Fear the machine...wait, don't

For Christmas Craig got me an awesome serger, which I said I wanted but I was also a little afraid of because it has KNIVES that cut fabric and you thread it with four giant things of thread and I didn't really understand how the whole thing works...but yeah, I wanted one anyway. :)

So yesterday I actually pulled it out of the box and made sure I wasn't going to injure myself with it - boys may get excited by things like miter saws and robot vacuums, but I'm pretty excited about this kind of machine.

Successfully threaded and ready for action!

So I didn't actually do anything with it besides obsessively read the manual and thread with new colors and do a test round of serging to make sure I could actually operate this thing.  Ta da!

Yeah, I know, it's not that exciting, but it's exciting for me

In related fabric news, Craig fell in like with some puppy dog crib bedding at Buy Buy Baby (I would say "fell in love," but Craig would tell you that it's impossible for him to fall in love with something like crib bedding), and while I could appreciate the adorableness of the playing puppies, I was way less in love with the plaid...situation...that dominated the colors and style.  So in typical Erin fashion, I decided it would be smarter AND more economical to just make something cuter with even adorabler puppy dogs. In non-typical Erin fashion, I'll actually make this happen before the baby shows up.  I'm a major project procrastinator overanalyzer.

Project #1 - crib skirt.  I'm going to use the fancy new machine to serge the edges and then flip under for hemming with the other cool machine, use a TBD combination of these guys (imagine me, buying excessive amounts of fabric and bringing home options instead of just committing...):

...to appliqué adorable little puppy dogs in the shape of this super cute guy...

...onto a solid grey background. Undecided on whether to throw in a box pleat on the front skirt or not. Let's see how it turns out.  And if the entire thing turns out nothing like what I have pictured in my head, then we'll throw down $60 at Pottery Barn Kids for the animal alphabet version and I'll have a lovely pile of scraps.  Actually...it would save a lot of time to just spring for that whole set and be done with it...hmmmm.  We'll see how today goes.

Off to go sew!  You know, AND watch the Olympics.  Oh, and one more nursery update - we're paying a qualified professional to install crown molding in this particular room where the ceiling slopes onto the wall at a funky angle and we almost lost our minds trying to figure out how to work all the angles.  Worth every penny, should be done in a couple of weeks.  When the magical carpenter man also comes to install the new built-in bar and wine fridge for the kitchen/breakfast nook area...yay!

Culinary misadventures and batting 0.633

Not quite as successful with NaBloPoMo this year as in years past, but I'm going to call my 0.633 batting average for last month a relative success.  Can I just blame the baby?  That probably won't work until the kiddo is actually here...at any rate, got some catching up in there and will try to knock out more than one post a month going forward.  Maybe...

Turkey Day roundup!  The Bryans were all scattered this year, and Craig and I journeyed out to Virginia Beach to spend a few days with Momma Dale and Wes.  We had chilly days full of a cozy fire, lots o' food, football games galore (watching, not playing - who do you think we are?), movie and shopping outings, and general family good times.  But that "culinary misadventures" leading note?  Yeah...

Let's just say that last year's Thanksgiving, hosted at our house, had a couple of...mishaps along the way.  The things I was really worried about, like Craig deep-frying a turkey, went off without a hitch.  Things I hadn't thought about, like slicing off the end of my thumb with a mandoline and visiting the emergency room and leaving the rest of the Thanksgiving work to the crew at home...yeah, those were the things that happened.  So my mishap led to another mishap, which involved a certain Pendarvii placing the turkey thermometer in the oven...when it's made of plastic and has batteries and really isn't intended to go in the oven...resulting in a bit of a molten electronic mess.  Oopsie.

You would think everyone had learned their lesson, but I give you...

...molten thermometer, round two, from THIS year's Thanksgiving.  We really have to get the Pendarvii to stop doing these things.  Here's hoping next year is free of both emergency room visits AND molten thermometers...we're getting better!

You're breaking my heart, Raider boys...

Kinda fell off the blogging bandwagon for a week or so, didn't I?  Ok, so this version of NaBloPoMo didn't quite go according to plan, but here's to knocking out a few more posts over the next week.  I'll try to at least put up pie pictures.

Last weekend we turned stereotypical football adventures upside down when the girls went to the football game and the boys stayed at home.  What the what?!?  Don't worry, the guys had plenty of meat products and choice beverages to get them through the afternoon and evening, so I'm not too worried about them - unless there was some kind of secret spa outing that I know nothing about.  

We left the menfolk at home to tend to the toddlers, and Diana, Jen, and I headed out to the behemoth known as Cowboys Stadium (or AT&T Stadium for those of you keeping track of the dollars) to cheer on our Red Raiders as they took on the Baylor Bears.  Remember when this game used to be a guaranteed victory?  And not just that, but a lopsided victory and a chance for the third string to get out there and play a little bit?  Well, those days are long gone and Baylor is actually good.  Yeeps.  So this time around we were really just hoping that our guys would make a game of it and maybe, just maybe turn it into a good thing.

