Hinkypunk Station

In Which I Have No Tennis Ball

2012-02-02T13:23:00.003-07:00

And now for the final act...the Tennis Ball's last stand.

But first I have two things to say. 1) No one need feel bad for not knowing about any part of this saga. We kept it under our hats. 2) Thanks for the well wishes! They were much appreciated.

Back to the Tennis Ball.

Tuesday dawned very early so that we could be to the hospital at 6 AM. We waited for a bit then I was sent off to get my blood drawn. Let me state for the record that I had my blood taken a number of times in January and never had a single problem. Sometimes I even watched the needle go in just to be tough. This time I got all hot and dizzy by the third vial and had to crumple up in the chair so I wouldn't pass out. After I dry heaved a little I felt all better.

The rest of the morning was much less eventful. In fact, I will break it down into the events that transpired, chronologically:

1) Nurse Jose walked in on my half-dressed self.
2) I put on Hospital Socks so my freshly painted red toenails went unappreciated.
3) I camped out in the pre-surgery area for a long time.
4) Nurse Jake made two attempts to get my IV in.
5) They took my glasses.

I mention my glasses because it meant that I never actually SAW the tiny robot hands in the room. I didn't see much at all except for blurry, blue-ish people wandering around a blurry room. Once I was on the table Nurse Jake told me to take some "yoga breaths" into the mask and I'm pretty sure I was out mid-courtesy laugh.

Can I just say how disorienting it is to wake up in a different place, in a different position with no memory of how you got there and without a brain capable of understanding anything? Well, it is. I have no idea how long I was in the recovery room, but at some point the nurse asked if I wanted to go see my husband and I said "Yeeeahhhhhhhh."

Off I went back to my room, falling asleep along the way. I am delighted to say that I had the mental capacity to follow through with my one goal for the day, and that was to make my first words to Drew be "What happened about me?" I DID IT.

And now for the medical information portion of this story. I actually never saw the doctor after the surgery, but he gave Drew the scoop whilst I was busy being passed out. Drew even got to see pictures of the Tennis Ball! I'm so jealous. I'm hoping I get to see them at the follow up appointment. It seems unfair that so many people have seen my innards and yet I am not one of those people.

Oh, back to the medical stuff. Essentially, they made three smallish incisions and the Tennis Ball was taken out without a hitch. They also found a bit of endometriosis on one ovary (why does it feel so TMI to write the word "ovary"?) and snipped that off as well. Who knew, right? It's strange to think that so many things can be going on in your body without your knowledge. Thank goodness for tiny robot hands. Oh, and those doctors.

I spent most of the afternoon doing this:
I also spent some time lying on the bathroom floor because I thought I would pass out in there. There is no picture of that.

But here are some pictures of the prizes I got:

The sponsors of "How to Survive Wednesday"

At long, long, long last! And not a trace of...whatever that new one is called (that's a legitimate brain freeze)

I wish I had got a picture of these at the hospital when they were in better spirits. Hydrangeas are so lovely and so fickle.

Flowers from work. Thanks, work!

And thus the end of the saga. I have since named my snip snapped abdomen Tummy Tummisimo, and it appears to be healing up fine. It seemed weird to post a picture of the snip snaps, but if you would like to see how it all looks, I will happily email it. Who WOULDN'T want to see my stomach, right!?!?

In Which I Send the Tennis Ball Off in Style

2012-01-30T19:46:00.005-07:00

I mean, it's the least I could do after...hmm...well, never mind that. Anyway, here's how the ol' Tennis Ball and I are spending the night:

Stopping at the library to stock up on reading material
Eating a lot of delicious Indian food
(In case you're wondering--we had Chicken Tikka Masala, Lamb with mushrooms, garlic naan, regular naan and cucumber Raita...so good)

Watching some Daria
Playing some Harry Potter
Having this fellow wait on my every whim (you're doing great at it, fellow!)
I hope you've enjoyed your night, Tennis Ball, because you aren't getting Indian food and snuggles where you're going.

In Which I Expound on a Tennis Ball

2012-01-29T09:33:00.004-07:00

Disclaimer: Hopefully this blog post does not sound blithe. I'm not blithe about it per se, but I prefer to write about it with a certain degree of blitheness. It's a skill I learned from Gilbert Blythe. Oops, there's that blitheness.

Once upon a time, at the start of 2012, I was with child, but spoiler: I'm not anymore. I'm not saying that to get pity or whatever (though of course I won't turn down pity)--it was very early and it's just one of those things that happens. But it does play a pivotal role in the rest of the story so there it is.

So back in the early days of 2012 (ie, January 3), I was at home with Drewbles. I'd started bleeding the day before and it was getting worse the next day so we decided to get a professional opinion on the situation. We tried one place, then another and were finally sent to the ER, which makes this story sound much more urgent that it really was. It's much more dull when you know that insurance coverage and a lack of certain equipment was the blame.

And so began my first foray into the ER. It mostly consisted of Drew and me sitting there talking about how we had been sitting there forever. But in the process of our stay, which lasted several hours, they did a *ahem* quite invasive ultrasound and the doctor casually announced there was "a mass." After which he proceeded to leave and never return. Thanks, doctor!

The doctor arranged to send us to a nearby women's clinic two days later so they could pilfer some more of my blood. He also set up an appointment with another doctor, who turned out to be totally MIA the day of the appointment. Thanks, doctor!

Luckily one of the nurses came to talk to us and actually was interested in the mass! Thanks, nurse! So what was that mass? A uterine fibroid. (Fibroid=a benign growth) Can you guess how big it is? Yep, it's the size of a tennis ball. Just a fleshy mass the size of a tennis ball all up in my bidness.

By the by, I don't recommend doing a google search for pictures of fibroids.

It was another few days before we could meet with a third doctor, who actually exists AND was very helpful. He confirmed the miscarriage and we talked a long time about this fibroid. Since they're benign, doctors often will just leave them if they aren't causing any symptoms. But given the size of mine and the possibility that it is squishing my baby-making vitals, the doctor said it would be best to take it out. He also said there's a chance it could be an ovarian cyst, which means I could wind up one short in that department. BUT we'll be optimistic and stick with the fibroid theory. So this is what is going to happen this Tuesday:

Just imagine that penny is a tennis ball. Okay, so maybe that isn't *exactly* how the surgery will go. Actually the best part about this whole thing (besides having the tennis ball removed, I suppose) is what will actually be doing all the work:
Tiny robot hands! That may not be the official term but you get the idea. Here is how it actually all works:
The doctor sits yonder and controls the robot hands while utilizing a tiny robot camera to see the insides. In the past they removed fibroids via c-section so let's give medical science a big hurray.

So instead of having a baby AND a tennis ball, we now just have the tennis ball. Hopefully sometime we will have the one and not the other, but at any rate, come Tuesday the tennis ball will be history.

In Which I am Successful

2012-01-28T16:08:00.006-07:00

Remember the magnets I made to improve my running motivation? Well, they were not *entirely* successful, but I did keep using them. It was encouraging to see a board with at least a few magnets on it, but my motivation for running was just MIA until last fall or so. Even so, it has been a good long time since my board looked like this:
5 days of running, 3 times with Pilates and one 5K! I'm hoping this will make up for not doing a lick of anything next week, and I'm also hoping this same motivation will stick around until the week after. It's so much easier to sit at a desk all day when I've been running beforehand.

And just because you asked, here are pictures from the 5K this morning. Drew's Pop came along too and both menfolk placed first in their age group. Drew also won a frisbee of all things. I got um...well, anyway, it was great and fun and very cold.

(Check out those guns!)

(It was so bright I thought my eyeballs would burn up.)
Oh, did I mention that there was a frozen yogurt walking around?

Dilemmas

2012-01-26T11:38:00.003-07:00

Tonight we're supposed to have this white bean soup for dinner (pureed white beans and I get along). It's healthy, it's good for me and it requires using my immersion blender, which is always a treat. The trouble is that I keep thinking about something we had for dinner last week...
Look at them sitting there so innocently, stuffed with cheese and eggs and bacon. True, it would require a stop at the store while the poor white beans go neglected and unloved. But do I really care about beans in the face of this possibility?
No. The answer is no. Those beans never had a chance.

In Which I Compile Another List of Recipes (aka, Beans)

2012-01-25T08:47:00.003-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about tennis balls lately. I know that sounds ambiguous at best and random and stupid at worst, but it's still true. One of these days I will explain my tennis ball thoughts, but for now I will talk about food. Food > tennis balls.

On a side note, is anyone else still frustrated with extra holiday poundage? Harumph. Though I have to say, all that fudge was worth it...at the time...and now...

First, I have made chili. Not once but twice! In the same week! This is impressive because I have never been a big chili fan, mostly because I am not a big bean fan. Black beans and I are great friends. White beans and I are acquaintances. All the other beans and I are frenemies--I'll eat them when I must and make barfy noises the rest of the time. Black beans are the sole reason why I liked these two chilis:

Slow Cooker Chipotle Chicken & Black Bean Chili
I am a fan of anything in a crock pot. If I could make everything in a crock pot, I would. Anyway, this was super tasty. I'm not really sure exactly what the chipotle taste is, but it was good. And hot. Side note: if anyone knows what else to do with chipotle peppers in adobo sauce let me know...

Healthy Spicy Beef and Black Bean Chili
Super fast, super easy and tasty. I think if you spent a little more time on it it could be better and more interesting, spice-wise. But sometimes fast wins out over interesting.

Crock pot Mango Enchiladas
I combined these two recipes, and they were so very delicious. I don't know when exactly I became such an enchiladas fiend, but they're so good. They have quickly climbed up my list of favorite foods.

Bloomin' Onion Bread
My advice is to make this today. Maybe even right now. Then proceed to devour the whole thing in one sitting. Okay, don't do that, but that's what you'll WANT to do, despite knowing how much butter is in it. But I cannot say enough that you should make it RIGHT NOW.

Crockpot Cheddar Beer Chicken Tacos
Okay so ours were minus the beer. Still good! Yep, that's pretty much all I have to say about this.

Tomato sauce with Onion and Butter
We had this just last night and today I keep thinking about how good it was. I was skeptical--I mean, three ingredients? How could that really be so great? No, let me tell you--it was really, really good. It might have converted me from ever using bottled sauce again. It takes a little while, but for how much effort you actually have to put in it's totally worth it.

Buffalo Chicken Dip
Yeah, it really doesn't look like much, but you'll want to keep eating it anyway! I almost halved the buffalo wings sauce so that it wasn't too hot.

Chicken Taco Soup
More black beans! I should start my own black bean farm. This was another victory for the slow cooker (I didn't sautee my onions before hand), but since we had it the same night as the Bloomin' Onion Bread it got a little overshadowed.

Well, now you know what we've been eating lately. You can sleep well at last.

PS: No, I didn't get any of these from Pinterest.

PS: Bonus recipe for fudge (I left out the nuts because they just don't belong in my food).

In Which I Offer a Link

2012-01-11T22:45:00.003-07:00

...to our art blog! I can't even remember if I ever mentioned our art blog on here, but it's been humming along (more or less) for a good while now. Tonight I finally added a link to my sidebar and here is another one, just in case anyone has been missing out on it all this time.

That's all.

A Puzzle

2012-01-01T13:09:00.005-07:00

Well, I guess it's 2012 now. How weird. That deserves its own post, I suppose, but for now, here is something unrelated to New Years. For Christmas, Drewbles got this cool puzzle of the Disneyland map (1000 pieces) and we spent a couple of nights putting it together this week. Look how grand it is in completion:

(That's the last bits of my Captain Rex helmet marshmallow lollipop)

Now I will illustrate the difficulties of it. For one thing, the pieces are quite little and for another thing, there is a LOT of detail on there. I'm pretty sure that the only things not labeled were smoking areas and bathrooms. The only downside was noooo Captain EO.
And of course the picture on the box wasn't big enough to be terribly helpful.
Even so, what fun is a puzzle without a challenge? We will surely put this one together again and again.

Christmas Postscript

2011-12-28T10:33:00.001-07:00

Just because.

XD

2011-12-21T10:32:00.002-07:00

I still can't believe this is actually happening in my life. It looks so great I won't even fuss about how good looking some of the dwarves are, hah.

Something for the Archives

2011-12-20T14:34:00.000-07:00

Just in the interest of housekeeping...

The Shadow of Your Smile, C
Turn of the Screw, B
The Thirteenth Tale, B
Jude the Obscure, B+
The Beatrice Letters, B
Lemony Snicket, A-
The End, A-
The Penultimate Peril, A
The Grim Grotto, A-
Beastly, C
The Slippery Slope, B+
The Carnivorous Carnival, A
The Hostile Hospital, B+
The Vile Village, B+
The Ersatz Elevator, A
Sisterhood Everlasting, C+
The Austere Academy, A
The Miserable Mill, B+
The Wide Window, A-
The Reptile Room, A
The Bad Beginning, A-
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, A
The High King, A-
Taran Wanderer, B+
The Castle of Llyr, B+
The Black Cauldron, A
The Book of Three, A-
Entwined, A-
The Invisible Man, B
The Island of Dr. Moreau, A
White Fang, B+
Crocodile on the Sandbank, B-
Cold Comfort Farm, A-
Clockwork Three, B
The Return of the King, A
The Two Towers, A
Fellowship of the Ring, A+
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, A
Mockingjay, B+
The Princess Bride, B+
The Silmarillion, A+
The Phantom of the Opera, B
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, C+
Violet Eyes, C+
Alice in Wonderland, B+
The Dark Divine, C-
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, B+
Neverwhere, B+
James and the Giant Peach, B+
The Witches, A
The Incredible Journey, A-
The Luxe: B
Julie & Julia: C+
The Girl Who Could Fly: C+
Just Take My Heart, C+
Peace Like a River, A
Three Willows, B
The Prestige, A
The Return of the King, A+
The Two Towers, A
The Fellowship of the Ring, A+
The Hobbit, A-
The Children of Hurin, A+
Brave New World, A
Catching Fire, B+
The Hunger Games, A-
The Graveyard Book, A+
Camille, B+
Confessions of a Shopaholic, C+
Everyone Worth Knowing, B+
On the Street Where You Live, B+
I'll Be Seeing You, B+
The Devil Wears Prada, B+
Everyone Else's Girl, C-
Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself, B-
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, A-
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, A-
A Great and Terrible Beauty, B
The Talented Mr. Ripley, A-
Persuasion, A+
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, A-
The Wrath of Mulgarath, B
Coraline, A
The Ironwood Tree, B-
Lucinda's Secret, B
The Seeing Stone, B
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, A+
Return of the Native, A-
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: A-
Forever in Blue, B-
Girls in Pants, B+
At Home in Mitford, Karon: B
The Dollmage, Leavitt: C
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: A-
Far From the Madding Crowd: A-

A minor aside...

2011-12-16T09:31:00.003-07:00

Do you remember that episode of the Office called "Drug Testing" (season 2)? In it, Michael Scott says "I hate drugs, I hate them." Okay, so that's a really short thing to remember, but I've seen that episode like 15 times. ANYway, I feel that way about computer viruses. I just hate them.

To back up, last night little Quinn got attacked by some kind of stupid virus thing. It completely confunded avast!, slowed things down and kept my Internet from working, even after a boot scan took care of a few files. I wound up doing a system restore and so far that seems to have fixed the problem. But it is so so so annoying to me that instead of working on the things I planned to do last night I had to instead do a bunch of scans and restarts and fussing, all because some girl with a lip ring (see the aforementioned episode) made this stupid virus.

Anyway. This vexes me, but in the interest of ending on a positive note, here's a gif.

I'm not sure why this is so funny...

2011-12-13T13:25:00.002-07:00

...but it is! *snort*

T-Gives is for Arts

2011-11-24T11:41:00.004-07:00

Because it's Thanksgiving, I will now list a few things I am thankful for, in no particular order except for the order they are in:

Mylo Xyloto
This cake (which is currently in the oven)
Drewbles
Days off

I'm also grateful for the time to do arts. There's been a lot less time this year than in years past, but I'm happy to have the time I get. Okay, maybe sometimes I complain about not having more time, but at this moment I am having a better sense of perspective. I cannot do all things! ANYway, the other night I colored up a little something that Drewbles drew for me. The story behind this picture is best told in an excerpt from one of my e-mails to D-Rew:

"People think it’s hip to be heartless! But only I am ACTually hiply heartless. That’s like my Voldemort line, instead of “Only I can live forever” I say “Only I can be hiply heartless.” And then I’ll say “Nyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” and hold my wand all funny. Probably in my case a wooden spoon would be more appropriate."

With that introduction, here is my Blogger profile picture:

Now back the cake. Happy Thanksgiving ~~back~~!

Fall is for Food

2011-11-21T10:28:00.008-07:00

This fall I have been trying all kinds of different pumpkiny foods. Pumpkin is one of my very favorite things and while I am always happy with just a plain pumpkin pie, this year I have been branching out.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie
I made this twice. Not necessarily because I loved it that much, but because the pie crust came in a pair. It was good, but it was much more chocolatey than pumpkiny. That would be great if I wanted a chocolate pie, but I really wanted pumpkin pie. I also had to cook it quite a bit longer to avoid a totally goopy middle.

Colonial Pumpkin Bars
I actually made these last year, but even now we talk about how good they are. I think that's all I need to say.

Pumpkin Lasagna
I liked using pumpkin in a main dish, and this was good. But, like the chocolate pie, this wasn't quite pumpkiny enough for me. Maybe that's from using a little more ricotta than the recipe called for, I don't know. Overall it reminded me very much of butternut squash.

