Season has begun!

2010-05-23T13:11:00.000+01:00

We've had some beautiful weather lately, and not just in Morocco! England is sunny and "warm" (although if I were in Okinawa, I'd probably consider these days "winter"!--temps have been in the 60s & 70s). The sun shines from about 4:30 a.m. until at least 8:30 p.m. and last night, we went to our first bbq of the season. I know there will be at least one more this summer, because we're going to have on July 10 to celebrate David's promotion!

Last night, David's supervisor had a gathering at his house for all of the "leadership" in the office. The e-mail invitation said we didn't have to bring anything, but I can never resist an opportunity to hear how much people like my food, so I made an appetizer and a dessert. Had we not brought anything, we would've been almost the only ones, so I'm glad we did!

I saw this recipe for Congo Bars in my feed reader earlier in the day. I had plenty of chocolate chips (and an updated inventory of them, thanks to the ants that inspired me to clean out all of my cabinets!) I made them almost exactly as the recipe reads, with three exceptions---1. I had to guesstimate the amount of butter because we bought butter here in town and it doesn't have the same markings as my American butter. First I had to do some internet research to figure out what 250 grams of butter would be in cups. I eyeballed 2/3 of the chunk. 2. I didn't have a box of brown sugar, so I didn't know how much a pound was. I guessed that it would be 2 cups, but then looked at a box of dark brown sugar and decided there were probably 4 cups in there. Only I only had 2 cups of light brown sugar in my canister, so I supplemented with 2 more cups of dark brown sugar. 3. No pecans. I prefer my nuts plain. The result was DELICIOUS! Our friend said, "you've outdone yourself with these"! Only one row of bars remained at the end of the night and we happily brought them home!

I also made Greek Salsa and took along some multi-grain Club crackers. I used more of almost every ingredient- roasted red peppers (chopped), olives (halved--recipe called for Kalamata but I used black because I'm cheap!), feta (crumbled), cucumbers (chopped). I used a little less chopped fresh mint and chopped red onion than called for. The mint here looks terrible compared to the beautiful fresh mint in Morocco!! I bought the Greek vinaigrette dressing that the recipe called for, but it probably would've been okay with regular vinaigrette or even Italian dressing. This was also very good and got lots of compliments. David and I are snacking on it right now and it's better the second day!

Now to decide what to make for our July bbq.... David has made 2 requests so far: taco salad & pumpkin cupcakes filled with homemade dulce de leche. The cupcakes are labor-intensive, but it's a special occasion!

May 12 of 12: The (belated) Moroccan Edition

2010-05-21T16:16:00.000+01:00

I'm really making an effort to participate in every 12 of 12 this year... but we didn't know if we'd have (free) internet access, [and we wanted to have a real vacation, not a "I'll be down at the pool as soon as I finish checking my e-mail, reading facebook status updates & catching up on blog posts" vacation] so we didn't take a laptop with us.

I definitely got 12 pics on the 12th, though... and here they are:
All pics were taken in Agadir, Morocco
(if you missed it, you can read the rest of the trip recap here.)

1. 07-something a.m., Riu Hotel Tikida Beach room 219, Agadir, Morocco---the view of the Atlantic from our room.

2. 10-something a.m., poolside @ the Tikida Beach---one of our daily Scrabble matches. It's much harder for us to play without our handy Scrabble dictionary. We wrote all of the words we wanted to challenge & agreed to subtract double the regular point value from our scores if they're not actually words!

3. 2-something in the afternoon, Riu Tikida Beach Archery "field" (?)--- Robin Hood of Tikida Beach. David joined in the archery competition and was the 1st place winner... the plate he's holding is his "trophy"

4. 3-something in the afternoon, Le Olivio restaurant at the Tikida Beach---a delicious snack of crepes & chocolate (or strawberry) sauce. Our favorite afternoon snacks were the waffles.

5. 8:15 p.m.ish, Chelmsayour (?), Agadir, Morocco---This is our "Fantasia Arabian Nights" experience... the guards (?) on horseback welcomed us as we got off the tour bus.

6. 8:30 pm-ish, Chemsalyour---We're on our way to our tent for dinner.

7. 2040ish, Chemsalyour/Fantasia---sharing some fresh, hot, delicious Berber bread.

8. 21-something, our dinner tent---I bet you didn't know I could read Arabic, did you? I'll prove it... this says "Coca Cola".

9. 21-something, our dinner tent---I didn't know that "traditional Moroccan dances" used telephones, but for some reason, this performer danced around and had everyone hold the phone, wear his hat and pose for a picture.

10. 22-something, dinner tent---a photo with the creepiest performer of the night. "Personal space" was not her strong suit.

11. 22-something, the "stage" outside at Chemsalyour---fire jugglers. We were in the front row, so we really felt the heat when they blew on the flames!

12. maybe 22 or 23-something, on the way out of Chemsalyour---the performers sang, clapped & danced as we headed back to our coach. This guy was my favorite because he's old and he can balance a rifle on his head :)

Next month will be another delayed 12... we'll be in Ireland!

The Good Life, coast-of-Africa style

2010-05-21T12:15:00.001+01:00

We had SUCH a good time on our trip to Morocco! Everything was perfect and fabulous! The weather, the food, the pool (well, okay, the pool was a *little* cold!).

We left our house at about 11 a.m. on Monday, and arrived in Agadir at around 1 a.m. And there's no time difference! It was a long day of travel (to base, to the airport, to Morocco, and to the resort) and we were getting a little tired and cranky by the time we got there. We decided to go straight to bed and start our vacation off on the right foot on Tuesday morning.

A typical day on my vacation:
We would put on our bathing suits & cover-ups and head to breakfast, where we were the most under-dressed people there. That will happen when you are vacationing with about 60% French people. Beautiful, stylish, perfectly coiffed French people. Breakfast was pretty good... they had English breakfast stuff--eggs, "bacon", beans, potatoes, what I consider "European" breakfast stuff-- granola, yogurt & dried fruits, a big selection of pastries & donuts (but not jelly-filled ones!), a variety of fresh fruit, tons of tea that looked & smelled beautiful, but I wasn't sure how to make it, crepes every day and one other option--my favorite were these cornmeal (?) pancakes. You could ask for an omelet and there was another station where you could get fresh fruit juice---my favorite was apple & banana, which is strange, because I bought some apple-banana juice at Aldi a few weeks ago and I think it tastes like baby food. The fresh was SO good though!

After brekky, it's time to head to the pool!

We tried to get a super-comfy lounge bed every morning. We only ended up on lounge chairs once, and only moved to a different bed location once too (because someone "stole" the bed we had put our towels on...at least they gave our towels back though!) That was a single bed, but David was only around for a short part of that day anyway. And even the single beds were big enough for two.
Here's where we could normally be found:

The double beds were comfortable, had pillows (our favorite day was the day our bed had three pillows on it!) and had plenty of room to play Phase 10 or Scrabble, and we did one or the other every single day (except Thursday, because David golfed on Thursday).

After lounging in the sun (or under the big umbrellas) for 2 or 3 hours, we went up to lunch. Most days, we ate pizza, with a large side of olives, cucumbers & tomatoes. There was also pasta, panini, and a different restaurant where we had grilled meats, tagines, different pasta, meat & vegetable salads. We preferred the pizza because it was delicious, closer to the pool, and we could sit outside.

Sometimes in the afternoons, we got involved in the resort activities...David was practically the Tikida Beach MVP winning Archery & Darts competitions and I held my own and scooped up 2nd place in darts one day. The darts contests were pretty silly, with three different throws-- sometimes it was throw regular, throw with your left hand, throw all 3 darts at once, throw blindfolded, throw blindfolded while sitting in a chair. I went to belly dance lesson one day (I learned that I'm not a belly dancer, ha!), to a traditional tagine cooking workshop (which was delicious!!) and to learn to make Mint Tea in the Agadir region way. Yum yum! I looooove the mint tea, it tastes like liquid gum!!

And we spent a little time in the pool almost every day... it took up a lot of courage to get in, because the water was freezing! We felt bad for Omar from the "Animation" team who had to jump in every morning at 10 for "AquaGym"/water aerobics, so we joined him on our last day.

Other than that, we stuck to the sun beds for more Scrabble, reading, Phase 10, naps and relaxation until about 5 when we would pack it in, give up the bed and go shower and get ready for the evening.

After dinner, we always went to the "Bar Cascade" to enjoy the lounge singer & evening entertainment. There was a show every night at 2130... a magician, a very strange dancer who spun around and around for at least 8 minutes and had a skirt that lit up, a belly dancer, a bird show, and a "Moroccan evening"--which we missed because we had to go to the airport. We had a few drinks & played card game after card game (Three-Thirteen, King's Corners, Golf, Poker) until bedtime.

(this is the twirling dancer! he looks like a spacecraft!)

That photo is a little misleading... we usually sat indoors & I usually had mojitos instead of mint tea!

Changes in our daily routine:

Tuesday--On our first full day in Morocco, we were given a time to meet with a guy from our tour operator. We went into the lobby at noon and listened to him tell about all of the excursions we could sign up for. We chose two-- Agadir City Tour & Fantasia Moroccan Experience. The Agadir City Tour left that afternoon!

On our Agadir City Tour, we met Peter & Doreen, an older couple from Yorkshire. They were beginning their 2nd week in Agadir and had already done another tour or two.
On the bus, we learned that Agadir had been just about completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1960. It was Feb 29, and they wanted to do something to commemorate the 50th anniversary this year, but half of the decision-makers thought the ceremony should be on the 28th and the other half thought it should be on March 1, and by the time they finally agreed to a date, there wasn't enough time to plan it!
We stopped in a museum where we learned a lot about the symbolism in Berber jewelry & rugs. I thought it was very interesting.
Then we went up to the Medina/Kasbah. I had bigger expectations of the Kasbah, and it really fell short, in my opinion. The views were great and I loved the way the building looked like a sand castle, but #1--it was really stressful up there as people immediately swarmed you trying to sell you jewelry, make you pet goats, take you for a camel ride, put a snake around your neck, etc. and then demand money even though you kept saying "NO" (or "NON" I suppose, since they parlent francais.) and #2--we didn't actually go IN anything or walk around the building... just looked at the view and got back on the bus and #3--I still don't really have a clear understanding of what the Kasbah is, any of the history behind it, or why on earth we should rock it.

After the Kasbah, we drove through the marina, which was stinky and a little depressing...

Then on a little walk to see something... I'm not sure exactly what... something about the earthquake. But I think it was really designed to take us to the tour leader's buddy's store. :) No matter where you go, some things are the same!

We made a quick stop at a Mosque named for Muhammed 5th. We couldn't go in, but took some pictures outside and learned that there are 5 doors to the Mosque--one for men, one for women, one for dead people, one for officials and one more...didn't hear who that one was for. And also that there are 69 mosques in Agadir, as well as 2 churches and one synagogue.

After the mosque, we headed to the souk. The souk is a market, closed in by sandcastle looking walls. My goal for Morocco was to buy a tagine and I entered the souk on a mission! I feel like I've been through a souk-like market when we were in Tokyo/Asakusa. It's kind of over-stimulating, and there's one that's more than triple the size of the Agadir souk in Marrakech. I'm glad we didn't go there...this one was crowded, confusing & crazy enough! There were spices, fruits, chickens (killed fresh to order...ew!), housewares, clothing, and touristy stuff. We bought 3 items--a tagine, a little "treasure chest" and an ash tray that got thrown in with the tagine in our "haggling".

The spices smelled soooo good, and so did this little block of amber that the salesguy rubbed on our wrists.
After the souk, we headed back to our hotel, where we had dinner reservations at the Moroccan restaurant. The inside of the restaurant was so cool! Everything was covered in gorgeous burgundy and gold fabrics, we ended up seated at a table with chairs, but some seats were at couches with tons of cushions. The soup we had was so tasty. We also had dates. Then they brought each of us a plate piled high with "Couscous Royale"--couscous with tagine meats & veggies and golden raisins. So good! David ate all of his food, but there was no way I could finish 2/3 of mine! Dessert was also very yummy, Moroccan pastries. Our favorite one was a rolled dessert that reminded me a little bit of baklava......if the layers were made of ice cream cones instead of phyllo! My first taste of Moroccan mint tea---liquid Wrigley's Doublemint-- with dessert.

Wednesday-
We deviated from our regular routine on Wednesday night, too... we left the resort at quarter til 8 pm for an evening of traditional Moroccan dinner & entertainment. On the way to our dining "tent", we heard music, ate dates, drank milk, saw snake charmers, ate freshly baked and delicious Berber bread, and took pictures. Once seated, we had veggies as a starter, then some little stuffed triangles, followed by a huge platter of basically the same thing we had eaten the night before at our Moroccan restaurant! A DELICIOUS pastry with some kind of almondy-cream over it for our first dessert, and other pastries with mint tea while waiting for the entertainment outside were all delicious. At our dinner table, we met another (older) couple staying at our resort, and a British woman married to a guy from Peru. In between each course, the entertainers came in singing, chanting, playing instruments, dancing. They did this wild dancing where they were bouncing while squatting low to the ground and would then jump super-high from the squat position. It was really impressive. It was also impressive when David (and other tourists!) joined in the dancing toward the end of the evening.

We moved from the tent to the "stage" outside, where we sat on red carpets and ate our pastries & drank tea while watching a horse show, acrobats, fire jugglers, and a belly dancer. It was chilly out there, so I welcomed the heat every time the fire guy did his fire breathing thing!

We got back to the resort around midnight and were exhausted!

Thursday- The last day that things weren't all swimming pool & bar Cascade was our third day there. David went golfing & I stayed in the shade all day because I was sunburnt! David came back about 3 and we sat in the shade for a little while, then got ready for our dinner reservation at the seafood restaurant. The buffet lunch is served in the same place, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, but for tonight, the set menu was a salmon carpaccio (I think?) to start and then seafood paella! It was pretty good... and we weren't the only ones who thought so:

The resort kitty, who I decided to call "Tiny Moby" made himself at home in the restaurant, and everyone took their turn feeding him bits of seafood when he went to each table!

Monday-
Monday was our last day in Morocco... although I had begun to believe otherwise. The volcanic ash cloud couldn't decide what it wanted to do about closing Heathrow & Gatwick. I was hoping for another day by the pool, or at least to stay one last night so we'd get to see the Moroccan evening entertainment! I kept holding out hope that our flight would be canceled, but no such luck! David stayed in the shade all day on Monday, but I took in my last doses of sunshine 20 minutes at a time. We left the pool around 4 on Monday so we could be showered, packed, dressed before checking out at 6. We went to the lounge and spent time with the friends we made on our tours after a few last card games. Then we all went to dinner together and it was all Moroccan food-- delicious tagines, couscous, Berber bread, pastries... it was the perfect send-off! We took pictures with the Animation staff, Uni, Omar & Neeza, who had been so friendly all week and really made our vacation even more special!

Then we rode the coach to the airport, hung out with our old English pals a little longer and made our way to the gate, where we were delayed about an hour. The flight home wasn't too bad... but poor David didn't get to sleep as much as he would've liked to. We landed at about 3:30 a.m. and then had a 2/2.5 hour drive home from the airport. We went straight to bed when we got home at around 6!

We LOVED our vacation!!!

Thursday 13: TV shows I watch

2010-04-22T08:19:00.000+01:00

Last night, David successfully hooked up our AFN decoder, satellite, etc. I got hooked on AFN back in 2003 when I was a live-in nanny for a military family in Italy. (That's also where I got hooked on David!) AFN is the Armed Forces Network, and it gives us access to good ol' American tv when we're stationed overseas. There aren't a whole lot of choices as far as channels go, and two of the channels play the same shows on a different time shift (for those stationed in the "Atlantic", like me, and for those stationed in the Pacific, like I used to be). I actually think that there's another channel that plays the same shows on a third shift for those in the desert, but I've never had that channel (until now?) Some of the shows air on a big delay (like shows that take a "season break" might not start until after that long break), and some of the shows (like American Idol and SURVIVOR!!!!) air just one day late. On base, it's pretty much all set up and ready to go, but when you live off base, there's a little more work involved. We had to buy our own cable box (I think we rented it as part of our cable bill at Kadena?? Not sure.) and an antenna and a new cable to lead from the house to the antenna (??). Luckily, David knows way more than the average bear about all of this, so he was able to get it all set up and all I had to do was watch the television for the satellite signal and shout out the window like a crazy person "ZERO! 68! 71! ZERO! 86!" until it was all set. So, now I get to watch my AFN again! I love the "commercials"--they can't play actual advertising commercials so it's lots of PSAs about gambling, PCSing (military moves), historical info about people & places, etc. And, I'm excited to be able to watch some of my favorite shows again...we have British tv, and they play a LOT of American shows on some of the channels (Scrubs, How I Met Your Mother, 90210, Glee, True Blood, Without a Trace, Two and a Half Men, etc.) and I've found a few British shows to love (Countdown!! My fave!) but I'm so excited to be reunited with AFN... here are 13 shows I'm happy to have the chance to watch on AFN:

1. Jeopardy--based on my reaction when I realized I'd be able to watch Jeopardy again, one would think I had won the lottery!
2. Oprah
3. Amazing Race
4. American Idol (this is on British TV, and we'll probably continue watching it there since we can record it and watch it at our convenience)
5. Survivor
6. 60 Minutes (although I usually download this audio podcast and listen while I make dinner, do dishes, etc.)
7. Wheel of Fortune
8. Top Chef
9. 20/20
10. Good Morning America (which I will probably never watch, because it's on at 10pm & 4am!)
11. Design on a Dime
12. Misc. Food Network shows
13. The Suze Orman Show

Now, I definitely won't get to all of these... I've gotten used to my Sky+ box and being able to record, watch later & fast forward through commercials!

Around the Town Tuesday: Parks

2010-04-20T12:35:00.000+01:00

Remember what we're doing on Tuesdays?

Last week, I gave you a little information about the town I currently live in, Thetford. (click that if you missed it) For those just now stopping by, I'm a military wife, so I get the privilege of moving somewhere new every 3 or 4 years. (Until it's actually time to move every 3 or 4 years, then it's viewed as more of a hassle than a privilege!) So, I'm thankful for the Around Your Town blog hop for giving me some motivation to get out and learn a little more about my surroundings! We LOVE it here, but as we learned when it was time to leave Okinawa last January, our time here will be over before we know it and we won't have seen and done half the things we want to!

This week's theme is "parks". So... let's get to it........

Are you ready for a quick tour of the Ancient Capital of East Anglia?

First, we need to hit the road and leave the subdivision... after we cross Castle Street, we'll pass by a stone bridge and a nice little picnic spot, and take a quick look at Melford Common, where you can walk your dog or play "football."

Now, let's take a look right across the street at the big green blob portion of that map:

(I decided to put my pictures for this week in "storyboards" because I had SO many, and "save-for-web-ing" and uploading to blogger gets too tedious)
This is Castle Hill, and it's less than 1/2 mile away from my house, along the route to the town centre. The top left photo was taken while we ate lunch outside at the Dolphin pub on Sunday! The hill is about 81 feet high, 1000 feet around the base, and is the "tallest medieval earthwork in England". Today, kids & grown-ups like to climb the hill (I haven't tried it yet!) and the playground is always packed on nice days!

On Sunday, we took the short-cut out of the neighborhood and took a walk down the paths behind our house:

This is part of the Nunnery Lakes Nature Reserve and besides geese, you'll find silly little deer called muntjacks, bunnies, pheasants, and people walking their dogs. (That's NOT our house in the background. :) It's Ford Place, the nursing home, and you'll see just a little more of that in a minute.) There are nice paths, benches and a few little footbridges.