Well, I should have taken a picture of our faces in the first quarter when we were up 14-0 and believed that the Raider boys might actually have a chance to pull this one off...because it was pretty much all downhill after that as we handed them touchdowns and didn't really play defense.  Sigh.  Even with the smackdown, still a good time with my football girls and fellow Red Raider faithful.  If they can't hack it this Thursday against the Longhorns, at least I'll be able to just give in to my Thanksgiving food coma and forget all about it.

Everything is SO. BIG.

The massive jumbotron (apparently "video board" is the correct terminology) in all of its ridiculous glory

Back in business

Hiding in the depths of a slightly scary strip mall off a questionable part of Harry Hines (but really, how many parts of Harry Hines aren't questionable?) were my saviors, bringing my phone back from the brink of death in a mere forty minutes.  I even wrote them a review on Yelp singing their praises.  Of course, check back with me in a couple of weeks to make sure everything is still roses and rainbows, but hopefully my phone's guts are ok.  Phew.  It's painful to have to pay for these kinds of things at all, but I'm a lot happier with $250 (Internet guesstimates were right!) than the new phone cost.

So now instead of hanging out in a slimmer, cuter case, the phone is back in a trusty OtterBox.  The phone survived several drops in the cuter case...but now the trust is broken and there's no going back.  OtterBox for the win!

Man down!

So, probably best to limit the number of items you're juggling while making the precious walk from car to kitchen counter after fighting traffic for almost an hour and then arriving home to a dog, crazed from the chill in the air, spinning in wild circles.  Almost there, almost there...oh, dang, I dropped one thing on the cold, heartless, unforgiving ceramic tile.  Hmmm, what was it...oh, my phone!  No big whoop, that's what the case is for.  Oh, say what, now?  The case didn't actually stop the screen from cracking and the LCD crapping out so that now all I see are some sad lines amid a sea of black sorrow and nothingness?  Fudgeballs.

In the interest of not spending $600+ on a new phone when I've had this one all of three months, I'm attempting to find a local phone doctor who can work some magic and bring this little guy back to life.  I don't know anything about how to fix this, but the Internet is full of magical knowledge that tells me this is totally fixable and will theoretically cost about $250.  We'll see how it really goes...

Say a little prayer for the phone, guys.  It's not time for it to go to phone heaven yet.

A very valued customer

I'm a big believer in online shopping.  Perhaps a little obsessive about online shopping, considering one Mr. Vaughn points out that there's an Amazon box on our doorstep more often than not.  Which is not exactly true, but I did come home to three boxes today.  Look, I can't help it if Amazon sometimes ships one order in two different boxes...so those two boxes definitely really only count as one.  And obviously it makes perfect sense to buy Toms online because that's where the biggest selection is, so you can overanalyze the purchase by comparing styles AND colors WHILE reading all of the reviews.  It's really just the intelligent way to shop.  I think these are the winners, by the way.  So that was the other box.

The Amazon order consisted of three books, a page-a-day calendar for 2014 (I'm ahead of the game on that one), and a new set of flexible cutting boards for the kitchen because we destroy them on a pretty regular basis.  I was less than excited about one of the books, and while normally I'm not overly anxious about getting a $15 refund, I figured I would go ahead and send this one back so that the $15 could be better spent on other amazing Amazon products like anything you could ever want EVER because they have it all.  So I went and selected the book for return and gave the reason "no longer needed/wanted," which is just the nice to say that I totally changed my mind and just don't want this at all.  Click.

"Since you are a valued customer, there is no need to return this item in order for us to issue you a refund.  Please feel free to keep the item, and we will issue the $14.62 refund to your method of payment in 3-5 business days."

Well, thank you!!  I mean, who does that?  We'll give you your money back, but just go ahead and keep the thing you don't really want anymore and maybe it'll grow on you.  That's cool, you spend a gazillion dollars with us and we'll just spot you the $14.62.

While this is completely awesome, it also makes me wonder just exactly how much I've spent on Amazon in the last...omg, ELEVEN YEARS.  My first Amazon order was in March 2002.  For a VHS copy (let me repeat that...V. H. S.  Woah...) of the entertaining and mushy One Fine Day, which I think I sent Mom & Dad for their anniversary.  Yeeps.  I might put my analytical skills to use later today and add up the grand Amazon total...maybe.  It might be too scary.

Woooooah, we're halfway there! Woooah-OH!

