Our humble abode.

I was talking to my friend Bev last night and she mentioned that she hadn't seen any pics of our house yet. Which reminded me that I had tried once to post pics here weeks and weeks ago, but failed. So I'll try again!

Here it is: 213 Stony Ridge Court:



We really are on a ridge...we look out over all the neighborhood from our perch. On this flat, swampy peninsula, a ridge is like a mountain! When the Great Atlantic Tsunami comes, we'll be sitting high and dry. Hopefully.

A view of the backyard from the upstairs deck:

And a view of the back side of the house:

The upstairs deck opens off my study/scraproom, and the downstairs deck opens off the dining room.

This weekend I finally got a pile of small things done that had been gathering necessity over the past couple weeks. I re-painted the last tiny bit of kitchen, which has been waiting for a month or so. There's a tiny alcove at the end of the kitchen with two closets, a half-bath and the door to the garage branching off it. While originally painting it, I brushed up against either wall while crouching and contorting myself to get every crevice. So I finally got around to giving it a nice neat second coat--now I can take the tape off and feel like it's done.

I also got four loads of laundry done, a couple more boxes unpacked, and moved everything from the guest bath which we've been using to the master bath which has been sitting empty. We made a mega-run to Target and got shelving for the bath...and I found the cutest shower curtain on clearance. I still want to completely overhaul all the bathrooms--they all need paint, new floors and new sinks/counters, but it looks nice now and useable, so that's a step in the right direction. I'm starting to be able to visualize the end result, rather than chaos unending!

It was so great to have a couple days to putz around here and take care of some of the stuff that's been piling up.

Good for the soul.

I'm in love with another man. I've never met him, but he fulfills my needs in a way I've never experienced before. His name? Trader Joe.

I wrote about my wonderful Farm Fresh grocery store a couple months ago, but we've moved now, and it's too far away for the drop-in visit now. I miss it so!

But Trader Joe's which opened here in December, just happens to be placed right in the middle of the 20 minute-trip from my new house to work, if I don't take the highway, which I do some days.

It's a small store, but it's chock-full of organic fruits and veggies, exotic frozen dinners, frozen organic veggies, cereals, crackers, delicious chocolates, rices and pastas and hormone-free milk.

Right now I'm snacking on Chocolate Raspberry Sticks, which are two bites of sheer heaven. I stopped by this afternoon to pick up some Emergen-C fruit drink, which my realtor told me helps stave off colds, which I feel like I am getting merely a month after my last cold from hell. But chocolate is good for cold prevention, too, right?

The rest of this afternoon, I'm going to work on my first album for a three-week, three-album online class by Shimelle Laine. I was thinking about taking a class at Big Picture Scrapbooking, after Beth showed me her adorable mini-album she made in a class there, but then I got to poking around on Shimelle's site, and I decided to try that one first. It's a class called DoneNDusted. I am so much in need of some small, completed projects that will allow me to do whatever I want, in a new vein. My creativity has been at a low ebb, and unfortunately, now that I feel it slowly stirring back to life, my time is also at a low ebb. I am dying for just one day, a single day, with nowhere to go and no one to talk to. Is it even possible??? I used to have those luxuries all the time, and too much of a luxury is definitely a bad thing, but now I'm too far at the other end of the spectrum.

Off to play for a precious little bit...

Abigail.

The other night I defiantly sat down to watch TV among the boxes. Todd passed through the living room and said, "Why aren't you working?" By that time, I'd flipped to the very beginning of American Experience on PBS, and I watched as I unpacked a few token boxes, just to pacify the man.

Well. This particular episode was about John and Abigail Adams, beautifully played by Simon Russell Beale (Charles Musgrove in one of my favorite movies, Persuasion) and Linda Emond. The characters only spoke words directly from the letters the Adamses wrote to each other during their long marriage, and they came to life so vividly. David McCullough narrated the show...I imagine much of it was drawn from his book on Adams.

That Abigail. What a woman. What a thinker! "We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them." I'd like to have this engraved on a rock and toss it through the Oval Office window. Oops, hope some NSA guy isn't reading this.

"These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or in the repose of a pacific station, that great challenges are formed. . . . Great necessities call out great virtues." This quote is a challenge to me. I love the still calm of life, I crave it. Do I really need great virtues? Can't I just be middling good?

And of course, "Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could." Take that, husband who wants me to unpack boxes.