If you get on the correct path, you end up really close to Thetford's Forgotten Garden:

The garden had been forgotten for 30 years and now "friends of the garden" have fixed it up. I can't wait to go back later in the summer when there's more in bloom! The garden is "through the gate in the wall" behind the Ford Place (the pretty back stairs of the Ford Place are in the bottom right photo.) It's a "secret garden", surrounded by these great old stone & flint walls. We've got another hidden garden in town... I haven't tried to find it yet though.

From here, we headed back the way we came, but passed the path back to our house in favor of the Nuns' Bridges:

The Nuns' Bridges are old & neat looking, but a little nerve-wracking to walk or drive across (they're one lane). This is the place where Thetford's two rivers, the Thet and the Little Ouse meet. The bottom left picture is looking down the path toward the town centre, and at the Gentle Meadow...another "park". They are called the Nuns' Bridges because they used to lead to the Benedictine Nunnery of St. George. It's also said to be where the Icknield Way, one of the oldest roads in Britain, passed.... the Iceni tribe (I mentioned their warrior queen last time) may have used this route, as well as Romans as far back as 43 AD.

A quick stop at the Nunnery Arch:

And our last stop before heading home (on a different wooded path...we love where we live!):

The BTO, or British Trust for Ornithology (wildlife) has its headquarters in Thetford. The ruins are what remains from the 12th century Nunnery. This is where Queen Elizabeth I came to eat dinner in 1578!
Now, it's a great place to take a walk, sit on a bench, see a few cats, pheasants, and other birds.

And that wraps up our tour of some of my favorite Thetford parks!
Click here to check out some of the other towns on the blog hop!

12 of 12: The Beautiful Day

2010-04-12T23:27:00.000+01:00

I think I've played along every month so far this year... making a point to do so since Chad has decided this would be his last year hosting.
Next month, I WILL take 12 photos on the 12th.....and they should be exciting and/or beautiful! But I won't be able to post them until later in the week.

But for this month...not so exciting, but still a gorgeous day in Thetford!

1. My living room, 0900:

Double-checking yesterday's 10k race results. My official "chip time" was 53:28 and I was 389th out of 987.

2. My living room, 1215

I spent nearly 3 hours on the phone with my friend Jess (we both love to talk!) and while I was on the phone, I occupied myself dismantling Saturday's baby shower.

3. Melford Terrace, Thetford 1604

I finally made it out of the house to enjoy the beautiful day...sunny and not too cold! I walked to Aldi to pick up some groceries for tonight's dinner. I love running/walking up the Melford Terrace hill because, even though all of the houses look alike, there are a lot of neat house number signs.

I ended up taking 47 pictures today, quite a few outside in town... I'm going to save them for another "Around the Town Tuesday" post next week!

4. Magdalen Street, Thetford, 1608

Somehow, I had never noticed that this pink house is a bed & breakfast. Lately, I've entertained the thought of one day having a bed and breakfast. And a Christmas tree farm.

5. Jolleyes (?) Pet Supply Store, Thetford, 1616

Before I crossed the parking lot to Aldi, I stopped in the pet supply store for the first time ever. It definitely smells like a pet store. I was hunting for duck food, even though my ducks haven't been around in a while... I think they might be tending to their ducklings???? Anyway, I was reading the notice board and these 2 caught my eye. The yellow one is for the Cinnamon Trust which is a group of volunteers that help elderly pet owners walk their dogs, tend to their cats, drive to vet appointments, etc. Between my new tutoring "business", spouses' group, and Girl Scouts volunteering, my schedule is filling up...but I might be able to squeeze just one more thing in if they're looking for volunteers! The white paper is something I'm trying to convince David to let me do (since I won't be able to convince him to let me get a dog). The Breckland Cat Protection Society is looking for foster families for cats. The cats stay out in the garden in "cat cabins" and they provide the food and litter. Foster parents just need to take care of the cats and spend a little time with them each day. I have a plan that just might get David on board with this!

6. Lime Kiln Lane, Thetford 1637

After browsing around Aldi and finding just about everything I needed (and satisfactory substitutes for the stuff they didn't have) I headed back home. Right around the corner from Aldi, I saw this banner and it reminded me of when I lived in Italy and when families had new babies they'd put beautiful pink or blue ribbons on their doors. This one was a "Birthday Girl" banner and not quite as beautiful, but I still wanted a picture.

7. Castle Street, Thetford 1648

Almost home! By this point, with 2 jars of tomato sauce, one can of tomatoes, a box of juice, 2 containers of "soft cheese" and a bag of frozen veg in my carrier bag, I was really wishing that I a bag on wheels to push my shopping around in. I think they might really be for little old ladies, but I'm little and I'm a lady, so I think 2 out of 3 should qualify me for bag-on-wheels status!

8. Driveway, 1658

When I turned the corner, I was a little bit surprised to see David's car in the driveway already! And even more surprised to see him wearing his golfing clothes instead of his uniform when I walked in the house! (And a little bit ashamed that it took me 10 minutes to walk the quarter-mile in between the last picture and the house!)

9. Music/Half-Laundry room (the dryer is in here, but the washer is in the kitchen!) 1853

I love that it's so light out at 10 til 7! Watering my tomatoes, basil, thyme and cilantro. The cilantro is really getting out of hand... I wonder if I should be harvesting the leaves now? Each plant only has a few leaves, but a few of them seem to not be strong enough to handle the top-heaviness. Also wondering if I should sow more seeds in the same planter or if the roots will be competing with each other???

10. Kitchen, 1941

David is such a sweetie and such a good helper! He washed "all of the dishes from the baby shower" (he doesn't know that I had stashed quite a few dirties in the dishwasher--it doesn't really wash dishes well so it is a drying rack and a place to hide dirty dishes when company comes over and I don't have time to wash them!) Then he helped me out by dipping pretzels in the last of the white chocolate while I got dinner ready.

11. Kitchen, 1941

So the problem with it being lighter later is that I totally don't realize it's time to make dinner! We ate really late tonight! Tonight's dinner was "lasagna rolls with herbed cheese" and it will be dinner for the family with the sick little girl tomorrow night. It was pretty tasty even though I had to herb the cheese myself since Aldi didn't have what I was looking for. The family (and the guy who delivers meals to them) will also get a few chocolate dipped pretzels.

12. Living room, 2225

For someone who mandated that there be "no pink" in our home before we got married, he sure does love this pink blanket that my cousin & little cousin made for me! David fell asleep while we were watching Vampire Diaries and is still curled up here on the couch right now. I'm either going to have to carry him up the stairs or wake him up after I get this posted.......my bets are on waking him up! :)

Totally Rocked the Baby Shower!

2010-04-11T17:52:00.001+01:00

(you may have seen some of these photos already in an older post... there are new pictures in here too!)

When I learned that my friend Jaclyn was pregnant, I knew that I wanted to be the one to throw her shower. Not because she is my best friend (I had only known her for a month or 2 before she announced her pregnancy), but because 1-she just moved here and if I were having a baby and had just moved to a new place, I would be a little bummed that I wouldn't get a great shower and 2- I knew that if anyone else offered, their shower wouldn't be as good as mine.
Jaclyn & her husband have lots of tattoos and wear a lot of Ed Hardy-esque fashions. As I was researching & thinking of possible baby shower themes, I knew this one would be PERfect! And I wasn't sure that anyone else of child-bearing age in my social circle would be as likely to like this theme...
I asked Jaclyn & Jason what they would think of a "Rock the Cradle"/"Babies Rock"/"ROCK-abye Baby"/Rock Star themed shower and they were VERY receptive. So I totally ran with it!

The original invitation (top) was designed on photoshop elements using some digital scrapbook supplies. I recolored the guitars since the originals were pink and blue. After much thought, I decided (even though we knew Jaclyn would be having a boy) to go with the "gender neutral" color scheme of black, silver and red instead of black, silver and hot pink or black, silver and electric blue. My reasoning behind this was 1---I could get started collecting & making stuff before they found out the gender and 2---I would be able to re-use red stuff for other decorating & party purposes (Twilight, Oscars, Christmas, Valentines, etc.) And as a bonus, I found lots of red stuff at Christmas time.
The baby was originally scheduled for March 20, so his shower was set for January 31. But...baby arrived on January 15, so we pushed the shower to whenever he would be home from the hospital. He went home on March 7, but April 10 was the first weekend that we didn't have any conflicts.
So in addition to the original invitation, I made a cancellation notice (didn't get a pic!) and a new invitation (bottom). I had a whole extra set of invitations because they were late being delivered so I got some printed at the photo developer in town, so I cut these all apart to use them for the new invitations. It was a lot of cutting! But the invites ROCK, don't they?

On to some of the other shower crafts:

I wanted to use lots of skulls and guitars and the way to get just what I wanted, in the sizes that I wanted and for a decent price was to create photoshop projects with as many of the shapes as I could get on them and order them as photos (8x10, 5x7 and a few 8x8s). I had way too many skulls and guitars printed. I see a lot of "You Rock!" cards in my craft table's future.

Some were used on the toppers for the favors:

Chocolate guitar molds were possibly my most brilliant idea for the shower. I toyed with the idea of sugar cookies but an electric guitar cookie cutter was going to run around $12! The candy mold was $2 or $3 AND I didn't have to deal with any icing! So easy, and they were a BIG hit!

I used the larger skulls & guitar on the ugly wreath I made for the front door. The cross bones had been put away in a pile of stuff that I moved off the couch so they hadn't been attached when this picture was taken. I found them and stuck them on later. I wish I would've used more skulls & guitars on this, but I was really really really working at the last minute by this point!

This may have been my favorite party detail! Get it? Potty like a Rock Star? Instead of Party? I crack myself up sometimes! And I used a blue & a pink guitar on the door here on purpose...because it's a bathroom for boys AND girls.

I found these perfect red and black (with red glitter) little balls at Pound Stretcher at Christmas time. My original plan was to have skulls & guitars dangling here too, but I couldn't get them to stick on the ribbon properly. It JUST NOW dawned on me that I could've dangled them from fishing line or thread and hung them straight down at the points where the ribbon is blu-tacked up to the mantle. Oh well......

I've been saving the silver paper that my friend Concetta had wrapped her cookies in for my cookie exchange in December! I knew it would come in handy for this! The silver can is a tea canister and I just glue-dotted a ribbon around it, stuck on a guitar and put a little floral foam inside. Taped chipboard letters to spell the baby's name onto lollipop sticks and smooshed a little square of red tissue in there. I also wrapped my plain clear votive cups with ribbon from my scrapbook stash. My friend Sandi picked up the silver star wire garland stuff for me after Christmas. I won't lie and say that I was underbudget for this shower, but I definitely was able to save on quite a bit using what I have, buying things that can be reused and taking advantage of sales.

Here's the whole mantle. I have 2 clear square bud vases that I wrapped with red and black ribbon and filled partway with clear marbles. One has a skull and a guitar on lollipop sticks sticking in it and the other has the pens for party games.....all red and black pens, of course!
And speaking of party games...

The prizes were little tea lights- cranberry cosmo and the blue one that smells like laundry. There weren't any black candles, so I went with blue for "it's a boy" plus laundry smells so good and I rarely do it, so I'm happy to keep the leftover candles and make it smell like clean laundry in here.
We played a pregnancy/baby trivia quiz with questions like, "Who did they share the news with first?", "What theme did Jaclyn choose for the nursery?", "What girl's name did Jaclyn like that Jason vetoed?" and "What was the baby's birth weight?" (3 lbs., 7 oz.!)
There was also a game in which people had to guess the measurements taken at his most recent doctor's visit (the Thursday before the party), a word scramble, and a baby-word scattergories type game.
I did some research and made a "Match the Rock Star Baby to the Rock Star" game. This one could've been much tougher had I not included the birth years! I included some that I thought *everybody* just knew (Moon Unit, Lisa Marie, and "Prince Michael, Paris and Blanket") and some that were a little tougher.
At 2am the day of the shower, I remembered that I forgot to get a piggy bank for a game I wanted to play. I e-mailed Jaclyn and asked her to bring one if she or anyone else had already gotten him one. So funny.....she and her mother-in-law had gone to the craft store the day before and just happened to buy supplies for and paint a piggy bank for him! We played "I Never"--baby related. So for instance, I said, "I never....had a baby!" and anyone who HAD had a baby put a coin in the piggy bank. We each started with 5 coins, I shared some coins with anyone who didn't have any. This one was fun and got Coy's piggy bank off to a good start!
When everyone arrived, I had them pull a number out of a bowl. As I was writing down the gifts, I made tallies for how many bibs, pacifiers, socks and stuffed animals he got. (0, 3, 6, 2). I asked "Did anyone have the number 3?" and whoever had pulled that number got a prize. We also set a timer during gift opening and the person whose present Jaclyn was opening when the timer went off got a prize.
Okay, time for more pictures!

The prizes were wrapped in red and black tissue paper and put in my corningware! That stuff is so handy! :)
More candles, red balls that I put out at Christmas time, another tea canister (I have a lot of tea) and star garland on the step tansu. Anything I can do to highlight the step tansu, I do. LOVE that thing!

The step tansu also functioned as the gift holder. Mine is (of course) wrapped in red and black! It's 3 pairs of pants that go with these:

These rockin' little outfits came from one of my many trips to the baby section at the BX. I just knew that if I checked often enough, something rock-ish was bound to be there eventually! I bought them all in 12-18 months sizes since babies usually get lots of tiny clothes as gifts!

I think one of the best ideas I found online on one of the many many party blogs I've been reading was about a baby shower that was brown and pink (maybe?) and they slipcovered their couches and chairs! I bought some cheap broadcloth cotton (with a coupon and got a rebate!) and just did a sloppy "cover & pin". I think it really put a nice touch on the party and brought everything together...the biggest items in the room went with the theme:

I covered the pillows too with red and silver ribbon...my favorite pillow is in the next picture, with a black tulle bow! The paper lanterns were ordered from Crate & Barrel at the end of summer, on clearance (they were paired with blue ones for 4th of July!)

You can't really see the tulle bow, but trust me, it's cute! I ran out of fabric, so covered the ottoman top with red and bottom with scraps of black and black tulle. Put my white table cloth on the brown coffee table (might have been a bad idea, as there was a 2 year old here and in attempt to be nice, I gave her crayons!!) I totally meant to sprinkle some temporary tattoos on the table too and forgot about them. :(

Now, time for he important stuff...FOOD!

You already know about my napkins. (Which, by the way, one of the guests said, "did you make these too? you're really good at the little details!" Makes my heart sing!)

Here are the napkins with the other food-- broccoli salad, the Dorito taco salad that my mom makes...Jaclyn requested this immediately after I took it to another party in September or October. She was so happy about the Dorito salad being here! Caprese on a stick... hardly anybody ate this! I told David that if I would've known WE would be the ones eating it, I would've had him buy the GOOD mozzarella instead of the cheap stuff! And sausage & cheese--lots of the cheese is star shaped. Thank goodness for my bento-supply binge shopping right before we left Okinawa!

More skulls and guitars to use as....

Cupcake toppers! (I couldn't wait to see how cute they would look!) I made chocolate Devil's food and Red Velvet cupcakes (from the boxes! gasp!) Silver baking cups were key! My mom sent me this great cupcake stand! I love it much more than the kid that hold individual cupcakes, because I could cut little squares of cake, brownies, or cookies etc. on here. I had my friend Jessica cover the edges of the stand with black and silver ribbon.

And here they are all frosted & sprinkled. Picked up the black sprinkles at the BX before Halloween. Since I took the lame way out and made cake-mix cupcakes, I made homemade frosting.

The rest of the dessert table included white-chocolate dipped pretzels (with black and red sprinkles) and cherry cheeseball dip with chips ahoy and nilla wafers. Shhhh....don't tell anyone, but.....the cherry cheeseball is leftover from my cookie exchange! I've been saving it in the freezer since it's red and white!

Coy was the only one who didn't eat any of my food :)

I was so excited when Jaclyn and her mother-in-law came in wearing their handmade rock-theme t-shirts! She said they bought supplies at the craft store (I didn't see any of this when I went to the craft store!!) and painted shirts for themselves and a onesie for Coy! (He only wore his for a short period of time due to diaper blow-out).

David won this guitar for me at a carnival down the street a few weeks ago!

My mom and Aunt Cookie made me a special apron to wear for the party! Even though I finished baking long before this was taken, I couldn't bear the thought of taking off my punky apron!

The girl who calls ME Martha Stewart brought the baby's gift in this cute basket! I thought that was fairly Martha of her!

I love love love that someone bought a set of rock star themed bottles & pacifiers for the baby!

And of course, presents don't need to be rock-star related to be absolutely adorable!!

I'm pretty satisfied with how the party went! I got lots of compliments...one girl said, "I went to a baby shower a few weeks ago and it wasn't nearly as good as this!" We all had a good time and I was glad that Jaclyn's mother-in-law was able to make the trip to England to see the baby...and come to his shower! :)
Annnnnnd.....I have no idea what I will do with all of my free time now!

Thursday Thirteen: Baby Shower to-do list

2010-04-08T10:37:00.000+01:00

I can't believe it!

The Rock Star Baby Shower, which was originally supposed to be this:

(scheduled for Jan 31)
and is now this:

is actually here! This Saturday!
So, I volunteered for this baby shower in August... which has given me 8 months to prepare. And I've worked so hard. But, it is my nature to do all of the PLANning way far in advance, but save all of the DOing until the very last minute. Like my term paper, when I had all of my notecards meticulously organized, but when it came down to it, my friends the Kathys (who thankfully did not function the same way that I do) and I were typing that stuff in and printing it out just before the bell rang. That's my kind of adrenaline rush. Not the kind that comes from skydiving or riding rollercoasters.
Anyway, moral of the story is... it's Thursday and I don't find it hard to believe at all that I have (at least) thirteen baby-shower related things on my to-do list. I have consulted my Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that has become my "baby shower brain" and here's what I need to do:

1. Finish my favor bag toppers. I say "finish" because guess what... I already have ONE done! Woot woot! I'm 1/13th of the way there!

2. Drop off my baking pans @ my friend Wendy's house. She has graciously offered to let me use her oven since mine is still not working. Although the oven guys are coming here in 20 minutes (which means I should probably go put a sweatshirt on instead of my robe). But they've been here 3 times before and no progress has been made on the oven so I'm not counting on using my own oven. I need to make red velvet cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes, and star shaped brownies. Actually, the oven guys came while I was writing this post and I've been instructed to bake brownies TODAY here in my oven and report my findings to them. They clearly don't understand that if I were able to bake in my own oven, I would be doing it at 2 a.m. on Friday/Saturday... I would've thought that after all the time we've spent together they would know me a little bit better than that.

3. Cut out two more sheets of guitars. If I never cut another skull or guitar out again, I think I would lead a satisfying life. Thank goodness for my Stampin' Up scissors!
4. After cutting, I need to turn all of these skulls & guitars into cupcake toppers, mobiles, garlands, and whatever else I have drawn in my little sketch book. Because I need to make my living room look like this:

5. That means I need to stick some iron-on transfers onto some onesies, figure out how to hang a clothes line on my living room wall (I really want it on the wall, but if I can't figure it out, I'll go for the curtain rod over the sliding door) and then hang my cute little baby clothes (I mean the cute little baby clothes I bought for the baby!) on it. (David keeps scolding me for calling this MY shower)
6. Make a garland for the mantle, remove the Easter eggs from the big vase thingy and put red and black balls in it. Get out the red candle holders I've been collecting and stick some red and/or black ribbon on the clear candle holders I have (only 4? how is that possible?) and get my "mantlescape" ready.
7. Slipcover my couches. Yes, you heard me correctly. I don't want to have a black-red-and-silver baby shower with brown couches! David is lucky I haven't spraypainted the coffee table...or made him lug the step tansu out of the living room!
8. And also knit a heart-shaped pillow (half of it is already done and around here somewhere) so I can add wings and a "MOM" tattoo. And find something to stuff it with... I might end up unstuffing one of my own pillows or stealing a stuffed animal from a small child.