A couple of weeks ago, as I was preparing to enjoy a well-deserved freebie day off after the busy season ridiculousness, I woke up to a cryptic note from the husband telling me to be at Meddlesome Moth at 5:45 (ummm, ok, we had talked about going to dinner, but why are we dining at early bird special hour?), feed the dog before I left (so we're going to be gone for a little while...), and wear comfortable shoes.  I followed up the shoe guidance with a "could my shoes get dirty?" question, which was answered with a maybe...so I really had no idea what I was in for.

Show up for dinner and Carolyn and Allen are there, too - hooray, friends, I like this surprise!  And they're totally dressed normally with their comfortable shoes, so I'm not too worried about things.  Sit down, order drinks, and then Craig somewhat unceremoniously presents me with four pieces of paper.  Ooohh, are these tickets?!?  Lion King is going on tonight at Fair Park!  What, it's not Lion King?  I'm sorry that was my first reaction...as Craig just sighs and shakes his head.  Actually, I had mentioned months ago "oh, Bon Jovi's coming to the AAC!  That could be kinda fun..." and then didn't think twice about it.  Guess who was paying attention?  That's right, kids, all four of us are going to go rock out to Bon Jovi tonight!  Happy birthday to me!  Enjoy some semi-pathetic phone pics of Bon Jovi dashing by and the band doing what it does.  It was awesome.

Because he's ridiculous, Husband also surprised me with a cool new computer as an additional birthaversary present (birthday 10/31 + anniversary 11/5 = birthaversary awesomeness!) - it took a million years to transfer all my files from the old computer, mostly because I have eleventy bajillion pictures.

Also, this whole Windows 8 and touch screen situation?  It's SO confusing and frustrating and I think I'm actually going to have to sit down and read about it so I can actually figure out how to close things.  But give me a week or so and I bet I think it's really cool.

You rock, husband.

I miss *real* books, but I like instant gratification

Reeeeeeeading summary for 2012!  I have to say, I've really become a fan of the handy Nook app on my tablet, mostly because it enables my laziness - I want a book, I tap the screen, it's instantly mine.  Technology is wonderful.  And more expensive than hitting up the bargain shelves at Half-Price Books, yeeps.  But it does save me time and keep me a little more current in my reading selections...I'll take it.

Thirty-five books made it onto the list in 2012, which is quite a victory considering my last three books of the year were the first three books in the Song of Ice and Fire craziness.  It's just epic in every sense of the word.  These books are BEASTS that don't even fit into a category (well, an Erin category, anyway) - so just know that Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords are well worth your time, but only if you want to embark on this whooooole journey.  Word of warning, the series is still in the works, blerg - I hate not knowing how everything is going to go.  I'm also concerned with the gaps between book release dates for Mr. Martin, and The Winds of Winter can't get here soon enough.  Of course, now I'm obsessed with the show on HBO.  March 31 also can't get here soon enough.* 

* "Game of Thrones" premiere AND that much closer to 4/15.  Not as crazy busy as PwC, but still a little busier than I'd like.  Oh, taxes.

On to the rest!

LOVED, GO FORTH AND READ, NOW

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - I think this was my favorite standalone (not in a series/trilogy type thingy) book of the year - disturbing, gripping, couldn't put it down

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky - I actually really don't want to see the movie because I just know the book will be infinitely better

Already Gone by John Rector

WEIRD THINGS YOU MAY OR MAY NOT LIKE

The Twelve by Justin Cronin - if I talked you into The Passage last year, then you probably already know about this

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - if you can handle a touch of the fantastic, then go for this one

I DON'T REALLY REMEMBER WHAT EVEN HAPPENED IN THIS BOOK, BUT I THINK I LIKED IT, SO GO AHEAD AND READ THEM

Drinking Closer to Home by Jessica Anya Blau - I remember both laughing and going into sad mode, so there's something here

Labor Day by Joyce Maynard

I DIDN'T LIKE THIS AS MUCH AS I THOUGHT I WOULD

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn - I really freakin' loved Gone Girl, so I thought another Gillian Flynn book would be a  slam dunk...and it was decent, but definitely didn't live up to to Gone Girl.  Which I couldn't put down.  So as I've already mentioned, go read that one instead.

Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik - Paris, it's amazing!!  So why couldn't I get into this book?  Yeah, just no.

GIRLISH, RECOMMENDED...MOSTLY

Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan

More Jill Mansell books - but they all kinda blended together (Staying at Daisy's, Perfect Timing, An Offer You Can't Refuse), so I don't remember which one I liked the best. Just give them all a British accent in your mind and you're good to go.

BETTER THAN EXPECTED

Nelson DeMille books - The Gate House, The Lion's Game, The Lion.  Momma Dale got me started on these, and I was expecting a lesser version of James Patterson - but I really enjoyed them!  Action-adventure-spy-movie + sarcastic/dry/witty humor in book form.