Pumpkin Pancakes with Apple Cider Syrup
Once again, I would have been happy with a stronger pumpkin flavor (I just REALLY like pumpkin), but that said, these were still super delicious pancakes. And the syrup? It's better than the pancakes, which is saying something. Really, you gots to try the syrup. The recipe made a lot of both--I would probably halve it for just the two of us. I should say I will halve it because we'll definitely be eating these again.

Whole Pumpkin Pie Soup
This year I wanted to do something different from our usual dinner in a pumpkin and this was a great alternative. I made this kind of last minute and wound up using one of the pumpkins we had outside the door and it worked just fine. And by "fine" I mean "deliciously."

Caramel Apple Cider Cookies
Okay, they're not pumpkiny but cider is equally seasonal and I love it. Also, I LOVE these cookies. I haven't stopped thinking about them since I made them last night. Just writing this is making me want to go over and get another one. Nom nom nom.

Roasted Tomato Soup
Okay, this isn't pumpkiny either but soup is seasonal, right? Tomatoes are one of my very favorite foods so it's no surprise I would like this soup, but I really really really like this soup. I wound up not baking it with the "lids", and instead just broiled some cheese on crusty bread and put it in the soup after. Still tasty and a little faster.

Pumpkin Whoopee!
This recipe gets an ! because it's my favorite of the pumpkin goodies. I got this recipe from one of my sisters-in-law, who got it from one of her sisters, I believe. Drewbles and I struggle to not eat the pan all at once. It's SO good, even with its silly name. Make it! To make it is to love it.
1 can pumpkin puree
2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. salt
3 eggs
1/2 t. ginger
1 can evaporated milk (12 oz.)
1 c. brown sugar
1/4 t. nutmeg

white or yellow cake mix
1/2 c. butter, melted

Mix all ingredients except cake mix and butter, and pour into greased 9 x 13 pan. Sprinkle cake mix on top, then drizzle with melted butter. Bake at 350 for 50 minutes.

The Days of Yore

2011-11-14T09:57:00.003-07:00

I started this blog in the summer of 2004, can you believe it? That's got to be some kind of record. Okay, maybe not, but it has been around for a while now. In all those years I changed the design once--from light dots to dark dots. And I'm pretty sure I changed it back to light dots within a month. When I started this blog there weren't many design options to choose from, and I just always liked those dots. Once the blog template business started booming I thought I might change it but the scrapbook look has never been my thing. Plus I just like those dots.

Well. Lately I have been thinking that maybe it was time to move on from the dots at long last. But I wasn't sure what to change it to. I'm still not into the scrapbook thing and my own ideas were rather uninspired. UNTIL. Last Saturday morning as I was running down Center Street it came to me. "Brilliant!" I said to myself. "Don't forget it." (I always make a point of telling myself not to forget my brilliant plans) I have had many great ideas in my time that I never followed through on, but this one I did. And it looks just how I want and I did it all myself!

So, the point of all this is that the dots are finally gone. I probably should have taken a screenshot of the old look since I don't think that template is even available anymore. Anyway, check it out the new look and praise my cleverness if you feel so inclined.

An Ode

2011-11-12T15:12:00.004-07:00

I've been on a Cheezits kick lately. The white cheddar kind is my favorite, but lately I have been scarfing down the new Baby Swiss variety. Basically I will eat any kind of Cheezit you put in front of me. This is not too surprising since I would happily eat cheese at any and every opportunity, but yesterday my enthusiasm produced a haiku. I sent it to Drewbles, but I think I would be remiss in not sharing it with the whole world (because the whole word reads my blog, yes?). Here it is:

Little bits of cheese
Baked into crackers for me
I’ll eat you all up

Also, in the process of finding an image of a Cheezit box ~~which I never used~~, I found this picture. I feel a certain kinship with this wee fellow:

One Two Three

2011-11-07T15:40:00.003-07:00

I have been thinking about this song lately.

Not like "Here are my deep thoughts on this song, let me show you them" kind of thinking. My thoughts are more along the lines of "That's a great song. I should listen it a lot." And to paraphrase the daddio in Princess & the Frog, a song that good just gotta be shared. Not that I want to replace Bono with Michael Stipe or anything.

Side note: why is U2 not as good as this anymore?

A Triumphant Cake!

2011-11-04T18:28:00.002-06:00

Remember this deliciousness? The oh so delectable chocolate peanut butter cake? Well. TRIUMPH.

(One day I will take better pictures of my food.)

And now I'll tell the story. I told my sister that if she came to visit me, I'd make her that cake. Well. TRIUMPH.

(There is a story behind this picture...she's not actually taller than Drew. The story is that she was wearing my shoes.)

So I made her that cake. I was a little nervous, but I've recently acquired some things that make cakes more of my friend.
Why did no one tell me how awesome parchment paper is? I will never suffer a half-left-in-the-pan cake again! And who knew they even made those cake turny/transporty flat metal things? Also, wow, it's a lot easier to just print out a recipe than run back and forth from the counter to the computer. Also, powdered sugar. I don't know why I put that in there. Anyway, so what did I do with my new devices? I made that strawberry cake again of course!

Just imagine a picture of it right here.

It still wasn't pretty--that frosting is NOT my friend--but hey, it looked like a cake. A delicious, slightly melty pink cake. But back to the chocolate cake.

(Here it is without its delicious chocolate peanut butter glaze.)

(By this point it was like 10:15)

On Sunday evening, the night before my sister left, I tackled it. I felt some trepidation but the cake turned out perfectly! The pinnacle of my cake making to date! And did I mention it was delicious? It was. Luckily we had our British friends* over to help us try it out and it was met with raves all around (thanks for the raves, friends).

(Thanks, Drewbles, for enlivening the picture)

So, it turns out maybe I CAN make a cake after all and that first chocolate cake in March wasn't just a fluke after all. Phew! Next week it will be time to try out some butterbeer cupcakes...

*Meaning they were in London with us, not that they are actually from Great Britain.

A Long Overdue Post

2011-11-03T14:30:00.000-06:00

Once upon a time, we lived in London for the summer. It was amazing, for so many reasons, and I wrote many blog posts about it. But there was one post I never wrote, and yet, even over a year (!) later, I think to myself "I really gotta write that post." So here I am, writing that post about my typical day in London. Sure, it was a year ago, but I'm happy to relive it any old time. Join me as we travel back to the days of yore, when I worked in the most magical place in the world (yes, really, Drewbles).

The day began at 7:10 when Drew's alarm went off. He'd hit snooze, and we'd reburrow for ten more minutes. Then I would get up and stagger off to the bathroom while he reburrowed for another ten minutes. The fun thing about the bathroom was that the lights were motion activated and about halfway through my shower they'd turn off because I...wasn't moving...?

In the meantime Drew got up and put together my lunch (whatta doll). After some cereal for breakfast, I'd meet my co-worker Caity in the hallway around 8:00 and we'd leave from here...
...and head off for the nearest Tube station. When we lived in Think! that meant Earl's Court, then we'd hop over to the Piccadilly line at South Kensington station and ride it up to Green Park.

From Green Park we walked a few of these blocks...
...to get to the Society of Antiquaries library.

(The library entrance is in the building to the left.)

Steven the doorman would let us in every day, often saying something conversational that we couldn't really understand through his amazingly thick accent. Once he offered us some kind of alcoholic beverage.

So then we'd head up a rather grand carpeted staircase into the library itself. It's not large, but it is quite grand. Take a gander:

(The reference librarian, Adrian, I recall, would sit in that red chair. He was a bit of a ghost and never really said a word to us, except to say the English summer began just in time for the English fall.)

Here we'd settle in for eight hours of scanning the card catalog. The library was closed to the public for the whole month of August so it was pretty quiet aside from the sounds out in the courtyard. Here's (most of) the catalog we scanned:
And here was our setup:
We would feed chunks of cards through the scanner, as you can kind of tell. It sounds thrilling, right? But really, it was pretty fun and you always had to be on alert to make sure they all scanned and were kept in order. We'd also have to clean the scanners a few times a day because the cards were so dusty. On an average day we'd scan about 10,000 each.

Oh and here's co-worker Caity! She looks super excited to scan more cards. Hi, Caity.
And here's me! I am also excited to scan the cards. Side note: look how long my hair is! Gee whiz.

Eventually we'd go outside to eat lunch, having some unintelligible exchange with Steven on the way. We'd sit out by the hares and read and it was a perfectly lovely way to spend a half hour. Occasionally we'd see people kicking pigeons, and on the first day we saw Bill Nighy.
Side note: my lunches were awesome because they included digestives and Babybels, along with carrot batons. Carrot batons is such a better way of saying carrot sticks, don't you think?

So we'd work the rest of the afternoon away, somehow never really getting bored. I listened to a lot of NPR, Tolkien podcasts, and the trusty iPod. Just after 5 we'd sign the ledger at the door (where we signed in at every day also) and head back the way we came. Most of the time it was a great commute, but on occasion you'd realize just how many people can fit into one train car. Let me tell you, it is a lot more than you'd think. Side note: I really miss this sound. (*sigh*)

From then on the night was ours! We had many adventures, which I've already documented. And so there you have it--my typical work day in London. I guess I should note that while I was at work, Drew would stay at our little apartment and work all the day after having going on a run through Hyde, Holland or Regent's Park (whichever we were living closest to). He also would clean the dishes and sometimes pilfer extra towels and dish soap from the cleaning trucks. Sneaky!

THERE. Now I've written this blog post, brain! That's one less thing you can harass me about!

An Explosive Weekend

2011-11-02T10:38:00.000-06:00

Some of you can probably guess what this blog post is about, based on my recent Facebook statuses. Don't worry, this blog post has a happy ending. Just sit tight, we'll get through this together.

Last Thursday night my sister arrived in town for her long-awaited weekend trip. I'd been working an extra hour every day so I could take a half day on Friday and we had big plans. After hitting a bit of traffic, we arrived in plenty of time to pick Marci up and then we headed back to Provo. Drew had rehearsal for the stake play so we planned to pick up dinner on the way. Our original plan was Gandalfo's but as the time got later, we switched gears and went to In-n-Out instead. We loaded up on the burgers, milkshakes and fries and raced onward to get Drew to his rehearsal ~~only an hour late~~. We arrived only to find out they didn't need him after all so we turned around and went home instead, where we feasted on our delicacies.

Some friends joined us for the Project Runway finale and a good time was had by all. Eventually we all went to bed, where I for one totally passed out. Fast forward to around 4:00. I woke up, thinking something fell on my head (nothing had). I tried to go back to sleep but was really uncomfortable and kind of sick to my stomach. I thought it was just Aunt Irma's doing, but a while later Drew woke up, also feeling sick.

Do you see where this is going? I'll tell you: the bathroom. The vomit fairy visited me first, then several more times before poor Drewbles managed to finally throw up. In between episodes we sat in the bathroom, laid in bed or fell asleep on a pile of clothes on the floor (that'd be me). As we like to say now, In-n-Out has a whole new meaning for us.

The short version of all of this is that we spent Friday lying on the couch, feeling gross. By the early afternoon we'd stopped throwing up but we couldn't do much else. Do you want to know how many times I threw up? Do you?? Nine. NINE TIMES. That's a personal record. Don't worry, I'll spare you the other details.

So, Friday was pretty much a bust. My sister felt kind of blah all day but luckily it didn't go beyond that. I say luckily because who else would have made us toast and gone to get us medicine? We passed the hours by watching movies, TV shows and falling asleep.

Saturday dawned and we felt better, though not quite up to speed. I mean that literally because we went off to do a 10K. Was it crazy? Well, what's crazier--doing a 10K after food poisoning or wasting $70? But luckily we all survived--Drew even placed! It was Marci's first 10K and she did great, coming in under an hour. I was *ahem* after an hour BUT I ran the whole thing, and no one else in our trio could say that. I'll take my bragging points where I can when it comes to running.

(Since it was a Halloween costume race, Drew dressed as a ninja.)

The rest of the weekend was spent by trying to cram in everything we wanted to do in the time we had left. We saw Three Musketeers (better than expected, though still flawed), ate Thai food, saw Captain America in the dollar theater, got shakes from the Purple Turtle, had friend time and occasionally felt queasy. I also made a cake--but that's a story for another blog post. Before we knew it, we were going up to the airport on Monday morning (at 5...gross), dropped Marci off and went back to workday routine.

And that, my friends, is the story of the weekend. It began very unpleasantly, but it turned out all right in the end. If we had gone for our original Gandalfo's plan, things would have been different. If we had known Drew didn't need to be at rehearsal, things would have been different. Maybe I've been seeing too much LOST lately, but it seems like it was meant to be. Fate can be a vomitous task master.

rolls on the floor

2011-10-20T10:27:00.003-06:00

This is my new favorite thing: Disney Face Swap

Here is a little incentive to check it out...
(This is another one of my new favorite things. Teenage Mutant Ninja Noses! Bahahahaaa [sorry for the occasional F words])

Monday Mug

2011-10-17T15:57:00.004-06:00

I saw this picture of Christina Aguilera on MSN today and it just cracks me up everytime I see it (check out the full "news" item here for another delightful picture).

Happy Monday!

A Little Night Music

2011-10-10T18:36:00.000-06:00

Last week we went to the 25th anniversary show for the Phantom of the Opera (or as the website calls it 'Phantom of the Opera'). The two in the lead were the two leads we saw and loved so much in Love Never Dies (Ramin! Sierra!) last year so we were EVer so excited to see them in the original. Earlier that day at work I decided to get into the theme of things by listening to ye olde original cast on Spotify. First I was distracted by the title track with the Canadian cast, including ye olde Colm Wilkinson. It was dismal, but then I was distracted again by this "Tribute to Phantom of the Opera." Just look at the cover art!
A pirate patch? A wacky feather hat creation? A random floating rose? I should have known then that it was going to be...special. I started the title track and said, hmm, okay. But then it just got worse and worse and I was giggle snorting at my desk. Naturally I couldn't stop there and listened to the rest of the CD. Let me tell you. AMAZING. So incredibly amazing in its terrible terribleness. So terrible I'm pretty sure it's the worst CD in the WORLD. Or at least the worst CD in the world based on something else. I could hardly contain my snorts of laughter and sent pretty much every track to Mr. Graham via Spotify.

The moral of this story? Check it out. You will not be sorry. Highlights include the sleepy Phantom in the title track, everything about Music of the Night, the disaster that is All I Ask of You and the garbled words in Point of No Return. In fact, there are words wrong in pretty much every song.

If you needed another reason to try out Spotify, this is it, my friends. This is it. Samples on Amazon are not enough for this level of terrible.

(Oh, and the concert was great. Sierra killed it, Ramin tried a little too hard to kill and so didn't *quite* kill it but I still heart him.)

A Little Creepy

2011-10-09T18:30:00.002-06:00

A little while ago (okay, several months ago) Mr. Graham introduced me to the creepiest children's book cover in the world. Check it out, it's the heart warming story of two children and their wee pup...
...and the super creepy neighbor man.

O.O

In Which I Masquerade as a Food Blog

2011-09-20T20:27:00.003-06:00

No, I still haven’t made that cake! But I have a plan. A plan that involves making that cake. But in the meantime, we have been trying all kinds of new and exciting recipes. Sometimes we try the same new and exciting recipe over and over again because we like it so much. For whatever reason, I like to spread the food discoveries around. I really didn’t cook too much until we got married so the food world still has a lot of undiscovered territory for me. I get excited when I find something new and delicious and think everyone else should make it too. So, here are some of the things we’ve been eating lately.

(I was going to be fancy and put pictures with all of these, but fancy is overrated. There are plenty of pictures to be found at the links)

Honey Lime Chicken Enchiladas

Oh man. We have made these so many times this summer. They are SO good we have to stop ourselves from eating the whole pan in one go. Also, they are really super easy! I just cook the chicken in a crock pot all day and then it pretty much shreds itself. Seriously, make them! You will be doing yourself a favor.

Also, I’ll just take this moment to say that I discovered this blog a few months ago and proceeded to make a several other things from it (but mostly I just ogle the desserts). Never have I been disappointed! Some other winners so far include Taco Pasta and Pork Carnitas. I have a backlog of all the recipes I want to try out.

Buffalo Chicken Enchiladas

I guess we have had a thing for enchiladas this summer. We didn’t love these as much as the others (we only made them once!), but they were still pretty easy and tasty. I think some black beans would be a great addition to this one.

Mac and Cheese Soup

I stumbled across this recipe a little while ago and I was just AMAZED at the concept. And by amazed I mean kind of grossed out. It just seemed so wrong. So wrong that I had to try it and see if it could possibly work. And it was surprisingly good! Drewbles could hardly stop eating it. It had a really nice flavor and, really, how could I ever object to mac and cheese anything? I did add a can of tomatoes with green chilis, just because it was so orange, and I’m glad I did. Also—so super easy and fast. That seems to be the theme here today…

Puttanesca

Last week we finished (re)reading all the Series of Unfortunate Events and to celebrate we had a delightful themed dinner including chilled cucumber soup (we used Greek yogurt instead of regular), aqueous martinis and puttanesca with fettucine. I have to admit, this recipe intimidated me. Capers? Anchovies? Well, mostly those two things intimidated me. BUT it was actually quite easy and really good. I used anchovy paste instead of anchovies, as someone suggested, since it’s easier to keep on hand and won’t gross me out. Only a villainous person could turn down such a delicious thing.

Grilled Corn, Peach and Basil Salsa

Confession: I did not grill the corn. But this still turned out delicious. Homemade salsa of any variety really is just so much better than store bought (not that I would turn down store bought). One day when we have a yard with a garden with a dozen tomato plants, I will make salsa every day. Or at least every other day.