8. Channel my inner Hermione Granger (who is sooooo much cooler than Harry) and turn chocolate into guitars.
9. And also stop eating the pretzel rods so I can dip them in the red and white melting chocolates. At least I hope "candy melts" are chocolate. Or at least edible.
10. And make Oreo truffles.

11. And go to the commissary for veggies. Because even though I would've been totally satisfied with a menu consisting of chocolate, the former-mother-to-be (now just mother) requested "my" (mom's) taco salad. And if we're going to have taco salad, we can't just have a dessert shower so I need some veggies and etc. now, which adds about 100 more things to my to-do list between chopping and mixing and arranging stuff on platters.

12. Spruce up this nasty looking wreath that was supposed to look like this but failed. This is what happens, people, when you live an ocean away from a Hobby Lobby or Jo-Ann and are forced to shop at the base Arts & Crap center. There are no foam wreath forms, and so you must "improvise" using an embroidery hoop that makes your wreath look scraggly and sad. And also I blame the fact that I never went to kindergarten and therefore never learned to tie a proper knot. And also that I used lousy ribbon because I am a cheapskate. But maybe it will look a little bit better when I stick some skulls and guitars on it and hang it on my front door. Or maybe I will finagle my own wreath form from some newspaper and a wire hanger? Because you know I need more things to do in the next 50 hours.

13. Wrap the prizes for the games (people don't like prizes that other people pick out anyway, so we're going with a tealight candle) and find some kind of hard surface for people to write on, and gather up some pens. And also think of a way to let everyone know that if I were allowed to play the game called "make as many words as you can out of the baby's name" I would totally win. Because I already played by myself and got way over 100 words, without including plurals. Including an 8 letter word. I might give myself a prize for that anyway. I deserve it.

And one thing I already finished:

Well, I might want to add silver stars to the napkin rings...

Around the Town Tuesday: a History Lesson

2010-04-06T15:58:00.000+01:00

I read about this today and I can't resist! I think it will be a fun way to get to know & see my town a little more, and for YOU to learn about it too!

For *almost* one year (I can't believe it!) I've lived in Thetford. "The Ancient Capital of East Anglia." I don't know exactly what that means, but it's on the sign so it must be a source of pride around here.
Thetford is here:

(according to Wikipedia) The big white blob is England. The little red blob is probably East Anglia. The funky shape outlined in the middle is (I think) Norfolk County. Don't say "Nor-folk" say "Nor-fuk" :) And Thetford is at the bottom right in that little notch. I ran to Suffolk county yesterday, so I can guarantee you that Thetford is at the very bottom of Norfolk County.

Here are the things I know about Thetford: there are ducks, lakes, bridges, pubs. The market is on Tuesdays and Saturdays. There's some pretty old stuff around here. Like from the 12th century. There is some even older stuff, the "Thetford Treasure" in the British Museum and it was found near the giant hill right down the street. There's a statue of Thomas Paine, a Thomas Paine Hotel/restaurant, and last year, a big Thomas Paine festival. King Henry VIII ordered a bunch of Thetford stuff to be destroyed. The traditional buildings are "flint cottages". A show called "Dad's Army" was filmed here and there's a museum for the show in town centre. There are great places to run. There's a Tesco, a Sainsbury, a train station and puh-lenty of charity shops. I love it here.

Here's what I learned just for this blog post:
There's been "activity" going on here since 2,500 B.C. The Iceni--a Celtic tribe-- starting piling up that giant hill in 500 B.C. and were using it by 40 A.D. Talk about perseverance! There was also an Iceni gal named Boudicca... a "flame-haired warrior Queen" who found joy in revolting against the Romans. I'm glad things have quieted down here now.
Back in the 10th Century, when Thetford was the Saxon capital of the area, they even had their own mint/coins.
After Henry VIII had had his way with Thetford's religious buildings, the town went through some tough times, but in the 19th century it was known as an "elegant spa town". Maybe that means I'll be able to find somewhere to get my eyebrows done this week.
The Bell Inn (you can see a bit of it in the photo above) was featured on Ghosthunters!
Queen Elizabeth I ate dinner down the street from my house in 1578!

These are all old pictures because I just read about this today and couldn't add "walk to town centre and take pictures" to my to-do list. I'm really looking forward to visiting new & old places and taking more pictures for this blog hop!

Eat-Pray-Love

2010-04-06T12:47:00.000+01:00

David and I are a "military family". And that makes us a part of a much bigger family, "the Military family". Especially stationed overseas, members of that big family really count on each other. We can't always go home for Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays, Easter, 4th of July and all of the other events one normally looks forward to spending with family. So it's lucky we have each other. Our Thanksgiving &Christmas dinners have different faces at them every year, some that we'll see for 2 more Christmases, some that we may never see again. When you're a part of this big family, there are times that you have to stand in and take the role of a real family member. I've gone to dance recitals and karate matches (? don't know what karate matches are called!). Things that people would normally invite grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles to. I've gone to the hospital and taken pictures of a one-day old baby to e-mail to her daddy as he tried to make it home from Afghanistan asap (he made it when she was 10 days old). Recently I was asked to be on someone's "emergency care plan"--if both parents unexpectedly needed to deploy, I would need to care for their baby while they waited for their real family member to arrange to come get him. My military family have celebrated my birthday, organized my classroom library at the beginning of the school year, packed up my classroom when it was time for me to move, helped me look for a house, loaned me a car, surprised us at the airport to say good-bye when we left Okinawa.

Right now, one of our military families here is going through some really hard times. Their daughter, who is maybe 2 or 3 years old (?) is battling lymphoblastic lymphoma. She was in the hospital for a long time in the fall and now she has taken another turn for the worse. The parents stay at (or near?) the hospital (off base, and probably about 30-50 minutes from their home) and a guy from the squadron who lives nearby delivers meals. So, we have volunteered to provide a meal for them every Tuesday. Which means that every Monday, I will make a larger meal (Rachael Ray recipes are great for larger meals!) and package up our leftovers so the J's can enjoy a homecooked meal. I'd be making dinner anyway, so why not make a little extra and share?
I won't lie... I have a decent heart, but it is by no means perfect. When David said "I was thinking I'd have Pete put us on the list to provide food every week, just to make it easier for him," the first thing going through my head was "$$$$$". Then I wanted to remind him that just two weeks ago, we had discussed NOT volunteering to provide food for every single function that we are asked to volunteer for anymore...maybe just every other one. I thought about pointing out that David has never even met this guy, and I've only met him once or twice. But then I snapped out of "crazy-stingy mode" and back into "decent human mode" and remembered that there is a little girl who has CANCER. A little girl who is old enough to know there is something wrong, but too young to understand explanations of what is happening or why. There is a couple who is away from their family and spending day in and day out in the hospital, praying for their daughter's survival. I think, "what if this were me? what if this were one of MY family members? what would I hope someone would do for MY family?" What can I do? I can't cure cancer. I can't assure them that everything will be fine. But I can make them dinner. When I remind myself to put it into perspective, I see that providing them with a meal once a week is not only an easy thing to do, but the right thing to do. Another thing I can do to help... I can say a prayer for them and ask you to do the same!

Last night's dinner was Chicken Stew & Cornmeal Dumplings from the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook. If you have a list of meals that make a lot and are good for sharing (when people have new babies, illnesses, etc.) add that one to your list, and suggest some for mine!

Hippity Hoppity

2010-04-05T10:08:00.001+01:00

'Twas the night before Easter... so we colored our Easter Eggs!
Three eggs cracked in the process of hard boiling, but I decided that only 2 were too cracked to color. I searched high and low for a plain ol' Paas dye kit. The BX only had fancy-schmancy tie-dye eggs, speckle eggs, princess eggs with fairy glitter. (I bought the one with fairy glitter *just in case*). I found the Paas at the commissary and I was very happy until I opened the package on Saturday night. Where's the wax crayon? Where are the egg holder thingies with the Paas characters on them? The egg holders in this package didn't even hold my eggs properly. And there were only 3 of those wrap-around things, which I love but always forget to use. I feel bad for all of the kids (and me) who will never (again) know the true Paas Easter Egg Dying experience. I know, I know that Paas is not the reason for the season...but it's definitely a fun part!
I think that this is only our second Easter together. Maybe our 3rd (out of a possible 7). I don't really recall coloring eggs together, which is probably why I invited David to color eggs with me. When he had already dropped 4 of our 10 eggs in the dye before I even had a chance to bend the egg dipper, I began to second-guess my decision to include him in my fun. What kind of person doesn't even draw on ONE egg? Or carefully consider how many of each color you want BEFORE dropping them in the dye? Crazy!

Bowls do not work as well as coffee cups for dying eggs. But I was nervous about staining the insides of my light blue and light green coffee cups (??) I wonder if my mom has the old coffee cups that we used to use for dying eggs, the light brown ones with the black line at the top.

I let the eggs "soak" while I prepped Sunday's breakfast, so they got nice and bright! :)

These are supposed to look like bird nests made out of chow mein noodles and marshmallows. A few of them look like bird nests and help the other ones. If you can tell that one is supposed to be a bird nest, you can guess that the similarly shaped blob next to it is too. You're supposed to put them in muffin tins to shape them, but I thought that might get too messy. (I think that's a good thing, because I had to shimmy them up

with a little serving spatula and that would've been much harder in a muffin tin).

The night before Easter (because even though I love to plan things waaaaaaaay in advance, I am only capable of doing them at the very last minute) I made these little treat bags. There used to be 7 of them and one of them didn't used to be empty. I forgot to take a picture before people took their bags. I'm glad that 2 people forgot theirs!

I also spent the night before Easter knitting a little bunny hat for this little guy. (And also the time immediately after I ate my Easter breakfast at brunch time because remember what I said about the *very last minute*?)

Unfortunately, the darn kid slept the whole time and I didn't get to see if the hat fit his tiny little head. And I hadn't taken a picture of the hat not on his head either, so I don't even have a pic for Ravelry. Can you tell that I learned how to hold an infant as a small child? Jaclyn asked, "do you want to hold him?" and I sat on the couch with a pillow under my elbow and got my arms ready for her to set him down. And I didn't move. The baby is 3 months and almost 7 lbs now (this is the 9 week preemie baby) but still a little tiny for me. When a full-term baby is around 3 months old, I'm fine with (although still not terribly interested in) holding it. I like babies best when they are maybe 7 or 8 months and up. They're just more fun that way.

Since I mentioned my "Easter Breakfast at Brunch Time" (calling it this made it possible for me to avoid cooking a ham--which I think looks like the inside of your knee when you take a bad fall on your bicycle, and besides I still don't have a functional oven!) I will take this opportunity to tell you what I made--

fruit salad with lime & honey dressing (chopped all but the apples & bananas on Saturday night)--kiwis, strawberries, oranges, grapes, apples & bananas and then 1/3c fresh squeezed lime juice + 3/4c honey whisked together and poured on. It was delicious!

so-much-better-than-grits grits (browned the sausage and scrambled the eggs on Saturday night)--in the morning I just had to boil some water with butter (lots) and salt, dump in some grits, stir in the sausage, eggs, dump in a jar of that bright yellow hot cheese, and move it all to the crockpot to keep it warm. Y-U-M. So good.

Mascarpone stuffed French toast with peach syrup- all the prep for this was done on Sunday, but it wasn't too bad. Whisk up some powdered sugar and lemon zest with the mascarpone and stuff it in some Texas toast. My plan was to do this as a "french toast station" where you dip it in the batter yourself and make it to order (usually I do a baked french toast which is nice because it's all warm and done at the same time) but my friend Wendy and I ended up cooking up all the french toast and eating last. Oh well. We are also the only ones who had the delicious peach sauce, which was just peaches, sugar, cinnamon & nutmeg.

The picture is of the last piece, which I had for breakfast this morning. We had some for dinner last night too. It was delicious, but I'm glad to see it go.

Sunrise Punch- did this on Sunday morning too...but it definitely would've been smarter to squeeze the 7 limes the night before. I made too much of this (triple recipe?) and will be drinking it all week. 2 c cran, 2 c pineapple, 1 can apricot nectar, 1/2 c lime juice, top it off with ginger ale to serve.

My Easter "mantlescape".

(I tried the grass & eggs parfait but David thought it would look better with all of the eggs on top). Made my quick garland with some pastel scraps and my scallop punch.

My sock bunnies are so cute! The pitcher is from one of the charity shops in town centre. I thought it was springy and sweet.

This is David's basket (but one of those Rice Krispies Treats chocolate covered bunnies is MINE!)

My basket. Brown Bunny arrived with plenty of time to spare. He's in charge of guarding my Cadbury Creme Egg. I was concerned that it might be bad juju to put bunny ears on my shisa. But he looks cute and it hasn't brought bad luck so far.

And what do two adults do with their Easter eggs after all the company has gone home?

Why, have an Easter Egg hunt, of course!

PS- I made my sweater!

Thursday 13: Easter

2010-04-01T12:58:00.000+01:00

I opened up a "New Post" window last week, wrote a few paragraphs about what we've been eating since my oven's on the fritz (is that the right expression?) and never finished/posted it. A few days ago, I opened up another "New Post" window and didn't even manage to get anything written.
Since it's Thursday, I'm going to force myself to sit here until I crank out some list of 13. Might be things I need to do before Easter. Hopefully, there's not 13 of those and so I'll end up adding other Easter things to the list.

1. Go to the Commissary- I bought almost all of my ingredients for a friend's grits recipe that I'll be making. Still need eggs and all of the ingredients for the fruit salad and stuffed French toast that I'm making.
2. Go to Tesco/Sainsbury- If I haven't mentioned it before, I love my town. Lots of positives about living "all the way in Thetford". (People act like I live on the moon! It's 17 miles from base, people! Branch out a little!) One (two?) of the pluses about living here is that I've got two "super stores" in town. Groceries, clothes, magazines, dishes, etc. All within 2 miles of my house. I need to check and see if they have Marscapone (sp?) cheese for my stuffed French toast. The Commissary won't have it and if they do, it will be costly. Better to buy the stuff imported from Europe in, well, "Europe". Our latest discovery is Nutella on crumpets, both of which are far less expensive on the local economy than on base. Besides Marscapone cheese, I need to get some of those big hollow chocolate Easter eggs filled with smaller chocolates. Need those. Need those badly.
3. Go to the BX. I want one of those griddle pans that goes over 2 burners at once. I'm not waiting for a Pampered Chef party anymore, because that's an expensive item and I only like to buy the expensive items when I really LOVE the person hosting the party. Ideally, I will acquire this pan before Sunday morning, and since nobody I really LOVE is hosting a PC party before Sunday morning, I'll probably save half of my money and buy a pan of similar quality without having to pay for shipping. IF the BX has one. If not... I guess I'll just go back to Tesco/Sainsbury and check.
4. Make an Easter Egg Parfait. I have a big clear vase thing near my fireplace and I decided to fill it up with plastic Easter eggs. Unfortunately, I only had 4. And the vase is big. I bought the last 5 bags of tiny Easter eggs from the BXtra yesterday. I might have had enough eggs to fill the vase to the top had I not practically been accosted by a woman who made me give her 3 bags of eggs. Because she has little kids and she NEEDS eggs to fill. Not my problem, lady. Besides #1-the only thing that can fit in the eggs is like ONE Hershey Kiss. And besides #2- depending on how little your kids are, you might be able to order plastic eggs online and trick them into believing that Easter is actually NEXT week.
Oh, so anyway, since my eggs do not fill my vase completely, I have decided to make a "parfait" layering plastic eggs and Easter grass. It's going to be beautiful.
5. Punch out a bunch of scalloped circles and string them together. I need an Easter garland. I wanted to make one like this, but the commissary only had pink bunny peeps and yellow chick peeps and I want my garland to be made of yellow BUNNY peeps. Besides, I don't have any spray polyurethane. I can't figure out why not.
6. Hide the good Easter candy and fill the candy dish up with the regular Easter candy. My mom sent us the most delicious Chocolate Malt Balls and Chocolate Covered Raisins in the world and we're having company on Sunday. I can't risk having to share those things. So they must be hidden.
7. Make some cute Easter bag toppers. One year, I invited a few friends over for Easter and I got the bright idea to give them each a "grown up" version of an Easter basket. I decorated and filled Frappuccino bottles. But first, I had to empty the Frappuccino bottles. I absolutely detest coffee. But I also absolutely detest pouring money down the drain. So I drank every one of those dumb Frappuccinos. And gave myself a tummy ache. Now I am much smarter and rather than forcing myself to down nearly 98 ounces of what tastes to me like poisonous dirt, I'm just going to stick some candies in a plastic bag, decorate a bag topper, staple that thing on and call it an Easter basket.
8. Color Easter eggs. I must do this every year. Well, I didn't do it last year and that meant no egg salad sandwiches. So I must do this every year from now on.
9. Put out my Easter towels. I got a new one in a package from my Auntie. So now I have 2.
10. (If I use my time wisely, maybe just maybe I'll be able to...) Knit a pair of bunny booties or a bunny hat. Because a baby is coming to my house for Easter. And I want it to look like a bunny.
11. Prepare my house for company. Or get David to do it. Vacuum, dishes, dust, sweep...all of the things I despise!
12. Make some nests out of Chow Mein noodles. I think they are adorable. And I got some perfect chocolate eggs for inside.
13. Stick some cotton balls on the backs of my sock bunnies. I saw this cute idea in a magazine and spent last Saturday pouring rice all over the living room floor (hence the need to vacuum now) while making my own sock bunnies. I've got 5 little bunnies sitting on my mantle, but they all feel a little self-conscious every time they see a cute little cotton-tailed bunny hop around in the back yard. They need cute little cotton tails too.

Heh, well, turns out there ARE 13 things I need to do in the next 3 days. Luckily I work best under pressure.

Thursday 13: Plans & Projects

2010-03-18T15:06:00.000Z

I've been here almost a year, alone for most of it, jobless for all of it. People ask me, "aren't you getting bored?" I think only boring people get bored. Luckily, I have lots of plans & projects going at any one time to keep the boredies away.
Here's a list of some of my current projects or projects/activities I'm planning:

1. a vacation! We're going to Morocco! And I can take 50 lbs worth of bathing suits! Wootwoot!
2. a container garden- a few veggies & herbs. Need to go water my seeds and sing to them so they'll grow. The faster they grow, the sooner I can put them outside where they can't hear me sing.
3. a quick-trip. Meeting my cousin & her husband in Ireland. And perhaps smooching the Blarney stone.
4. baby shower! It's back on and I'm back in party planning mode and LOVING it!
5. two 10ks. I'm officially signed up for one in Cambridge and one right here in Thetford in April and May.
6. half-marathon. Why stop at a 10k when you can go for 21? I'm eying a September half right now.
7. Easter brunch. I need an excuse to make blueberry-stuffed French toast and mimosas! Actually, one never needs an excuse for blueberry-stuffed French toast and mimosas...
8. apron-sewing. My mom & aunt sent lots of apron-making-goodies, I need to drag a transformer upstairs and get stitchin'! But first...
9. clean/organize my crafts room. Gotta call it a craftS room because there is waaaaay too much going on in there to go with the singular. Something that will help me with that is...
10. building stuff! This will be my newest passion. And David gets to be involved. And by involved, I mean "do most of the work". "We"'ve got BIG plans. I just need to tell him what they are.
11. sock knitting. I'm making a pair of boring socks with ugly yarn. But when they are done, I won't have to wonder "what am I going to do with this ugly yarn?" anymore.
12. granny squaring. I've got to wait on a yarn color card & a fabric swatch, but I have some fun plans for a granny square blankie.
13. nutter butter balling. That's what I need to go do right now...for a function I need to take a dessert to tomorrow! Here's a recipe.