ANOTHER PLUS FOR THE E-READER BECAUSE NO ONE KNEW WHAT I WAS READING

Yes, I read the Fifty Shades thing.  Meh.  Not really for me.

REPEAT OF AWESOMENESSS

I re-read the Hunger Games trilogy in prep for the awesome movie.  I'll probably read them again before #2 comes out.  LOVE.  Will always be a recommended yes.

I love to read.

Makeover!

For the blog, not for me.  Although I probably could use a haircut...

A little more streamlined, a little more functional, always a work in progress, but I think it's pretty darn cute now.  Still have some tweaks to work on, but I just like looking at it. =)

Happy weekend, y'all!  We're about to embark on an epic weed/clean/landscape fabric/mulch adventure in the flower beds, and if you'll recall past experience, I foresee some physical pain in my future.  Manual labor, ick.  At least we're tackling it in March instead of May...

Automatic thread-cutting is the bomb, y'all

Contrary to the accountant part of my brain that tends to guide my spreadsheet-loving ways and general first impressions ("oh, you must be good at math!" = sigh...), I love making things.  And being crafty and creative and spending too much money at Jo-Ann.  And in a stroke of his own creative genius, Craig lovingly braved a scary place called Sewing World a few months ago (all by himself!  I'm beyond proud) and got me a kick-ass new sewing machine (can a sewing machine be kick-ass?  I think so...) for my birthday. 

hello, my love

I was in a state of shock at first and really scared to use it because it's all computery and LCDed where my trusty old machine was very...not...but I finally sat down with it and read the manual page by page and made it do things and IT'S AMAZING.  I didn't know things like automatic thread-cutting could be a part of my life, and now I'm not sure how I lived quite so long without it.  Dramatic much?  Who, me?  Never!  I'm also glad we have a giant dining room table adjacent to my crafty space command center so I can explode onto it with excessive amounts of stuff in my crafty adventures.

I had a baby shower to go to last weekend and used that as a convenient excuse to go on a "tiny things are adorable!!" bender for learning the sewing machine.  It was also a great excuse to do dorky things like make my own bias tape with this really cool little doodad.  I told Craig it was my version of a power tool.  He was not really impressed.  Anyway, see adorable tiny things below:

tiny things are adorable, prepster edition - square cookie cutters also make really excellent templates for appliqué

tiny things are adorable, owl + teeny onesie dress edition

I may have become slightly obsessed with tiny owls.  Aren't they just adorable??  

who wouldn't want a tiny adorable stuffed owl?  it was even soft and cuddly with its snuggle fleece body.  oh, owl, I love you.

However, my temporary obsession may have also turned Craig against tiny owls.

Erin:  Craig, look at this tiny owl!  Isn't it just super-cute?
Craig:  Uh-huh.
Twenty minutes later...
Erin:  Omgggg, how freaking cute is THIS tiny owl?  I just love him!
Craig:  Uh-huh.
Really not too much later...
Erin (possibly for the fourteenth time):  Craig, look at this tiny owl!!  Isn't it adorable?!?
Craig:  Please don't show me any more owls.

So then I just started showing the owls to Zach and Harry for approval, which was going pretty well until Zach decided he might like to maim and destroy the tiny stuffed owl, which was absolutely not part of my plan.  Fortunately, no animals, real or fabric-made, were harmed in the making of the tiny owls.

A couple of our friends from DC also recently welcomed a sweet little boy into the world, so I toned down the level of owlsy cuteness and switched from pink & green to blue & yellow for some teensy little boy craftiness, too.

And then to make Zach feel better for denying him the pleasure of destroying a stuffed thing, I made a little label for his new bed.  It now says "zach" in really cute letters instead of saying "KONG" in ugly letters.  He loves it.  And I love automatic thread-cutting (even more than I love tiny owls...I think).  Thanks, honey.  On to curtains!

Vrooooom zoom whoom!

Hiiiiiiiii.  How do I even begin to catch up?  What with Life Whirlwind Extravaganza 2012 going on (formal title to just mean I've been BUSY), the blog has fallen by the wayside, and that just makes me sad because I'd love to capture all of the little details of this part of my life and preserve them while I actually remember them.  Also, you know how many pictures I've taken in the last six months?  Not NEARLY enough.  Still way too many by Craig's standards, but not nearly enough for me.

Let's just start somewhere then, ok?  Somewhere like two months ago when, after many weekends of test-driving and over-analyzing, WE. BOUGHT. A. NEW. CAR.  Eeeeeeeee!!  After twelve solid years and 100,000 miles (finally!) with the trusty CR-V...

Yes, I nerdily took pictures as it flipped from 99,999 to 100,000 - don't worry, I was coasting very slowly through an empty parking lot in Deep Ellum.  Ok, maybe you should worry about that...