Five Ingredient Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

We’ve had these twice in the last week! Surprise surprise—they’re the easiest cookies in the world to make. Even I, an exceptionally slow cooker (hah), can make this dough in five minutes. Plus you get bonus points for being able to tell people they only have five ingredients! It makes for a fun guessing game.

And there you have the highlights. We’ve also had things like tomato sandwiches, Portobello burgers and turkey gyros.

Of course in between these things we’ve had plenty of $5 pizza and more Rancherito than I would ever want to admit to. We like our food and we're not picky! Hah.

O.O

2011-08-25T13:33:00.003-06:00

I can tell I'm getting over my recent cake-baking woes because I'm actually considering making this cake. I mean, three layers? Ganache? Delicate drippings of chocolate? Am I crazy or something?

But look at it! (I mean, look at it!) Even if it turns out to be Bits o' Cake, those will be the best Bits o' Cake to date. How can I resist???

PS: Husband, remind me to add parchment paper and another round cake pan to the shopping list. Also lots of cream cheese and peanut butter.

My Favourite and My Best

2011-08-15T09:49:00.003-06:00

Two years ago this happened. Can you believe it's been two years? I just read that post over again and besides being pretty funny to me, it makes it seem like it was just yesterday. What a great day! There have been so many, many great days since then, but that one still stands out as an extra especially great day.

Mr. Graham is just the nicest husbandman in the world. He is so thoughtful and nice and compliment-y and helpful and not complain-y and funny and he is so cute when he sleeps. I like to say that he is my favorite and my best. Here are some other ways he is my favorite and best:

He laughs when I say ridiculous things like “If you were a button, I would call you husbandybuttons.”

He humors me when I ask if I can quit my job and stay at home all day like a bum.

He lets me pin him down and tickle his feet.

He always does the dishes. Always!

He is my faithful and insightful little reader.

He never says I don’t need that new pair of shoes.

He puts up with a lot of whining about wanting cheese when I’ve fallen to the Communists (and then gives me cheese).

He loves me so and tells me so all the time.

Really, he is such a nice husband, and I like him so well. I so look forward to our adventures together, even if those adventures are just sitting on the couch and watching movies.

As a side note, I wish I could say “my favourite and my best” was my own linguistic creation, but it actually comes from an episode of Charlie and Lola. I feel about Mr. Graham the same way a small girl child feels about snow. Watch it! I love this show.

Happy anniversary, husbandybuns! :*

Dwarfs are very upsetting...

2011-07-21T16:42:00.004-06:00

...but not THESE dwarves! Well, unless you're an Orc, I suppose. Or a dragon. Or maybe an elf. Or an undisturbed mountain full of mithril.
It's interesting how they all look so different, but for the most part all look very dwarf-y (aside from the Hugh Jackman dwarf on the right). If I didn't know it was him, I don't think I could EVER tell that was Richard Armitage as Thorin.

Sweet. Now where are some more pictures of ~~Legolas~~ Bilbo?

(Speaking of Bilbo, when do I get more Sherlock, PBS?)

In a non-spoilery fashion, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 was....

2011-07-15T03:25:00.005-06:00

...amazing.
...overwhelming.
...hard to watch.
...a little puzzling at times.
...emotional.
...bittersweet.

Whew. I should probably go to bed.

In Which I Bake Half a Cake

2011-07-09T23:25:00.006-06:00

In March I made a beautiful cake for Mr. Graham's birthday. See?
Beautiful. I was so proud of myself and this, my first frosted cake, made entirely from scratch. Encouraged by my handiwork, I continued in my quest to make cakes, all of which would surely be as beautiful as the first. Clearly I had a gift. Well, we know what became of my second cake.
Trifled! The third cake, Red Velvet Round 2, turned out much better. I felt bolstered again and waited for an excuse to make this strawberry cake. Not too difficult, right? Half of it comes from a box after all. Today came a suitable cake occasion, and I rubbed my hands gleefully. Look at these perfect cakes all ready for the (new) oven!
Out they came, still looking like perfection. Maybe I was feeling a little cocky at this point, but it seemed kind of justified because they were so pretty and pink. Well, this was before I took them out of their pans, leaving a 1/3 of them behind. No, I did not take a picture of this stage. Instead I crept into the corner while Mr. Graham did his best to slice the remains from the pan and work them back onto the cakes. This was a feat since the cakes were ever so delicate and threatened to fall apart with the least bit of handling.

Now, let's just skip over the part where I threw myself onto the bed in despair and maybe cried over my wretchedly deformed cakes. Mr. Graham patted me on the head, told me the cake was lovely and played some Lego Pirates of the Caribbean with me to put me back in good humor.

SO, once the weeping and wailing was done, we set to work on the cake. With the frosting all ready to go, it seemed like an attempt ought to be made to salvage the poor thing. What is frosting for but to cover up the cake and all its frailties, right? We delicately maneuvered one layer onto the cake stand and frosted it without difficulty. Hope returned! We next performed the tricky operation of flipping the second layer on top. As it turns out, it was a too tricky to actually work and some ominous cracks were formed in the process. Resisting the urge to bang my head on the table, I set to work covering up the whole disaster with delicious frosting.

Success was shortlived, as the frosting worked its way into those ominous crevices and whole chunks finally went tumbling right off the cake, like some kind of delectable strawberry avalanche. At this point, the whole thing was becoming more and more ridiculous, too ridiculous to cry over and too ridiculous to not laugh at. We considered taking a few slices to our little dinner party, but somehow settled on this solution:
Yes, we took half a cake to dinner. It felt a little like giving someone a half-eaten lasagna.

You might think that was the end of the poor cake's trouble, but you would be wrong! The combination of our warm apartment and too much powdered sugar made the frosting just a teensy bit soupy. It would look all right for a moment, but the frosting would inevitably begin to ooze and seep downwards. In fact, it looked very much like someone left the cake out in the rain.

The cake was so sad I even came up with a song to describe it. It's a pretty simple song. In fact, to borrow a phrase, there is very little lyrical content--just "Puddle-y cake" repeated over and over to the tune of Jigglypuff's song.

Well, in the end we all ate the cake, and although it splinted into its many pieces when sliced and half the frosting had puddled onto the cake stand, it was eaten up. After all, there was nothing wrong with the taste.

And what became of that other half of cake?
It's a new dessert. I like to call it "Bits o' Cake."

Video Roll Call

2011-06-27T21:36:00.003-06:00

Disclaimer: pretty much everything in this post has already been blogged about by almost every member of Drew's blogging family. So this post is for all two of my readers that are not related to him, hah.

Videos! Let's watch some funny ones.

First up, Drew's sister Elise came for a surprise visit last month and during the ensuing festivities we made this video. It was all her brainchild (and her editing job). Normally I would be running the other direction from doing this sort of thing, but heck, there must have been something in the water that day. Funtimes!

Next. Also during Elise's trip she introduced us to the next doozy. It's a dramatically read review of an intentionally silly and easy flash game called Press Space to Win (play it, it will take about 4 minutes). And wow, just wow. It's one of those things that makes me laugh so hard I can't control my face.

And for something totally different: FROGS! Well, A frog. I swear, one day I'm going to be this frog for Halloween. Probably the year after I'm Mama Odie.

Last but not least, just because I was listening to some Michael Jackson today and thinking fondly of Disney parks. Hooter!

A Land of Harry Potter

2011-06-22T10:54:00.009-06:00

So, to pick up where I left off, during our big Florida trip we planned to spend a day at the Universal theme parks. I'd been there once before and even without Harry, I wanted to go for a day just to take Drew on Spider-man (long held as my favorite ride) and Jurassic Park. With the addition of Harry Potter land, there was no way we could pass Universal over. When the day arrived, the bus service picked us up at our resort (about a half hour later, mind) and off we went. It was a bit of a drive and everyone on the bus was a bit annoyed when we had to stop at Sea World to drop off TWO people, but in the end we arrived and we were gleeful and excited.

We could see Hogwarts from the park entrance, but, correctly assuming everyone would rush there and leave other areas deserted, we first went to Spider-man (and walked on). I loved that ride so much when I went before, and luckily it was just as much fun as I remember. We then went along to the Jurassic Park area, which is always awesome, and walked on to that ride as well. Unfortunately it wasn't *quite* as exciting as I remembered (I swear the t-rex used to move). BUT it was dinosaurs and stuff so I was hardly disappointed. I will add that it was also wetter than I remembered, which caused me some trouble with my bangs. They dried all flippy and weird. Exciting, right?

Anyway, our detour hardly took any time at all and soon we made our way to Harry Potter and it was just like a dream! Everything was so...REAL and right there. It was crowded, but honestly, I didn't even notice the crowds because it was exhilarating to be there. Seriously, there was nothing that disappointed. NOTHING.

The food: We ate lunch at the Three Broomsticks and for a bonus, our lunch was Cornish pasties and shepherds pie. It felt like being back in our beloved England. We tried both the regular and frozen butterbeer (regular wins), and naturally got the commemorative mug. We also bought a bottle of pumpkin juice that was DElicious (the juice, not the bottle). When we were in the Disney parks we were quite thrifty with our food. We refilled a water bottle the whole time and we brought a lot of snacks with us. But here? We were ready and willing to give them any amount of money necessary for such authentic fare, and the same went for souvenirs. Luckily the food was pretty reasonably priced, but really, I would have happily paid $20 for a cup of butterbeer. I mean, how often does the opportunity come along, right???

The rides: The family-friendly Buckbeak-themed coaster was fun. You go right by Hagrid's Hut and Buckbeak bows to you. The much wilder Dragon Challenge roller coaster is also fun. I went on it before, and really, not much has changed except the queue theming--which on its own makes the ride worth it. The real gem of the place though is the all new ride housed in the Hogwarts castle: Harry Potter and the Final Journey. No, that's just what I always THINK it's called--it's actually Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. It's amazing and SO much fun. First, the line goes through the castle, which is a treat on its own, and you see classrooms, talking portraits (including the founders), the Fat Lady, the sorting hat, Dumblydore's office--so many things! The ride itself is an amazing concoction of characters, creatures and places and is also a mix of video, motion and actual creatures (I mean like things that are real that you could touch [if touching were allowed]. Is there another way to describe that?). Truth be told, my head was spinning a bit after but it's totally worth it.

The shops: There are bunch of very authentic shops to explore. You could spend hours just in the shops (we did) checking out all the goodies they have. You could also spend a LOT of money, very easily. We spent a tidy bundle ourselves, but again, how often do you get the opportunity?? They're very clever to sell a lot of things you never see anywhere else, which makes it seem all the more like you MUST buy it, haha. Naturally we both got wands at Ollivander's but we also got a set of playing cards, a magnet, a photo frame that looks like the mirror Erised and various other little goodies.

Okay, that's a lot of words. Time for pictures!

I would like to take this moment to say there was a total lack of anything BSG related! I made up for it by ding-ing the prologue music as we stood in front of the globe.

It's a pretty sweet entrance. What do they got in there, King Kong?

I'm happy to report that Drewbles liked this ride a lot too. So fun!

Hogsmeade! Do please note the shirts we bought in advance especially for this day.

Hogwarts!!!! Seriously, it was so exciting to look up throughout the day and see it there, looking down on us benevolently.

ANY AMOUNT OF MONEY.
Don't touch it! It's a portkey!
This makes me look like a huge Sirius fangirl, but really, I wanted to do this to pretty much everything. (Though also I just love Gary Oldman and this movie.)
Oh please take us to Hogwarts! Never mind, we can just walk there.
Little bitty Cornish pasties! Oh Harry Potter, you really are magical.
It just looks so real. I mean, it is real. But REALLY real.
Lemon drop!
ANY AMOUNT OF MONEY. (No, that second straw is not going up his nose.)
Drew tried on Voldemort's wand for size.
I was a little taken with Sirius's (again with the Sirius, but ~~I mean~~ look at it!).
In the end, we had to go with Hermione's and Harry's. How could we do otherwise?
(When we go again, I might ~~definitely~~ have to get Sirius's.)
We tried on some robes at one of the Universal stores. Not only do they assume you will, an employee will even offer to take your picture with other goods! Nice.
Ah, beautiful.

I'll admit that I was a little sad to not be going back to Hogsmeade the next day. But going on Dinosaur first thing did lift my spirits.
We took hundreds of pictures at Hogsmeade, many of which I've posted on Facebook. If you would like to see them and don't have Facebook, I would be happy to email the link to any interested parties.

Until next time, Harry!

A World of Disney

2011-06-09T20:50:00.007-06:00

So, for those two or three of you who may not have heard, last month we took a big trip to Florida to Disneyworld. Mr. Graham has done a very thorough trip summary on his blog, but, in the spirit of my first-time Disneyland post, I'm just going to list some of the highlights here.

Favorite ride(s): DINOSAUR. It's like Indiana Jones, except with dinosaurs! I wanted to go on it again and again and everytime I squealed with delight. Another winner was Expedition Everest, also in Animal Kingdom.

In general, I preferred the Disneyland version of the rides that the parks have in common (like Pirates, Splash Mountain, Space Mountain etc.), but the Disneyworld tweaks on Tower of Terror and Haunted Mansion ~~where~~ were pretty ~~good~~ cool.

Least favorite ride: I actually have one this time! Journey to Imagination, at Epcot. Wow, what a snoozefest! I was a little bit insulted by its lameness. A runner up to this would be Maelstrom, also in Epcot. As soon as it matches the Maelstrom in At World's End, let me know.

Favorite show: As at Disneyland, it's a tossup between Captain EO and Bug's Life. I find this interesting because I'm not a huge fan (or even a medium fan) of Michael Jackson or a Bug's Life. But man, I could go to those shows over and over. Thank goodness they're in California too. I also really liked Mickey's PhilharMagic, the Indiana Jones stunt show and the live Lion King show.

Tastiest food: We ate so much food! The turkey leg is always a winner, but the pizza we had in Italy ('Italy') was SUPER good. I mean, I even ate the crust, that's how good it was. We usually got breakfast at our hotel in the morning, and they had this super delicious breakfast pizza. Basically everything we ate was delicious.

Favorite souvenir: I looked EVERYWHERE for the Nightmare bath toys, but they were not to be found. I consoled myself with some pink flip flops instead. We also got a magnet to match our Disneyland one, and a pin, like we do on each trip. Drewbles got me a shirt in England ('England') as well as a very expensive pack of Jammie Dodgers. He also got me a Claddagh ring which I, along with pretty much every other girl who ever watched the early years of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, have always wanted. Well done, husband.

A few of my favorite things:
--The different countries at Epcot. We walked through them many times, and I think you could spend hours exploring all the nooks and crannies.
--Did I mention Dinosaur?
--A week with no work and time with my honeybuns! It's always a delight.
--Speaking of Mr. Graham, he auditioned for the American Idol Experience in Hollywood Studios, won his first show and placed second at the finale show for the day. He did so great, and I was so proud. You can see my contraband video of him in the second show here (you can also see his first performance too, but I like the second better).
--Drew's sister Cami and her Disney cruise-bound family were in Magic Kingdom for one day and it was fun to rendezvous with them. It also led to a really great picture on Splash Mountain (see below).
--I liked that in addition to the rides, shops, shows and Disney stuff there was also a lot of stuff was, like, educational and informative. There was a cool aquarium in Epcot, a safari and nature trails in Animal Kingdom and other things scattered throughout. I had fun and I also learned that a rhino's skin is an inch thick! It's the best of both worlds.

In the end, I will miss some of the things you can only find at Disneyworld, but I'm excited to go back to Disneyland and go on Indiana Jones and walk across the street to the hotel. Both of them have really cool, unique things. Props go to Mr. Graham for planning the whole thing!

Okay, picture time!

At the Tree of Life in Animal Kingdom. It is quite the impressive big, fake tree.

Oh England! Such a beautiful castle. Bonus: (almost) not a single other soul in the picture. Double bonus: Dumbo.

It is always kind of weird experience interacting with characters, especially ones who don't talk.

Those side-by-side seats on Splash Mountain are handy! Thanks, Cami, for making this picture extra special.

Oh hello there, girlhood crush of mine. You seem to be lacking a body.

The delicious pizza! We bought it from a lovely Italian boy named Alberto.
DINOSAUR! Need I say more?
(And apologies for the punk behind me.)
(Especially since you probably wouldn't have noticed him if I hadn't pointed him out.)
In France! Pretty much the same as the real thing, right?

A huge (flasher) fruit bat in Animal Kingdom! They were fascinating and had such cute little bat faces.
Farewell for now, Disneyworld! We'll see you again.

Stay tuned for the rundown on Harry Potter land. Pretty much everything will be filed under "Coolest thing ever."

The After Birthday: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

2011-05-23T21:10:00.007-06:00

The good: On Saturday morning we met up with many friendlies at Tucanos so all of us May birthday people (there were 3 of us) could use our birthday coupons. We stuffed our faces and it was delightful indeed to see so many of our peeps AND get to eat those cheese rolls at the same time. Drew's sister, Elise, has been in town and it was especially nice to get to have some birthday festivities with her as well. She also came bearing a gift of an H&M gift card, which I will put to good use as soon as it opens in the fall (SCORE). The Ls gave me a wacky eyeglasses-style straw (http://www.latestbuy.com.au/drinking-straw-glasses.html). I haven't *quite* put those to good use (yet!) but I'm sure the event will be thoroughly documented, to everyone's amusement.
After Tucano's some of us girls (+Drew) took a little trip up to the mall. I just love the mall. I think I could spend hours there walking around and not actually buying anything. This time I found, at last, a maxi dress.

The bad: I actually can't think of anything for this section, but you can't just say "the good and the ugly." Let's transition to that right now.