12 of 12: March- Another Boring Home Edition

2010-03-13T17:35:00.000Z

1. 0745ish- today's chore: wash sheets & towels

2. 0815ish-breakfast. I love Apple Jacks. Once again this year, I gave up the internet after 1800 for Lent. In retrospect, I probably should've given up sugar cereal.

3. 1100ish- Returning to the baby shower box! The party I started planning for a friend back in August, originally scheduled for January, is back on! April 10! I was looking for the invitations and taking a "re-stock" of what I'd already gathered for the party.

4. 11:05ish- While digging through the baby shower box, I found this NY Giants picture that I bought for David (for Christmas!) It's like an illusion thing because you can't tell it's a Giants helmet from close up, you just see a mosaic of tiny NFL logos & pictures.

5. 1300- Filling the candy dish! York Peppermint Patties, Hershey's Kisses & Hershey's fun sized bars (I like Mr. Goodbars best, David prefers the plain milk chocolate...guess he hasn't really been exposed to GOOD milk chocolate!) See the SUN coming in the window??

6. 1400- Originally I thought I would use the invitations I already designed & ordered for the shower and just cover up the old date with the new one, but then I got over-excited and came up with a design for a new one. I'll share pictures of the invites another time, but the wording on the invite is going to be:

Just like a real rock star, Coy C---- couldn’t stand the idea of missing out on a chance to party... So we postponed the baby shower for him. He’s home from the hospital and ready to rock!

On Saturday, April 10, you have a backstage pass to meet Jaclyn & Jason’s little Rocker!

(I plan to recycle the old invitations by cutting the skulls & guitars out & using them to embellish the new invites!)

7. 2005- David FINALLY makes an appearance in a 12 of 12! 12 of 12 on a Friday means Survivor and Chinese take-away (that's British English for take-out). Fridays used to mean Survivor and Chili's but we're not on Okinawa anymore!

8. 2040-Dessert! Thin Mints. The best thing about Thin Mints is that I rarely have to share them with David. I bought these (and 8 other boxes of Girl Scout Cookies!) from my troop of Cadettes.

9. 2100ish- And so begins the knitting portion of this month's 12 of 12. I started these socks last week. I hate the yarn and I hate the pattern. The way the colors are lining up gives me a headache, and row counts and cabled stitches are totally pointless because the colorway makes it impossible to see any stitch patterns.

10. 2120ish- So, I decided to turn it in to yarn Ramen. That used to be the cuff of my sock.

2240- And now it's the toe of a new sock. The new sock is slightly less annoying because, although the colors still remind me of t.v. "snow", at least I can just knit and knit and knit without counting or exerting any effort at putting in a cable that I can't even see anyway! It took me a long time to get to this point because I cast on the wrong way a few times. This toe-up pattern called for a type of cast-on that I haven't done in a long time, so I couldn't remember how to do it. Normally I would look up a tutorial or video online, but alas, it was after 6pm. So I just had to try, try again until I finally got it. Or at least close enough to it that I'm convinced that I got it.

12. 2300ish- Yarn Ramen just about gone and I'm calling it a night!

Please accept my apologies for ANOTHER boring 12 of 12. The good news is, I think it is HIGHLY likely that May AND June's version of 12 of 12 will be fun...and not in my house! :) Wootwoot! More to come when plans solidify a little more.
Check out "funner" 12 of 12s here at the 12 of 12 host's blog.

Thursday Thirteen: Places to Go

2010-02-18T10:23:00.000Z

My topic for this week's thursday thirteen is something I mentioned last week, when I was deliberating about the job. My main hold up about taking it was that I would lose a lot of the travel opportunities that I'm fortunate to have right now. Here are some of the (non-English) places David & I (mostly I!) are thinking about visiting before we leave England:

1. Southern & SW Ireland
2. Scotland (road trip!)
3. Paris, France
4. Normandy, France
5. Krakow, Poland
6. Spain
7. Copenhagen, Denmark (a stop on a cruise we're hoping to take!)
8. Russia (another stop on the cruise!)
9. Isle of Man
10. Switzerland (ski trip!)
11. Brugge, Belgium
12. Donegal, Ireland
13. Hungary

I've also got a list of places to visit within England. I need to add to that list, though, so I'll be taking suggestions! If there's something in England that you think I shouldn't miss, leave it in a comment!

12 of 12: Ready for Ravelympics!

2010-02-13T16:36:00.000Z

01-0830-My Bathroom. A few weeks ago, one of my ScrapVillage friends linked to a blog post that encouraged readers to "start your day by eating a frog," meaning do the thing you are most dreading first. Mark Twain said, "Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day". I've been trying to apply this (but I'm no masochist, so I only eat a frog every other day, at a maximum!) so this morning before I even opened my bedroom door, I went into the en suite and cleaned the bathroom. Scrubbed the tub, bleached the toilet, cleaned the scum out of the shower drain strainer, put away clothes, swept the floor, and tried to make room for David on the ledge. Most of my stuff is contained in my little IKEA canisters. I wish I had gotten more of the solid white without lids. Next trip, maybe. This picture (aren't you glad I chose to photograph the IKEA jars rather than the toilet or scummy strainer??) makes me giggle because when my mom moved to a new house while I was living in Italy (Always live in a far off place when it's time to move out of your childhood bedroom. Always.), my mom and aunt were cleaning my room and kept unearthing deodorant and lipgloss. My aunt said, "Well, we have learned two things about Rebecca: she smells good and has soft lips!" Nothing has changed... there are 3 sticks of deodorant in the big bowl and at least 8 varieties of lipgloss in the little bowl. (There's also some in my coat pocket, purse, coin purse, and knitting bag.)

2-11:30- I have a confession to make: that last picture was not actually taken at 0830. I didn't remember 12 of 12 until 11:30. The red & white decorations were out so they'd be ready for the Greatest Baby Shower in the History of the World (or as it's now called, "What Would've Been the Greatest Baby Shower in the History of the World"). I thought about putting them away, but never got around to it. So now they are "Valentine's decorations." If they are still sitting there 5 months from now, I'll throw something blue on the mantle and call them "Fourth of July Decorations".

At this point, I seriously considered "forgetting" about 12 of 12...it's cold and I had no plans to go anywhere or do anything!! So, consider this your warning...this was a day of bad, boring pictures!

3-1200-I'm SO excited about the Ravelympics! And the Winter Olympics. I wasn't really that excited about the Winter Olympics until I started getting all hyped up about the Ravelympics. I thought, "I love the Summer Olympics, not the Winter Olympics!" but then I thought about it...I actually love Winter Olympics too! Love Moguls, Alpine Skiing, Curling (what the heck is curling? It's crazy-fascinating!), Figure Skating of course, Snowboarding is fun to watch, Hockey, so yeah...pretty much, I love the Winter Olympics! Ravelympics="mass cast on" during Opening Ceremonies and earn "medals" for projects that you complete before the flame goes out. Just a super-fun way to get excited about knitting and winter sports. But I had lots of time on Friday before Opening Ceremonies where I was positively itching to start my projects! But that would be like the Olympic equivalent of doping up! So that was a no-no. Had to find some other way to keep my fingers off the needles, so designed special project pictures for all of my Ravelympic Events. Yes, I am on Team Grilled Cheese. There was no Team Jelly Belly Jelly Beans.

4-1530- I'm not cheating! This is sanctioned swatching! Had to make sure I'd be okay using a different size needle than recommended in the pattern for Rusted Root. My US6's are all wonky. I had scary-vivid flashbacks to my Ravelympics disaster of Beijing 2008... a needle malfunction shattered my Olympic dreams and all hope of finishing my February Lady Sweater. The 7s actually work perfectly with my tension anyway!

5-1730- This is what I should be doing... a huge pile of papers to sort. Almost all of this came from my mail slot, which means that most of it is not mine, either belongs to the landlord or former tenants. But.......

6-1730-This is what I'm doing instead. Jeff Probst trumps paper sorting any day. Those dimples. The way the sound of his voice makes my heart sing even when he's declaring victory for the tribe that I'm NOT rooting for. And I love that he's wearing an orange hat. Because I have an orange hat. I think that's a sign. :)

7-1800ish- Project Pages all ready for the Ravelympics. I used the TGC logo and then the icons for the winter sports in which I'm going for gold: Single Skein Speed Skate, Hat Halfpipe, Mitten Moguls, Cable Cross Country, Sweaterboard Cross, Lace Luge & WIPs (work-in-progress) Dancing. Wish me luck!

(at the time of this post, I've already completed my first (small!) project, therefore securing "medals" in Single Skein Speed Skate, Hat Halfpipe, and Lace Luge. I've just cast on for my Rusted Root...Sweaterboard Cross (and a double-medal in Lace Luge!) here we come!

8-1830- All this thinking about knitting has made me really want to do some knitting! But I must resist the urge to start any of my Ravelympics projects or I'll be DQ'd. So, I decided to take apart this crocheted cowl that I made 2 weeks ago. I had accidentally twisted the stitches when I joined them, so it wasn't quite right. As I frogged, I re-crocheted it without the twist and now I have a new cowl to wear with my oatmeal colored wool coat.

9-1930- Dinner. I kind of thought that this would be my last night of eating junk for dinner. David was supposed to get here on Saturday...but now we're looking at sometime between Monday night and Thursday night. Maybe. I loooooove Ramen noodles, so I did not mind the idea of having them for dinner tonight. But, my microwave mysteriously stopped working a few days ago and I always make my Ramen in the microwave. Today I did it on the stove top and guess what...it just didn't taste as good. Even worse, I had to dirty two dishes instead of one. And, yes, I ate the baby food in the background. I'm going to knit some little covers for the jars and use them to store my needle tips. I asked a friend who has a baby who actually eats baby food to save for me, but she didn't seem willing, so I figured I'd just eat it myself. Fruit Medley is not bad.

10-1935-More telly. That's English for tv. :) (I'm training myself to pepper my speech with British words and phrases so I'll get better at Countdown.) :) Big Love. This show is pretty wacky, but I enjoy checking it out by the season from the library.

11-2000-Dessert! Cookies from my cookie party! I have so many left in my freezer! That's the best thing about the cookie party. I just pulled these cranberry-white chocolate-oatmeal that my friend Sandi made, let them sit out for a little while and had one for dessert.

12-2230-This book is all messed up now... I probably jinxed David's return by thinking of this super-sweet idea and spending an entire day making it. It's a countdown to his return, started 13 days ago "13 days until the 13th" kind of thing. I've just been writing him a little note each day and he'll get it when(ever) he gets here. You can see how my timing is off. I was supposed to just write one more message on day Zero. Now, I'm going to have to staple more pages to the back! :(

Friday Fill-Ins

2010-02-12T11:25:00.000Z

1. Pickles __are delicious___________.
2. ____I usually wear my pajamas when I am_____ at home.
3. The snow is ___gone! Hooray!_______.
4. ______??There are many interesting and pretty things_______ in nature.
5. It's 5:16 PM; that means ____that I was born 29 years, 1 month and 4 minutes ago__________.
6. __My yarn needle______ is hard to find.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to __finding out if David will actually get here this weekend___, tomorrow my plans include __knitting and possibly making cupcakes___ and Sunday, I want to __order Chinese food and (re)watch Survivor (with David!)___!

More Friday Fill-ins here.

Countdown!

2010-02-11T19:37:00.000Z

There are a few things I'm counting down to...David's return (though I'm still waiting to hear when that might be), Survivor!!!! (tomorrow!), The Winter Olympics (and the Ravelympics...completing a whole knitting project in between the opening & closing ceremonies)
But...my favorite (favourite?) Countdown is still the one that comes on each day on E4.
I've been recording it everyday and watching when I get a chance, and I'm really improving at the math. I mean, maths. :)
In an episode I was watching today, I impressed myself with a group of difficult letters by being smart enough to use the British spelling and get a 6 letter word instead of a 5:
MOULDS
Unfortunately, my brain was stuck in American-mode in the next grouping of letters when I only found the word "enables" for 7 instead of
PENALISE
which I would normally spell penalize.
And, much to my amazement, I knew (guessed) the definition of "snollygoster" and Rachel Riley didn't. So I'm smarter than Rachel Riley.......until the next numbers round. :)

Thursday Thirteen: To Work or Not to Work

2010-02-11T11:18:00.000Z

Last week, I was really bored. I became fascinated with the idea of working once again. I thought, wouldn't life be grand if I had a job and if it was on the same base that D's job will be on and we could ride together and then maybe he wouldn't complain about spending an hour a day driving back and forth to work. Because I would be there, and who could possibly complain about spending an extra hour a day confined in a car with me??
So, on Thursday, I turned in an application packet at HRO. Let me tell you one of the biggest downfalls of being a military spouse stationed overseas. Job opportunities. Basically the only thing at HRO that I was remotely interested in (and only, as I announced at my job interview, as a last resort) was working in the youth programs... youth center or child development center. I opted for the CDC because the youth center hours are a little weird since youth are at school during the day. The CDC is like a day care--for the younger, non-school-age children. So I interviewed on Monday and they've been in touch with my references, who have filled me in on how those phone calls went. (Always list references who will serve as your spies. Always.) According to my references, I will most certainly be offered the job.
But now I'm not sure that I want it....which brings me to my list of Thirteen.

1. - I am a teacher. I like many things about being a teacher...poems & drawings delivered to my desk daily, going to meetings with other teachers, rearranging my classroom, seeing a child who came in to 1st grade knowing how to read "that cat is fat" leave 1st grade reading like a maniac, kid handwriting (if kid handwriting and inventive spelling do not make your heart melt, then I'm pretty sure you're not human). But I won't lie. I also love three VIPs (very important perks) of being a teacher: Spring Break, Summer Break, Christmas Break. The CDC doesn't get those.

2. - That whole carpooling to work with my husband thing....yeah....that wouldn't work! Because the place has kooky hours. Not really kooky, I suppose...not like 3rd shift or anything...but hours that wouldn't really mesh well with the hours that D will be working. If there were an hour or two leeway either way, the one who had to wait could go to the gym etc. But 4 hours a day at the gym? Not for me. There are 3 shifts, something like 6-12, 9-4 and 12-6. David would be working probably 7-4, so you see how only one shift would work in my carpooling plan.

3. + If I could get in on that 9-4 shift and should the stars align just so so that it would be the one I always work, then carpooling would work AND I'd get a lot of knitting done in the car. Always important to consider how your job will positively effect your hobbies.

4. + Before my interview, I was sent to observe in one of the 3-5 year old rooms, where little Shannon came up to me and asked if I liked her hair bows. When I said yes, she hugged me, kissed my cheek and said, "I love you and you are my best friend." That was after 15 minutes of being in the room. Imagine all the love if I worked there every day!

5. - I know you're not supposed to ask in a job interview how much vacation time you would get, so I didn't. But one of the interviewers did bring it up...... he mentioned that other than a doctor's appointment or something, no leave is granted during your first 3 months. And after that, they send around a binder and you request your leave time in the order in which you were hired. So, I'd be last.

6. - More on the vacation time thing-- The way D and I look at it, we are here overseas, possibly only for 3 more years. There's a chance we could go somewhere else in Europe or the Pacific after this, but there's also a chance we could end up in Ohio or Florida or North Dakota or New Mexico. We just don't know. So there's sort of a sense of urgency in being here...this could be our last hurrah overseas. We never know. So we want to do and see the places that are tops on our list (perhaps next Thursday's Thirteen?) while we have the opportunity. It would be much easier to do that if we're only juggling around one person's leave schedule.

7. - I'm noticing that vacation time is really an issue for me! People might want to come and visit us while we're here, and say D is going to be at work during the week, I could entertain our visitors locally, trips to London, Cambridge, and other little day trips in the local area. On the weekend we could do a further out trip, like Oxford or the Cotswolds or Canterbury or something. But would I want to use all of my leave days to go to London & Cambridge? No.

8. - Last point (I think) about the time off... Sometimes at work, D will get a "goal day" or "family day" off. So, for instance, the day after Thanksgiving, Superbowl Monday, perhaps the Friday before Memorial Day. That gives us a nice long weekend during which we could do some traveling. But on goal days, the day care is still open. So if I still had to work, we'd be wasting a long weekend opportunity for a little road trip.

9. + Money, money, money. But also - because, really, it's not that much! It would be nice to contribute with a supplemental income...but if we could put a dollar amount on the missed travel opportunities, I seriously doubt that the amount I'd make at the day care (starting out for the first 2 months with a "guaranteed 0-20 hours a week") would come close. Even so, we typically bank all that I make and since I've not been working, the savings account hasn't been as exciting to watch as it used to be!

10. - Because the scheduling isn't regular, there may be conflicts with my Girl Scout volunteering, and I like working with the Girl Scouts! I asked at my interview and they didn't seem at all supportive. I got the old, "if we worked around your schedule, then we'd have to work around everyone else's if they said they had something they wanted to do," speech. And then they asked, "how long are you committed to that?" Which kind of threw me...the military culture really promotes volunteerism...all I would need for Girl Scouts is one day a week that I'm either not put on the schedule or put on the earliest shift.

11. - It's not really what I want to do. We're fortunate to be in a position where I don't HAVE to take a last resort job. I know my husband has a stable job and his company isn't shutting down anytime soon. We live well within our means and have a responsible savings plan. So, if I want to hold out for a teaching job, even if I won't ever get one until we get back to the states, I have that luxury.

12. - It's not really what I want to do, and it wouldn't have an impact on my future. If I were offered a teaching job, I would snap it up in a heartbeat. Even if it was teaching 4th grade or 5th grade when what I really want to teach is 2nd, 1st or 3rd. But it would get me in the system and perhaps I could slide into another grade the next year. It would count toward my years of experience and bump me up on the pay scale and also count toward my years to retirement. (I'm pretty sure in Indiana, your eligibility for retirement is determined by the sum of your age and your years of teaching). The day care center wouldn't benefit me in any of those ways.

13. + It's not permanent. I could take the job, see if the schedule works out for me, etc. and if it doesn't, I could leave the position. I don't LOVE quitting jobs, but I've done it before...and I have a feeling that a lot of people do quit this particular job. I've heard from a lot of people that they quit after a few months. Most recently, I spoke to a woman who shattered that record...she quit after one day!

So, that's 4 positive points and 9 negative points. I'm sure you can see where I'm leaning...
One other point to make, though, is that when I was in Okinawa, I thought I would NEVER get a job on base. Immediately after accepting a low-paying, long-commute, not-recognized-as-experience-for-pay-or-retirement-purposes job at a school off base, the phone calls started rolling in from the on-base schools. So maybe I need to accept this job so I'll get offered the one I really want?? My dad says "it's easier to get a job when you have a job."

D's Trip to England: The First Bump in the Road

2010-02-10T21:29:00.000Z

Good thing I hadn't really had my heart set on David being home on Saturday.
We've encountered our first delay... a 24 hour one so far.
D called early this evening to confirm some travel details and said, "Well, I'll just talk to you when I see you, unless something changes and I won't make it on Saturday. Then I'll call you." We finished our conversation, hung up, and, 5 minutes later......he called back.
I said, "You again? Oh no..."