The stuff about John was good, but it was Abigail who really shone out of that story. Raising kids, running a farm, and keeping an ear to the ground along the way for war news and political news to pass along to her husband, and finding the time to throw her own cogent opinions and thoughts into those long letters...she needs to be in the pantheon of patriots right up there with Jefferson and Washington. Her picture should be on classroom walls for all us American girls to look up to and aspire to, because she was an American girl to the bone: strong, savvy, saucy and smart.

My laundry woes.

Life in a new house is always a series of adjustments, but the worst adjustments of all are the unexpected ones.

This house came with a washer and dryer, hooked up in the garage. We knew from the first day we considered the house that this would have to change, because Todd needs lots and lots of garage real-estate for his tools...and because I don't want to do laundry next to a table saw covered an inch deep in sawdust and grease. Also, the garage smells like a dog's toilet, which I think isn't too far from the truth. Not pleasant.

The house has a downstairs storage closet located on the same wall as the washer/dryer hook-ups, just on the other side of the wall from the garage. So we planned to expand the closet so it could accomodate a stackable washer and dryer, and thus spare us both from a garage/laundry conflict.

Last week, Todd hooked up our new stackables, in the garage for now, until he and his dad can do the closet re-model, hopefully next month. I had six loads of laundry waiting...more than usual, because things got backed up during the last frantic days of moving. I hauled the first load down to the garage, and holding my breath against the dog pee smell, programmed the washer.

As I pushed the buttons, I noticed that the green number in the LCD window said 55. I honestly, fleetingly, thought for a moment that this was the washer's speed limit. (I may have hummed a snatch of "I Can't Drive 55.") Then it dawned on me, to my horror, that this was the load time. From the first push of the button to the last revolution of the tub...fifty-five minutes.

Worse news followed when I crammed that first load into the dryer and again, programmed it. The LCD window read 1:36. As in one hour and thirty-six minutes to dry the load that I'd been waiting for an hour to finish washing.

This saga began at 4:15. By the time I went to bed at 10:30, I had completed and folded three loads of laundry. A fourth was still drying, a fifth sat in the washer waiting for the dryer, and a sixth was still dirty in the basket.

I've never really minded doing laundry. As household chores go, it's way above cleaning toilets...it's really probably the only chore I don't hate. Until now. I've always been a get-it-done-at-once laundrywoman, which is possible since there's only two of us dirtying clothes in this family. I take an afternoon and do three or four loads while I'm scrapbooking or reading or putzing around the house. In our condo, the laundry room was steps away from the bedroom, which made laundry day a total breeze.

On Friday night, I sensed that this era was coming to an end, and that laundry may shoot to the top of my hated household chores list. I understood, when we looked at the stackables, that the loads would have to be smaller and probably more frequent, simply because the tubs were smaller. But I never dreamed the time limit would be so much longer. The only way to cope with this 155-minute-per-load problem is to do a load a day...maybe throw it in the washer as I leave for work, throw it in the dryer when I come home from work, and fold it and put it away before bed. I can't tell you how much this depresses me. I used to think about laundry exactly once every 5-to-8 days, freeing my mind for infinitely more important matters. Now I have to think about it every day. Goodbye, Nobel Prize, I guess.

A new year in a new house.

My friend Beth stopped by the store yesterday and said--"I keep checking your blog but all I keep seeing is 'Glory to the Newborn King!' How about an update?" My friend Beverly has also dropped some gentle hints that I'm falling down on the job as a blogger. It's kinda nice that someone actually wants to hear what I have to say.

Well, it's been three or four weeks of busy, that sums it all up pretty well. We closed on our house two days after Christmas, and began painting right away. I had tried to post a few house pictures here that week, but it was far too frustrating. I'm not really happy with the user-friendliness of Blogger. Or maybe I should say the idiot-proofness.

Painting, taping, painting, taping...then packing, packing packing. We were doing one or the other for three weeks. Our new living room is now buttercream yellow instead of off-white. Our new kitchen and dining room are apple green instead of white. Our new bedroom is a warm cocoa color, rather than the yellow it was before. Nothing wrong with yellow, but I had a different vision for this room!

And our studies are teal green (mine) and a soft forest green (Todd) instead of gray. What kind of person paints rooms gray? And this wasn't a nice classy warm gray, like my sis-in-law Julie's downstairs rooms...this was institutional depression gray. They look ever so much better now. Paint makes a world of difference for sure, even if I never want to lift a paint roller again.

I will have to, though, and soon...I have three bathrooms and a foyer/stairway/hallway yet to paint, as well as the garage, which smells of dog so badly, we both want to barf every time we enter it. And since I'm currently doing laundry out there, that's a lot of nausea.