~*~*~*magical transition*~*~*~

The ugly: I set a goal last summer to make a red velvet cake. I've never done it, and I like red velvet so I wanted to try it. But then we went to England and I never did it when we got back. So I set that goal again for this year and my birthday seemed like a good occasion (for the record, Drew did offer to make my cake). So! I made the batter. It looked beautiful. I put them in the oven. They smelled delicious. I opened the door...and they both had fallen. I sighed, but was not defeated. After all, frosting can cover many flaws, yes? Well, it can if your recipe makes enough frosting which mine, inexplicably, did not. Okay, so maybe I could have sent Drew off to the store for more frosting supplies. But the cake already looked like a sinkhole anyway and it looked so AWFUL that at that point abandoning it and making another attempt later seemed like the better solution. So, abandon it I did. And MAYBE (maybe) Drew felt a little wrath-of-the-foiled-baker (I love you, peaches!), but in the end we came out of the event unscathed.

Since I couldn't bear to let anyone see my disfigured and half-frosted cake we met up with our friendlies again sans cake. In the end the cake situation turned out well, with an expedition to Walmart, the buying of a chocolate mousse cake and the singing of the birthday song. Thanks, friendlies! One day I hope to give you some red velvet cake.
As an epilogue to the unfortunate cake story, after lunch the next day Drew said, "Now, can I FINALLY eat some of this cake??" It tasted good, for all of its wretchedness. I guess that's something.

As an epilogue to that epilogue, Elise suggested I made the sad cake into a trifle and so I did! Elise, thanks for the idea--if you come back you can have some trifle. It tastes pretty good and it's a heck of a lot prettier to boot.

In Which I Age a Day

2011-05-22T13:25:00.004-06:00

Okay, so maybe I aged a year, but I would rather just stick to the day version. At any rate, I just had my birthday. I had been very much looking forward to it because I was aware that Drewbles had been plotting and planning for some months. Plus it didn't hurt that there was a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie opening on my very birthday, just for me (more on that later). So, it was a Pirates-y kind of birthday, just for me.

The night before we stopped at the store to get a few things for my cake. I've been wanting to make a red velvet cake for months, and I thought my birthday was a good opportunity. Unfortunately the store did not have red food coloring of all things so we didn't get cake stuff after all. Instead we decided to get my birthday cereal of choice, chocolate Marshmallow Mateys (there's that pirate theme again). But alas, they had none of those either. So we went home because it was late and I didn't want to go to another store.

Well, the next morning I woke up and stretched about in my bed and lo, there was season 2 of Veronica Mars under my pillow! Well done, ~~birthday fairy~~ Drewbles. I traipsed off to get ready for work and then finally wandered into the kitchen to have some (*sigh*) non-birthday cereal when LO, there were the chocolate Marshmallow Mateys on the shelf! Drew went racing off to a different store while I was in the shower! How delightfully tricksy.

So off I went to work. I was only working a half day so I didn't take a lunch, which means I didn't touch my bag for a few hours. When I did finally open it, what did I find but season 3 of Veronica Mars! My first reaction was puzzlement, as I tried to remember when I put it in there before realizing what had happened. I hooped and hollered (inwardly) as now my collection was complete.

Drew came to pick me up from work and surprised me with a shaved face. He's had a beard since January and while I am very fond of the beard, I had been missing his face lately so it was a nice surprise. We ate lunch and watched some Project Runway, then I settled down to finish a collage of my Pirates socks (a collage Drew did most of the work for already). I then read my book for a little while and then played with the Wii until Drew came home a little after 5. I very much enjoyed wasting some time.

We had dinner plans at Bombay House but first we played a little game of hot and cold. The clues led me to our Tesco reusable bag in the kitchen where I found a Pirates fun pack--the new Lego game for the Wii, the latest soundtrack, a little Lego Jack figure and two tickets to the movie! At this point I was feeling *quite* spoiled. I put my Lego guy together and then off we went to Bombay House for MORE spoiling.
The food was delicious and we headed to the movie. Let me just say here that I love the first three movies to a perhaps ridiculous degree. I could talk about this for a while but I will summarize and say I love them and Dead Man's Chest is my favorite and I quote it often and I watched them all this week for the first time in ages and I just love them. Phew. Anyway, so when they announced a fourth was being made, I was skeptical because 1) it's totally unnecessary, after the neat wrapping up in the 3rd 2) No Will and Elizabeth 3) Worse, Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane. BUT I was still cautiously optimistic because hey, it's more Pirates and my love for it is not dependent on Will and Elizabeth by any means.
SO. We watched it, and about halfway through I turned to Drewbles and told him it was making me sad. Part of me wanted to leave, a little part of me wanted to cry and a very small part of me was occasionally amused. *sigh* And now I will summarize my grievances briefly: Ian McShane=BOMB, too much Jack being in the lead, not enough piracy, too much swinging from palm trees, too little chemistry, too much innuendo (compared to the first three). Anyway, I will give it another whirl at some point, I have been known to change my mind, but I did feel a little burned after.

So we headed home, dissecting the movie all the while, and as we were walking back inside, Drew said he left something in the trunk. Say, maybe I should go get it? Well, it turns out someone had left a large wrapped box in there. How weird! We went inside and I opened it up and found something I have been talking about for several months.
Isn't it the prettiest and cutest little netbook you have ever seen? Originally I planned to name it Chabo, but when I saw it in its purple tinyness I knew what name she needed.

Quinn! And everytime she makes a fuss (which I hope is not often) I intend to say "Gee, Quinn." Unfortunately Quinn had a loose mouse button so we actually had to exchange her in the morning, haha. But now she is up and running, and I have great plans for us. Vera doesn't seem too jealous. In fact, she is probably relieved because this alternative will lead to much less of me shaking my fist at her and her aged, fussy ways.

To top of the day, we played a little Lego Pirates and watched the season finale of the Office. I also chatted with my Mama and Papa, heard a cute message from my brother and his family (who called during the movie), and did a little MSN chatting with my sister. So, almost everyone.

In the end, it was a truly delightful birthday. Many thanks to my lovely Drewbles for all of his surprises. He does spoil me so! But I'm not going to complain.

Shampoo. Rinse. Repeat.

2011-04-29T22:57:00.002-06:00

Here is a confession for you, Internet--I am a binger. Of songs! Here's how it happens: now and then I run across a song that I really like. I like it so much that I listen to it over and over and over again, maybe 10 times in a row. I do this for days and maybe weeks until it fades off a bit. And while you might think I never listen to that song again, I haven't seemed to have killed a song so far and I listen to past bingees pretty regularly. In the interest of sharing, here are some of my recent favorites. I've listed the number of plays according to my lil iPod, Athena, but I'm pretty sure they're all quite inaccurate. Add like 20 to each of them and maybe that's pretty close to the real number.

A Promise to Return, from season 2 of Battlestar Galactica:

I love all the BSG music, but this is probably my #1 favorite. Anders!
Plays: 25

Better Than Neil, from the musical commentary (called "Commentary!") on the Dr. Horrible DVD:

It never fails to amuse me! Also, it's all true. Nathan Fillion is SO much better than Neil. (PS: there's a moment of naked Mal bum in the video)
Plays: 21

Til I Hear You Sing, from Love Never Dies:

Mmhmm. This one never gets old. And it's so much better when you aren't watching the lame video, haha.
Plays: 63. LIE. It's so many, many more than that (I've even listening to it right now).

Secrets, by One Republic:

I just love a good, big angsty song. And bonus for the strings.
Plays: 56

Swallowed in the Sea, by Coldplay:

Of course I've heard this song many, many times before I started Le Binge, but it just suddenly grew on me the other day!
Plays: 13. Hah!

Something to eat

2011-04-24T13:54:00.003-06:00

If you are craving this deliciousness and are sad because it's not in stores anymore, might I suggest the following:
It's just like the ice cream, minus the caramel and, oh, the ice cream.

Fruity grapes

2011-04-20T21:40:00.004-06:00

Apparently my blog style lately is short, random posts about nothing really important. So, to keep up with this theme, let's talk about grapefruits.

I have always despised them. My mama would always push me to eat one when I was sick, and I would dump a lot of salt on it and choke it down, complaining all the while about how sour and gross they were. Well, it has been some years since my mama pushed me to eat anything so you can imagine that grapefruits did not come anywhere near my diet for years. But I began noticing them in the stores a few months ago--they started to look so big and potentially delicious. About a month ago I couldn't resist (they looked so pretty!), and I took three home and it turns out grapefruits are delicious! I halved them, gave them a sprinkle of salt (okay, several sprinkles of salt...I really like salt), and dug in. They're still tart, some more than others, but it turns out my mama was right all along.

Unfortunately, it's been hard to find any that are as good as those first three. Maybe that was just a magical day, but the ones I have found since are small, pale and sad. Then, last weekend, we checked out the new Whole Foods up in Salt Lake. Just look at the difference!
They're twice as big! And let me just add that the grapefruit on the left was the best one I could find in the area too.

It just goes to show that sometimes the foods you despise need another chance. Oranges have already been victorious, corn tortillas are making progress...maybe one day nectarines will prevail too. Maybe.

Apes for the watching

2011-04-14T20:02:00.002-06:00

I watched the trailer for the Rise of the Planet of the Apes movie today. It intrigues me, and it doesn't involve Paul Giamatti, which is a big bonus. Mostly it just made me think of the following classic moment from the The Simpsons. It's so funny that it even made my mom laugh uncontrollably. A mom! Laughing at the Simpsons! That's how you know it's really funny.

Anonymously speaking

2011-04-09T22:08:00.003-06:00

I got this comment on a recent post from that infamous blogger commenter, Anonymous, and it's so full of gibberish I just had to share. And never fear, I edited it for you, my tender readers.

"Thanks looking recompense the mammoth info. To be established ' ethical sh**! I on the entire do not commentary on these but I cerebration you did a genuinely humanitarian proportions and I’m indubitable some people meditate on the awfully unvarying"

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need go meditate on the awfully unvarying.

Cereal revolution!

2011-04-05T10:38:00.004-06:00

Berry Berry Kix is one of the best cereals in the world. I think we can all agree on that...until now. First they replaced the berry-shaped pieces with the regular round balls, then it was virtually impossible to find and now they've changed the FLAVOR. And it's just not very good (though of course now it's readily available in stores now...). So not very good that I wrote General Mills. And you can too! Just take my word for it, don't worry about trying it. It's bland and dull--not even as good as regular Kix. Here's what I told them (and every word is true):

Berry Berry Kix has been my very favorite cereal for many years. For a long time I could never find it in stores but I always looked for it. Now it's back in stores but with a new look and taste. Unfortunately, neither of these changes were an improvement. Instead of the brightly colored berries, they are now muddy colored, like a white shirt that was washed with a red sock. Even worse, the cereal is now bland and unappetizing. The one box I purchased sat on my cereal shelf for nearly a month before I could finish it. I love regular Kix, I enjoy the Honey Kix, but I will not be buying Berry Berry Kix again, unless it returns to its former state. I can only hope it does because I really loved that cereal.

Giggle snort

2011-03-31T23:38:00.003-06:00

This makes me laugh so hard I can't even control myself. Seriously, every time (every time!) I just dissolve in uncontrollable facial contortions from laughing so much.

Glenn Steves!

Frog's breath?

2011-03-29T19:03:00.010-06:00

Have I really not blogged once in March (until now)? How ridiculous of me when this, this and this have happened lately. Good thing the Mister keeps up on these things. I guess I have been kind of preoccupied. Well, anyway, here we are and here is a new blog post (and here is my resolve for a more bloggy April).

So, if you don't know by now my favorite of all movies is Nightmare Before Christmas. Back in late 1993 I went to see The Three Musketeers with my Mama and sister. Some hapless employee had mislabeled that movie as PG-13, and so my Mama changed our course to that weird Christmas movie that was only PG. I had seen the trailer at Wal-Mart once and was basically repulsed by it--oh the folly of youth! If you haven't seen it before, I so highly recommend it. It is magical and delightful. Plus then you will understand half the things I ~~say~~ quote. As an epilogue to that story, my Mama and sister could only come up with "Well the dog was cute" afterward, but no worries, they've found their Nightmare love since.

Anyway, my oldest brother was on his mission when Nightmare came out and when he got back he wanted to see it. Luckily he had a little sister who liked it and who happened to have enough money to buy the video on the day it was released. I guess you could say that was my first piece of Nightmare paraphernalia, and in the such and so years up to now I have acquired many more from hither and thither. Let's look at some of the highlights! Yes, the whole point of this post is to show stuff related to this thing that I have loved for so long.
I got these little guys way back in the early 90s for Christmas. I was pretty ecstatic, and even more ecstatic that the bugs in Oogie Boogie's mouth glowed in the dark. I was also still a Nightmare newb because I didn't realize Zero's nose is a jack-o-lantern and I picked off the stem thinking it was a spare bit of plastic. Even now these sit on my nightstand.
I got this beanie for Christmas in 2001 from my longtime buddy Allison. I distinctly remember wearing it when the Olympic torch runner went past my house in Provo, and I still wear it to this day! Let's not talk about how it's been almost 10 years since then...but we are still buddies, which is neat.
This came from my longtime buddy Allison's sister Leslie who is also my longtime buddy. Isn't it cute? I've bundled this up very carefully for several plane rides across the country. Snowglobes are so pretty.
You all know this fellow. He's the cutest thing in the whole apartment beside the Mister. Look at that face! I found him at Disneyland in 2008 and while I resisted him that time, when we went a few months later on our honeymoon I just had to get him. I still call him the Baby, as does the Mister because he indulges me that way.
Another thing to come from Disneyland is this cool bag I found there last October. I don't normally buy souvenirs at Disneyland because they're typically so expensive, especially for larger things like this. But the bag I used for work (and England) had a broken zipper and several holes and this had a surprisingly reasonable price tag. So I pushed it at the Mister and told him it would be a great Christmas present (and so it was). It has pockets everywhere!
If I have a particular pride and joy in my Nightmare things, it is this. My oldest brother got this for me at Disneyland for my birthday one year. He had gone to Disneyland with his wife and baby while on leave from Iraq, and my sister-in-law brought it down to Provo for me after he went back to Iraq. It always reminds me how sweet my brother is and how he thought of me and my birthday while on such a short vacation with his family. This has also been ever so carefully taken back and forth across the country, and I would cry desperately if it were ever broken.

Have I saved the best for last? Well, I have certainly saved the most unique for last. Growing up, for Valentine's Day we would each make a mailbox and then make valentines for each other. While we were in Missouri for Christmas I found a bunch of my valentines from the last few years that we did this. Just check out these creative things:
(Yes, that is an envelope made from the paper that the Jack/Sandy Claws was cut out of.)

And there they are, some of my favorite Nightmare-related possessions. I'm fond of them for their movie connection, but I'm just as fond of them for the people connection. The love! It's nice. As a side note, probably one day many of these things will be safely secured in the back of my closet or in some kind of locked trunk to keep them out of the future hooligan children's hands. But I shan't deprive the wee ones entirely--I'll just have to get these unbreakable gems.

Let them eat soup!

2011-02-27T13:49:00.004-07:00

We have been eating a lot of soup the last few months. Soup is delicious! I suppose I have always thought so, but I feel like I have rediscovered my appreciation for it lately. It's hot and it doesn't require a lot of dirty dishes usually either. I like standard kinds of soup but I have trying my hand a number of new and interesting kinds too. There have been so many delicious ones I finally decided I should share them with one and all!

(Before I launch into the soups, I should add that I am a big fan of AllRecipes.com. I love the variety of recipes and I REALLY love that there are reviews. I feel like that provides something of a guarantee that the thing will be delicious. And they usually are--I have very rarely been disappointed with the results (*cough*fried cheese curds*cough*). Anyway, that is the story. Now the soup!)

Easy Chicken Fajita Soup
This was so so good. The funny thing is that it really IS just like fajita filling--all the pieces are in big long chunks. If I had wee ones, I would definitely make smaller pieces but it would still be just as tasty. I also followed a recommendation to make this to go along with and that was a very good decision.

Thai Chicken and Coconut Soup with Noodles
I don't know how authentically Thai this actually is, but I do know that it's really good. Coconut, cilantro, noodles?? So many things that I love in my food! It can turn out super salty so keep that in mind.

Chunky Chicken Noodle Soup
Sometimes we like traditional soup. I have tried several different chicken noodle soup recipes, but this one is my favorite. I like to throw in a potato. I made my own noodles once or twice--we had no rolling pin then so I used a can of biscuits to roll the dough out. True story.

Potato Clam Chowder
Another traditional soup--clam chowder is one of my very favorite soups. I tried a few different recipes, but I like this one because there's no cream so it's not super heavy or fattening. We like to occasionally watch our figures around here ~~until dessert~~.

BLT Soup
It sounds kind of funky, but this soup is REALLY good. I feel almost as much pride in it as if I had made the recipe myself. I like this soup because there are a lot of shortcuts you can take in terms of quickness and healthiness--like bacon bits or turkey bacon or premade croutons. I also like throwing in a little radiatore just to give it a little something extra. Try it! You'll love it.

Well I think that is enough soup for one day. I heartily recommend them all, and if you try them, let me know what you think! And of course I am always happy to hear about new soup recipes.

On Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T18:50:00.005-07:00

I love Valentine's Day! I think I am a sucker for festivity. I just like to be excited about the things that everyone else is excited about, whether it leads to fun things for me personally or not. What's not to like about V-Day after all? Pink! Red! Sparkles! Flowers! Sparkles! Chocolate things!