So, instead of Saturday, the earliest he'll be here now is Sunday. Not too bad. The latest would be Thursday or Friday, as he'd be able to hop on the plane going through Denmark instead of through the US. But we're hoping for Sunday. :(

I hope this is the only bump we encounter, but I won't be surprised if there's another before D finally makes it here! But as he said... we've made it through a YEAR...we can surely handle a few extra days!

Delicious

2010-02-09T20:32:00.000Z

I know I mentioned recently that my Google Reader was just getting out of hand! I had "1000+" new blog posts to read and I am happy to report, I'm now sub-700. I'm in the 600s! Unfortunately, whenever I make a dent, more posts are added.

So I decided to remove several blogs from my subscriptions list. I hated to do it, but there were some that I just skimmed over and those just don't need to take up a part of my "busy" days. I'm currently busy sitting here blogging instead of cleaning up my kitchen, living room, front room, craft room, bedroom, bathrooms (all of which I want to have done by the time David gets here on Saturday. I feel like if I get all of that done, he WON'T get here on Saturday. Plus if I get it all done too early, I'll just have to do it all again before he gets here!)

Anyway, I still have plenty of blogs that I subscribe to. And I added more while I was taking some away. Ugh!
Most notably, I have subscribed to 4 or 5 "bento blogs" for over a year. I have a few bento boxes, rice molds, egg molds, cute picks and cutters. But I've never made a bento. And seeing daily posts from bento blogs wasn't getting me excited about making a bento. So I decided to cut them out of my Google Reader. But not from my life. Before removing them from Google Reader, I Delicioused them. Do you know delicious? If not, you NEED to. Delicious is sooooo much better than bookmarking or "adding to favorites". With delicious, you can tag your tags/bookmarks for easier searching. This is so good for me, because I go through phases where I bookmark a random topic...recently, "play kitchens". Why? I do not know. I have no need for a play kitchen, I have a real one. But for 3 nights straight, I was fascinated by search results for play kitchens. And now I can see all the ones I loved with just a few simple clicks in delicious. I have lots tags. I LOVE tags! I love delicious. The other fab-o thing about delcious is that, unlike regular bookmarks, you can access them on any computer. So say I'm at my friend's house and she says, "You know what I'm interested in? Play kitchens!" I can just sign onto delicious from her house and show her all of my favorite play kitchens. Very handy, that immediate access to play kitchen resources.
So, when I unsuscribed from all those blogs, I didn't want them to just fall off my radar. I mean, what if I decide to drag out my bento gear one day soon? I'd end up wasting half the day searching for my old bento sites. So I tagged them appropriately in delicious: party, home, teaching, travel, blog, scrapbook, bento, etc. And then, just for fun, I gave them all one more tag: "unsuscribed".

During the time it took me to write this blog entry, my Google Reader unread post increased by 3.

Two Arrivals

2010-02-09T20:15:00.000Z

One is certain, one is not.

Friday: SURVIVOR! Season 20! Jeff Probst, JT, Colby will make me drool. Russell, James, Cirie will make me laugh. Parvati, Boston Rob, Coach will make me cringe. I CAN'T WAIT!!!!

Saturday: (hopefully!) DAVID! 12 months...over! Finally! (Hopefully!) David will be "home" "for good" (hopefully!) on Saturday. Sooooooo very weird to think that what we once counted down in months or weeks is now just days. Four of them. (hopefully!) We need planes & weather to cooperate!

Small Talk Saturday

2010-02-06T10:38:00.002Z

http://www.momdot.com/join-us-for-small-talk-six-on-saturdays
I've participated in this a few times before... but I just can't keep up with a busy blogging schedule!

I remembered this week, though (it's actually Friday, so we'll see if I remember to come back and post this tomorrow!)

Six of your favorite things that are pink:

1. Pink Peppermint Ice Cream

2. Cotton Candy

3. my striped legwarmers

4. Eloise by Kay Thompson (the striped wallpaper on the book cover is pink!)

5. Spumoni Ice Cream

6. my cupcake apron

My Latest Obsession

2010-02-05T10:38:00.000Z

At the library last week, I checked out The Book Thief (Markus Zusak). It had been on my list for a while, but was checked out last time I was there. I read about it on a blog somewhere a long time ago, and by the time I got around to checking it out, I couldn't even remember what it was supposed to be about!
First of all, the book is 550 pages long...and I'm usually reading 3 books at a time, so it takes me a while to get through a long one. I thought ahead and renewed my book early. Totally unnecessary! I devoured that book in 7 days, only reading it before bed at night and before getting out of bed in the morning.
It's a Young Adult book, but don't let that deter you...

The book takes place in a town near Munich between 1939 and 1943...so you know what much of the plot revolves around. The story is narrated by death and follows a young girl as she moves in with a new foster family, learns to read and write, befriends a Jewish man, hides in air-raid shelters, and becomes a book thief.
You can read more about it here

I find books/movies about this time period fascinating and heartbreaking...and now I have a renewed obsession! Sometimes, I watch a tv show, read a book, or do a project and when it's over, it's over. But sometimes, that tv show, book or project will spark a new obsession. Like how I have now watched every episode of Glee twice (and beginning my 3rd go-through) and listen to the soundtracks on my iPod almost exclusively. Or how I count down the days to Survivor and spend about 4 hours a week on Survivor-related media--the show, extra video on cbs.com, a twice-weekly podcast). Or like the time that I became obsessed with cooking and cookbooks and made 100 different recipes during the year (a great failure as my goal was 265). And since July, spending a great deal of my time thinking of the baby shower that was supposed to be last weekend...I can tell you details of baby shower planning timelines, diaper raffles, the difference between a shower and a sprinkle, the price of renting folding chairs, and rattle off long lists of baby shower themes. It's not entirely my fault... I realized last month that my obsessive nature is being fueled by my own mother and aunt, who sent me an apron-making project for my birthday! Super-fun, right? I got 3 pre-made aprons and enough fabric to make 10 or 12 more for different themes & holidays. Someone looked at me like I was crazy and asked, "Why would you need so many aprons?" and I looked at her like she was even crazier for not understanding that if one likes aprons, one *NEEDS* one for every event and or holiday imaginable. Right???
Anyway, so the latest obsession has been inspired by The Book Thief, (which was probably lingering from reading Sarah's Key over the summer). Even though it's really heartwrenching (if you read it, have your Kleenex ready!), even though there's a certain level of discomfort when you read a book or watch a movie about the Holocaust... now I just have to read more, watch more...and begin planning a trip to Auschwitz. It's not everybody's vacation cup-of-tea, but I just feel like I *need* to go there, like it's a really important thing for me to experience. Don't know when we'll go in the next year or two, but David has agreed that it's a trip worth taking... so it's on the books!

Oh, the book I checked out to follow the Book Thief is Elie Wiesel's A Mad Desire to Dance. I've tried to check out Night a million times at Kadena and it was always out...I'll either pick that one up next or The Kindly Ones (Littel)--but that one is almost 1,000 pages!!

A Quick & Tiny Change

2010-01-27T10:47:00.000Z

A note to the actual humans (as opposed to spam-bots??) that read and comment here.... I decided to make a quick and tiny change to the commenting process here, and now you'll have to do a word verification. I've had to delete spam from my last 3 posts and it's just no fun! So, hopefully that extra step will deter them (but not you...you still comment away!) from posting their lame-o adverts on my blog.
Okay...I've got some errands to run and lunch to eat and a shower to take (but not one to prepare for...we've postponed the Rock Star shower until further notice!) .....

Catching Up

2010-01-24T20:57:00.000Z

It seems like a while since I've written on this blog...
but I've been busy. Sort of.
Busy planning a baby shower that may or may not go on as scheduled, as the baby was born early and is in the hospital.
Busy decorating (or not) for a baby shower for which the decorations have never arrived. Even though they were shipped 40 days ago. (and therefore also busy finding the appropriate wording to request store credit from the place that shipped them... I know it's not their fault if it's lost in the mail, but it's not my fault either!)
Busy sitting on the couch and watching American Idol, Nip/Tuck, the Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, and Cycle 13 of America's Next Top Model, when the "short" models were given a chance.
Busy catching up on sleep after last weekend's Virtual Crop at ScrapVillage.
Busy choosing knitting projects, starting some and frogging. Just can't find something I want to work on right now!
Busy cleaning up my house, because David will be here in 20 days and he is slightly less tolerant (or oblivious?) to messes than I am. And also because it's possible that I'm hosting a baby shower here on Sunday. But I've only gotten one RSVP, and it was a "not coming" anyway, so maybe I don't have to have the place that clean after all!
Busy trying to catch up on the blogs to which I subscribe in Google Reader. This morning I had 1000+ unread posts, and now I'm down to 362. I start off by "speed-reading" (which is really just looking at the pictures as I scroll through) the ones I don't really care about reading. Which kind of makes me think I don't really need to subscribe to them.
Busy planning some meals for February... I doubt D will be keen on my new rotation of Triscuits, salad, ramen noodles & Christmas cookies.
And, most excitingly, busy with my new volunteer gig with the Girl Scouts. My first meeting was on Thursday and I was there from about 3 until almost 9! I'm with a small troop of Cadettes, 6th-8th grade, and I'm already booked for the first two Saturdays after David gets back. Oops. And I'm waiting to find out when I'll be put on the cookie sales schedule!

Storm Dancers

2010-01-18T21:12:00.001Z

I will now continue with the posts I promised to write about my trip to Greenland!
Things here have been crazy.......but that's another post!

   Anyway, I was supposed to leave Greenland on December 30, the day before our 5th anniversary. But you know what? I was having so much fun eating at the chow hall and playing video games and watching Oprah and being with David that I just didn't want to leave! When I turned on the weather channel slide show and saw that a storm was expected on Wednesday/Thursday, I started to entertain the hope that maybe, just maybe, I would get stuck there for a few extra days.
   At first, it was just a thought..."wouldn't that be fun if the storm came and we ended up spending our anniversary together?" and then, after the deputy commander of the base said, "You're supposed to leave on Wednesday? I don't know if that's going to happen!" an obsession was born. The slides on the weather channel said the same thing as they had before, but I was certain that if Lt. Col. Wigg said that, it was because he had some extra information that hadn't been shared on the weather channel yet. Suddenly, I was checking the weather like a fiend. I started telling people, "Oh, I'm not leaving on Wednesday after all. I think I'd prefer to leave on Saturday." (Well, that was mostly because the chow hall was going to be serving the soup I really liked on Friday and I wanted to stay for that!) David told me that the sign that the storm was coming was rising temperatures. I watched the temperature like a hawk! I got excited everytime it got just one degree warmer. When we were outside, I told David we needed to do a "Storm Dance". He complied and did a storm dance. I shouted at the sky, a la Ted Mosby in the How I Met Your Mother episode "Come On", in which he needs to make it rain. I needed to make it storm.

So I did.

The weather started really getting worse on Tuesday, but we were still in storm condition Alpha (storm expected within 24 hours). There were a couple of times when David said, "I can't believe we're still in Alpha!"  On Tuesday afternoon, we went to the terminal to drop off my luggage Someone there said that they weren't sure that the plane would even come. But, still, they took the luggage, so I tried not to get too confident in my storm-starting skills. We asked what time I would need to be there on Wednesday and they said to keep checking channel 53. That's the airport channel. As nothing was changing on the airport channel, and we were still stuck in Alpha, I started losing confidence. That night, I created a storm dance and performed it for a full minute. When we woke up in the morning, my flight was still listed on the airport channel. I was sad...and I felt so defeated! We went out somewhere (breakfast? or maybe to see if the Danish Police Inspector was there to stamp my passport?) and as we were walking out the door, we heard the announcement that we had moved into storm condition Bravo. I felt a tiny glimmer of hope that maybe we'd get put into Charlie before I left, then I'd be stuck in the building! By now (I think) the airpot channel had posted that my plane would be delayed about an hour or two. David could barely see while driving. But still, my plane was scheduled to come, and we weren't going into Charlie. David couldn't believe it... and I started to get scared. Originally, I only wanted to stay because I wanted to stay. By this point, I wanted to stay because I was afraid to leave! The winds were crazy and there was just tons of snow blowing around... I'm not a nervous flyer, but I started to freak out a little at the thought of taking off in that weather.
   Just before we left for the terminal for the delayed flight, I turned on the airport channel... and saw a wonderful thing: "The AirBus has been diverted to Sondrestrom. Updates will be posted here as they are available." I was so excited!!! But not as excited as I was a little while later when the airport channel said, "The AirBus has returned to Copenhagen and will not be coming to Thule today." I was just thrilled!!! I was practically shouting, "WE DID IT!! WE DID IT!!"

And, then, the best thing of all was that we still were not in Charlie! So we were still able to get to the chow hall for the most delicious lunch of the week... stir fry! In the early evening, we went to the post office to help pitch mail and we turned on the airport channel and saw that my plane wouldn't be coming for me until Saturday the 2nd! We went to the club for wings and everyone knew I'd be happy with the storm coming! We made just enough storm come to prevent me from leaving, but not to keep us locked up on David's favorite eating-day of the week!

This is us @ 11pm, 1 hour before our anniversary and 3 hours before S.C. Charlie.

We finally went into Charlie at about 0200 while we were sleeping. We were stuck inside for 36 hours, so we had no choice but to spend our entire anniversary together! We ate microwave soup for lunch and oven pizza for dinner. We played games, watched movies, and just enjoyed being together! We watched the storm through the window, marvelled at our storm-inducing powers, and stayed up until 1 in the morning so we could countdown to 2010 with Ryan Seacrest. And promptly fell asleep at midnight and 30 seconds, New York time.

12 of 12: It's My Birthday!

2010-01-13T11:50:00.004Z

January's 12 of 12 is the one I always remember to do because it's my BIRTHDAY!!! Every month (or just some of the months, if you're me!) there's a big bunch of bloggers that participate in a fun photo project hosted by Chad Darnell. This year's Jan 12 was really different than last...when I was out running in shorts along the ocean instead of trudging through the snow in a long sleeve, fleece, jacket, tights, pants, headband and hat.

I remembered to charge the battery for my new camera the night before so I'd be ready first thing in the morning. I checked my e-mail and had lots of notices about messages on my Facebook wall:

1. Living Room, 0907

I checked the weather (33 degrees) and looked out the window. The snow was pretty slushy, so I figured that today would be the day that I'd venture outside for a run. These pretty plants poking through the snow caught my eye as I ran down my street. I liked the red berries and the purple cabbage, but didn't stop for long as a gigantic German Shepherd was barking at me.

2. My street, Thetford. 1009

I ran through the wooded path and then through the neighborhood in which I first looked at a house. I ran on the sidewalks when they were covered with enough snow not to be slippery, and then switched to the roads when the sidewalks were too icy. As I got closer to the town centre though, I had to just walk because everything was slippery!! Now that I'm old (ha!) I can't risk taking a fall!

3. Thetford. I can't remember what church this is, and I looked twice just to make sure too! And the Bell. 1038

I was able to do more running on my way back home, but when I got to Melford Common, it was suuuuuuper icy, so I shuffled all the way down the street, slooooooowly!

4. The Black Horse, Thetford on the way to Melford Common (Magdalen Street?). 1046. This is where my friends and I eat dinner every Wednesday.

5. Thetford, across the street from the Black Horse. 1047. I always go past this building and think, "I wish I had a purple door!" Oh well...at least I have a purple laptop!

6. My street, Thetford. 1055. This is my favorite sign. I always slow down, but I've never seen any plants cross the road! Ha!

After I came home, I called the photo printing place on base and learned that it would be more than double the cost to get photos printed there than in my town centre. So I walked back to town and got my photos done at one hour. Which meant I needed to just walk around and waste an hour. Which meant that by the time I got home, I had spent nearly 3 hours walking and running around in the 33 degree weather. So I needed some soup. I would eat soup in 120 degree weather because I just LOVE soup. Today I opted for Ramen noodles because I always make them in the microwave and I was very cold and very hungry. And then I only have to wash one bowl instead of one bowl and one pot.

7. Living Room. 1257. Lunch.

Then it was time to get the invitations done for the baby shower I am hosting. I had been waiting on the ones I ordered to arrive, but it's just getting too close to the shower date, so I ended up having them reprinted. They'll probably be sitting in my mailbox next time I check the mail!

8. Living Room. 1458. And see my purple laptop making an appearance in this photo? It's not really that purple. More pinky-purple than in the picture. I love it!

I spent some time on the phone (because it's my birthday and I was content to stay home and receive phone calls!) and then I went upstairs to get some stamps & inkpads so I could put the finishing touches on the invitation envelopes. When I came back downstairs, I saw a little card that had been put through my mailslot. It said "sorry we missed you" and it was from a florist. I opened the door and sure enough, there were these pretty flowers sitting on my snowman doormat! No wonder David had said earlier, "Oh, you're planning to e home all day? That's good."

9. Front Porch. 1730. My birthday flowers from David.

I put the flower on the coffee table for a little while, but then I needed to get to work on those invitation envelopes so I ended up moving them to the step tansu.

10. Living Room. 1740. My flowers! And my screensaver that reminds me of my dad's old clock.

11. Living Room. 2100. A little late to be eating dinner, but I was on the phone at normal dinner time. Time to take a break from invites (see them half-stamped in the background?) and eat a salad and watch Countdown.

12. Living Room. 2130. All done! It's a rock-star themed shower mostly because the mom-to-be has tattoos. So I was so happy that I had this tattoo-style stamp set in my collection! And so happy that my mom sent me a Stampamajig for Christmas so I could get the wings in just the right spots!

13. Living Room. 2300. And an extra one because I miscounted while I was uploading. (Or maybe it's not extra and I miscounted while I was typing.) This is a present from my Aunt Margie. I can hardly believe my will power, because I've had this present since Monday and... I DIDN"T OPEN IT UNTIL MY BIRTHDAY!!!! I swear! I must really be growing up!

Looking back at 2009

2010-01-10T20:05:00.000Z

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before? Swam with dolphins, pet stingrays, accepted 3 TMO shipments by myself, rented a house, went to Greenland!

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I don’t remember my resolutions…so I’m guessing that means “no”. This year's resolutions aren't going to start until my birthday. So I have another day and a half of being a lazy, sloppy pig.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? One of my best friends, Ami. And several of my other friends, too, like Skip, Beth, Katie. Oh! And my cousin Stephanie had her baby right at the beginning of the year!

4. Did anyone close to you die? Thankfully, no. We weren’t necessarily close, but my uncle passed away and that was sad.

5. Did you visit anywhere exciting? Greenland! Grand Cayman! Jamaica! Edinburgh!

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009? A husband who lives with me instead of across the ocean! Visitors. And a job would be nice!

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? January 29...the day we left Okinawa. May 14… the day David found out he made Master Sergeant! December 24... when David sang me a special song.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Moving. Learning how to pop popcorn on the stove.

9. What was your biggest mistake? One that I’m already learning from.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Nothing out of the ordinary.

11. What was the best thing you bought? a British voltage speaker thingy for my iPod

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? David for working so hard & making Master Sergeant!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? I don’t know…or don’t remember.

14. Where did most of your money go in 2009? Airfare!

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Getting stuck in Greenland! Glee!

16. What song(s) will always remind you of 2009? Home by Michael Buble, Don’t Stop Believin’ (both Journey & the Glee Kids versions)

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier because David is getting ready to come home instead of leave!
ii. thinner or fatter? I‘m guessing thinner, because all of the pants I bought right around this time last year are big on me. We were in “we’re leaving…we better eat all the things we love to eat in Okinawa while we still have the chance” mode!
iii. richer or poorer? Richer, but not much since I haven’t had a job all year!

