They're Here!!

Well, my parents and sis arrived last night and we've been busy having fun since. Both days have been low-key … watching the olympics, cooking, playing games and showing them the (few) Madison Hotspots such as the used book store and the used CD/DVD/video game store. It's crazy around here. ๐Ÿ˜›

I'll have to post recipes soon. We made the shrimp boil from Everyday Food August issue and it turned out really well. It was one of the first times I'd made an entire menu … and even with many many cooks it turned out great.

Then we did a bunch of DDRMax2 … A funny sight to behold.

OMG We're Moving

My family will be here tomorrow. That is going to be great! I haven't seen my parents since Christmas and Kelly since France! Oddly enough, until really recently, I sort of disconnected the fact that my parents arriving means we're T-10 days from packing up the big yella Penske truck and moving!! That's so freaky. So little of the apt. is packed. Argh. I'm getting edgy.

Yesterday we went to Uhaul and managed to spend nearly $100 in moving supplies (boxes, padding, etc). How depressing is that?? Luckily, if you don't use what you buy, Uhaul will buy it back.

Carly Patterson was awesome last night. This olympics thing really needs to end so I can get some packing and cleaning done. How cruel!!

Anniversary

Well, we've been married two whole years. They've been great!! And I know we're both looking forward to the big changes coming up … it's nice that big changes don't seem quite so scary when you've got someone so great to share them with.

Our anniversary will be celebrated in true style: plum wine, take-out chinese, and women's gymnastics.

Happy anniversary, sweetie! It's so nice to wake up next to you every morning …

Busy Busy Busy Weekend


Matt's mommy and brother came to Madison this past weekend on their way(ish) to Denver. Andrew is heading back to CU Boulder for his sophomore year … and he's got an apartment to fill, so we spent lots of time furniture shopping. I won't go into all of the details, but Andrew has a bunch of IKEA furniture en route to his new apartment.

The end pictures were taken outside of Trader Joes, where we stopped after visiting CB2. They had orange sorbet in oranges (and lemon sorbet in lemons) … and we picked some up for a quick snack and Andrew and Matt were being v. goofy with the tops to the oranges. The other pictures is while we were waiting for our ride on the Wisconsin Ducks (DUKW amphibious vehicles) in the Dells to start.

I'm going to recover from the weekend by doing a little work around the house and watching the Olympics!

Happy B'day, Vati!


Today is my Vati's b'day … and I hope it's a great one because he really deserves it. No one could ask for a better dad. He's the best definition of a dad … what every dad should strive to be. Thanks for being mine.

A proverb for your b'day:

May your weather be fine,
May your fish be plentiful,
May the stars shine brightly,
May the fountain of beer never run dry,
May the Republicans win the election.

I love you very much!

B'day Update

Well I had a very nice b'day and it's one of those that's going to be prolonged for quite a while. I'm not going to celebrate with my family until they come up here near the end of the month. But when I got home today I had a nice package waiting for me at the door … Mommy sent me Pictures of Naked People (John Stewart's book) which I'm really excited to read. I will have to force myself to not read it all in one sitting as well as The Griffin and Sabine books which are correspondances between two characters in vividly realistic postcards with envelopes and letters interspersed. I'd never seen them before. They kinda remind me of a grown-up version of The Jolly Postman. I'm very excited to read them as well. Last but not least, there was also a very cute pair of flip flops from J.Crew in the package. They have salmon-colored straps with little bees embroidered on them. I love surprise packages … and no one can surprise me quite so well as my mom. She knows just what I like.

Now I'm sitting here very happily listening to some music and getting some work done. Life is good.

Birthday!

Whee!! It's my b'day and I'm 24!! I project it to be a very good year.

It's already been a good b'day. Yesterday evening I got a package from UPS. It had a b'day present from Dorothy (Matt's mummy) and Matt … a very cool Dell MP3 player. I've been wanting one for quite a while now so it was a really great gift. Now that I've had a chance to play around with it, I'm super impressed. Can't say enough good stuff about it.

This morning, Matt took me to Mc Donald's for brekkie, which might sound weird, but I really like to have Mc Donald's for breakfast every now and again, and I hardly ever have brekkie with Matt anymore, so that was really good. Then I got to talk to my lovely family for a while … we'll be celebrating my birthday (as well as my dad's) when they come to help us move … so I get a nice long celebration. And my mom promises a package will come by Friday. Excellent!

This evening, Matt and I are going to dinner at Biaggis, probably my fave restaurant in Madison (and just one of my fave restaurants in general) and that's another excellent thing to look forward to.

And I've had nice cards and emails from friends and family and it's been very nice. Everyone has made me feel quite special. Thanks so much.

Tosh and Rot

Our apartment is an absolute wreck. I'd forgotten just what moving does to a place. I really did try to keep it as neat as I could (for instance, boxes of books are now in my bookshelves) for as long as possible, but it was inevitably going to get messy. And even though I saved a LOT of boxes, we're still going to have to buy some. I hate spending money on things like cardboard boxes.

Just for fun… how fast do you read? via Wills Thrills. I read between 550 and 600 words per minute, which they list as highly efficient.

Another 'for fun” … turn your backyard into a wildlife sanctuary. Continue reading “Tosh and Rot”

Fixin and Packin


Yesterday we spent the greater part of the day cleaning out the sunroom. The sunroom is where I keep all of my art/craft stuff, so it was a huge undertaking. The main reason we tackled it is because we had to fix the cabinet where my craft/art stuff is stored, so it would have been silly to empty it to fix it, reload it and then repack it in a couple of weeks. But crafty stuff is lots and lots of stuff. And it has to be sorted and organized and packed in boxes within boxes and … it took us forever.

It was kinda fun, though. We got to look through some stuff that we hadn't gotten to look through in a while. For instance, we took out our respnse cards from our wedding. They were largely just boring slips of paper that told us who was coming and who wasn't. But some of them had sweet/funny notes on them. So those were good to look at.

Last Day

Well its official. I put my one month notice in at work right before I went home this afternoon. My last day will be August 31st. The next morning, itโ€™s off to Colorado. Earlier this week I found out that two of my friends are also quitting their jobs in August and are moving to Golden as well. The fact that three of us are moving to Golden specifically, not the Colorado area, not the Denver area, but Golden in the same month is really weird. Continue reading “Last Day