As a singleton, I was always kind of annoyed by the whole S.A.D. thing. I mean, isn't Valentine's like any other holiday, big or small, in that if you WANT to have fun with that day then you can? Not that you have to go hog wild with every single holiday, but there's no reason for anyone to feel bitter and sad on Valentine's Day. You can have fun with your friends or family or by yourself, it doesn't matter if you don't have a valentine. In my second year at college I started a Valentine's tradition for myself where I would watch a Disney movie, and I had a great time every year. Now as a non-singleton, we still are doing that (amazingly, Mr. Graham had no trouble adopting that tradition).

Naturally I have more fun on Valentine's Day now with my buddy, but that's true of pretty much any occasions and I still don't feel like there was anything lacking in my earlier V-Days.

Anyway, here is my gift to all of you. I can't even tell you how many times I have watched it ~~but it is a lot~~.
(I just watched it like four more times.)

On a not-really-related note, we finished watching Daria recently, which I had never seen before. It took a little while for me to get into, but I loved it by the end. I think we are going to be Daria and Trent for Halloween. Gee Quinn.

Christmas: It's Crafty

2011-01-31T21:23:00.005-07:00

Let's rewind to Christmas. This year I did a couple of crafty things for people, even though I've always been snooty about the "homemade Christmas" thing (because I'm materialistic of course). Since I have a tendency to document my craftiness on my blog I will tell you about my Christmas crafties.

The first thing was some cookies. Okay, maybe they're not necessarily a craft, but I'm counting them anyway. This year we made cookies for Drew's family and my contribution was a gumdrop cookie (Drewbles made his BCEs*). I became acquainted with these cookies several years ago through my sister-in-law, Sarah, but had never made them myself before now. They were, if I may toot my own horn, rather a hit. So, for you curious folk who didn't get any and for you interested folk who did, here is the recipe, which is courtesy of Sarah's lovely mother.

Cream together 1 c. shortening, 1 c. brown sugar, 1 c. white sugar. Beat in 2 eggs. Sift together 2 c. flour, 1/2 t. salt, 1 t. baking soda, 1 t. baking powder and add in. Stir in 1 c. shredded coconut, 2 c. cut gumdrops and 2 c. oatmeal.
Cook at 350 for 11-15 minutes and then eat until you can eat no more.

I would add that mine didn't need quite all the flour. Also, make sure you buy FRUIT gumdrops and not spice gumdrops. I followed Sarah's lead and just bought fruit slices and had Mr. Graham cut them up for me into manageable smallish pieces.

My second Christmas craft was to make some more magnets, this time featuring the grandkids.
I was going to make a set for both my parents, but the craft store thwarted me and didn't have any in stock for all the many weeks before Christmas. In the end I used ones I had leftover from my England magnets but I only had enough for one set. Maybe one day they will sell the really clear stones again and I can make a nice new set.

My last Christmas craftible took the most time by far, but first, a story. Lo, these many years ago when I was wee tot of 5 or 6, my teacher at church gave us each a gold Christmas spider (along with the cheesy story I forgot soon after). Over the years my Christmas spider became quite infamous among the decorations, and the tree was never complete without it. In 2009 my mama sent it to me here and then, later, plaintively asked me to make her one for next year. I tucked that idea away for this year, and I made a spider for my parents and each of my siblings (and myself of course). Again the craft store thwarted me and I had to make white spiders instead of gold. But in the end, they turned out so cute anyway and I just wanted to hug and squeeze them all. Behold my little fleet (and a cameo from Boston Rob)!
And here is the original.
He's a little wonky these days, but now that I know how to make them, I'm thinking about pulling him apart and remaking him. But then he wouldn't be quite the same, would he? Oh, little Christmas spider, what larks we have had.

And that was Christmas. The crafty part anyway...maybe this whole "homemade Christmas" is okay after all.

*Best Cookies Ever.

Sunday is for Funnies

2011-01-30T16:01:00.004-07:00

There's an artist on dA that does some funny things. One funny thing she did recently is this:
It was a big hit and led to some altered versions by others. This is my favorite, for obvious reasons:
Hah! Everything is better with dinosaurs. Unfortunately I can't tell you who did this one, but whoever you are, I tip my hat to you, sir/madam/mademoiselle.

On a completely unrelated note, little Vera has just been a basket case for well over six months now. I thought it was because she picked up not one but two viruses in a pretty short amount of time last spring. And, yeah, that probably didn't help but months later she was still taking a ridiculous amount of time to boot up/shut down/open Firefox/open anything. Finally last week I had a little suspicion that maybe my antivirus software was the culprit. So Friday night it was in with the new (avast) and out with the old (symantec) and Vera has perked right up to her old delightful self. I would say symantec served me well, but remember those two viruses? Anyway, it's nice to see Vera happy again and it's nice to not be waiting half an hour for her to do anything. Huzzah.

2011: Let's Be Friends

2011-01-16T14:27:00.003-07:00

And now commences the blog post I have been meaning to write for weeks now.

So, 2010 has ended, and now 2011 is here and I can't even believe it. 2001 seems like last week, even though I know it obviously wasn't. Okay, maybe it seems like, five years ago, but not ten. My my my. Anyway, I don't usually get big on resolutions. I tend to make goals whenever they come to me and then follow through from there (or not). This year I made a whole list, and while most of them aren't really interesting/relevant for other people, I do have two categories of goals that I am particularly excited about.

First, I have some art goals. I spent so many of my teenage and college years drawing pencil portraits, but ever since I started drawing my own things my senior year at BYU, that's kind of fallen by the wayside. I've drawn a handful, but they've taken months and months at a time. So one of my goals this year is to do a lot more pencil drawings, even just small ones. I'd like to do one a week but since that is entirely unrealistic, I'm aiming for once a month at least.

Another one of my art goals (leftover from last year) was to start an art blog for me and Drewbles. We finally did it and you can see it here. The design is still in progress but we've been updating it pretty regularly. You can also see one of my other art goals in progress--finishing a drawing of Legolas I started about a year ago (eesh). He's the main reason I haven't done any of my pencil drawings yet.

So, aside from the art goals, I have some book goals also. I feel like I spent 2010 reading either a) books I'd read before or b) reading dumb books that I knew were dumb and read anyway. Not that I don't enjoy a ridiculous book from time to time, but the ratio was a little off last year. This year I plan to read more books that I've never read and to have most of them be good books. I haven't made a final list of books to read or anything, and I have no set number, but here are some books I have already lined up to read during the year:

Jude the Obscure (the only big Hardy novel I haven't read)
Mansfield Park (the only Austen novel I haven't read)
1984
The Bourne Supremacy (I read the first, and have the 2nd and 3rd)
Cold Comfort Farm
I Capture the Castle

I'm also planning to reread Series of Unfortunate Events with Drewbles in the summer, but that's my only planned repeat. I'm really excited to read some new things! A little while ago I did a little books meme on Facebook and marked off which ones I'd read. I was quite happy with how many of them I'd read, but I hadn't read many of those recently...so I'm going to have a much better book diet this year.

In 2011 I have a lot of things that I just want to get done. Lately I've felt like I've been kind of stagnant with things. And of course I'm largely to blame with not using my time as well as I should, but dang it, my favorite hobbies are just time consuming. So I need to be better and prioritize things so that the things I REALLY want to do and get done actually HAPPEN.

I feel pretty good about the year so far. January has been kind of busy with post-holiday stuff and apartment hunting, but I've been sticking to my art goals, and I'm almost done with my last 2010 books so I can start afresh. Huzzah. I've also been noticing that my poor blog has been a little neglected lately. Unfortunately I think it might remain a little neglected, for a little while. If I've got these goals, I can't spend the time blogging about random stuff. I'm definitely not abandoning my blog--I mean, it's been around since 2004, it's not going anywhere--but I just want to focus on taking care of some other things for a little while.

BUT luckily Mr. Graham keeps a good blog with regular updates on our doings so if you like to keep tabs on me, please go hither! But in the meantime you can also find bits and pieces from me here and here. And of course, Facebook. I think I'll always be able to make time for a little status update.

In Which We Go to England: The Stuff Edition

2010-12-05T18:03:00.007-07:00

I know, I know, we've been home for a while now (*sigh), but I've been planning on doing this post for months now. My skills of procrastination are mighty indeed of late. ANYway, we came back from England with a lot of stuff. Really cool stuff. And since most of it is, naturally, in our house and you can't all come to our house just to see our new magnets, I will show them to you this-a way.

Like I said, we got new magnets. They are pretty awesome. You can probably guess where we got two of them.The sheep one we found up in Windermere, where apparently their sheep (and byproducts) are a big deal. It just seemed appropriate to get something cheesy for our wedding anniversary celebration.

We got this delightful Christmas tree ornament at Westminster Abbey. It was the ONLY ornament we found like this in all of our travels--most were felt-y and puffy and big. This one is so charming and wintery and yet also Londony.We saw lots of shows, as you know, and we got the programs at every one. Aren't they pretty?We also got books. Lots of books. Seriously, a lot of books. But I didn't take any pictures. So just IMAGINE a beautiful pile of books from pretty much every place we went, along with a boxed set of the adult edition Harry Potter paperbacks (you knew that was going to happen). I also got these books.Okay, so I haven't made anything from them, but I WILL. Soon. I also got those measuring things so I wouldn't have to convert all the recipes--I will say that was a stroke of genius. Go me. Oh, and we got these other food-related items--salt and pepper shakers! Aren't they the best? I'm already dreading the day some ruffian child o' mine breaks them. (Yes, those are tiny Pirates of the Caribbean figurines you see in the pictures.)

I love to buy postcards of my favorite things from a museum. We went to a lot of museums so...I got a lot of postcards. These are another thing that I hope to be able to display at SOME point in life. For some reason, they don't look like very many in this pictures but trust me, it's a fat stack.I also kept all the maps, guides and brochures we picked up along the way. These were the source of my totally awesome magnets, as you may recall.Oh, and we got this cool thing too. The tiniest Stonehenge of them all!In other stuff news, we brought quite a lot with us, and some of them didn't make it through the whole trip unscathed.You might think that we would have left these items there and gained a little extra suitcase room, but no, we brought them all back. We didn't even stop using them. In fact, we didn't even repair them, aside from the glasses (which have since mysteriously disappeared). That's just how we roll. I guess?

Of course we got other things as well, like shirts from Oxford, hats from various shops, scarves and an umbrella. It's always a delight to go through the day and run into these little reminders of our trip. It's so nice that we could not just go, but also have the money to bring back these little mementos. Thanks, work!

In Which I Draw Conclusions

2010-11-17T23:04:00.004-07:00

(Originally I was going to try to cram this into a Facebook status.)

Tonight Mr. Graham and I went to see a one-night showing of the recent Les Miserables 25th Anniversary concert. It was three hours and $15 a pop, but it turned out to be well, well worth the cost and time.* During these three hours I compiled the following list of conclusions:

It IS possible for "Bring Him Home"--one of my least favorite songs in the world--to sound like it is being sung by a man. Thank you, Alfie Boe, for singing like a man.
While I can give Nick Jonas some credit for being involved with something that is not a Disney Channel byproduct, for an event on this scale, he just didn't have the (Marius) goods. That said, he didn't embarrass himself, but he did sound comparatively underwhelming.
Lea Salonga as Fantine is just as good as Lea Salonga as Eponine. (She *may* have made someone that is not me cry...)
Ramiiiiiiiiiin! It was nice to see him in a show that is good and stuff. His inclusion as Enchiladas ("Enjolras," says Mr. Graham) was 50% of my motivation for seeing it in the first place. I want to turn him into an iPod and put him in my pocket.
Oh my, Michael Ball is not as young as he once was, though his hair looks exactly the same.
I enjoy Les Mis probably 40-50% more as a concert. Granted, I have seen ~~most of~~ the 10th anniversary concert many times, and on stage only once. However! I think the show itself is kind of fundamentally flawed in its characters and storytelling, but it works better when you can see people's faces well and identify all the characters better. For whatever reason, probably because some minor things are cut, the story seems much more focused in concert versions.
I find it frustrating that even though I only really, really like about 1/3 of the songs I still find the whole thing so very spirited and rousing. It puts me at odds with myself. When the original 1985 cast came out at the end I was ready to squeal like a little girl.
Why don't they do concerts for any other big shows? How has ALW not been all over this for years?

Anyway, it was a good time, and it was really fun to see a lot of the cast members that we saw live this summer. We even spotted that most dreaded Marius--he who makes Nick Jonas look good, or at least better.

*As a sidenote, we were finishing up our Harry Potter movie-a-night marathon and had to watched the first hour, go to the show and then finish it after. Last night we had to interrupt Order of the Phoenix with a rather lackluster local production of The Scarlet Pimpernel...bad French accents were ever-y-whare.

In Which Dinner is in a Pumpkin

2010-11-03T19:39:00.005-06:00

On Sunday, the very day of Halloween, we had our second dinner in a pumpkin and it turned out great. And this year we had a couple of friends over to help us eat it so now there is slightly less for us to eat as leftovers all week. A lot of people that we have mentioned this dinner to have been kind of perplexed and interested in it so I thought I would explain the process here.

My first dinner in a pumpkin was made by my then roommate, Comrade Cox in 2008. Last year I decided to try it myself since it seemed pretty straight forward. And when I say "seemed" I mean "is." So, here is the process.

You buy yourself a pumpkin. You don't want a gigantic pumpkin because it has to cook and also it has to fit in the oven. I have had good luck with a nice mid-sized pumpkin that is more tall than it is wide. You clean it out all nice, and put the seeds aside for baking later--or for just sitting on the counter, like I'm doing this year.

So then you need to fill it! I follow Comrade Cox's recipe, which is as follows:
-Sausage: one of those Jimmy Dean kinds of sausage that comes in the fat tube.
-6 cups of cooked rice
-1 can of cream of mushroom soup
-1 can of cream of chicken soup
-1/2 cup soy sauce
-1 small onion, all chopped up
-A few stalks of celery, all chopped up. You want about as much celery as you have onion, unless you really like celery. Or onion.

All you do is cook the sausage with the vegetables until it's done, mix in everything else and then put it in the pumpkin! If the pumpkin doesn't quite hold it all (you want some space), everything is cooked so you can just eat it on its own. There is NO waste, Siegfried!*Put the lid back on the pumpkin, put the whole thing on a baking sheet and stick it in a 375 degree oven for 2 hours.
My pumpkins have not needed quite 2 hours, more like 1 and 45 minutes or so. Anyway, whenever it is done, you get a strong man to get it out of the oven for you.Then you just dish it out, scraping out pumpkin with the other stuff, and you eat, eat, eat until you can eat no more! And when you can't eat anymore, you dig everything out and throw what's left of the pumpkin away. Food doesn't get more seasonal than this!

*That one's for you, Marcue...can you place the reference?

In Which I Follow Through

2010-10-30T23:54:00.003-06:00

We did it! Just like I said we would!

(I call this my KStew face.)

At the trunk or treat only one person knew who we were, but at another party Drew was the biggest hit of the night. Naturally, no one recognized me on my own, hah. Doesn't Mr. Graham just look so great? He totally pulled it off.

In case you're curious about the details, we ordered his shirt off Amazon, found the (Darth Vader) gloves at a Halloween store, the pants at DI and borrowed the boots. My costume was all my own stuff except a $1 shirt from DI and a clip board. By the end of the night I even had two signatures (Billy and Phil)! Naturally, it was more expensive than sticking to our traditional stuff, but it was fun to be something new and unexpected (though we did run as Harry and Hermione in a 5K this morning, as well at work on Friday). Now I'm just trying to think of other occasions to wear them...
(Have you seen it yet?)

Magneato!

2010-10-17T11:40:00.006-06:00

When did I become such a lazy blogger? I have no shortage of things to blog about, but I just never seem to get to doing it these days. Well, today I am doing it. Maybe it is a sign of things to come.

So, I like to go running. It is delicious. It's good for me. It's the perfect way to start the day. But I have this trouble with getting out of bed. In fact, more often than not I just stay in the bed. Yeah, I could run after work, but that involves two showers a day and dinner at 8:00. So morning is the time, but morning is for sleeping! But like I said, I like to go running and I know it's good for me, especially since I sit at a desk all the day long. But how ever am I to motivate myself?

The answer came to me last week: I must treat myself as a small child! When willpower won't work, one must turn to the time-honored system of a reward chart. But I wanted to make a cool chart, and I remembered Elise's magnet project. I am occasionally crafty so I decided to make cool magnets for my chart. I gathered the necessaries and pondered what pictures to use. For a while I thought I would make dumb magnets with different celebrity faces because the only magazines we have are Entertainment Weekly. Maybe if one of the issues had pictures of everyone from Battlestar in it that would work, but I would have had to settle for Miley Cyrus and the cast of Glee. No thanks.

But I had another moment of genius! We happen to have a stack of pamphlets, guides and brochures from London sitting on our floor, and they are bursting with tiny cool pictures. So I got out the duplicates and cut them up and 8 really cool magnets were born. Thanks, brain.

As I mentioned, my chart includes rewards also because nothing motivates me like getting stuff. I didn't want to make it fancy though or involve much money so my list of rewards are things like a pumpkin shake and getting to pick the movie on Friday night. So, week one of my chart plan has passed. Did it work?
Okay, so Mr. Graham still has to drag me out of bed (usually by the ankles), but now I am kind of willing and don't try to dissuade him with sleeping-in snuggles. Hurrah! Yes, I did make a Love Never Dies magnet--it was the perfect size!

On a totally unrelated note: yesterday we went to Walmart where they had this photo spot set up for How to Train Your Dragon. You could even get a free 5x7 print of your picture. Doesn't Mr. Graham make such a great Hiccup? Maybe next year we'll be Hiccup and Astrid for Halloween.