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Knitting, scrap booking, reading, running, and spending more time with David.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Eating sweets, bickering with David on the phone.

20. How did you spend Christmas? The best possible way….. with David. In Greenland!

21. Did you fall in love in ‘09? A few times… first with my new little cousin Marissa, then with Glee, and all over again with David in December.

22. What was your favorite TV program? Glee, Survivor, Big Love, Countdown, Ugly Betty, So You Think You Can Dance, season 3(again!)

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

24. What was the best book you read? Marley & Me, Nineteen Minutes

25. What was your greatest musical discovery? uh…the cast of Glee!

26. What did you want and get? A piano! A slim camera. A purple laptop!! (although technically, this was for my birthday, so I shouldn’t have “officially” gotten it until 2010!)

27. What did you want and not get? a guitar necklace from etsy, a Survivor buff, a box bag

28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 28. I wasn’t working, so I ran along the seawall and took a bunch of pictures. David came home for lunch and we went to OnoKauKau, the Hawaiian restaurant for kalua pig. For dinner, we (once again) went to Marino’s for pasta and when we came home, David gave me the cake that he decorated for me!

29. What’s one thing that would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Being able to move to a new place with David instead of by myself… I can’t wait for England to start feeling like OUR home.

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009? Pretty much pajamas or running clothes! And there was that week in which I lived in bathing suits!

31. What kept you sane? Running, knitting.

32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Mr. Schuester from Glee! I’m sure there’s more, but right now, I only have eyes for Mr. Schue.

33. What political issue stirred you the most? I didn’t really get too involved… but I suppose it’s nearly impossible not to have an opinion on health care.

34. Who do you miss the most? Okinawa. I know that’s not really a “who”…but it’s what I miss most. Our friends, our life, the warmth, the blue skies, running along the ocean, my job, my husband!

35. Who was the best new person you met? I met a lot of good new people… my friends Sandi and Jessica among others.

36. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009? Enjoy what you have while you have it. I was so ready to get out of Oki…and spent much of the rest of the year wishing I could go back there!

37. What are your New Years Resolutions for 2010? Take time every day to do something for my body (running, yoga, Wii fit, walk, etc.), for my brain (read, piano, speak French, crossword puzzle, etc.), and for my creativity (knit, scrapbook, make a card, sew, etc.) Oh, and I suppose for my house (dishes, vacuum, straighten up, etc.) But instead of my resolutions beginning on Jan 1, I’m going to begin them on my birthday… maybe it will be more meaningful that way. Maybe.

The topic of my next post will be Greenland again... I just wanted to get this posted so I could get rid of the document on my desktop!

Christmas (near) the North Pole!

2010-01-09T13:56:00.001Z

One of the main reasons we chose the dark of December for my trip to Thule was because since we've known each other, we've never spent Christmas apart! We met in 2003, and didn't spend a Thanksgiving together until 2005. We're currently batting a .500 with Valentine's day, and I'm pretty sure the only years we've been together at Easter have been 2006 and 2008. But we've always been together at Christmas! We just weren't ready to break our streak (since it's the only streak we've got left!) so we did our darnedest to get me there for our seventh Christmas together!
We celebrated our first Christmas in Germany, with D's family when his brother & sister-in-law were stationed at Ramstein. The next Christmas was in Indiana with my family, right before our wedding. Four Christmases in Okinawa (the first one with my mom!) and this year, we celebrated Christmas in the Arctic Circle! Just like Santa!

Christmas is kind of bittersweet since being with my family was always really what Christmas meant to me... so we always try to make it really special no matter where we are or who we are with.
I make our Christmas candles, like my Grandma (pineapple slice, banana & maraschino cherry), and I buy frozen pierogi and tamales. They're not even close to being as good as the homemade ones, but they'll have to do! We watch A Christmas Story, and we open our presents on Christmas Eve (that may be David's favorite tradition that I introduced him to!), then check out what Santa brings us on Christmas morning. He always puts an orange, a mini-notepad and scotch tape in our stockings, just like he does at my Grandma's house.

And we've added to the mix: decorating our tree with Christmas music and always putting the same three ornaments up first, celebrating the first Christmas card we get in the mail, Christmas Pasta on Christmas Eve, and breakfast casseroles on Christmas morning. Last year, we hosted dinner on Christmas Eve, so we put opening presents on hold until our guests left, because I love the way the tree looks with the wrapped presents underneath it. When the guests weren't leaving (a bunch of guys playing Rock Band), I left and went out for a run. I WISH I could make that a Christmas tradition, a Christmas lights run at 11pm on Christmas Eve...but we're not in Okinawa anymore, so I don't think it would be warm enough (or safe enough) to do that!

Well, this year was a little bit different......
First of all, David didn't have a tree in Greenland.
So I had to stuff ours in my suitcase:

Heehee... David had the idea (I had it too, he just said it faster than me!) to use his projector to put a picture of our tree up on the wall, with the presents underneath it! It was pretty cool!

We opened our presents on Christmas Eve.....well, the rest of them anyway, because it's so hard to wait! We are secretly 7 years old. But we hadn't opened any of the presents my mom sent, so we still had all of those and a few from each other left to open. Then, we went to play board games with a few people in another dorm building. As is typical, I totally rocked Taboo. Everyone was impressed. Then we went back to David's dorm for Christmas dinner. We took a plate of cookies. David had asked me to make Christmas Pasta, but I would've had to pack or mail the ingredients and I just didn't get around to it. Plus it wouldn't have been the same because I wouldn't have had Italian sausage, just ground beef. And Italian sausage makes me so much happier than ground beef. Yum. So we missed it this year...maybe we'll have Christmas in July? Anyway, had I made Christmas Pasta 1---it would've been too many cooks in the tiny little kitchen and 2---we would've all gone into carbo-coma! There was lasagna and spaghetti and garlic bread. And that was the menu. So David and I were certainly the only ones who even noticed that the Christmas Pasta was missing!
We also didn't have Christmas candles, but we did have plenty of cookies!

The people on D's floor did a Secret Santa gift exchange, and as I had mentioned before on here, my Secret Santa had to leave unexpectedly. D took 2 presents from "under" our tree and put them under the tiny tree in the day room for me. The guy I bought for was excited about his gifts...especially the homemade Buckeyes! His list of suggestions was "Ohio State t-shirts, Ohio State sweatshirts, Ohio State slippers". I bought the gifts for D's guy too, who listed "Chicago Bears" and that's it. He liked his new shirts & hat so much that he went and changed into them before going to work karaoke at the club! Everytime I saw him after that, he was wearing his new Bears hat (thanks, Mom, for sending it!)

After that, we went to the club, because it was Thursday and therefore, Karaoke night. David is apparently pretty much the karaoke star of Thule! People kept telling me what a great singer he is and how they hate singing after him. :) I think the first song he sang that night was Push by Matchbox 20. I couldn't tell you all the others he sang because he sang tons of them! We were there for a long time and later in the evening, D went up to sing another song. I heard him say, "If you've been out here recently, you know that I've been practicing a song to sing to my wife. If you haven't met her yet, she's that beautiful girl sitting back there." And then I didn't know what to do, so I just kind of waved. And all the girls at the table said, "aawwww" and David sang "Home" by Michael Buble'. It was the sweetest thing. He sang it so well and the words were just perfect. I love that song, I love Michael Buble, and I love David, so I was really about to cry! I had tears filling my eyes the whole time.
Here's some of the words:
Another aeroplane, another sunny place, I'm lucky I know, but I want to go home I've got to go home
Let me go home, I'm just too far, from where you are, I want to come home
And I feel just like I'm living someone else's life. It's like I just stepped outside when everything was going right
And I know just why you could not come along with me, this was not your dream, but you always believed in me
Another winter day has come and gone away in even Paris and Rome I want to go home. Let me go home.
And I'm surrounded by a million people I still feel alone, let me go home Oh I miss you you know
Let me go home, I've had my run, Baby I'm done, I gotta go home. Let me go home, it'll all be alright, I'll be home tonight, I'm comin' back home.

Anyway, I told David that that was the best gift of Christmas. I had heard the song (it's been on my iPod for quite some time) and thought that the words were fairly appropriate to our situation, but to have had David hear the song, think the words fit, and learn it and practice it so he'd be able to sing it for me was just so touching. Now I cry everytime I hear the song! :)

We stayed at the club a little while after that too and sang a few more songs. I even made my stage debut with David. Only because there was only one other person besides us in the room by this point. Then I went up again because I wanted David to sing Sweet Caroline, just so I could do the "bah-bah-baaah" parts. Let me tell you, I was a huge hit! The crowd came back after that and David sang a few more songs too.

On Christmas day, I woke up before David, but didn't peek at the presents from Santa (he always hides them underneath blankets, one for me and one for David). When he got up, we saw what Santa had brought... he brought me a new camera, which I really wasn't expecting (I had already gotten a digital piano/keyboard as an early Christmas present!) and he brought David a NY Giants jersey.

We went outside and took some pictures before we went to the chow hall for dinner. Christmas dinner was turkey, ham, cranberries, stuffing, potato-leek soup, sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes. It was yummy and I had been looking forward to it all week, especially since I hadn't had Thanksgiving dinner this year!

The little tree at the Dundas Buffet Restaurant (aka chow hall)

Outside Headquarters

Me and Santa's sleigh! It's actually an old sleigh that was found in Sept 2005 (?) at the polar ice cap.

Does it look kinda cold & windy?

I thought it was freezing (well, below freezing!) at -17. I talked to D yesterday and he said it was -50!!!! OMG!

Christmas day night, we went to the community center for game night and played with our new Wii game (Family Game Night 2) and then switched to Apples 2 Apples which was lots of fun.

So, to make a really really long story (sorry!) short, we had a unique, but still very merry Christmas! And we didn't have to break our streak!

On Top of the World!

2010-01-06T18:06:00.000Z

So, as you may know, maybe because I said so once or twice, or maybe just because you are very intuitive, this year while I've been in England, my husband has been in Greenland. He's in the U.S. Air Force and has been for 10 years and a few months... and he's been lots of places. I've been lots of places, too, but he's been to more places and different places and even got paid to go there. I've never been to South America or the Middle East, but, thanks to the AF, D has. I think this is really unfair, so when he went to Greenland, I was pretty bummed that he was going to another place that I'd never go to. Seriously...if he went to, say, Poland or Florida or something for work, it wouldn't be too upsetting, because I could go there sometime in the future. But Greenland... who in the world goes to Greenland?
Well, *I* did!

We had been talking for quite some time about spending Christmas together at Thule (the base in Greenland)
(If you want to learn more about Thule, see maps, read about the mission, etc. check here.). Because you never know what the weather (and the plane!!) will have in store, D was concerned about having me attempt to fly in on the 24th... if the plane broke, I'd be stuck at the airport in Baltimore all alone for Christmas! So, he got a special approval for me to come on the 17th and stay for 2 weeks! (And it was a good thing, too...because the plane was not able to fly on the 24th and didn't arrive until the 26th!)

What was Greenland like?
Well, I was waaaaay up at the top, just 8 or 900 miles from the North Pole!
(see where all the yellow lines join together?)

It was dark. It was cold. There was snow.

(this is driving me crazy now because my text is centered instead of on the left!)

24 hours of darkness..... it never got light. It was dark at 4 in the afternoon. And noon. And 9 in the morning. On my first full day there, I woke up at a normal time and David was at work. He came to pick me up for lunch at 11, and when I walked outside it was just kind of weird! Because it looked like 11pm, but I was heading out to eat lunch! It was crazy! The moon was out all the time. And we all had reflectors on our coats.

When it's 24 hours of darkness, reflectivity is very important!

David had to work most of the time I was there, so I spent my days reading, watching Oprah 3 times a day (twice on AFN and again on actual ABC!), watching Christmas movies, playing with my pink DS, and eating Christmas cookies! My mom sent some and I had sent some too.

He picked me up for lunch at the chow hall every day and I loved it! It costs $3.30 per meal but you get to eat as much as you want. My favorites were Tuesdays and Wednesdays... Taco-building and stir-fry-to order, respectively. So good. The only downfall to taco & stir-fry day was that I didn't usually have enough room for soup or salad bar! We walked around the BX (which took about 3 minutes since it's so tiny!) after lunch most days too. I guess that is the routine.

Most nights, we ate at the chow hall for dinner too, but a couple of times a week, we went to the TOW club. That's short for "Top of the World"! Because, well, that's practically where we were. I had a Ruben, a "Security Forces Burger" (pepperoni, pizza sauce, and mozzarella cheese) and a BLT. One night we shared a Polar Bear Pizza with D's buddy (it wasn't really made of polar bears...it had pepperoni, sausage, ham and bacon, I think), and we went for wings twice. Wednesday night is wings night. I guess we ate at the club more often than I thought! We also ordered food from the club one night because that's D's Sunday night football routine. We had pizza from the club on the first Friday I was there, because each Friday there is free pizza at game night. Video games mostly, but one Friday we played board games, too!

When D wasn't at work, we spent our time shaking presents, going to the community center for game night or to play Scrabble or watch movies (the theater AND the popcorn are free! We saw The Time Traveler's Wife and The Goods). We also went to the gym. D lifted, I ran on the treadmill and we also played Becsketball (shooting baskets with my own very special scoring system...1 point for hitting the backboard but missing a basket, 2 points for hitting the rim and bouncing off without making a basket, 4 points for making a basket, and 10 points for making a "nothing but net" basket.) and we set up the tennis net and played a little indoor tennis. Neither of us has played in over a year, and usually D is waaaaaaay better than me, but apparently, my rust shakes off more quickly than his does. Or maybe it was all the practice I had been doing playing Top Spin 3 on my pink DS! ;) One day we went bowling and I can't believe I won the first game! Actually, I'll have to check with David to make sure I'm remembering correctly...it's so unfathomable that I think I might be making it up. On the nights we went to the club, we usually played pool or darts. Once, I won at 301! I was amazed! I also won at pool, but that's because David cheated for me and moved balls around. The juke box at the club is free! So is playing pool & darts. And so is the cab ride to the club (or to anywhere on base!) One night at the club, I played the slot machine "Enchanted Forest" or something. I picked that one because it had unicorns on it and I love unicorns! Unicorns must love me too, because I won $3.28! Actually, I had put in a dollar to play, so I guess I only won $2.28. And when I went to cash out, I only got 3 dollars because the club doesn't pay out coins. I made history as the lowest cash out ever at the Top of the World Club at Thule Air Base. I wonder if they are going to make a plaque for the wall or something. The guy said that the lowest he had ever seen before that was $40. I blew that record out of the water! David always goes and sings karaoke on Thursdays, but he didn't sing on the first day I was there, so I only got to see him on one karaoke night (because we were stormed in the other Thursday I was there), but that was fun. More on that later. One day we went to the little museum on the base too. It was interesting, lots of old equipment, pictures, etc. And we also went to the Telepost Danish/Greenlandic(?) post office and gift shop. So, basically, I did EVERYTHING there is to do there.

The first Sunday I was there, we went into storm condition Charlie right after brunch. When we were in Bravo, D said that we'd better get to the chow hall and hope we could get through our meal before they "called Charlie". Charlie means you're stuck in your residence until the commander decides it's safe enough to start driving around again. (Weekend brunch, by the way, was fab...omelets, eggs & pancakes to order as well as assorted meats and fresh fruit). Anyway, even when we weren't in Charlie, we spent some time in the room (because as you read about in the paragraph above, there wasn't too terribly much else to do) and we played games (Phase 10, Scattergories, Risk, Jenga), watched movies, played Rock Band, read, and played Jeopardy. I'm still the Champ. On Sunday, David was really hoping NOT to go into Charlie, because he likes going to the other building to watch football.

One day, we drove off of the main base toward another part of base that's up on the mountain. Apparently that's where the stuff that the base is there to support is. That's when I really got a sense of just how dark it is there! Because we were away from the lit-up buildings and then D turned off the headlights so I could see! He was trying to help me make out the outlines of things along the way, but it was really hard...mountains, islands, and the Greenlandic Ice Cap. We also saw the AF tug boat (that I could see) but even right by the boat, it was really hard to see the water. I didn't like being by the boat, because 1. I think it's old and kind of creepy looking, 2. I was scared that we might get eaten by a polar bear or a giant pack of Archies (Arctic foxes) and 3. I thought, "If there were a Lifetime Movie set at Thule, this is exactly where the husband would take the wife to murder her." Oh, and 4. I was freezing!

On my last day at Thule, after breakfast, the full moon was bright and the skies were clear since a storm had blown through, so I could finally see Mount Dundas which was huge (but I never even saw it there until that day!), and the water and island in the bay.

I liked being there and having nothing to do but spend time together! I'm so glad that I got the chance to go there......there aren't many people who will, not that many spouses even visit, and they certainly don't get to spend as much time as I did there. The whole time I was there, I kept having moments where I just felt in awe, that a place like that exists in the world, that I was there, etc. And I'm glad that I got to see where David has spent his year. He had told me about it, of course, but I don't think words or pictures are enough to describe the experience to anyone. And now, the final countdown begins...D will be coming home "next month"! It's so fun to say that!

6 Airports, 5 Planes, 4 Countries and...

2010-01-05T19:19:00.000Z

41 hours and 14 minutes.
And then I was in Greenland!

I had to leave the house so early to get on the National Express bus to the airport that I didn't bother going to sleep on the 15th. I had no problem sleeping through the entire bus ride, luckily waking up just in time to see signs for Heathrow. I don't think the bus driver made any announcements about arriving there (it had more stops afterward), so I'm really glad I didn't sleep through my airport!
I got checked in and was happy to learn that my bag was checked all the way through (except for my AMC/military flight of course). The airport was freezing and I was still exhausted. I was asleep the minute I got on the plane! I wasn't sure I wanted to sleep on the short flight to Dublin, because I wanted to be tired enough to sleep through the trans-Atlantic flight. I had an aisle seat, which made me happy.

The most bizarre thing happened in Dublin... I cleared U.S. customs. When the customs officer with the New York accent handed me my passport and said, "Welcome back!," I was still under-rested and easily confused enough to wonder whether maybe I had already taken my long flight! I hadn't. :) I got on the plane, once again, an aisle seat! And this time was even better... there was nobody else in my row, so I was able to lay across the seats and sleep my way to JFK. I stayed up long enough for the meal.

Landed in New York and...didn't have to do customs. But I did have to pick up my bag and drop it back off at my American Airlines flight. I had lots of time at JFK so I enjoyed an Auntie Annie's pretzel-dog, wrote out some Christmas cards (but couldn't find a mailbox) and did quite a bit of window shopping. Lots of nice shops in whatever terminal I was in at JFK.

Continuing my lucky streak, I was assigned an aisle seat again on the way to BWI. And, once again, I was asleep before take-off. At BWI, I picked up my luggage and found my way to the military/AMC terminal. David had drawn me a handy map. He had written that they closed at 6, so I needed to go straight there. I showed up and almost freaked out because there was nobody there...and it was only 5! I began to worry that they closed at 4...because sometimes I see 1600 and think 6 instead of 4. I walked closer and saw that they would be opening 6 hours before my flight...which was scheduled for 0200. So I figured I'd go hang out at the USO until 8 and then head up to check in. But I caught a glimpse of a mail box, so I wrote a couple more cards and put them all in the box. By the time I walked past the desk again, there were people working there. I got on the list for Space-Available travel and was assured I'd make it on the flight, and instructed to come back at 8pm to drop my bag. So I headed down to the USO.