We moved the last box out of our condo on the 15th, and two days later I ran over to let in the carpet cleaners. When they were done, I left my key on the kitchen counter, took one last look around and left forever. Such a bittersweet moment. I really loved living in that community and that condo. And I knew I was heading home to a house filled with boxes!

We've been living in the new place for almost three weeks now. Stuff is still piled everywhere--mostly the stuff I have no place for. We lost a coat closet, half a utility closet, and at least a few more square feet of general closet space in this move, so I am trying to come up with ingenious storage solutions. Not much luck so far.

Anyway, I'm trying to wrestle my life back into order and routine, so I'll pick up my blog again and head into 2006. Feels nice to make a fresh start.

Glory to the newborn King.

Merry Christmas! It seems like a good day to catch up this darned blog, since we are home alone [insert McCauley Culkin-type hands-on-face expression here] on Christmas Day, with nothing much to do.

So many fun and crazy things have happened in the past six weeks, it's almost too much to type out, which is why I've let this blog fall behind. We took a week-long trip to Ohio for Thanksgiving, and I took a four-day to trip to Memphis two weeks ago for a girlfriends get-together.

The big news is that we finally bought a house and will be closing on it the day after tomorrow. It's actually the house I mentioned in my previous post, way back in mid-November.

The house had been sold by the time I got to look at it, which was really disappointing. The following weekend, I took Todd over to see it just for a lark. We walked through the yard. I called our realtors to see if that sake was indeed going through, and theygot back to me a couple days before Thanksgiving to say that, indeed, the sale was solid. So I just put the whole thing out of my mind.

On December 5, our realtor Pat called us and said that the sale had fallen through. Amazing! We went over and looked at the house again, made an offer that night and had it accepted. All was well!

But then the appraisal came back...at $12,000 less than the sale price. We couldn't make up that shortfall (not would we have, even if we could have) and neither could the seller, as they were selling it after only just buying the place in August.

We really thought the whole thing had just fallen through. And we were okay with that. The thought of doing all that painting, packing, and moving over Christmas was daunting. And we realized there would be some real storage challenges with this house, too.

But last Wednesday the word came down that the agents had worked it out between them to take a commission cut, and the seller was able to come up with the rest of the shortfall. So we got the house, at $12,000 less than we planned. A nice Christmas gift!
I'm sad to be leaving this condo...we've been happy here and I was really feeling ensconced and contented after I got my few Christmas decorations up in late November. Love the neighborhood, love the community, but we'll have some great times in our new house, too, I really feel it.

So we're here all by ourselves for Christmas...the first time in ten years that we haven't traveled to be with family for the holidays. I miss seeing everyone, but it's a relief not to have to travel, especially since this house thing popped up, and since I've been sick with a cold for a week, and still feeling under the weather.

We opened presents this morning...I got Todd a bunch of supplies for building his RC airplanes, plus a book on tablesaws and one on...what else, RC airplanes. He got me a book on herb gardening, the Back to the Future trilogy on DVD, and The Sound of Music on DVD, and two pairs of earrings from Super Hero Designs, which is a site my friend Suzanne stumbled across and got me interested in. Plus, some lavender soap and the loveliest garnet and freshwater pearl necklace/earrings set, both of which he picked up at the Newport News Fall Festival in October. Very nice indeed!
This evening we'll feast on roast chicken if I can bestir myself from the computer long enough to go down and get it started. Tomorrow the packing begins, and Tuesday we do our walk-through and closing. Wednesday will be the beginning of the taping and painting extravaganza...ugh! But how wonderful everything will look when it's all done.
I'll write up the rest of our doings in a couple more posts.

Excrutiating minutiae.

Another sitcom quote--Seinfeld this time!

I'm trying to keep up with my blog a little better. Everything is so blah here, though. We've been coming home in the evenings and vegging out, which isn't really like us, but we're both tired and frustrated at the end of the day lately. I feel like I've got pebbles in the shoe of my soul. Hm, that's almost a pun, isn't it?

I drove around to five different houses with my realtors yesterday afternoon...one was pretty good. I wanted to go back today so Todd could see it, and maybe write an offer...this morning our realtor told us it's already in contract. It was in contract when I looked at it yesterday--the listing agent simply didn't bother to mention that fact. I absolutely feel in the depths of my mind that we will never own a house. I know I get discouraged easily, but that's because nothing encouraging has ever, ever happened when we get involved in real estate!

It's easier to be content when I just don't look at houses for a few weeks. Our neighborhood here is so beautiful right now. I've always loved living here; each season seems like the most beautiful, until you get to the next one. The development is full of large trees and shrubs...it's like living in a park. If only we owned this dumb place, it'd be perfect.