In Which We Go to England: Part 8

2010-09-19T22:05:00.006-06:00

Okay, so this final installment is a little overdue. We came home to a flurry of activity and perhaps I was a little loathe to admit to the end of our glorious trip. There were a lot of emotions involved in this trip but now that all is said and done, mostly I am still just a bit sad that it's all over. But! Let us not dwell on what is passed in a sad way. Instead I will sum up our last week.

Our last weekend, as you may recall, involved a number of museums and had Mr. Graham coming down with a cold. We started out the next week with him getting over his cold (as he always does so speedily), and then with me picking it up a day later. It wasn't the best timing, but if you're going to have a cold, better to have one in London. Right? Something like that. So, the list:

Monday was a bank holiday so there was no work for me. Mr. Graham worked the morning away and then we spent the afternoon at St. Paul's Cathedral. Naturally it was extremely large and impressive and beautiful. We also took the stairs up to the Whispering Gallery which was fun, but, despite our best efforts, we were unable to achieve the infamous effect. We then took the stairs up to the Stone Gallery, which provides a pretty great view of London.
From the Stone Gallery we continued on up to the Golden Gallery. It had a pretty nice view and luckily, unlike the rest of St. Paul's, you can take all the pictures you want! And even luckier, it was a lovely sunny day. From the top we went all the way down to the crypt to see the famous tombs of Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington, as well as those of JM Turner, William Blake, Joshua Reynolds, Edwin Landseer and so on and so forth. We even found a bust of George Washington tucked away in the corner. On the whole, like so many other pricey spots in London, it was totally worth the time and money, and we were glad we made it there at last.
On the way home we did our best to check out the famous Notting Hill Carnival. We got there in time to see a parade, surrounded by massive amounts of people. We didn't get very far--the music was so loud and the crowds were so tights. So we gave up on the unknown potential delights and went home for more ice cream and Cloverfield on tv.
The next day as Mr. Graham was feeling so much better, I started feeling so much worse, just in time for our trip to the Globe Theatre to see A Comedy of Errors written by a fellow named Shakespeare. Coworker Caity had a seat but we were in the standing yard for the common folk. Aside from my drippy, snotty nose and general weariness, it was a great time and the show was very creative and well done. Not to mention the accents were ever so authentic.
Wednesday was the worst sick day so after a long day at work and then dragging myself back home, I stayed there. Mr. Graham was kind enough to not resent me for keeping us at home on our second to last night, and took care of me instead.
Thursday was our last night! Caity and I made a half day of it, and left the Society for the last time. It was sad to leave our English friends behind, including the ninja bunnies in the courtyard. We packed for a while and then all set off for a last night of English larks. We checked out Abbey Road, which was surprisingly close to our previous lodgings, and then found some dinner a traditional English place. We did a lot of fond reminiscing over our delicious English foods (seriously, English food is good. Really good.).
Friday morning started early. We finished packing up and took a taxi back to the airport. It was a pretty painless process--aside from the fact that the airline had deleted Mr. Graham's flight reservation. Oops. They got it sorted out in a few minutes and off we went. We looked longingly down at the land as we flew away and got a good look at Ireland as we went. I won't bore you with the details of our less comfortable planes, the mishaps at Chicago security or the poor entertainment choices. In the end we arrived safe, sound and very tired. It was sad to finally part company with Caity, who will forever be our London friend. We took a last picture of our jet-lagged and worn out selves and went our ways.

And that was London. I feel like London and I truly bonded. I sweat buckets on its Tube, I tripped on its sidewalks, I rubbed my bare feet upon its famous tombs. I sneezed and coughed on it, and I even vomited on it. I saw all of its delights that I could and I loved it so.

Now it is over and done with. But never fear, you haven't seen the last of the London posts.

In Which We Go to America

2010-09-04T00:10:00.002-06:00

Just a little note to commemorate our very recent return...

(Also, "Fri"?)

In Which We Go to England: Part 7

2010-08-30T04:28:00.007-06:00

We're now starting our final week here! This past weekend was our last, and I have started bidding things farewell as we leave them. Things are winding up, and as such, we have been busily cramming in all that we can before leaving. It will be nice on our next trip here (whenever that is) to not have our sightseeing time limited by a work schedule, but heck, we can't complain. We saw so many things this week! I will describe them to you now with words and pictures and maybe an emoticon or two.

We went, at last, to the British Library. Despite its modern facade, there were many impressive old things inside that, naturally, one cannot take pictures of. But we did see many original manuscripts of things like Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Alice in Wonderland and Jane Eyre. We also saw Jane Austen's writing desk, Handel's Messiah and the Magna Carta. All of these things reaffirmed my belief that most penmanship these days is pretty wretched.
On Wednesday we made our final foray into the theatre district to see Starlight Express. Unfortunately we were about 8 years late so we saw Wicked instead. There was a brief kerfuffle at the ticket pickup when the (always)* crabby attendant refused to accept Mr. Graham's signature as genuine, despite the fact that he has one of the most consistent signatures I've ever seen. Apparently she just wanted to make extra sure it was really Mr. Graham and not his Wicked-loving evil twin. No, really. That was the reason. ANYway, so we went to the show and it was all spectacular and the cast was good. The show itself has too many girls and too many belty girl songs for me and my ears, but Mr. Graham had a great time. It did make the effects of Phantom and Les Mis look even more dated by comparison.
On Thursday all three of us travelers went to the British Museum. Caity hadn't been yet, and it was a much more pleasant experience this time for us. No crowds, no sweltering heat, huzzah! This time we went upstairs and saw the rest of the Egyptian collection as well as the Anglo-Saxon things. We saw the Mildenhall Treasure, which I was pretty excited about since I recently read about it in Roald Dahl's The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More.** I was also excited to see the Sutton Hoo objects. I'm pretty sure I wrote a paper about Sutton Hoo, but for the life of me I cannot remember what it was about. I definitely remember writing a paper about this though: It was a pretty bad paper, but it was also my last and I just wanted to graduate (sorry, Dr. Finlayson, that you had to read it).
Friday we made another trip to the National Gallery because it was one of the few places that I really, really wanted to see again. We stayed for a few hours and I bought more postcards. When we got home we watched the last two episodes of the latest IT Crowd season, and one episode was like XD and the other was like o.O
Saturday started with a run and the progressed into running about from one place to another. We went to see the Marble Arch at Hyde Park, along with the giant horsehead, before going for lunch at the Orangery. Mr. Graham got the Ploughman, which we understood to be a sandwich, but we were a little bewildered as to how it all went together. We must have been feeling extravagant because we got dessert too. I got the lemon crunch cake because I was imagining candied lemon peel and some delectable frosting. Alas, it was simply pound cake with a sugar sort of topping. Mr. Graham had better luck with the Orangery cake.
After the Orangery, we went to Hampstead Heath, which is basically a large, wild sort of park. We tromped up and down hills and wandered through many little woodlands and felt pleasantly isolated. On the way home we stopped at Wagamama for dinner, but both agreed it was overpriced and not particularly amazing. What WAS amazing though was the most recent episode of Project Runway which we watched later. It was possibly the greatest runway judging I have seen on that show.
Our Sunday plans were up in the air for a long while because we couldn't decide on going to Yorkshire or not. In the end we decided not to go because the amount of train time and cost required were pretty high for the amount of time we'd be able to spend there. Next time, York, next time. Instead we hit three museums: the science museum, the natural history museum and the Tate Britain. The Science Museum was mostly a snooze, but we did check out the IMAX Deep Sea movie. I was hoping it would be a domed IMAX screen because those are the best, but it was just a bit curved. I told Mr. Graham that we will go to the St. Louis Science Center over Christmas and he will see just how cool a science museum can be (so cool)! We did have fun in the veterinary history exhibit, which was the size of a small bedroom and probably hasn't changed in 15 years.
The natural history museum was much more entertaining with its collections of dead creatures. The real winner of the day was the Tate Britain. It was much smaller than the National Gallery, but it was a pleasant smallness. They had a great collection that included some really lovely Pre-Raphaelite paintings, among them one of my least favorite paintings in the world, The Awakening Conscience: Blargh.

And that was our week. It was much more hustle and bustle than usual, but it was very satisfying to cross off so many things on our to-do list. This week will involve packing and sorting, but it will also include standing for Shakespeare in the Globe Theatre and more ice cream. Huzzah!

*I can say always because we have encountered her several times, and she is always sulky and unhelpful (not to mention suspicious of signatures).
**I love to recommend a few stories in this book, though there are several that I am ho-hum about and one that kind of makes me recoil. The non-fiction ones are the best: Lucky Break, A Piece of Cake and The Mildenhall Treasure. Even (or maybe especially) if you don't like Roald Dahl, you should read those because they're quite fascinating.

In Which We Go to England: Part 6

2010-08-23T13:27:00.007-06:00

One of these days I'm going to start a blog post by saying "Here we are in Utah" but it's not quite time for that yet. Still, our return is starting to loom up on the horizon, and we have just under two weeks left here. I wouldn't say the time has necessarily gone speeding by (or dragging by), but I'm still surprised that it's getting closer to that time.

But! It's not that time yet, and we had several adventures this week. Let's get down to business.

Last week we went to see Into the Woods at Regent's Park, but the show was rained out before it could start. This past Tuesday we made a second attempt, and we made it about 15 minutes into act 2 when it started to drizzle. Drizzle turned into a downpour and back home we went. Some might describe it as "agony."
We took the next night off, but on Thursday after another stop at Harrod's we went back to try to catch the second act. After a lot of poking around the closed up entrances, a kindly usher took pity on us and let us in during intermission. It drizzled the entire act, but we made it through at last!
On Friday we had an ice cream party with Caity and Friends. The ice cream here is delicious. I probably shouldn't say how many cartons we've gone through in the last few weeks, but I will say that we bought two more tonight (2 for 3 pounds! How can we resist?). Also, Friends is on here for hours at a time, on two different channels, so we've watched quite a lot of it. Good times.
Saturday started out with a run, then our first foray into Portobello Road, which was a kind of pleasant insanity. We came out of it with just some pastries, a giant hot dog and some peaches that went bad way too soon. Also, we may not be able to complain about Walmart crowds ever again.
We had plans to go to St. Paul's and then meet some visiting friends for dinner and Phantom of the Opera. When we got back from the market, we picked up our newly-arrived theatre tickets and...realized they were for the matinee show, which started in 15 minutes. So...no St. Paul's for us as we spent the rest of the afternoon trying to contact the 24 hour customer service people (no go) and hunt for more tickets in Piccadilly. The end result is that we found four more tickets, though in two different places, and we met up with Liza and Kent no problem. Unfortunately we have not a single picture of them until they send us their pictures.
Speaking of Phantom of the Opera, we saw it from our spots in the very back row of the whole theatre, but it wasn't as bad a view as it sounds. The cast was kind of so-so, but they probably would have sounded better if the orchestra hadn't been racing for the finish line. We both agreed that the show could use a little updating in the costumes and effects. Shooting "fireballs" from a staff are just not as impressive as they were in the 80s.
On Sunday we went to Kew Gardens and explored them for about 5 hours. It was overcast the whole time, but it never rained and we saw many exciting plants and trees. We also saw this little friend:

He was just running about the greenhouse, and then he stayed put for about ten people to pet him and take pictures. He was an unexpected highlight, but there were many other lovely sights to see.

We wrapped up our weekend with pizza, more ice cream and Project Runway. We just love a good old fashioned pizza party.

And thus was our week. We are coming to the end of our to-do list, and we're steadily checking things off. Next weekend is still an enigma. Will we go to York? Or Brighton? Will we just stay in and watch Dear John? Only this weekend knows for sure!

In Which We Do Things Differently

2010-08-20T07:22:00.003-06:00

Mr. Graham and I have a lot in common, which is a good thing for our well being(s), but there are some ways that we are pretty different. Some of these differences are super, super crucial. Like the way we dispose of our Starburst wrappers.

Mr. Graham's way:
My way:
We did, however, both agree that the Starbursts were delicious. Phew!

In Which I Expound Fondly

2010-08-16T14:26:00.005-06:00

Guess what happened a year ago yesterday?
This! Can you believe it's been a year already? The time really started to speed up about June and now I can't believe it's already been August 15th and all. Now we can say that this time last year we were already married!

You all know this isn't a gooey blog so I won't be gooey now. But I am going to list a few things I have been liking about Mr. Graham in particular the last few days.

His eye crinkles when he smiles.
The fact that he will drag all the heaviest luggage around, up and down hills with nary a complaint.
The way he sings Yankee Doodle Dandy in his sleep or says things like "Trouble is my middle name."
The beard! Yeah.
He can keep up with me when I start quoting Nightmare Before Christmas.
He is always full of surprises--like flowers or a random DVD I have been pining for.
He likes me so well and I can tell all the time.

So here we are, married and happy and happy to be married, as we always shall be. And there's only 365 days left until the next anniversary!

Cheers to you, Mr. Graham, and cheers to us. I loves you so. :*

(I may have listened to this song three times in a row today...)

In Which We Go to England: Part 5

2010-08-16T10:52:00.006-06:00

Can you believe we're still here? We are! We're still here, doing things and seeing the sights, although maybe not at such an impressive pace as when we first arrived. Also, I have three blog posts in my head right now so if I pop up in your reader a lot over the next 24 hours, well, you're welcome.

I did want to mention one more thing about last week, specifically about Westminster Abbey because I don't think I gave it its due. It was very old and quite beautiful and lovely in its oldness. I made a point to touch lots of things, just to touch something old. Also, I had no idea that Elizabeth I (and Mary, and the other Mary) were buried there. As I was walking around with Jeremy Irons, I was thinking about how England, and the world in general, has been made what it is by so very, very, very many people. Lots of them we still remember, but there are so many more that we don't. But that doesn't mean they had no effect on the world. I mean, Stone Carver #10 at Westminster may not be remembered specifically, but the effects of his life are still standing. Anyway, what I'm saying in such a plodding fashion is that maybe Achilles made the wrong choice.*

So! (As Lawrence Olivier would say) Here we are. And here is what we have done! It was a lazy week and big weekend.

Tuesday night we made our first attempt to see Into the Woods at the open air theater in Regent's Park. It wound up never starting and being canceled because of some heavy rain, but it was a fun walk in the rain anyway. I do like the English rain.
Thursday night we went to H&M where I got my own posh hat. We may have also bought another posh hat for someone else...

Yeah, so...not much during the week. But then on Friday we took off to the Lake District! We were off on the train at 5:30 and arrived a little before 9 at Windermere. It was so nice to go speeding through the countryside and see the England that I have been seeing in my head and on my TV for all these years. There were sheep, trees, stone walls, fields and little houses. Charming!

We headed up to our sweet hotel, and settled right in. The next day we got up in time to get our included full English breakfast, which turned out to have many options. We settled on just the regular breakfast which included grilled tomatoes (mm) and mushrooms (mmm), as well as sausages and eggs. AND. Black pudding. We weren't sure what it was. So we ate it. Afterwards we did a little research to find out just what black pudding is. It's blood! Blood pudding! The most notorious of English foods! Look at the thing.
They look like super crispy, burnt breakfast sausages, but they're actually all soft and weird. I didn't really like it because it tasted like beans, and I didn't finish mine. Naturally Mr. Graham ate the whole thing. I'm glad I tried it, just for the trying, but I mean...really? Who thought of these things?

The rest of the day we spent walking. We walked up to the visitors center, then we walked back down and past the hotel to the actual Lake Windermere so we could catch the ferry to the other side. A little ways before the ferry there were a bunch touristy lake cruises and boat rides to the other side and they charged about 6 pounds. We rode the ferry for 50p each. Hah! Take that! It was my first ferry ride, and I thought about The Ring the whole time. Luckily there were no horses.Anyway, so we found ourselves in the woods on the other side and set off for Hill Top, better known as one of Beatrix Potter's homes. Our trek went up hills and down hills, through the woods and across fields of sheep, and, just over two miles later, we arrived. The house was little and a bit musty, but it was fun to see some of her illustrations and how they were taken straight from the house.With that we headed back the way we came and said hello to the sheep again. We stopped at the lake again on our way back into town and let our feet get acquainted with the water.
Once in town we got ordered some Indian take away for dinner and got some locally-made ice cream while we waited. Maybe it was partly due to circumstances that made chocolate things taste better, but seriously, this ice cream ("Death by Chocolate") was the best thing I have had here. Maybe even the best ice cream I have ever had. It was so good that I got some more the next day. Hot diggity.The rest of the night was spent trudging back up the hills to the hotel with our Indian food before collapsing in front of the TV with our food and a couple of movies. Delicious!

The next day was pretty much like the first, except without the black pudding and Hill Top. Mr. Graham got porridge and a sugar waffle and I had the Cumberland ham (Ham for breakfast! What a country!). We walked down to the lake and sat with the water for a while, playing a game that Mr. Graham's dream created, then sitting on the grass, still playing that game, then finally walking back to town and finishing the game. We had fish and chips and some mushy peas that have me reconsidering my stance on split pea soup, and finished it up with more ice cream. A little while later we were back on the train and heading home.

Oh, I guess I forgot to mention why we went to the Lake District. Sunday was our first anniversary and we were celebrating! Huzzah for us and for our being married! We did have plans to be in Disneyland Paris this weekend, but due to circumstances that are best told not in a public venue, we were bound to England. It wasn't super French or Disney-ish, but there were many delights to be had, and we were just happy to be together (aww). One day, Disneyland Paris!

*Egads, that movie is awful.

In Which We Go to England: Part 4

2010-08-09T13:06:00.009-06:00

Another week has come and gone, and we ended this last one with a move to another living place (that's four now, if you're counting). Luckily this was the last time for moving, and we will be spending our last weeks in our very favorite place so far. Don't worry, pictures are coming, but let's do this chronologically shall we? List!