Have I ever taken time to sing praises to the USO here before? It is such a wonderful organization! On my way down there, I walked past "Operation Welcome Home" preparing to welcome home a big group from the desert. I thought about standing there and being part of the party, but that kind of stuff gets me weepy, so I moved on. The USO at BWI did not disappoint! The volunteers were friendly and they had lots to offer. I put my luggage in the storage area and was glad to be free of it for a while! I got on the internet and read an e-mail from David. He informed me of a storm at Thule that might delay my plane a little. I chatted with a mil-mil couple who was PCSing from Ramstein to Colorado. Then a man came up and said he overheard me saying that I was on my way to Thule. He was going there for the first time for 3 weeks. He said, "I don't know if we're going to make it out of here tonight". I told him that David had e-mailed me and said the storm should just delay the plane a little bit, but then I realized that David was probably just telling me that to keep me from getting worried... this guy's contacts had told him that the plane probably wouldn't be able to come in on Thursday...and possibly not on Friday either!
I wrote out the rest of my Christmas cards, had an ice cream bar, an orange, and a cup o' noodles (I love the USO!) and sat around reading, playing with my pink DS (I don't know why I always call it my pink DS and never just my DS. But I do.) and talking to other people who were hanging out at the USO. We got lucky that a big group was coming in, because the USO, which normally closes at 10, stayed open all night! I stayed there until the fire alarm went off! Seriously! Right around midnight. Then Max and I headed up to check on the status of the flight to Thule. The lady said they were just going to delay it for an hour, so we could go ahead and go through security if we wanted.
There were about 12 of us waiting for the plane.
Before we could get on the plane, we had to get in this weird contraption that moved us. It was like a time machine. Or like we had already gone through a time machine before we got in it... it seemed like a bus or a subway car. The driver closed the door and the whole vehicle jerked like crazy. Then we started to lower down to the ground... we traveled for about a minute, and then had to raise up again to connect to the plane. The "veterans" of this trip said they have no idea why they use this machine, as we could've just walked the 20-30 feet to our plane on our own. They also explained that on the return trip, it has to go all the way around the airport because the machine is too big to make the turn into its "parking space". Weird!

On this plane, I had the row to myself again! Loved that! I fell asleep right after the snack and woke up just about in time to hear the pilot say that the weather at Thule was making it impossible for them to clear the runway so we were being diverted to another airport! Oh no! We were at Sondrestrom, a little further south in Greenland. It was light outside there so seeing the terrain on the way in/out was really neat. No houses, etc. Just craggy mountains. We sat there for a few hours and had a little snack. Then I made the mistake of stopping in the souvenir shop where I saw.... YARN! I had to buy some! Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) I had no idea what the exchange rate was... it was only later when they started talking about how much the snack cost in Danish kroner vs. dollars that my mind started making the calculations about how much I spent. Oooops.

Back on the plane, the flight attendants served us breakfast and I was really excited that since there were so few passengers, they let us have BOTH entrees instead of having to choose. That was really a relief, because I really wanted the pancakes, but the omelet was served with bacon and I wanted bacon!

We landed a couple of hours later and it was pitch black. I think it was 2 pm! I had no idea though, because I had been traveling for so long! As we got off the plane, a bunch of people shook our hands saying "Welcome back!" and "Welcome to Thule!" and "We're glad you're here, Rebecca!" It was pretty weird. And really cold! Once we were in the airport, I gave the girl my passport and my letter from the commander and then I saw David around the corner! He wasn't allowed to come into the area where I was, but he told me where I needed to go to get my bag (they only let 5 people in at a time) and waited for me to walk out into the hall. I was really excited to see him! We went directly to his dorm building because I was dying to take a shower! When I walked in his door, I stopped the timer on my watch... it was 41 hours and 14 minutes from my door to David's door.

Cookies!

2010-01-05T18:31:00.000Z

My first UK cookie party was a success!
I've heard of a couple of different ways to do cookie exchanges, but I've kind of settled on my way: invite a certain, small # of people and have them bring their cookies counted out and pre-packaged. So that means that I need a pre-RSVP before I give the invitations so I know how many cookies to tell people to bring!

I was really lazy, overwhelmed & running low on time, so I just did a digital invite this year.
Unfortunately, I had a cancellation before I sent out the invites, but since I was running so late, it was too late for me to think of someone else to invite (and it would've been obvious that they were "second string!") so I just decided to make 2 kinds of cookies so everyone would still take home 6 dozen different kinds of cookies. (You can see my day of cookie/party prep here)

I decided that this year's "party favor" would be tiny knitted mittens...but I didn't finish them all in time for the party. Luckily, 2 of my guests live right nearby, so I promised to bring their mini mittens later! I figured it was more important to get the dishes all wiped off and the beverage station set up (hot water in my carafes for hot apple cider, hot chocolate, and a variety of teas, plus eggnog, gingerbread eggnog, and of course, milk!). I had just finished vacuuming when my first guest, Jaclyn, arrived. I got the snacks set out and soon everyone was here.
My cookie party menu pretty much stays the same and is pretty much all red & green... sun-dried tomato-pesto dip with goat cheese, hot broccoli dip, spinach balls and cherry cheeseball. I also put out fudge, Buster bars & Buckeyes. In Okinawa, everyone loved the cherry cheeseball and the sun-dried tomato-pesto dip. Here, the broccoli dip & spinach balls were the big hit!

We ate, chatted, and took home lots of cookies:

Pumpkin-Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies (me)
Orange Infused Snowballs (me)
Egg Nog Cookies (Jaclyn)
Peanut Butter Blossoms (Wendy)
Pecan-topped Cheesecake cookies (Robyn)
Cranberry White-Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies (Sandi)
Maple Snickerdoodles (Concetta)

They were all delicious, and I have lots of them in my freezer since I couldn't possibly eat them all in the 2 days between my party and my flight!

Blog-break over!

2010-01-05T01:00:00.000Z

I disappeared kind of suddenly there, didn't I?
After my busy day of baking cookies, I had a busy day of finishing the preparations for my party (including finishing up 6 pairs of mini-mittens as party favors!) on the 13th. The days following the cookie party were a whirlwind of cleaning, packing, and to-do lists. I left at 0130 (local) on the 16th and arrived in Greenland at 1445 (local) on the 17th. You can try to figure out the time difference or just come back in a day or two to find out how long I traveled! I just got back yesterday... my house was freezing! Today I went and picked up a whole lot of mail and got a new tire put on my car because it was shaking like crazy. And now I have lots to do...unpacking, laundry, new brake pads, baby-shower prep, clean-up, mailing out Christmas presents..... and blogging!

Because it (*might*) hold me accountable... I'll make a quick list of blog posts I hope to write this week.
1. Cookie party
2. Traveling for almost 2 days straight
3. Greenland
4. Christmas
5. Storm Dancing
6. New Years
7. Home Again
7. January Goals

In the meantime, check out my "places I've been" map... I've now been to every country in North America!

Visited Countries Map from TravelBlog

(Actually, I don't know if this image is working...but it's too late to tinker with it right now. Just trust me...all of North America is colored in!)

12 of 12: The Frantically Preparing for Cookie Party Edition

2009-12-13T18:03:00.001Z

'Twas the day before my cookie party, and all through the house...
All of these pictures were taking in my kitchen and entry way, in Thetford/England.

0750- Christmas tunes on the iPod. I decided to kick off my baking day with Kristin Chenoweth singing Christmas Island. Her album, "A Lovely Way to Spend Christmas" is my newest favorite. I just love Broadway voices...KC is the original "Galinda with a gah" from Wicked. With the music on, I'm ready to get my holiday spirit on and start TONS of baking!

0800-Can't bake without an apron! Today I chose the Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville... I was wishing that I had a Christmas apron to wear :( But I'm very very proud of myself for not deciding to postpone the cookies in favor of making myself a new Christmas apron! Ha!

0900-First batch(es) of the day: Pumpkin-Cranberry Oatmeal cookies. (Recipe here) Made these earlier in the fall and loved them SO much that I decided these would be my cookie party recipe this year! That means I need 6 dozen of 'em!

0945- Too many doughs in the kitchen! I started baking the PCO cookies last night, and due to an oven malfunction, only ended up with 3 dozen that I felt were an adequate representation of my baking! So I needed to make another batch today. And, since I had a cookie party cancellation, I decided to make a second set of 6 dozen cookies: Orange Infused Snowballs. I started on that dough while I was working on the PCO dough and that was *not* a good idea. I ended up dumping a teaspoon of baking soda into the wrong dough. It's really hard to tell baking soda from powdered sugar, so I tried my best to take it out! Then I moved the OIS dough to the other side of the kitchen and focused on the PCOs!

1245- Three oven errors this morning totally blew my theory that my oven just likes to act rebellious after 11pm. I think this is an overheating error, so I had to change my cookie strategy (can't wait for the landlord to fix this when I have 17 dozen cookies to bake!). So, I baked 2 sheets (about 30 minutes), then turned the oven off for an hour. Then baked 2 sheets, then turned the oven off. Not the most efficient strategy, but better than ending up with half-baked cookies!

1300-During my oven's break, I decided to package up the PCO cookies that are done. I lined them up, wrapped them in clear cellophane, and tied some burgundy and gold bows on the ends. I think they looked so pretty!

1430-Here they are, all wrapped up and ready to go home and get eaten by their new owners! I had to store them on my stepstool in the entry way (where my basket of mittens usually is) because all of the kitchen surfaces were taken!

1600-My first batch of Orange Infused Snowballs are out of the oven. These bake at a lower temp, and don't spread, so I think I was able to get them all baked without having to switch the oven off! Almost 8 dozen! Recipe here.

1700-Another break...for the oven and for me. I went to Wilkinson & Pound Stretcher to pick up some ball ornaments to use as vase filler, and to drool over the white Christmas tree and lavender garland. I didn't buy it...yet. I might go back tomorrow. I love that white tree! The black ball ornaments are for the baby shower I'm planning.

2000- I saw this cute cookie packaging idea here. I just used a 2.25" strip of patterned paper instead of fabric scraps. I think these are so cute! A dozen snowball cookies were a perfect fit!

2350-Here's my tiny fridge...eggnog, gingerbread eggnog, milk, hot broccoli dip, fudge, Buster bars & Buckeyes ready for tomorrow.

2359- It's midnight...and still TONS on my to-do list! I stayed up until 2:30 or 3, then got up at 7 to finish getting ready for my party! *Almost* everything was done in time, but I didn't sit down until everyone left at about 4:30. Well, I take that back...what kind of hostess would I be if I didn't sit and enjoy a nice chat with my guests?

But that's why I'm late in getting my 12 of 12 posted. Now all I want to do is sit and relax...but I have the party aftermath to tend to! :(

Check out other 12s here.

Thursday 13: Christmas Movies I Love

2009-12-11T00:57:00.001Z

Thirteen Christmas movies I love:

1. Elf. Elf just makes me smile. And smiling's my favorite. I watched it in May and wanted to decorate my house right then! Watched it again in July and once again had to fight the urge to put the tree up! And the last time I was in an elevator, I was very tempted to push all the buttons like Buddy the Elf and say, "It looks like a Christmas tree!"

2. A Christmas Story. I miss having TBS so I can watch this for 24 hours on Christmas Eve. But I have the DVD, so I can watch it for 24 hours any day of the year!

3. A Charlie Brown Christmas. I love the Peanuts gang. I love Christmas. So, what's not to love?

4. Miracle on 34th Street. Old or new version. I love Maureen O'Hara, but that little Susan in the new version is too too cute!

5. Snowglobe! I loooooove this one! I wish I had ABC Family so I could be watching their 25 days of Chrsitmas right now! Snowglobe is so cute!!!

6. Holiday Inn.

7. It's a Wonderful Life.

8. The Polar Express. The bells still jingle for me!

9. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

10. Mickey's Christmas Carol. I used to watch this one every Christmas Eve with one of my very best friends & neighbors.

11. Home Alone.

12. Meet Me In St. Louis. Judy Garland singing I'll Be Home For Christmas gets me every time!

13. The Christmas Raccoons. We had this cartoon special taped from tv and I loved watching it. Two kids and their dog cut down a Christmas tree that belongs to a raccoon family. And there's a weird pink villain.

14... I'm adding on here, because I'm having a flashback of another Chiristmas movie from my childhood but I can't remember 1--if I liked it and 2--what it was called! It might be Santa Claus: The Movie. Or Prancer. I remember there being a reindeer. (So that narrows it down...*eyeroll). But the logo I'm picturing looks a lot like the Santa Claus: The Movie one.

What are your favorite Christmas movies?
Check out other lists of 13 here!

My most favoritest thing about Dublin...

2009-12-08T19:28:00.000Z

was this:

This is This is Knit.

And it is the very best place in Dublin.

This is Knit is in the cutest mall in the world. Or at least in Dublin.(Powerscourt Townhouse)

It is full of colorful yarn.

And nice people.

Very nice people who say wonderful things like, "Your Clapotis is lovely, by the way."

The nicest people are the ones who can look at your hand-knit scarf and call it by its pattern name.

Very nice people who understand how clever it was to knit a Knitty pattern with yarn in a limited edition colorway inspired by the Knitty editor.

These are my people.

I could've spent all day there.

But I was with some other people.

And, although they were good sports about finding the yarn shop, they just didn't get it.

Australia: The Complete Travelogues

2009-12-08T11:31:00.000Z

Easy access to all of my posts about my 2008 trip to Gold Coast & Sydney Australia:

Interesting Blog Posts Coming Soon
G'Day
Australia Day 1: China
Australia Day 2: Part 1-Location, Location, Location
Australia Day 2: Part 2- It's Root, Root, Root for the Home Team!
Australia Day 3: A Rainy Day at the Fair

Australia Day 4: Part 1-Great Expectations
Australia Day 4: Part 2-Room Service
Australia Day 5: No Rest for the Weary-Crikey!
Australia Day 6: Location, Location, Location (II)
Australia Day 7: Blue Mountains Part 1-Fauna
Australia Day 7: Part 2-Leura
Australia Day 7: Part 3-Thrill Rides
Australia Day 8: Part 1-Divide and Conquer
Australia Day 8: Part 2-Family Reunion
Australia Day 9: A Manly Morning and a Royal Afternoon
Australia Day 10: Part 1-To Market, To Market
Australia Day 10: Part 2-Starring David
Australia Day 11: The State of Our Passports

Flashback!

2009-12-08T11:11:00.001Z

I wanted to post a Christmas card here today, because it's SITSmas!! SITS is a fun community of bloggers who love to comment & get comments (and find "new" blogs to read!)...if you're one of those bloggers but don't know about SITS, head on over and check it out!

Our trip to Australia seems SOOOOOOOOOOOO long ago! I guess it was almost a year and a half ago, but so much has changed since then! And who knows what will change between this year's Christmas card (which I'm not posting here since I haven't mailed them out yet!) and next year's!?!

Since last year's card:

We left Okinawa :(

We spent a month (D) or two (me) in the states

D moved to Greenland

I moved to England

Before next year's card:

I'll send out this year's card

D's moving to England

We'll have to buy a car

I hope I'll get a job

Maybe we'll have some visitors

And who knows what else 2010 will bring?

If you want to read more about 2008's trip to Australia, click here!

December Goals

2009-12-06T22:52:00.000Z

Better late than never:

1. Run. It's becoming harder & harder to get motivated to run. The sun is stubborn. The rain and wind are persistent. I never know what to wear... long sleeves over long sleeves or long sleeves over short sleeves? Jacket or no jacket? Lightweight long sleeves or something more substantial? Shorts, tights or windpants? Headband/earwarmer, stocking cap or baseball-style hat? Usually by the time I've figured out what to wear, the weather has changed and I have to start over.

2. Knit. Yay, I should have quite a bit of time for knitting this month! I'm going to visit David and he says I'm going to be really bored. So that means that before I go, I need to choose a couple of projects to take with me. Maybe one big project and one small? Or one big and two small? Even before that, though, I need to make 4 more pairs of mini-mittens as favors for my cookie exchange.

3. Stay up-to-date with my baby shower planning time line. I have it all planned out in a huge Excel file. So as long as I keep meeting the deadlines, the shower will be a success! Oh, and one of the things on the list happens to be a knitting project...so I can knock out two goals with one stone!

4. Clean the house. I'm having company on Sunday! And since I leave shortly thereafter, I shouldn't have too much time to make the house messy before my trip, so it will be nice and clean when I get back too.

5. Finalize travel plans. Good thing I'm writing this goal post... because I just realized that I haven't booked the final leg of my return flight yet!

6. Read. I still haven't finished The Know-It-All, just about 20 pages to go. I also checked out a Joyce Carol Oates book, Little Bird of Heaven. And I have The Summer Kitchen on loan from a friend so I need to read that too. Plus, I still haven't read Dewey, which I bought over the summer! I'll get some reading done on my trip as well though.

7. Mail stuff. I think my Christmas cards & presents (very few presents!) are going to be late. But, better late than never!

Reminder: 'Tis Better to Give Than to Receive

2009-12-06T10:14:00.000Z

I'm going to visit David for Christmas, partly so we can continue our "streak" of spending every Christmas together (we've missed every other holiday at least once) and partly so I will be the closest I will ever be to Santa's Workshop (unless Santa makes all my dreams come true and invites me to intern as an elf at the North Pole!).

The people on D's floor decided to do a Secret Santa gift exchange, and I was included in the drawing. Secret Santa gift exchanges always make me nervous. I really put in some good effort to give great gifts, but don't always get the luck of the draw. But...the gift is in the giving, right? 'Tis better to give than to receive.

(My best Secret Santa ever was "Backpack" at Camp Lawrence Christmas in July. She spoiled me with all kinds of scrapbooking goodies. I think that year, I was buying for my camp director, Batty. He loves cashews, so he got some variety of cashews every day. I may have cured him of his cashew habit that summer.)

The instructions were to list "three likes and three dislikes". And that's what your Secret Santa has to work with. The Secret Santa who has never met me. This assignment was very difficult for me. How specific should I get? I don't want to sound picky, but I want to give this person some guidance, you know? I like a lot of things... but if I put "reading" on the list, how does that really help my SS? If I list "reading-fiction", that's still pretty darn vague. But if I get more specific and say, "reading-Jodi Picoult books," then what if I end up getting the ones that I've already read? I didn't really feel comfortable putting "knitting" on the list, because a non-knitter really probably has no idea what a knitter would want, where to get it, etc. Same issue with "scrapbooking"... what if my SS doesn't know a thing about scrapbooking and I end up with a pack of construction paper and some Hallmark stickers, which are great for putting on envelopes, but not exactly my scrapping-style, kwim? So I reminded myself that 'tis better to give than to receive, and tried to give my SS a little guidance with a good price-range. The likes I decided upon? Cooking & Baking, Christmas Decorations, and Flavored Lip Gloss. If I got this list, I'd be pretty good... maybe some kitchen gadgets, a cookbook or magazine, fun cookie cutters, pot holder or an apron, a cute Christmas ornament, candle holder, candy dish, or table-topper, and round it off with an assortment of LipSmackers. And probably a Burt's Bees for when you really need your chapped lips to feel good instead of just smell good. Worst case scenario, I end up with $25 worth of plain colored ball ornaments. But... the gift is in the giving.
Oh, I listed my dislikes as coffee, black licorice, and things that taste or smell like cinnamon candy.