...we still have the CR-V!  We opted to let go of the car that still had payments, and Craig's kinda hopped on the SUV bandwagon anyway now that we live in the land of giant monster vehicles - I think he felt teeny tiny on the highways in the BMW.  But don't worry, I gave it a big hug before we let it go.

I manage to get remarkably attached to inanimate objects.

And here's the new baby!!

It's a Ford Edge, and I'm in love.  There are now armrests for both driver AND passenger.  I can TALK to my car and she understands me (sometimes).  It still smells good.  It has a really cool touchscreen and tells me what song is on the radio and it's just lovely.  Given that I probably won't get another new car for a decade, I'm really embracing the moment here.  Also, a MASSIVE sunroof and really cool ambient lighting.  And fancy leather seats.  Sigh.

Oh, and guess what?  I managed to put a pretty good scrape on the front bumper after being in the car for approximately ten seconds.  It's just now starting to be funny.  All fixed now.  Oh, and guess what else?  A devious little rock decided to make friends with the windshield last weekend, and there is a nasty crack snaking its way across, so...getting that fixed this afternoon.  Let's hope this doesn't continue to be a spend-$500-on-the-car-every-month-because-something-goes-wonky adventure.  Yipes.

I still love it.

I heart the reading

Resolution win = book recs for you!  But first, the way I read books has changed a little bit because for my birthday, my husband went and got me one of those nifty tablet thingies...I'm assuming mostly because he saw how many books/magazines I hauled around the country during our extended Christmas 2010 travels, and I think he was very VERY concerned about what would happen on our Costa Rican honeymoon if my bag was overweight due to books.  Seriously.  So I'm now at least semi-on the e-reader bandwagon.

I will never, ever stop loving real books.  I love them.  But here are some good things about the e-reader...

1. I can get new things to read RIGHT NOW.  You know, provided the tablet is charged and I have an internet connection.  But generally...RIGHT NOW.
2. Portability, especially when traveling.  One tablet weighs way less than the hardcover set of Hunger Games, a back-up paperback, and four magazines.  Promise.
3. Look up feature.  If I come across a word I don't know, I'll just highlight it and look it up in the dictionary.  Vocabulary win.
4. I was having trouble thinking of pros, but Craig says: "duh, you can play games on it."  I said I have a computer for that.  Whatevs.
5. Craig also says: "no paper cuts."  I'm not sure the last time a book gave me a paper cut, but I'll give him this one.
6. Craig says: "a few raindrops hurt a book.  Tablet, just fine."  Actually what he really said was something about it being more impervious to water (impervious!), so I put it in Erin words.  I tried to counter this with "ok, but if you drop either one in the bathtub, they're both goners!" - he just sighed at me.

Not so great for the following things...

1. Borrowing/sharing/lending/loaning.  It's just much easier to swap paper books with your friends.
2. The aforementioned "needs to be charged" business - can be really inconvenient sometimes.  Craig has some nifty converter in his car that lets me plug it in, which saved me life during our Christmas driving.
3. Screen glare - not usually a huge issue since I can adjust the brightness, but it's not perfect when I'm outdoors.
4. Durability.  Paper books do perfectly fine when you drop them on the ground.  The tablet...well, there's now some boo-boos on it and a small scratch on the screen.
5. Speaking of the screen...it's ALWAYS dirty in SOME way.  I can't wipe the fingerprints off a thousand times a day.  And that bothers the OCD in me.
6. Minor, but you know how you have to shut off electronic devices for take-off and landing?  Yeah, you can keep reading a real book.

Doesn't cut straight pro or straight con, but worth mentioning:

1. The shopping experience has really changed.  I love nothing more than going to Half Price Books for an hour and perusing the shelves, checking out back covers and finding bargains and things I might otherwise never have found.  It's a little more organized to shop on the tablet...but just not the same experience.
2. The reader apps aren't quite the same, and I have to give NOOK a thumbs-up over the Kindle on this one...mostly for the nerdy feature than turning a page feels slightly more like actually turning a page.  Yup, that does it.

So now...I just read both kinds of books.  Paper and electronic.  And it works.

Oh, and in the interested of being an organized reader and keeping up with what my friends are reading and finding cool new books, I'm also now on goodreads, which is a fun website that lets you add books you've read and rate them and organize them on bookshelves and add a bookshelf of your "to-read" books and what you're currently reading and it's just cool.  Do it.  If you're a nerd like me.

Book notes from my 2011 reading list.  Here you go.