My co-worker Caity's old roommate, Melissa, had been visiting for the last week, and for her last night we all went for Italian food and another stop at Platform 9 3/4. (Of course, Melissa wound up coming back a few days later after many failed attempts to get on planes via stand by, but she did finally flee the country successfully on Saturday.)
After several unsuccessful tries at getting into the theatre, we finally got tickets for Les Mis! I had never seen it, and even though I don't love it, I just felt compelled. After seeing it I still don't love it and I actually think, technically speaking, it's rather flawed, but the music seems to cover the weaknesses. Also, the guy who played Marius had the weirdest, most quavery voice and I actually mistook him for a woman before I could see him. You can all look forward to Mr. Graham doing a very enthusiastic and accurate impression on our return!
Before Les Mis we popped into a nearby Vietnamese restaurant where we had our old favorite: pho! The hostess lady was a little intense so I didn't take pictures, but know that it was delicious.
On Saturday we had our own makeshift 5K around Regent's Park, since we couldn't find an official one. Naturally, about five minutes into it we saw a pack of runners with race bibs going through the Park.
Our next stop was Westminster Abbey to see the inside. We had a delightful (free) audio tour led by Jeremy Irons and saw many neat and very old things. The Poet's Corner was naturally our favorite and we made sure to rub the tombs/monuments/floor tiles of Dickens, Hardy and Carroll with our bare feet.
Also on Saturday we made our big move (during a convenient downpour), and no, the cab driver had no idea where to go (that's five out of five). Our new place is an "aparthotel" and is so modern and clean and nice. Also, it has the cutest and tiniest dishwasher in the world. If I could hug it, I would. In fact, I may try later.
Sunday we took a train (my first!) to Oxford in the afternoon. We ran around like mad to see things before they closed, and even though we only had a few hours we saw a lot of sites. Sadly we missed out on Exeter so I was unable to cling lovingly to the bust of Tolkien. But we did get to see the pub where he met with C.S. Lewis, among others, and we also saw a bit of Hogwarts, AKA Christ Church.

It was a mild week, but we definitely made the most of the weekend, as we always try to do. And now, another week! Let us go forth.

In Which We Go to England: Part 3

2010-08-02T13:47:00.007-06:00

Yes, we are still here and doing things. I will tell you these things in a list. Here is our life from the past week:

We went to church at Westminster Abbey. It was very old and it was fun to sit in such an old building for church. And yes, we are going to go back yet again for a tour on some Saturday.
We saw the amusing wreck that is Love Never Dies. Our experience also included both the souvenir brochure and the program (for half the price we expected) AND a free poster. What we will do with it, I have no idea--perhaps hang in our loo at home.
We took a walk up to Primrose Hill to check out the view. It was very impressive, though the weather could have been better for pictures. It seems like most days here that start sunny end cloudy.
After striking out on a deal for Les Mis tickets, we chilled at home with pizza and The IT Crowd (an American version for real??).
We hit Primark, which has the cheapest clothes I have ever seen. It is also a complete madhouse.
We made a fairly brief stop at the British Museum. It was brief because it was SO HOT inside and crowded, and not that that is different from any other place we've seen, but that day I just couldn't take it. So we saw the highlights and then escaped.

Saturday was a big day as we (me, Mr. Graham, co-worker Caity and her visiting [former] roommate Melissa) had booked a tour that took us to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and Bath. It turned out to be a great deal, monetarily speaking, and it was nice to not worry about logistics or buying tickets. Also, it was awesome.

Windsor was fun, though probably the least interesting to all of us. It was old and very opulent, and I have never seen so many guns and swords used in such a decorative fashion. The highlight, for me, was Mary's Doll's House. But no pictures were allowed inside so you must imagine!
After lunch in a pub, we journeyed on to Stonehenge. We really really wanted a tour that took us there in the evening and into the Inner Circle but apparently they were doing that only on, like, 3 weekdays from now until December. So. Maybe next time. It was still really cool--very mysterious and old. We did our best Tess of the D'Urbervilles impersonations, only with less death.

Our last stop was Bath, which we decided we could easily spent a whole tour day at. We had just a little time to walk about so we got hot chocolate and "Bath Buns." Most of the time there was spent touring the actual Roman baths, where we were greeted by a Roman soldier who was very into his character. I so wish that I had taken some video of him because he was just so great. He was a big highlight for all of us, and actually was the thing that made us settle on this particular tour in the first place. We were not disappointed.It was a long day and I was just beat at the end of it, though I tried my hardest to watch Prisoner of Azkaban with the girls (Mr. Graham did quite literally carry me off to bed, since I could no longer move under my own power).

In a rather anticlimactic end to the week, I spent Sunday afternoon emptying my stomach contents in the loo. Too much exertion and no fuel, but by the evening I was right as rain and eating many, many goodly things.

Onward!

(No, there's no bun in this toaster, Mom.)

Love: It Never Dies (Except When It Does)

2010-07-26T16:33:00.002-06:00

If you have been within earshot of me in the last several months you have probably heard me complaining about Love Never Dies and all its many faults (they are many). But ever since I found out we were coming to London, it has been on our to do list. Actually, the way I broke the job news to Mr. Graham was by saying "We should go see Love Never Dies. In LONDON."

I'm not going to list all my complaints here because I hate to be a broken record and rehash everything I've already said six times. I will just say that I think it tramples on the original in a way that is neither good nor necessary. In fact the whole thing is just ridiculous and unnecessary. Aside from all of those things, we just felt compelled to see it anyway. Those of you who know my Van Helsing love will not be surprised.

So tonight we saw it for ourselves. It was exciting to see the original cast of something, since I never had done. Luckily Madame Giry had toned down her accent so that I didn't hear horses neigh constantly. It was, in general, pretty much what I expected. There were some cool technical things, but overall I think it's just kind of underwhelming (and frustrating in its lack of logic and consistency).

Going into it there was only one song ("Til I Hear You Sing") that I was really looking forward to, since I have listened to it at least 20 times now. And he delivered! He delivered so well! If I had thought to bring pom poms, I would have waved them about spiritedly. And now I give it to you, in the form of a super dramatic music video on YouTube. It might be best if you just play it and not watch the video, for maximum enjoyment. Here is the Phantom, in his new incarnation, which is romantic and lovable and non-threatening (somewhere Joseph Buquet is protesting).

(Or you can watch this version, which is quite wretched in its drama.)

But then there wound up being another song that just kind of amazed me, this time the title track from Christine. I am not really into belty woman show tunes--those are the songs I ~~always~~ usually skip--and until now this song was no different. But by the time it was over, Mr. Graham and I were both sitting quite dumb founded. It's not the same watching it without the build up of the story and such, but you can watch her sing it live anyway. Just know that in person it was like...wow.

(Or you can watch this version.)

So, when all was said and done, I decided that it was totally worth the pounds for those two songs. And...I would totally see it again for those two songs, sung by these two people. Otherwise I would rather just spend time with Gerard.

In Which We Go to England: Part 2

2010-07-25T05:14:00.006-06:00

We have now spent our first entire week in England, and we are feeling all settled in at last. We use the Tube like pros, hardly ever open the map and say things like "lift" and "surgical spirits." This week we didn't do as much sight seeing, primarily due to time constraints, but we did see some exciting things this weekend. Instead of doing a detailed summary (or saying I won't do a detailed summary and then do exactly that), here are three lists to sum up our life here at the moment--5 things we liked this week, 4 things we didn't care for and 3 things we're looking forward to in the coming week.

Five Things We Liked This Week:

The National Gallery. Oh, loveliness of lovelinesses! All of my life, I have only ever thought of the British Museum so when we saw this place during our visit to Trafalgar Square I was intrigued. We went on Saturday (after the British Museum decided to hate me and have their Egyptian collection closed for a few more days and their Roman collection closed INDEFINITELY) and it was heavenly! I saw not one, not two, but THREE Caravaggios! I had to limit myself to 12 postcards. We will definitely be returning, especially since we somehow missed the Botticelli. Also, it's free! England loves me.
St. Paul's Cathedral. This was a site of particular interest for Mr. Graham, and since we weren't able to see it last Sunday as we planned originally, we went on Friday night. It was just so BIG. We ate dinner on the stairs and fed the pigeons. We fed four and then more came along and I named them all: Henrietta, Piccadilly, Gustave, Ophelia, Bustopher and Jonesy. Afterward, we took a short walk over to the Millennium Bridge, featured in Half-Blood Prince, and clung on for dear life as we watched for Death Eaters. None came around so we continued on to take a look at the Globe Theater and all of its clever Shakespeare merchandise.

Regent's Park. It's so large and scenic. We walked through it about 4 times in a few days, since we had to get to the Underground station on the opposite side of it.

Stability in our living quarters. It's a long story of the hows and whys this all happened, but on Monday we left our first hotel in Bayswater for a second hotel in Harrow, and then on Tuesday evening we left that hotel for a house where we will be staying for next few weeks. So now we're here, in a place with laundry facilities and a kitchen until we move for the last time to some apartments back down by Bayswater. It's so nice to finally feel a little settled.
The Camden Market. We hit this on Saturday morning, and while we weren't wild about the whole thing (the crowds, the stalls that all seemed the same, the long walk over and back), we did find a great fruit stand. 7 peaches for a pound! 3 mangoes for a pound! We loaded up and we loaded up for cheap. Also, Mr. Graham got a swell hat that I have no pictures of.

Four Things We Loved Less:

All the time spent in cabs. Up to Harrow and down from Harrow, and both times we had to direct the driver to our destinations (as we did for the other two drivers we have had). They have GPS, but I'm not so sure they know how to use it. Also, one of our drivers very nearly ran into a couple with their baby.
The batty woman in the Underground station. Picture, if you will, a 65-ish year old woman wearing a flimsy white miniskirt. With blue socks featuring the British flag under wedge sandals. And for the finale, a tank top (sans bra) with an open back with three little ties. I say we loved this less just because...because.
The weekend Underground closures! All of our most frequented lines seem to close on the weekend, which forces us to be much more creative with our travel plans.
On that note, after we leaving the National Gallery, we went over to Piccadilly to investigate theater tickets. We took the Tube from the Charing Cross station at Trafalgar Square over to Piccadilly Circus. Once there we walked a few blocks and found the ticket stand we were looking for...then looked up and saw the back of the National Gallery only a block away. Yes, as it turns out we could have walked behind the Gallery (easily done) and been right where we wanted to be. Maybe we should take that map out more often after all?

Three Things We're Looking Forward To:

Love Never Dies! It's going to be a delicious disaster! I can't wait.
Stonehenge on the weekend? That's the plan! If there's any possible way for Mr. Graham to lay down in the middle, he will surely do it.
No moving at all! Ah, sweet stability.

And that has been our week here. We are happy and excited that we still have so much time to see all the other sights we possibly can. Just this very afternoon we are heading back to Westminster to sit in on a service. So cheerio! Cheerio, dah-ling!*
*Name the movie.

In Which We Go to England: Part 1

2010-07-18T07:43:00.006-06:00

And thus begins the weekly London blog reports.

So, we have been here for several days now. Generally, things are going well. Our luggage arrived safe and sound, and so far we've navigated the city just fine, with only a few minor hiccups in transit. It took a while for it to sink in just where we were. In some ways, it still is, but more on that later.

There have been some things going on with work that have been quite frustrating, but I don't really want to go into them just now. Hopefully those things will be resolved soon and it will just be one of those stories you tell later and roll your eyes at. For now all of us (me, Mr. Graham and my coworker, Caity) are doing more face palming than eye rolling, but as I say, hopefully they will be resolved soon. The work itself (the card scanning) just started in earnest on Friday and it went fine. It's really cool to be working in such an old building with so much architectural character.

I don't really want this to be a detailed report of things we do every day, but here are some highlights, in chronological order:

On Wednesday, after finally settling in and brushing our teeth (huzzah) we had our first fish and chips (in a...Lebanese restaurant?), bought a map and then sat in our hotel for a long while looking at the map. Finally we went out and got Tube passes and immediately put them to use to visit this place:
It was basically deserted so there was no pressure to be hasty with pictures. At this point it began to feel a little more like we're in England. Ah, Harry Potter's homeland. Earlier that day I also saw a UK copy of Half-blood Prince with its hideous cover.

Thursday was another leisurely day, but in the early afternoon Caity and I took a wild cab ride over to the Society to meet with the staff and set up our equipment. When we were on our way out, who should we see but the Minister of Magic himself:
Can you tell it's Bill Nighy in the middle of that crowd? Celebrities of almost any caliber make me all fluttery inside, but he is definitely the most celebritous celebrity I have ever seen. I have been on an extra sharp lookout ever since for more.

The rest of that day we spent seeing some of the standard sights: Buckingham Palace (where the Queen was at home), Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, the houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey (we have to go back to go inside) and the Tower of London. A lot of buildings here have been covered for construction/cleaning/etc., including part of the houses of Parliament and the Tower. I suppose preparations for the Olympics are to blame there.
On Friday, Caity and I spent the day at work, then spent some time in a massive H&M store that even had a maternity and kids section. I just got some hair flowers, but I'm sure I'll be back there sometime. The rest of the night was pretty mellow. Mr. Graham and I traveled far and wide to get some delicious foods we'd seen in Victoria station, and then picked up a bunch of English candies at the nearby Tesco. We came home to find a new episode of The IT Crowd on tv and laughed and laughed and have been quoting it since ("super mah-rio"). We only have 7 channels, and two of them are the same so we got quite lucky.

Saturday we spent a lot of the day down at the Tower of London (which we only saw from the outside on Thursday). We thought it was kind of pricey to get in, but we didn't realize how much there was to see and I think we spent like 5 hours in there. There were so many old, old, old things that it blew my mind a bit. Am I secretly a history nerd? Mayhap. Sadly the main tower was half covered for construction. I say "main tower" because there were so many towers involved in the structure. Our favorite to talk about is the Bloody Tower because we can refer to it with such gusto.

Other things we have done are: eaten pasties from two different shops (my favorite has been the stilton and steak), wandered through the maze of Harrod's (meh), and eaten cheese on toast for breakfast in the hotel. And how could I forget the remnant of the Roman wall we saw? It's ROMAN (and so old and glorious).
Glorious!

I guess this is getting kind of long, but I am going to keep going a little longer anyway. A little while ago I started to get a little nervous about this trip because I was so afraid that England could never live up to the ideal in my head, but I so badly wanted to love it no matter what. That said, I was prepared to not love London because I know Dickens's London is not London now and I couldn't expect that. And it's true, I am not desperately in love with London, not as a whole anyway. I love lots of the sites we've seen, but it's really just reaffirming to me that I am not Live in the Big City person. I am a Visit the Big City and Live a Little Further Away person. I love the unique cultural opportunities in big cities, but I don't care for the constant bustle and shops hold only so much interest for me. Don't get me wrong, I am happy to be here, and there are still so many things in London that I'm eagerly anticipating, but I'm also very excited to get out of London in the following weekends to see the countryside and smaller towns.

On a similar note, all of us have been surprised by just how many non-English people we see every day. Some of that, surely, is due to it being tourist season, but also I guess London is just more international than any of us expected. A few nights ago on the news they had a story about how people are feeling that London is becoming a separate entity from the rest of England and that is now making more sense to me.

Anyway. It's a big, exciting city with so many things to see, and so much history to be seen firsthand at last. But for now, take a look at our first pasties in England:

I Believe the Term is "Cheerio"

2010-07-08T22:26:00.004-06:00

As I mentioned in my last post, there have been some big things happening around here lately. Mr. Graham got a sweet new job, we went to Disneyland and we got some babies--baby tomato plants, that is. But the latest and greatest thing, which is surely going to be The Thing of our 2010, is that next Tuesday we are heading to the airport and relocating to here:

You know, London.

It all started a few months ago when at work they announced that they'd made a sale for some on-site work for the Society of Antiquaries in London. They went on to say that in the coming weeks they'd be posting the job and we would all be free to apply for it. At which point I began to mentally drool. Here is the thing: since I was a wee girl, my cultural diet has included a lot of British, and I've spent many years pining for moors and Bath and accents. Hence the drooling.

Anyway, nothing was said about the job for so long that I thought perhaps the contract fell through, but finally, last month the job was finally posted. I wrote a cover letter, polished my resume and applied. The interview came and went, and I went through alternating phases of cockiness and dread. But lo and behold, the good news came in and I somehow kept it to myself all afternoon until I could spring it on Mr. Graham at home.

They wound up hiring two people, and the other girl going is one who was hired the same time as me so I know her and she's cool (phew). The job itself is simple--we're scanning thousands of cards from the library's old school catalog. Mr. Graham will work away at his job and we'll spend the evenings and weekends exploring the towns.

My plan at the moment is to blog at least semi-regularly while we're there so you can hear all about the fun times. I won't make promises but I will at least make the goal!

I've been trying to collect recommendations for sights to see, but I've also been trying to collect any tips on things to do and not to do--as in things that will make me look stupid or things that will help me avoid pickpockets. So, bloggy friends, if you've been to the UK (or Paris...or Disneyland Paris...), do you have any insights for me?

Oopsy daisy

2010-06-30T16:47:00.003-06:00

I haven't blogged in a long time. Lots of things have been going on around here, but I will post more about that later at some point later, later on. For now, here is a story.

Some while ago we went to Disneyland (*sigh*). Since we were driving, we stocked the car up on her necessary fluids, including a can of gas for just in case. It was a great trip and the car behaved perfectly well, as she is prone to do. We came home and went on our merry way in life.