I've been rearranging the store like mad this week. It's been quite fun. It's the one part of my job I really do like--straightening, consolidating, making things look better and more appealing, making displays that are easy for a customer to look at. I guess it's hardly surprising--that's the part of scrapbooking I like the best too! Finding just the right place for everything! Now I just need to apply that talent to our home.

For years, I'd been very organized with our possessions, keeping things organized and arranged, weeding out things on a regular basis. I like having a tidy house. But then we moved twice in less than a year's time, and it all fell apart and I've never gotten a grip on it since! In the fall, I always want to clean closets and get rid of things, but this fall there has been no time at all for that. I need to make the time--we've got a downstairs closet that's like a black hole. Stuff goes in, but it doesn't come out.

This is such a boring post, I want to delete it, but it's just as easy to hit publish instead. I guess.

Grocery delights.

I've been surfing around reading a few other people's blogs this afternoon, and I feel like mine is BOOORING!

Then again, my life is pretty boring, so that doesn't give me much blog fodder.

How boring is my life? Well, I made a trip to our new grocery store this morning and it was definitely the highlight of my week.

We have a plaza with a bunch of empty storefronts just up the road, and an effort is being made to fill the plaza and spiff it up some. So Farm Fresh put in a new store in one of the empty sections. We have a couple Farm Fresh stores over in Newport News, and I go to the one every so often, but this is great to have one right up the road.

Here's how truly boring our lives are--Todd ran over to the plaza to pick up Chinese food a couple weeks ago, and called me all in a tizzy because the Farm Fresh had just opened. We weren't expecting it to open so soon, since the sign had just gone up, and construction in Virginia seems to take about five times longer than it did in Ohio.

The conversation went:

"Hey, guess what? That new Farm Fresh is open!"

"REALLY?!!"

"YEAH! I'm in here right now!"

"REALLY?!!"

"YEAH! It's so cool!"

Weep for us poor thirty-something homebody losers, gentle reader.

Anyway, I finally made it over to check it out for myself, and it's quite nice. I'm a bit of a food snob. I don't really like to cook, and I don't eat right, but I like to have the option of cooking and eating right when the desire hits me.

I like seeing fancy spaghetti sauces and whole-grain breads and cheese with names I can't pronounce. I adore seeing well-lit, beautifully arranged produce and ethnic food sections that encompass more than just Italian and Mexican. I like finding foods from companies other than General Mills and Kraft.

And I don't mind paying a little more for the experience, either. Our other neighborhood grocery store is a Food Lion, and it's about the least-inspired grocery store I've ever seen. It's nice to have a pretty grocery store finally. I don't care if that makes me shallow.

Because I was there mid-morning, it was just me and a handful of senior citizens, so I walked right up to the smiling waiting cashier who said, "I can take you right here," had my groceries bagged in paper bags by a lovely girl, and then had a very nice gentleman wheel them out and load them in the car for me. I can't remember the last time I was attended by three whole people at a grocery store. I felt like Queen Elizabeth surrounded by courtiers.

This Farm Fresh also has a program where you can shop online, send in your order, then drop by and pick it up. The fee is only $4.50. I can't begin to tell you how tempted I am by this feature. It seems incredibly decadent to pay someone else to do my grocery shopping for me.

But you know, everything was so bright and pretty, I think I can suck it up and shop for myself for a while longer.

Leafy, leafy.

That's a Phoebe quote from Friends, by the way...for some reason, Todd and I have been quoting it for, oh, ten years now. It's just fun to say.

A few fall foliage pictures from our Sunday drive along the Colonial Parkway. This is a limited-access tourist road that connects Yorktown, Williamsburg and Jamestown, and runs along some of the prettiest rivers and streams you'll ever see.





I think this one on the left is sooo pretty. Love all the grasses and weedy stuff in the foreground.

This one below was taken in roughly the same spot as the other one, just facing the opposite direction.

That's all for now--Todd wants his dinner for some dumb reason. Heh.

Buzzing.

Someday it will dawn on me that ingesting caffeine after 4 pm guarantees a jittery sleepless night. But I guess I'm a slow learner.

I had wonderful iced tea with dinner tonight...what a dope. Saturday night, I had wonderful coffee with dinner...you'd think the lesson would have lingered in my tiny brain a little longer. It's 1:45 and I am sleepy yet agitated. My brain's all jumpy.

So I thought I'd write what my SBF girlfriends call a "ketchup post."