AWESOME, read these immediately if you haven't already:

The Passage (this one is a beast and kinda crazy/scary/weird, but I really got into it and blasted through it MUCH more quickly than I thought I would) by Justin Cronin
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series by Stieg Larsson
The Help by Kathryn Stockett

GOOD, put it on your list:

The Unnamed and Then We Came To The End, both by Joshua Ferris
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Devil in the White City by Eric Larson

DAMN, THESE WERE LONG, but mostly I'm glad I made it through them in the end:

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose

FOODISH, and definitely good for my other foodie people out there:

The Sweet Life in Paris by David Leibovitz
Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl

NICE AND FLUFFY for the gals.  Or the guys.  No judgment:

The Blue Bistro by Elin Hilderbrand
Jill Mansell books:  Take a Chance on Me, Rumor Has It, Miranda's Big Mistake (probably never would have read these without their $1.99 price tags and prominent placement on NOOK list, so possibly score one more for the e-reader)

WAH-WAH:

Songs of the Humpback Whale by Jodi Picoult.  Normally I really enjoy her books, but this one...nope.  One of her earlier books that you can definitely skip.

Go forth and read!!

Home sweet home

Before actually moving into this rental house in February, I'd lived in apartments/dorms for the last...oh, ten and a half years or so.  So actually living in a HOUSE with SPACE and a BACKYARD is something of a revelation to me.

A few of these revelations and new experiences...

 - Constantly Swiffering hardwood floors.  Which was driving me crazy.  On a daily basis.  Sooooo...there's now this little robot roaming around our home on a daily basis around noon. Craig finally talked me into a Roomba.  We've named it Chalupa...you know, because it's round.  And we love Mexican food.  It seemed semi-logical at the time...plus I think Craig thought I might love it even more if we gave it a name.

Craig said I wasn't allowed to put this picture on the blog because he basically hates all pictures of himself, which he is DEFINITELY going to have to get over (hello, have you met me and my camera??)...so I just did some strategic editing.  I promise he's smiling really big.  Next time I just won't ask him and post it anyway.

 - So many rooms I didn't know what to do with them...especially while I was waiting for the rest of the furniture (you know, that whole roommate bit) to show up.  Now, though...we've done a fairly excellent job of filling every nook and cranny to the max.  And there are even things on the walls!

 - Buying things in bulk.  Like paper towels.  I actually have somewhere to put them.  Oh, and there's this thing called a garage.  It's so cool.

 - Outdoor space!!  And the option to do things like plant herbs (I have some exploding basil going on, which I'm very excited about)...

...and enjoy a patio/deck (especially now that it's shaded due to this cool canopy thing Craig and Dad put together - good work, boys!)...

...and use real flames to transform normal food into grilltastic meals.  Boys come with some cool stuff.

Now, please excuse me while I go do things like learn how to steam mop and pull 3 foot weeds (eeekk!) from our flowerbeds.

Where do you get your news?

Katie Couric is apparently throwing in the towel on this whole "hosting the evening news" gig...but I don't care.  Well, and you probably don't either.  And based on her ratings, neither do a whole lot of other people.  But I really don't care because I don't get my news from the evening news.  I'm rarely home in time to watch it anyway, and even if I am...I'd rather watch a rerun of Scrubs and then catch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert a few hours later in the night to fill me in on what's really going on.

If I watch TV "news" at all.  Isn't that really what the interwebs are for?  I spend my day in front of a computer, and why would I want to watch the news when I can selectively scroll through whateverwhatever.com and pick the headlines I'm interested in?

I'm afraid the days of Tom Brokaw (or, for an earlier generation, Walter Cronkite) may be over.  Those dramatic "breaking news" moments are a little less dramatic when Twitter exploded twenty minutes earlier with all the "news" you need to know. 

I'd rather just read The Onion. 

I'm not on the e-reader bandwagon...yet

I LOVE books.  Actual books.  Not fake pages on a screen that you "flip."  I just can't get into that.  Although I probably will someday.  Sigh.  How long can I resist the iPad when everyone I know is singing its praises?  Craig's had the NOOK (or is it nook?  Or Nook?  I can't tell...) for about a year and is pretty much sold on it, especially when he saw how many books and magazines I hauled around over the holidays to provide myself entertainment.  I think he was a little shocked.  Hmmmm....

I resolve to read at least 30 books in 2011.  And I'm hard at work on this one since that whole "lose 25 pounds" thing is going to test my resolve more than I had hoped.  Sigh again.  So I'll encourage everyone else to get out there and read, too, if for no other reason than it provides an escape from the life of spreadsheets or call center questions or screaming children or whatever it is that's testing you these days.  To that end, here are my suggestions from a selection of the 32 books I read last year.  I kept a list.  That's why I knew how many I'd read.  What, you're shocked?  This is me we're talking about.  Of course there was a list.