So, when D came here to visit, he brought 2 slips of paper and I got to choose one. He assured me that I would be happy with either one. And, I ended up buying the gifts for both of them anyway. The one I picked listed (I am fairly certain he doesn't read my blog and so I can say here without spoiling the secret) "Ohio State T-Shirts, Ohio State Sweatshirts, Ohio State Sweatpants, Ohio State Slippers." So....a Michigan fan! Ha ha... I was happy enough to buy for this guy, because a---it was one-stop shopping! and b---I like Ohio State! As my "almost alma mater", the school I would've gone to had I not gone to Carthage, that's my fan school. Because Carthage football isn't even something I subjected myself to when I was in school there.
D's list had only one like, "Chicago Bears". So I had fun shopping for that one too!

Well, last night, I talked to David and he said he had some bad news. Of the dozen people participating in the gift exchange, guess whose Secret Santa had to leave unexpectedly and won't be back for Christmas? Mine. Of course. Good thing the gift is in the giving, because that will be the only Secret Santa gift I'm getting (until my SS returns after Christmas and has David mail me my presents). Except for the gift I bought for myself, just in case something like this were to happen. Yes, 'tis better to give than to receive... but you've got to remember to give to yourself too!

Thursday Thunks

2009-12-03T12:34:00.000Z

Because I really should be folding laundry or washing dishes or making delicious Buster Bars, I decided to participate in this week's Thursday Thunks. And also because it says "egg nog". I love egg nog.
1. Sometimes when you are sitting around doing nothing, a thought randomly pops into your head. How many measuring cups do you own?

ummm....liquid ones? Maybe 5? Dry ones... who knows! However many will fit in the bowl full of measuring cups!

2. What is your favorite ice cream topping?

Maraschino Cherries. Hold the ice cream.

3. Egg nog - is it digestible?

Yes, and in mass quantities. I loooooooove egg nog.

4. Were you one of the insane humans who went to a store last Friday?

Yep, the yarn store in Dublin! I need to write more about my Dublin trip. But Black Friday isn't exactly "celebrated" there.

5. There are 12 months in a year, anywhere from 28 - 31 days in a month, depending on the year, of course. Each day holds a special meaning for someone, some days hold a special meaning for everybody. Do you have a 2010 calendar yet?

Nope. Well, just the school-year one that my alma mater sent me. I need to get a day planner...should've put that on my Christmas list!

6. Kids are funny sometimes and say the darndest things, but it's ok because they are kids and they are so adorable. A two year old is cute when they say a swear word. Admit it, they are. What was your favorite nursery rhyme growing up? Hey - if you don't have a favorite, just work with me here and pick the first one that fell off the wall and broke like an egg or came out of the sky like a cow who just jumped over the moon.

I don't know!

7. Most of us have some type of machine that people like to call 'vehicles'. Some are blue, some are yellow, some are red. Some have trunks, some have beds and some even can't decide if they are a car or a truck. We put gas in them, check the oil and drive them all over the place and stop them in places called parking spots. Picture in your mind the machine you currently own and if you own more than one, picture the one you last drove - when was the last time you had a new tire on it?

Before I owned it. But I've been told to put "new tires & wheel alignment" on my to-do list.

8. For those of us on Facebook, do you wish to share your Facebook identity with us?

Those of you who I want to know it already do. :) As for the rest of you, I'm far more interesting here, trust me.

9. Santa's coming! Where's the best place to hide presents? Any clever little tricks for keeping those nosey people from ruining the surprise?

Doesn't matter where they're hidden. I WILL find them.

10. Have you heard that the world is going to end in 2012? Some people think that the world isn't actually going to go BOOM! and be no more, they think that the "end of the world" is actually going to be a worldwide takeover by a certain country and/or religion, which all has to do with the current president of the USA. Do you agree?

Ummm...hadn't really thought of it. But no.

11. Butterly, butterfly fluttering through the air, please don't land on my freshly washed hair. What brand of shampoo did you use this morning? (and for those of you who still stink.. think of yesterday morning... and if that still doesn't apply to you - go get your stinky butt in the shower!)

Aussie. I love the smell.

Thursday 13: 13 Things on my Christmas List

2009-12-03T11:10:00.000Z

I can't believe I didn't make my Christmas list back in October like I usually do. Maybe that's because I got my big Christmas gift in October...a piano! Well, a digital piano/keyboard. But it sounds *just* like a real piano and fits in my laundry/office/gym/and-now-music multipurpose room.
But now it's December and the year just wouldn't feel complete without a Christmas list, so here goes:

1. Glee: The Music, Volume 1 Have you not watched Glee yet? I absolutely love it. And that's why I'm dedicating 3 of the 13 slots on my Christmas list to it. I'm sad that I looked this up too late (I think) to get the Target exclusive edition that has 3 extra songs that you can't get anywhere else. I don't know how I'll be able to go on.
2. Glee: The Music, Volume 2 This one comes out on December 8. Eeeeee! So that means you can catch the last episode until "winter break" on December 9, fall in love with the show and go out and buy this CD without having to wait! And listen to it over and over until you just can't stop smiling!
3. Glee: Music from the FOX Television Show How perfect is it that I now have a piano in my house, and there is a book full of Glee sheet music? Very perfect.
4. Scarf Style I put this book on my list every year. I look for it every time I'm in a bookstore or knitting store. I don't know why I haven't just ordered it online already!
5. Official Book Club Selection: A Memoir According to Kathy Griffin Because she is hilarious.
6. Make Mine Music This DVD has one of my most favoritest things from childhood on it... Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnet. You can watch it here on YouTube. Or, I can get this for Christmas and you can come watch it on my big tv.
7. A cute box bag to carry around some little knitting stuff or small projects like fingerless mitts or teeny tiny sweater ornaments. So it makes it even more sensible and cute to choose one with Grazing Sheep on it!
8. Vera Bradley Coin Purse I have one already and I quite like it. The only problem is that I also have 2 other little accessories in the same pattern, so when I need to dig in my bag for my American money, I'm always pulling out the coin purse full of British money. Life would be so much easier if I had a coin purse in a different color/pattern, like maybe Purple Punch, Mod Floral Pink, or Java Blue.
9. Running Headband because ears get much colder in England than they do in Okinawa.
10. Dance 'Til Dawn Love this movie! I want to watch it at my birthday party. And I want it to be a slumber party.
11. A fleece beanie for running when it's too cold for just an ear warmer.
12. The Runner's Rule Book: Everything a Runner Needs to Know and Then Some
13. And, because I can't think of anything else, but I know that if I go upstairs and get the Stampin' Up catalog my list will be longer than 13, a Survivor Buff!

Reading Rainbow

2009-11-30T20:52:00.002Z

I came across a reading challenge today that I might try. Nothing *crazy* like 100 books in 2010 or anything like that! :)
It's the Lost in Books Colorful Reading Challenge.
When I go to the library, I often have no idea what book I want, I just pick something colorful. So this is an interesting twist to my "choose a book with a colorful cover" strategy...it's "choose a book with a colorful title" instead!
I'm not exactly sure that I'll do the full challenge, 9 books in 9 different colors, but I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for colorful titles.
Some books I might consider are:
White
White Oleander
Snow: A Retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Black Stars in a White Night Sky (a book of poems)
Black
Paint it Black (the sequel to White Oleander)
Black Star, Bright Dawn
The Black Pearl
Bitter is the New Black
Blue
Gathering Blue
Island of the Blue Dolphins (one of my favorites from my elementary school days)
13 Little Blue Envelopes (I checked this out before, but didn't get to it before returning it!)
Something Blue (I read the first book, Something Borrowed, but haven't come across this one yet)
Once in a Blue Moon
Green
Before Green Gables
Little Green Men
How Green Was My Valley
Purple
Purple Heart
Purple Hibiscus
Yellow
Half of a Yellow Sun
A Yellow Raft in Blue Water
Orange
Five Quarters of the Orange
Code Orange
Blood Orange
Pink
My Life in Pink and Green
Little Pink Slips
Pink Palace
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
Red
Where the Red Fern Grows (If I'm in the mood to cry!)
Red Hook Road
Woman in Red
Red Dress Walking
Red Glass
The Red Umbrella

That's 9 colors...but maybe there's books with color names that come from the Crayola 64 box instead of the crayola 8 box! I might look up some of those later. I think I've got a pretty good starting point for now though!

Dublin: IMHO

2009-11-30T14:41:00.000Z

I went to Dublin with fairly low expectations. I had heard from three different people that Dublin may not be Ireland at its best. In my opinion, big cities rarely are. Places that got raving reviews were Cork, Kerry, Killarney & Donnegal. But, for this weekend, the only thing on the itinerary was Dublin, so I decided to go check it out for myself, since I hadn't made any other Thanksgiving plans anyway.

The verdict is in: I agree with my three friends--Dublin doesn't get two thumbs-up from me. When you think Ireland, you might think "green," "sheep," "craggy sea cliffs," "accent," or "cute little old men wearing tweed hats." that's definitely not what you get in Dublin! It has a few interesting, pretty points, but I bet I could've done enough Dublin to satisfy myself in one day with a hop-on/hop-off bus pass. And without a pregnant travel companion.

More later.

To Do

2009-11-25T21:39:00.001Z

Yeah right. I wish that was all there was on my pre-Dublin to-do list. The rest wouldn't fit on the post-it. What the heck did I do all day???

Even though it's not Tuesday, I had some time to waste, so I figured I'd participate late. Or early. You know, instead of doing the things I need to do. Makes perfect sense.

Find out more about Post-It Note Tuesday here.
Or, if you just want to make your own Post-It, go here.

Feeling Lucky?

2009-11-25T10:18:00.000Z

I have mixed feelings about the Kindle/Sony Reader/Nook.
In my last post, I was talking about how much I love libraries. I love that they just give you a book, for free, and you get to take it home and enjoy it for a while. Three weeks at my library. I love that if you pick a book and don't really like it or find another book that you want to read first, you just take it back. No money wasted. I love that if you want to read a book that your library doesn't have, they might be able to borrow it from another library for you! No running all over the place looking for a book.

So, even though I love getting my free books from a big selection at my library, I couldn't resist entering this giveaway for a Kindle! Because I like reading. And I like winning things. So it is a perfect contest for me. Click the link and try to win one too. Because if you enter using my link, I get an extra entry. And if you're not going to win, don't you want me, your internet friend, to be the one to win? If I don't win, I hope it's you!

Now, I don't have a Kindle---yet. After my name gets drawn in the Kindle giveaway, I will!---so I can't say for sure how much I would love it or when I would use it. But I like to think that even with a Kindle, curling up on the couch with a book will still be something I want to do. Partly because I love these little magnetic bookmarks that I have, and I would miss using those if I used the Kindle exclusively. Plus the whole paying-for-books vs. getting-them-free-at-the-library thing. (My friend and I were talking a few weeks ago about how we think there should be a some kind of library license, where the library purchases the Kindle file or whatever and you check it out onto your Kindle...and then just have it expire or drop off when the three weeks or whatever is up. Maybe they already do this. Or maybe we just invented it because we are geniuses.)
Right now, I am packing for a trip. At least that's what I'm supposed to be doing. I think trips would be the #1 reason to have a Kindle. Besides the super cute Kindle cases, of course. When I go on a trip, I need to have plenty of stuff to keep me busy. Even if I'm never going to get around to it. I need a knitting project. I need a book. For the airport, maybe the plane, for waiting in the hotel for the other people to wake up or shower. But what if the plane is delayed? What if the flight takes longer than expected? What if the other people sleep really late or take long showers? What if I finish the only book and knitting project I brought with me? So, I must bring extra. It's the only solution. But what if both of the books I bring are real page-turners? And I can't put them down and I finish before I've even gotten there? Do you see where this is going? If you had a Kindle, you could load that puppy up and put a thousand books into your carry on bag, and take up less space than a single paperback. So, try and win a Kindle!
My trip is only 4 days, and is a see-stuff kind of trip. I'm packing 2 books. Imagine what I would "need" to pack if I were going on a week-long lay-by-the-pool and relax trip instead! But at least that kind of trip would require fewer and smaller clothes in the suitcase!

One of my favorite places in the world...

2009-11-24T22:57:00.001Z

I've been lots of places, and I feel grateful and lucky for that. But one of my very favorite places in the whole wide world is not faraway or fancy, and I feel grateful and lucky for that too! It can be found almost everywhere and it's FREE!! It's the library!
I've always loved the library. I remember my mom taking me to the "little library" down the street from my house. I mostly remember doing puzzles there. When we moved, we ended up getting a bigger library!
One of the first things I did when I got here was to get a base library card. I was so excited to see that the library here has a McNaughton collection. The library at Kadena had this collection (newer books) but then lost the grant/funding for it, so there was this big chunk of empty shelves that practically shouted (or whispered very loudly, it's a library after all) "Remember that best-seller with the pretty shiny cover that you wanted to read? It's not here anymore!! Go pick one of the old stinky books."

Today, I went to the library to return a book (House of Mirth, Edith Wharton) and print something out (boarding pass to Dublin) and ended up spending nearly an hour browsing. That's one problem with the library. It's very hard to "just run in to return a book". Because, you see, there are hundreds...no, probably THOUSANDS of other books whispering, "I'm good. Pick me. Take me home." Almost like puppies in a pet shop! The other problem with the library is that it's very hard to choose a book. That's why I normally choose 2 or 3. There's not a limit at this library...I could check out 63 books if I wanted to---but I wouldn't be able to read them all within 3 weeks. And when I renew too many times, I feel like I'm being judged.
So today I saw a whole bunch of books that I would like to read, and I didn't have a little notebook with me to write down the titles. So now I'm sad! This library doesn't have tiny pencils and index cards or paper scraps near the "card catalog" computers, so I had to try and remember which books were interesting (I only checked out two today...I already have 2 Ireland travel guide books checked out from the other base's library.) I've already forgotten...which means that next time I go to the library, I'll be there at least an hour perusing and choosing. Good thing it's one of my very favorite places!

A Thanksgiving Meme

2009-11-23T11:32:00.000Z

Maybe it's because there isn't a turkey defrosting in my fridge (good thing, because I don't think one would fit in there!) or because I haven't been busying myself with lists, timelines and spreadsheets about groceries, side dishes and serving utensils, but it hardly feels like Thanksgiving is just a few days away!
I'm not hosting (or even going to) Thanksgiving Dinner this year, which feels kind of weird. I'm going to Dublin with a few friends instead. But that doesn't mean I can't think about turkey dinner!

1.What are the traditional favorites?
Everything! Mashed potatoes, turkey, stuffing, corn souffle', pumpkin cake, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole.

2.What new recipes will you try this year?
Well, I'm not making anything for Thanksgiving, but if I were, I would make this pie I saw this morning on Bakerella. I think I will make it for Thanksgiving-in-June. Which I have decided should be an official event, right before Christmas-in-July.

3.What part of the meal do you never compromise?
All of it!

4.Who gets to carve the turkey?
David. I don't know/remember who carves it at family Thanksgiving at home.

5.Family style around the table or buffet style and everyone sits wherever there's room?
A little bit of both? In Okinawa, we had all the food in the kitchen, the only thing passed around the table was bread I think, and after loading up our plates, everyone who could fit would sit at the dining room table. Anyone who couldn't fit spilled over to the living room-couch or card table.

6.How many will be at your table this year?
Four, I think. In a pub in Dublin, most likely!

7.Three best pies for Thanksgiving dessert?
Apricot Cranberry Pie. And that's the only kind of pie I've made. I don't love pumpkin pie, but I'll eat it. I love pumpkin cake!! Apple pie too, but not the recipe I attempted last year!

8.Cranberry sauce...yeah or nay?
Absolutely! Times two! One straight from the can, complete with the lines, and one "doctored up" version.

9.What time do you eat Thanksgiving dinner?
When we host, about 1600/1630

10.Favorite leftover?
All! Green bean casserole, probably. I love having mini Thanksgiving dinners in the days following Thanksgiving, and then I love having Thanksgiving on a Sandwich when the leftovers are dwindling.

Party Planning Panic!

2009-11-22T22:19:00.001Z

In the middle of the night, I woke up from a nightmare.
In my nightmare, it was the day of a baby shower I've been planning since August. And I didn't have anything ready. None of the crafts on my list were done. My gift wasn't wrapped. My cupcakes weren't baked. The ONE request I had from the mom-to-be---taco salad---wasn't prepared. But none of that really mattered, because I hadn't sent out the invitations.
So this afternoon and evening, I worked on my baby shower plans.
This baby shower is going to ROCK!
It's a "Rock the Cradle" themed shower, after all.

I already have the invitations designed, I just need to finalize a date with the mom-to-be. (Late Jan/Early Feb).
I've already drawn out what I want my living room & dessert table to look like.
I made a list of all of the weekends in Jan/Feb as well as the dates invitations would need to be mailed, etc. so when we do pick a date, all the "math" is already done.
I asked the mom-to-be to let me know who's on her guest list.
I asked the mom-to-be to send me a baby picture of herself for a "Very Important Project"
I started working on the Very Important Project--a concert-style VIP Pass for her to wear during the shower. Like a corsage, only hipper.
I made a list of baby shower games that I would be interested in playing, and prizes. I'm going to see which games the mom-to-be is interested in.

I still have lots to do... ordering some things (temporary tattoos! guitar shaped soap! white chocolate bark/melts!), making some things (ribbon wreath for my front door! paper globes to put in vases! onesies to hang on the wall!), and planning/organizing some things (menu! guest addresses & phone #s! plan for parking!)... but I feel like I accomplished at least a little bit today and should sleep soundly!

Small Talk Six

2009-11-21T19:12:00.000Z

It feels like I just did a Small Talk Six post... this week has gone by without my even noticing! This week's topic:
“6 things you are most thankful for this year”

1. Being Independent. This year, I had to move from Japan to England by myself, while my husband is stationed somewhere far away. I had to find a place to live, accept three shipments of household goods, open a bank account for pounds, hook up the internet, etc. And the military refers to us as "dependents". Puh-lease.
2. Hobbies. Like I said, I've been in this house alone all this time, no job, no consistent human interaction. Good thing I have plenty of hobbies to keep me busy! Reading, running, knitting, scrapbooking, crossword puzzles, and now, playing the piano!
3. The Kindness of Others. Coming here on my own, I wasn't sure what to expect. People here have checked up on me, included me in weekend plans, invited me for dinner, helped me find a car, a house, the commissary, kept me company, and gushed over my baked goods. What more could I ask for?
4. Airplanes. I've been on a lot of them this year, and a few more to go. One took me home from Japan, then here, to Florida so David and I could see each other after about 6 months apart, back home again, back here again. Then one brought David here, and another took us both to Scotland. Next week, I'll be on an airplane again headed to Dublin. And next month, on another airplane to go spend Christmas with David.
5. My family. They are the very best.
6. The Armed Forces. Thank you, for what you do and for what you would be willing to do.

Road Block

2009-11-21T11:54:00.000Z

After moving along so nicely on my Amused sweater, I have officially hit a road block. I hit the road block about a week ago. Yep, it was definitely a week ago. The body is finished, the sleeves are finished, and now it's time for the collar. I have to pick up (and remove from the crochet cast-on...maybe there is an easy way to do this, but I don't know it!) a hundred and something stitches around the collar. I did maybe half of them last Saturday (and I did about a quarter of them twice, because I decided I was doing it wrong the first time), put it down because I just couldn't take it anymore and I needed a break. I've picked it up twice since then...and moved it to a different part of the living room. Maybe today I can make myself finish! Finish picking up the stitches, that is... not finish the collar! I bought the yarn for this sweater almost a year ago! I am determined to finish. I am determined to finish. I am determined to finish.

I even washed a whole bunch of dishes this morning rather than knit. That's how intimidated I am by this project right now!!