Store news: I am so eager to quit my job. However--

My friend Cheryl is taking over as manager, and there will be a desperate need for several part-timers. Much as I'd like to drop a lighted match on the carpet and run away from that place forever...I am needed. At least for a couple afternoons a week. And since I know I will miss that paycheck, miniscule as it will be, I think I am stuck there for the forseeable future.

But No Teaching and No Weekends. On this there can be no compromise!

Designing news: I finished 14 cards for the Paper Crafts book I was asked to contribute to. Last week I had to make some last-minute changes, type up all the supply lists and instructions and mail them off. It was a panicky day or two, but oh, what a relief to drop them in the bin at the post office.

Consequently, I am finding it hard to get enthused about creating anything for the latest magazine call that entered my e-mail inbox a few weeks ago. It's for an issue I've had a lot of luck with in the past, but I am having a hard time forcing myself to sit and stamp. What I have come up with has been less than good.

However, I discovered a new company that has no design team that I'm aware of, and that I would like to work for. So tonight I directed my energy to making a layout with their stuff. I'd like to make three or four layouts, plus a couple cards, and toss them out to see if I can get a bite. The first layout went together well...I haven't scrapped a page in EONS.

Life news: We're slowly making our way through Season 1 of Gilmore Girls on DVD. I'm completely amused by how much Todd likes it. Because it's a fairly girly show. But we just fast forward through that dreadful Carole King theme song, and try to ignore the super-girly "da-da-da" vocal snippets that get played during scene changes. I'm soooo not a chick-flick kind of woman, but this is a good show. The acting and writing are excellent, and it pulls you right in. Definitely in the same vein as Ed and Northern Exposure, but with female protagonists, which is a mighty refreshing change.

My aunt, uncle and cousin came down for a day visit last weekend, and we took them up to Yorktown for lunch, walked along the river and nearly froze to death, and walked through the town, which was only slightly less cold. My cousin Alan lives in Charlottesville, which is about two hours away from us, so John and Molly decided to drive on out to us during their weekend visit to Alan.

It was such a great little visit...we appreciated them making the trip!

We went to a Halloween party/poker game that Saturday night at our friends Dawn and Dave's house. I am feeling such a desire to entertain. We just have no room in this condo to have a party. Having two or three people over is pushing it. One of my many regrets about losing that house in September was that it was laid out perfectly for entertaining. Ah well. Maybe I'm just not ever meant to break out of my "I hate people" persona.

This past weekend we drove up the Colonial Parkway to Williamsburg to look at the fall foliage, which really started looking glorious about a week ago. I had made a rush trip to Williamsburg on Thursday and I wanted to go back when I had time and a camera to get some shots of the leaves. I'd upload the pictures right now, but Todd has hidden his digital camera somewhere, and I can't find it. Maybe tomorrow.

I'm really not sure how I'm feeling about life right now. I seem to veer wildly between quite cranky and fairly mellow. It's a fun ride. *eye roll*

I still feel like I need that breathing room and I'm not getting it. Cheryl started at the store today and I was showing her the ropes and talking through some of the issues with her, and I am so sick of devoting precious brain power to that place. I desperately want to turn it all over to someone else and walk out the door and never come back. The problems are big...I've been unable to do anything about them...and now I simply don't care. But Cheryl does and she needs my help, at least for a while. Ugh. I can't believe I'm sitting here in the wee hours thinking about that store. Double ugh. It's sucking the life out of me!

Life in a Nutshell

(Stole my favorite Barenaked Ladies song for the title there)

I can't believe October is over. And that I lived through it. And that I blogged so little of it. And that November is supposed to be my "finally get a break" month and it's not looking good at all for that break. That nice little mental health, take a few days and make a plan break.

I guess I'm finally an adult. I've spent so much of my life avoiding being busy, now it's my turn for that crazy 21st-century lifestyle that I've been hearing so much about.

I've always been someone who needed lots of time to just think. Think my thoughts. Daydream and skygaze. It's part of the reason I don't have kids, since I have it on good authority that a mother doesn't get so much as an unaccompanied bathroom break until all her kids leave home for good. I need my alone time!

On the other hand, I am also a person who is prone to sliding into deep pits of introspection that lead into deeper pits of depression if I'm left unattended too long, so it really is good for me to be busy and have stuff to tend to and people to talk to.

I just gotta find that perfect balance. Ha ha.

In other news, look at what greeted me at the door last night:

I knew I was going to be getting home after dark, so I called Todd and told him to pick up some Halloween candy on his way home from work. I never know if we'll have T-or-T-ers or not...I didn't even really think about the candy factor until about 4 p.m. Monday.