I loved these, please read them as soon as humanly possible:

1. Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins
2. My Life in France by Julia Child
3. Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
4. Travel Writing by Peter Ferry
5. Naked by David Sedaris
6. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

These were pretty good, too, go ahead and add them to your list:

1. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
2. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
3. The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult
4. London is the Best City in America by Lori Gottlieb
5. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
6. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

Rereads for me, prompted by vacation and movie-viewing, that you should go ahead and read for the first time if you haven't already read them, or just skip Harry Potter if you have strong feelings about not reading young adult wizard fiction:

1. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

Girly books that didn't make toooooo much of an impression on me when I couldn't bring myself to read the books I felt like I should read to enhance my knowledge and bucket of cultural reference but that are probably quiet sufficient for a lazy afternoon on a beach somewhere:

1. The Guy Not Taken by Jennifer Weiner
2. Barefoot by Elin Hilderbrand
3. The Other Woman by Jane Green
4. Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

Do not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES read this crap book:

1. In the Kitchen by Monica Ali

Partyin' and chillaxin' in the NYC

Time to catch up on blog-worthy events!  And I definitely consider a weekend in NYC a blog-worthy event, especially when it includes time with my favorite (and likely only - it's a pretty unique name) Gajderoroberts clan AND celebrating upcoming wedded bliss with Dana and her stellar family and friends.  Although there wasn't really much that was all NEW YORK CITY about this weekend, which was a nice change.  I kinda like going to New York with some degree of familiarity and navigating Penn Station with minimal confusion and knowing how to get to various places in the city without appearing totally lost and just spending time with some good friends.  Works for me.

Setting:  approximately three weeks ago.  Not bad considering I've been in a blurry haze for the last month or so.  I blame Craig (not just "the boy" anymore - that's right, he gets a name!).  New York City - multiple boroughs and many train/subway adventures.

Reason:  Dana's bridal shower prompted the trip, and it's also impossible for me to go to that city and miss a chance to spend time with two dear friends and my adorable pseudo-nephew.

Friday evening arrival.  Greeted by friends, cheese, crackers, fruit, and wine.  Living room picnic ensues while cute little one snoozes the night away.  I love our living room picnics filled with tastiness and wonderful conversation.  A lot of life to catch up on in those couple of hours.  Delightful.

In tackling the weekend's events, one must always consider what Mother Nature has in store.  Unlike last year's horizontal rain and crazy random wind tunnels during this time of year, this year we just had...normal rain!  I know, I know, you were hoping for perfect skies and stories of "dreary winter?  what dreary winter?" - but alas, it was not to be.  At least Saturday was relatively weather-free, and I had a fantastic time catching up with Dana and spending some time with my surrogate East Coast family.  Love the Duffins!!  

Doesn't the bride-to-be look festive in her bedazzled sombrero?  I LOVE the sombrero flair!

Most of Saturday was consumed by the epic awesomeness that was the bridal shower and what I'll refer to as the after-party at the Duffin home, and then that blasted rain confined us to the indoors for a better part of Sunday.  Not that I'm really complaining.  I mean, we indulged in Eggs Benedict (homemade!!  way to knock it out of the park, Jason) and oodles of coffee and and spent quality time with a certain cute kiddo and just chilled.  Which was awesome.

So curious.  And adorable.



Ummm...Alan...you're not quite hiding all the way...



I see you!

Did you know you can have the Wii entertain and educate your small child?  How awesome is that?!?  Good work, Alan!

You can get the full spin from the weekend here on Picasa.

A little less personal sharing

I decided to embrace National UnFriend Day.  Not necessarily because I have an obscene number of Facebook "friends" who aren't really friends at all, but I thought it might be time to cut loose a few.  Mostly people from high school that I haven't spoken to since high school. Come to think of it, I don't know if I even really spoke to some of these people in high school.  Or those people I've hidden from my newsfeed because their status updates are too annoying or frequent or just straight-up ridiculous.  Sorry, some of you are out there.

But when the time came to hit the button...and "unfriend" someone...why did I feel bad about these things??  It's ridiculous.  Facebook, you're making me crazy.

Don't worry, I kept all my real friends.  No interest in cutting you fine people out of my life.

I gave the boot to a grand total of...eight people.  Didn't make a whole lot of progress there.  This may have something to do with my natural tendency to be nosy.

Shopping at its finest

I believe shopping can often best be done from the comfort of your own home in your pjs.  Which really wasn't a viable option all that long ago.  Can you remember a world where Amazon wouldn't bring your every last whim to your doorstep?  I mean, Amazon - it's kinda like Wal-Mart, only about a thousand times more awesome.  It has EVERYTHING.  I've also become addicted Etsy for things like adorable cards (I ♥ paper products!) and custom-made earrings and other cutesy things.  Clothes can still be a little iffy, but I love Shabby Apple and ModCloth and the usual suspects in the form of Old Navy/Gap/Banana Republic and Loft/Ann Taylor.