A few weeks ago we went over to the gym, and when we came out to the car there was a post it note on the windshield. This time it was not an ad from the nearby Paul Mitchell school, but was instead from a fellow exercise enthusiast. They had parked behind us and noticed a lot of liquid under the back of the car, and wrote that they suspected we had a gas leak. We looked under the back and sure enough there was a load of liquid blackness on the pavement, freshly dripped. I flailed a few times and then we got in the car, which now had a distinct eau de gas. As we drove home I went through different scenarios of the car suddenly exploding and pondered our chances of survival.

Once home we investigated the car and found the obvious hole where gas was leaking out. Mr. Graham, ever resourceful, stuck some packing tape over it until it could go to the shop. We were out of duct tape.

So the next day, Mr. Graham dropped me off at work and then took the car off to see the mechanic. (Isn't Mr. Graham so nice? He always takes care of my car for me.) The car, Leeloo, was hoisted up so they could check her underpinnings. But instead of immediately seeing the hole on her underside, Mr. Mechanic didn't see a thing and had Mr. Graham come and point it out to him.

No, there was no gas leak. Did you know that trunks have a drainage hole? It turns out if you have a gas can in the trunk, it can tip over. And sometimes it can tip over and land directly on its spout. And sometimes gas cans inexplicably have no cap on the spout. And then the gas leaks out and down through the trunk's drainage hole, prompting concerned gym goer's to leave notes.

No, the mechanic didn't charge us a thing.

So Long, Fantasy Man

2010-05-10T16:55:00.004-06:00

Word on the street is that Frank Frazetta died today. If you don't know who he is, he's an American illustrator who revolutionized the look of science fiction and fantasy book covers (think Conan the Barbarian or The Pathfinder*). He's not my very favorite artist or anything--his ladies are distractingly lusty and he sometimes pilfered ideas from Howard Pyle (Pyle vs. Frazetta). But he did do some great work, and it's always sad to see a talent pass on.

Also, can I just say how glad I am that I took those History of Illustration classes so that I know about all these neglected illustrators? If I were ever to get a Masters in art history, that would be my focus. Anyway. Educate yourselves on Frank Frazetta, won't you? Soon you'll start seeing his influence when you're at the library.

Or if you don't want to educate yourselves, you can just look at these favorites of mine.

*Okay, I know these are both movies, but hello, they are both moving** Frazetta paintings.

**Moving as in "brought to life", not "evoking sentimental feelings". Although the beginning of Conan always made me ~~scared~~ sad.

It's that time again...

2010-05-02T23:23:00.002-06:00

...time to go to Disneyland! It was so worth standing at a door at the Scera theater for an hour saying "Enjoy the show!" to get free tickets.

See how we are staring off into the distance that is California. Soon we will be there! Like in two weeks! Huzzah!

In Which I Bake Things

2010-04-18T22:30:00.007-06:00

Like I said a while ago, I've been trying my hand at baked goods this year, specifically bread. Aside from that one mishap, the results have been pretty good and even delicious. Bread has always been pretty intimidating to me. Yeast is kind of scary. It has to rise and rise and rise some more. You have to KNEAD it. There are just so many ways it could turn into a disaster. Basically, the ability to make bread from scratch is a sure way to impress me. But now I'm joining the club! Let's look at my efforts this year.

In January I made rolls. Betty Crocker supplied the recipe, but since our (old) apartment was not supplying heat, I put the rolls in front of a wee space heater to make them rise. They turned out tastily, though not quite as hearty as I like for my rolls.
I made a second batch of these and made crescent rolls. This was in the days before I owned a rolling pin so I used a can for the rolling. The end result was fat little crescent rolls that tasted just fine regardless.

Next I made yet another batch of these rolls but tried a different shape. Once again, they tasted just fine, but my, um, even shaping skillz have a ways to go. A few were giants, some were a little small and the rest were normal.
After my two breads, I decided to try ciabatta bread because it is delicious. This one I made myself and it came together just fine. While the loaves were rising I realized I should have put some herbs into the dough but I settled for sprinkling it with rosemary. It didn't really add any taste, but it looked pretty. The texture was great, though the flavor was a little too mild. Herbs would probably make a world of difference. But taste aside, I felt quite sophisticated for making such a fancy-sounding bread ~~that was very easy to make~~.

Okay, this isn't quite on par with my other efforts, but Mr. Graham had his birthday in March and he requested a funfetti cake. So I made it as requested, but I thought of the decorations myself. I've never decorated a cake in my life, and it turned out fine, if amateurish looking. But Tiana and Naveen made up for my weak frosting abilities!
Side note, I could not figure out how to get those sprinkles onto the cake. My method was to throw them and hope that some stuck. Also, since this cake had to be transportable, I didn't get to use our still-unused pretty glass cake tray (though you can see the box in the picture). Woe.

Finally, this very evening, I made scones! My recipe came from Comrade Ferskner's sister. It came together fine, for the most part, but it did make me realize that forks are not pastry cutters. The dough took its sweet time coming together and Mr. Graham had to distract me from my frustrations by telling funny stories about people losing their swimsuits in the ocean on their honeymoons--not that I would know anything about such experiences.
In the end, the dough obliged, they went in the oven and they came out delicious! I followed Elizabeth's recommendation to make two separate scone batches and I'm glad I did since they are just the right size. Unlike her, I wish I *had* done a glaze, rather than just milk, because they look a little unadorned and I had the ingredients. They're sweeter than the scones I've made in the past, but as I said...delicious.

Mr. Graham enjoyed his with Nutella.
Check out this sweet apron my Mama made for me! She also made a matching hat, just for novelty's sake.

What future baking delights await me? Focaccia intrigues me and red velvet cake is sounding both daunting and delectable. In the meantime, I will just have another scone.

Something to Make Your Weekend

2010-04-09T20:51:00.004-06:00

I follow a few art blogs. Partly because I have a thing for following the lives of strangers, and partly because I like to see new art from people with skillz I ~~envy~~ admire. Just tonight I was looking one artist's* blog because she recently had a contest for funny Disney fanart and I hadn't seen most of the entries. Some were funny, some were stupid and some were just...peculiar. But these...these are gold (gold, Jerry!).

If you're interested, you can see all the entries here, and while these didn't win, they won in my heart (aw). Semi-relatedly, I have been going back and forth for a long while about starting an art blog of my very own. Yes, there is the Deviant Art, but I like the idea of something more casual. But do I really need one? And should I have it on blogger or livejournal? And what should be the name, most importantly? These are the occasional wonderings of my art brain.

Back to the funny things, they made me laugh so hard and just now they reminded me of this, which is also hilarious to me:

*She of the Potter Puppet Pals.

Toasters!

2010-03-27T12:53:00.004-06:00

Last night Mr. Graham and I finished watching the whole series of Battlestar Galactica, after starting it around Christmastime. I was so happy and relieved when he got into it because then I knew we could still be friends (phew). Seriously though, this show is so good. I have a hard time imagining getting into another show as much as I have this one, though I suppose only time will tell. But really, it's so good.

I'm not going to recommend to every one of you, my fair and illustrious readers, because it's not for every one (mostly in terms of, ahem, content). But I just want you all to know that is excellent, and if you think it's just about space ships shooting each other then, well, you have no idea. I keep trying to make a list of all the things that are good about it and it is just too long. The story! The characters! The action! The drama! The music! And yes, it has some killer space fights too.

Battlestar, I love you like Adama loves Roslin. Except not romantically. So maybe more like Starbuck loves Helo.

Bread: Take 2

2010-03-11T13:45:00.005-07:00

I desperately wanted to end my no-salt bread story with the words "I forgot the salt." so I did, and now I will give you the second half to the story.

I was temporarily daunted by the breadmaker. Besides tasting like styrofoam, the bread had a ridiculously thick crust that exploded all over if you put the knife to it. It also had a gently concaved top that perplexed me. Mr. Graham praised me anyway and ate it extra happily, but I just ignored it bitterly (the bread, not his praising and happy eating). But! Since I knew the lack of salt was probably 95% of the problem, I was determined to try again.

So, while we fast forwarded through the Oscars, the breadmaker (maybe I'll call it George) worked away on a new batch--complete with salt. Of course, I forgot that it takes 3 hours and 50 minutes so it didn't finish until about 10:30. It had looked good while it was cooking and it smelled pretty nice too. But then! I took it out!

It was so beautiful I promptly named it the Bread Baby and took pictures with it. It was so beautiful it glowed.
Then we ate half the Bread Baby while all my Oscar predictions came true.

The breadmaker still feels a little bit like a cheat to me. I put all the things in and it does 100% of the work. It's like my own electronic bread-making hen--and yet I still wind up with all the bread in the end. It takes away some of my satisfaction in having made bread, since I didn't have to put forth much effort. Still, they have their place and I know some days I will want bread but won't have the time or willpower to do all the work.

On a similar note, Comrade Ferskner and her sister are having a Year of ~~Pie~~ ~~Cake~~ Bread. I guess I have been having my own little bread fest, although so far it is mostly filled with, well, standard rolls and saltless bread. Maybe I can call this my year of bread. Not quite on par with the actual Year of Bread, but a year that includes bread nonetheless.

Copycat

2010-03-06T08:44:00.005-07:00

Here is a little information about my Mama (I say this in the British way). She bakes many a thing and bakes them quite well. Chocolate mayonnaise cake is one of my particular favorites (no no, the mayonnaise is not chocolate. It's just a chocolate cake with mayo to make it delectably moist). My very favorite thing is her rolls. I have fond memories of waking up early on Saturday mornings, pilfering some rolls from the kitchen and then reading fairy tales in my bed for a few hours. Obviously this was a while ago since I haven't woken up early naturally for years.

Anyway, her rolls are delicious. But. My Mama has a little problem sometimes with her baking: salt. Or rather, a lack of salt. I don't know how many times she has put rolls in the oven and then said "Oh my gosh, I forgot the salt!" (Then she promptly makes another batch. Such dedication to quality!) If you have ever had a bread product without salt, you know what a big difference it makes. They're totally edible, but they're also totally flavorless.

So, this year I've been attempting bread things. I made two batches of rolls all myself, but one of our first wedding presents was a breadmaker.
I'd never so much as touched a breadmaker before, and its intimidation was second only to the Kitchenaid. Or maybe the food processor. Anyway, last week I finally got myself some bread flour and stocked up on yeast. Then, I did it. It was easy, and I only got a little scared with the pan popped out of place and I had to fix it mid-kneading. It cooked away while we were at church and when we got home the first thing I did was open it up.

Since he is so strong and manly, I had the Mister pull it out of the pan. It looked ever so large and square and was quite crusty as well. Undaunted, I got the knife and I cut it open. I took a bite.

"No no no no no NOOOOOOOO!"

I forgot the salt.

Nerds

2010-02-28T18:12:00.003-07:00

I have been thinking about nerds lately. Not the small delicious candy nerds, but the people kind. A few weeks ago at the workplace one of my coworkers said she likes microfilm. She used to look at it a lot with her mom to do genealogy work and she still likes it. Then she said how she doesn't think of herself as a nerd until she says things like that. And I thought to myself, why is microfilm nerdy? Why should liking it make you a nerd? What is so inherently nerdy about microfilm? And why is nerdiness a bad thing anyway?

Why should anyone be ashamed of their interests (I mean, so long as they aren't obsessive or destructive)? If someone is really into Project Runway, no one bats an eye. Instead they say "Oh, I love Project Runway! That dress that Ping made didn't even cover the model's bum!" If someone is a really into Star Wars, it's like an automatic nerd label. Why is being a fan of Tim Gunn more acceptable than being a fan of Yoda? They're both wise and well dressed, with unique ways of talking.

I guess I just don't get why some things are socially acceptable and cool and other things are uncomfortable to admit to. Should I only wear my knee socks at home and hide my sweater vests under jackets? Should I hide the fact that I love Battlestar and just say that I like The Office? I didn't even realize that my BSG love is shameful until two girls in NPR were hassling their fellow interviewer guy for being a big fan.

I'm not ashamed of the things I like or do. I'm not a running nerd because I run. I'm not a computer nerd because I like computers. I'm not a food nerd because I watch the Food Network. I like lots of things. I like some things a lot. I guess if that makes me a nerd then I am a happy and proud nerd. But I think it's stupid to label myself anything except awesome. I'm awesome. That's all.

Things: I Recommend Them. Or Not.

2010-02-22T22:47:00.006-07:00

This past weekend Mister Graham and I went up to Salt Lake for belated Valentine's Day/6 month anniversary/4 years of knowing each other/employment/new apartment celebrations. We did a number of fun things, like checking out the hotel pool and eating ever so much food at Red Lobster. We also did some fun things that popped up in our path unexpectedly and now I'm going to tell you about them.

While making our way to the mall on foot we ran into a banner for a Jamie Wyeth exhibit at the Salt Lake art center. I crowed with delight and we went straight in. The exhibit is mostly comprised of a series of paintings based on the seven deadly sins--with seagulls. I am quite sure I have never seen such sinister sea gulls. It was unexpected but it made sense (rather than seagulls for the sake of being unexpected) and it totally worked. As time goes on, I realize more and more that I like representational art. Even though there are abstract artists that I respect, I still just can't really love their work. But I suppose that's a topic for another post. Anyway, if you're up in the area, I highly recommend you check it out. It's free and it's small so it doesn't take very long. I liked it so much I got the exhibit guide, and you can read a little more about the exhibit here. I may have spent the rest of the weekend working on my seagull face (mostly inspired by the Proud seagull with the lobster).

Secondly, on our way into the museum we notice a big yellow food truck out front selling Chinese food. Since we had Red Lobster plans we didn't stop, but thought we might get lunch there the next day. Lo and behold, when we were buying the exhibit guide, we found that the museum was giving out vouchers for a free meal from the Chow Truck. We had to wait a while and it was so cold, but the food was great! It came with "root vegetable chips" that were surprisingly delicious. I only could identify one of the roots (sweet potato) but I have been since pondering how to get some more.

And finally, two short recommendations. One, if you are traveling, bring the case for your contact lenses. Otherwise you might have to do this:
And if you know you're going to go out to eat and possibly have leftovers, it would be ideal if your hotel room has a mini fridge. Otherwise your husband will be running to the ice machine in the wee hours of the morning to restock your "fridge."*
Okay, so you can't really see the ice in this picture, mostly because this was just before we filled the bag up again before heading back to Provo. But it's THERE. And during the night it was all situated in the bathroom sink. Also, it worked and our leftover seafooderies were preserved.

*He didn't get up to do this, but being up for the bathroom, he saw what needed to be done. What a man. An ice-fetching man.

Money: It Must Be Funny

2010-02-08T17:17:00.005-07:00

In case you have not heard the news, I recently ended my long streak of unemployment with a return to the workforce. The workforce I joined is a company called Backstage Library Works, and because I'm so bored with trying to explain the company to non-library people, I'm going to write it all out here and then none of you can ask me any questions about it ever again.

Okay, only semi-kidding because I'm happy that I have a job to explain to people and a few years ago I would have made that same puzzled face at hearing "It's a company called Backstage Library Works." But I'm not really one who enjoys retelling the same story over and over, even when it's a fun one. Similarly, this past Sunday Drew and I realized that I am more like a man when it comes to listening because I don't like to rehash the same story and I try to solve other people's stories instead of just sympathizing. Meanwhile Drew is more like a woman because he is a rehasher and good at listening without forcing unwanted solutions on people. Somehow we balance out.* That was a long sidenote.

Anyway. So, a few weeks ago I applied at BSLW where I blew through a typing test and took a bunch of quizzes designed to test my brain. I was asked many perplexing things like the years of the Civil War (1861-1865) and whether Nova Scotia is a country, city, state or none of those (province). I did it all in my trusty Jack Sparrow t-shirt, which I kept under my coat to avoid looking unprofessional while interacting with sheets of paper**.

That was a Friday and on Monday they called to set up an interview, which I had on Wednesday or something. I put on my charm and, finally, felt somewhat successful afterwards instead of going home to cry (okay, that rarely happened). When my interviewer called on Friday I was sure she was using her "I'm about to disappoint you voice" but no, she offered me a spot on the team. Huzzah! I took it, and was a little relieved to hear I'd have a week before starting (sweet, impoverished freedom).

Now I will tell you what I do. BSLW does a lot of cataloging stuff for all kinds of libraries. For instance, some old school libraries still have card catalogs and they hire BSLW to make all their catalog digital. In my case, I am part of the group that is switching a library's collection from their own system to the Library of Congress classification system. This means I look at their records, I search for the item in a database to find a call number, I verify it and I put it in the record. Sometimes there are none and I have to find them myself on the Library of Congress's website. I would show this to you if it didn't require a login. It would make all this much more impressive if you could see all the rules and exceptions and exception exceptions. Just know that it hurts my brain by the end of the day.

Now I'm starting my second week but have yet to work on the actual project because I'm still training. I make lots of stupid errors, just like I did in my cataloging class in the beforetimes. Sometimes I come home and wail about my sure-to-come firing, but then Drew pats me on the head and gives me chocolates.*** But it is good to be working in a library-related business, and I like the work. I seem to do pretty well with monotonous tasks involving just me and a computer, though I do miss handling actual items (it's half the fun!).

So, there you have it. I only recently realized that it's been just about 9 months since I last worked, and it is rather a shift getting back into that mode. It was really convenient to have such an open schedule, but I think it will be even more convenient to have twice our current moneys. That means we can go to Disneyland ~~and Disney World~~ sooner, and isn't that what it's all about?
*~~I actually can't remember what this asterisk was going to say.~~ I remembered! That whole man/woman thing is according to what people were saying in our marriage class on Sunday. No, we aren't in counseling. We just go because they asked people with A-K last names to go and boost the numbers. Anyway, we are traditional in our gender ways otherwise.
**Nope, can't remember this one either.
***We didn't really have any chocolate but he did get me ice cream.