So when I rounded the corner of the house, there was Sir Todd in full SCA garb, handing out Nutty Bars to the rugrats. Yes, Nutty Bars. His heart was in the right place, but Todd still doesn't grasp the concept of Halloween CANDY, apparently.

And he only bought three boxes of Nutty Bars, which he went through in about 15 minutes. And the kids kept ringing the doorbell. There ensued a mad rummage through the pantry, which only yielded a bag of little raisin boxes from some past healthy-eating kick of mine.

So a bunch of neighborhood kids were very disappointed at the end of the evening, to up-end their bags and find a box of raisins in with all the good stuff. It was dark, so Todd was able to hide the truth of what he was putting in their bags...otherwise, I think he might have gotten some really evil toddler looks.

But isn't he cute in his costume? Made my heart totally melt.

I had more stuff to share, but i think I'll save it for later.

My day

Various happenings in my day today...

I had my very first ever pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks this morning. My friend Suzanne has been raving about these for a few years, and she's right--they're yummy. (Apparently Suzanne indulges in these so often that her 5-year-old son thinks there should be a Harry Potter-type spell called "pumpkinspicelatte.")

I indulged in three seconds of beauty when an orange butterfly landed on a pink flower right in front of my windshield at the Schlotsky's where I met Todd for lunch.

I told Todd that his company needs to stop hiring guys straight out of college, because it's making me feel really old when I meet them. (Two of the newbies came to lunch today.)

My driver's side window broke again, leaving it stuck three inches down.

I had the easiest, fastest, pleasantest merchandise-return experience of my life at Old Navy.

I bought a black hoodie with white racing stripes on clearance, and it rang up for even less than the marked price...woo hoo!

I mailed my tags to Paper Crafts for the April/May 2006 issue. I was flattered--they asked me to make a couple tags to fill in some holes because my name came up as someone who could do fill-in projects with a quick turn-around. Woo hoo again!

And now I sit here blogging while I have, at last count, thirteen other things I could and should be doing. It has been a week or so of craziness...I worked all day every day last week and weekend while Karen was in Vegas at Memory Trends...today is my first day off in over a week. In the evenings, I've been working on cards for a Paper Crafts book I was asked to contribute to, which is the most exciting designer-type thing that's happened to me all year. It has been stressful to try to cram them in around work, but the actual creation process has been blissful. Of course, I still have two more to do, out of fourteen total, so I may still hit a snag. Those are all due on Friday.

John and Viv, my parents-in-law, are coming on Thursday for a visit, and John and Molly, my aunt and uncle, are coming down for a day trip on Saturday, which is also my birthday. So I am trying to get the house spiffed up a little...I let it fall soooooo far out of whack when I am working a lot.

The good thing is, I've been so busy, I haven't had time for my annual birthday funk, which started hitting me right around my 31st birthday and has made a repeat appearance every year since. I can't help it, it bothers me, getting older. It was fun till 30...now it just sucks. Three more days until 35 tackles me like a bully and pounds my face into the ground. Not that I'm upset about it or anything.

My guy.

Todd left Saturday morning for a few days on the Outer Banks with a pile of windsurfing friends from Ohio. This group is called Central Ohio Windsurfers (C.O.W.S.--their logo is a cow on a windsurfer) and every spring and fall they rent some houses on the Sound side of the OBX for whoever wants to hang out and catch some waves for a week.

Todd had gone down with the group several times while we were living in Ohio, and now he makes the much shorter trip down from here, usually just for part of the week, to see his friends and catch up on Ohio news and oh yes--windsurf!

It's Sunday night and I'm already missing the guy. I knew I would be working the whole time, because Karen is at Memory Trends and I'm running the store by myself all week, and when I'm not at the store, I am working on the cards for this Paper Crafts book...so I really thought it would be nice to have him gone so I could just focus.

But I miss him!

So I thought this would be a good occasion to talk a little bit about this guy who lurks in the background of my blog world. I have beenfriends with Todd for almost 20 years, ever since our senior year of high school. We've been married for more than thirteen years. And even after all that time, my world becomes a happier place every time he walks into the room.

Todd is quiet but gregarious. He loves the company of others, but he's usually sitting back and taking it all in, rather than out in the middle of the action. He loves women. I mean, he genuinely likes women...he likes to hear what they talk about and think about, and he shows so much respect to every woman he knows.