Online shopping also serves me well on those occasions when I'm shopping for someone else and might not ever actually visit the kind of physical store that sells things like King Ranch caps.  That one's for you, Dad.  And NOW they send me catalogues, of course.  When's the last time anyone actually ordered something from a catalogue??  I'm talking filling out the form and mailing it in kind of thing.  Does anyone do that now?

I kinda love having coffee delivered to my home.  And I don't allow myself to actually go in Sephora for fear of spending triple digit amounts on things I don't need that won't miraculously cure my skin of all that ails it.  And I found great shoes to walk around Spain in...but NOT in a store.  These didn't exist in any store in the D.C. metro area.  Trust me, I tried.

You know what I've purchased online in the last week?  Well, no, you don't.  But I'm going to share it anyway:

• Essential makeup supplies from Sephora, including a Clinique eyeliner I've recently fallen in love with.
• Custom holiday cards from Snapfish - I used one of my pictures from last year's Snowmaggedon adventures.  Pretty excited about them.
• Tickets via Groupon for my sissy and I to see Paula Deen at the Metropolitan Cooking and Entertaining Show this weekend.  Excited to see my sissy AND to hang out with the Queen of Butter.
• Replacement rubber foot for my laptop from Amazon.
• A gift to be delivered as my substitute for not actually being able to attend something since I live halfway across the country from the something. 

Power to the interwebs!  And yes, I have my credit card number...actually, two credit card numbers...memorized.  Maybe I do a little toooo much online shopping.

In case you were wondering about the cheese...

...you know, the anniversary, thanks for all your hard work, here's what five years gets you cheese?  You probably weren't wondering about it, actually, but I figured the cheese review should go ahead and make an appearance here on the blog.

And yes, I've been a little blog-absent over the last week and a half or so.  I promise there's a total crap good reason for this - I was volunteering evenings at a local animal shelter, assembling care packages for our troops overseas, putting in extended evening workouts to burn off things like strawberry pie ... obsessively watching the first three seasons of "Friday Night Lights" thanks to the evil geniuses at Netflix who made it available on instant viewing.  Consider yourself warned.  Also consider yourself warned from catching the first three episodes of season four on Hulu and the remaining season four episodes through Comcast On Demand so that you're completely caught up and ready for tomorrow night's new episode.  Yipes.

Anyway, back to the cheese.  I received a shipment of the Cowgirl Collection from Cowgirl Creamery, thereby discovering from a quick trip to the website that my five years of service add up to $55 plus shipping and taxes.  Hmmmm.  Although in today's trying times I suppose I should be happy to receive anything at all.

Back to the cheese again.  I decided to practice for my trip to Spain and have a tapas-ish dinner, celebrating the glory of the cheese with a few olives and piquillo peppers and crusty bread and cured meat.  Not the healthiest of dinners, I realize, but I'm an adult and can eat whatever I want for dinner.  So, when all was said and done, I ended up with this (and yes, I realize how organized it is - have you met me?).

See that cheese in the very middle of the plate?  Notice how it's not quite as organized, and how it's missing its rind?  Yeah, that's the incredibly smelly cheese that actually comes with a warning label regarding its smelliness:

Thanks for the warning and all, but...dang, this was a smelly cheese.  In fact, I'd left all of the cheese sealed up in the styrofoam container it came in just to prevent the smelly cheese from smelling up my entire refrigerator.  And when I finally cracked open the smelly cheese, its appearance and even stronger smell wasn't really doing much to appeal to my taste buds or olfactory senses.  But I bravely cut a wedge...and hacked off the rind to try to get rid of some of the offending material...but I just really couldn't get past it.  It smelled horrible, and I just couldn't handle that when trying to eat it.  Red Hawk...fail.  I had to wash that smell off my hands so I could actually enjoy the rest of my meal.

Come to think of it, anything wrapped in nettles doesn't exactly look promising, either.  St. Pat cheese over there to your left.  Smelled a thousand times better than the Red Hawk, which already had it off to a good start in my book.  And it was edible!!  Not the most amazing cheese experience I've ever had, but I didn't have to pinch my nose to try to get it down, so let's consider that one a success, even if it does look a little scary.

And then...and then I didn't have to try to look past the Day-Glo orange smelly rind or the nettles reminiscent of mold.  And then...I found a winner.  Mt. Tam.  A "smooth, creamy, elegant, 10-oz, triple-cream - made with tasty organic milk from the Straus Family Dairy...firm, yet buttery with a mellow, earthy flavor reminiscent of white mushrooms."  Now THIS was tasty cheese.  Not as squishy as Brie, just a touch firmer, and crazy tasty.  This cheese is gone now, and not because it met an untimely end in the garbage...ahem, Red Hawk.  I just couldn't do it.  But Mt. Tam I could do.

Maybe I should have gotten that crystal bowl after all.

Nah.

Then my taste buds would have been bored.