Todd is Hobby Guy. Over the years I've known him, he has:
--built his own speakers
--designed and sewed a sail for a catamaran
--sewed his own medieval garb for the Society of Creative Anachronism
--designed and built a suit of armor and a chain mail coif and a wooden mannequin to display it
--designed and made a shield
--designed and sewed a coat of arms banner
--modified a paintball gun to his own specifications and designed and built a rack for his paintball guns
--flown remote control airplanes
--dabbled in archery, fishing, gold-panning, and rollerblading
--become devoted to windsurfing

He has a garage full of machine tools and woodworking tools. He has the largest hammer collection I've ever seen. He is at his happiest when he can pursue a hobby that requires him to design, modify, or improve the equipment. He fairly hums with contentment when he's hunched over a workbench.

Todd is not a demonstrative guy with most of the people in his life. He's not real huggy or kissy, not physically affectionate with anyone, really, except for me. But when someone he cares about is talking to him, he completely listens to what they're saying. He hears so carefully and completely.

With me, Todd lets his affectionate side out, and he always has. His love language is touch...he always needs to hold hands and give gentle pats, and to be touched in return.

Todd is my rock in life. I never had a person in my life who accepted me completely for who I am, until I met him. And he doesn't just accept me or put up with me, he really enjoys me for who I am, warts and all. He helps me keep my sense of humor and my sense of perspective.

So I am blessed. Really, honestly blessed to have Todd in my life every day. Love you, sweetie! Be careful on the waves and come home safe!

As a matter of opinion
I think he's tops,
My opinion is he's the cream of the crop
As a matter of taste to be exact,
He's my ideal as a matter of fact!

Vegetable soup

The days are still pretty warm here, but the evenings are starting to cool down some. I bought some mini loaves of oatmeal bread at the relief sale and thought some soup would go nicely with the bread.

I found this recipe at Allrecipes.com last spring, and it is quick, easy and delicious. Oh, and good for you, too. I cooked some up after work tonight and it smelled great. Tasted wonderful with the bread! And warm apple pie for dessert...yeah, baby.

Quick and Easy Vegetable Soup

1 14-ounce can chicken broth

1 11.5-ounce can V-8 juice

1 cup water

1 large potato, diced

2 carrots, sliced

2 stalks celery, diced

1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes

1 cup chopped fresh or frozen green beans

1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels

Salt and pepper to taste

Creole seasoning to taste (I don't know what Creole seasoning is, but I use Emeril's Essence in this, and it's quite good.)

In a large stock pot, combine broth, V-8 juice, water, potatoes, carrots, celery, undrained chopped tomatoes, green beans and corn. Season with salt, pepper, and Creole seasoning. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes or until all vegetables are tender.

I love recipes like this because they are such a great way to use up odds and ends of frozen veggies, and you can add leftover meats or whatever.

Weekend hijinks

We had a super time Friday and Saturday with my brother Jeremy's family. For one thing, this was our first chance to see Marissa Kathryn, even though she's been available for viewing for almost four months. I feel terrible that it took so long to make it over to cuddle and smooch on her, but Jeremy and Tracy assure me that she wasn't much fun the first couple months, anyway. (Colic.)

So here she is.

She's at that point where she makes such expressive faces when you talk to her, and gurgles and crows back at you. She is precious. Here we are having a little conversation:

Here's Todd with Marissa and Natalie.

Natalie is a delight. She chatters nonstop and says the most hilarious things. And she absolutely adores Todd...she always has. Todd took his remote control plane to the backyard to fly it and Natalie was right there asking a million questions. Here he is fixing a part that came unglued during a landing--Natalie is supervising.

And here's our girl climbing on the swingset. Isn't she a beauty?

Nat is proud to be a big sister, but hasn't quite grasped yet that babies are delicate and not fond of being stepped on, head-butted, and otherwise manhandled. This was a relatively safe moment for Marissa...I like how Natalie is clasping her little hand.

Saturday we went to the Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like...all the Mennonite churches in Virginia get together to auction things for the relief work the Mennonite Church does here in the U.S. and around the world. Quilts are the big draw at these auctions, and go for a ton of money, but there are also art pieces, handcrafted wood items, etc. There's always an apple butter booth with a huge vat of apple butter bubbling away and jars to buy. A baked goods building with pies and breads and all manner of sinful delights. Ice cream and funnel cakes and lots of delicious food, cooked up and served by various churches from around the area.

I came away with an apple pie, a gallon of apple cider, and a quart of apple butter. Also a handcarved elephant from the Ten Thousand Villages booth. Todd is determined to one day buy a splendid quilt at the auction, but last year we couldn't bring ourselves to pay the kind of money it would take (anywhere from $500 to $2000), and this year, I didn't really see any that I coveted.

Here's Jeremy, Natalie and me at the sale. Can you believe we're brother and sister? He's only a foot taller than me. Sheesh.

It was great to hit the road and get out of town, even if just for a day or two. We came back Saturday night and I trudged off to work Sunday morning. But it was an awesome weekend.

Long week.

I've been too discouraged to write this week...the house fell through on Monday, we've looked at a few really lousy houses since then, Todd is having a brutal week at work, and I am just tired.

Over the weekend, I really felt like life was starting to turn around for us after this long summer, but nope, it's just more of the same. We'll be okay, it's just a confusing and discouraging time as we try to figure out what we need to be doing for our lives.

I am off to Harrisonburg to visit my brother's family tomorrow and hoping for some "niece-cuddling" time to cheer me up. I'm not sure if Todd will be able to come along or not--depends on work.

One good thing happened today--I was asked to be part of a group of contributors to a new Paper Crafts book. The deadline is killer--two weeks to complete 12-14 projects!--but I am soooo flattered.

I bought Seinfeld, season four, on DVD to cheer myself up this week...what an awesome season that was. The Bubble Boy, crazy Joe Devola, I'm lovin' it. I know all the episodes by heart because we've had them on tape for 13 years, but the DVDs are a nice upgrade. I watch the shows and think about where I was when they were first on TV.

The first half of that season, fall 1992, we were newlyweds living in a crummy apartment in Pittsburgh. The second half of the season, spring 1993, we were still newlyweds, but living in a much nicer apartment in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Seems like an eternity ago. Life is so different. We are so different. Overall, I'd have to say it's better now. I miss the...I don't know...the optimism of being 22 or 23 years old and knowing that life is only going to get better. I don't have that feeling anymore. But I am a lot smarter than I was back then, and that's a goooood thing.

Late-night ramble.

Yes, it's 4:30 am, and yes, I'm up. Have been since 1:00. I came home from work at 5 last evening, and Todd was cooking up some burgers, bless him. I had made a pasta salad in the morning, so all I had to do was tip the food into my mouth, stagger upstairs, read for a few minutes...and then I just dropped off into deep, deep sleep. At like 7:15.

So then I snapped awake at 1:00 and I've been wandering the house since then. Watched some news, watched a Seinfeld tape. Had a bowl of cereal since there's no other food in the house. Pondered the dirty dishes on the counter and the fridge that needs cleaned out. Came upstairs and did some blog-reading. Now I'm trying to decide whether to bother going back to bed, or if I should just stay up. I don't have to be at work till mid-afternoon, so maybe I could sleep in a little.

Saturday was a relaxing day--we did a little garage-saling in the morning. I got a couple picture frames and some little wooden boats, and Todd latched onto some tools and a pair of roller blades that he plans to strip for parts. Never mind the fact that he hasn't roller-bladed in three years. Oh, and the roller blades fell on top of my wooden boats when he braked hard for another sale. Harumph.

Came home, took a nap, and then headed to Yorktown for a quick dinner and Todd's office outing. His company does something fun for employees and families four times a year (in lieu of raises, snort) and this was the fall event. We took a cruise on the York River for a few hours. It was nice, they had some yummy catered finger foods and the breeze up top felt great. Some of us engineer wives have gotten to be friends, and it's been months since I saw any of them, so it was great to catch up.

Sunday I went off to work and taught a make-and-take to three people. It's an altered clipboard and I can't believe the word-of-mouth on this project. So far I've taught it to more than twenty people. I'm going to re-vamp it for October, make it boy-themed instead of girl-themed, and see if I can pull in a few more students.

Oy, October. I got all motivated and decided to offer six, count 'em SIX, make-and-takes for the month. People have been pestering Karen about wanting more--primarily because they want something for nothing, since the m&t's cost five bucks and I don't get paid for teaching them, besides my hourly rate.

Now I'm kicking myself for setting up such an ambitious schedule, on top of (hopefully) moving, (hopefully) getting my car fixed, and (unfortunately) putting in a 60-hour week while Karen's at Memory Trends. Should be delightful!

I set up my escape plan, though...I plan to be out of this job by mid-November. If I give notice in mid-October, that should give Karen time to replace me. And then I will be able to do all the holiday insanity without trying to juggle it with work. I already hate the holidays and all the traveling we have to do...having to juggle work around it would send me over the edge and turn me Hindu or some other religion where you don't have to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas.

So if I can just get through October, it will be gravy from there. Right? Right?

Friday night's alright for lounging.

I can't believe I had to resort to ripping off Elton John for my post title. Especially since I hate Elton John!

But we are having a super do-nothing Friday night, and it's great and sorely needed. I'm putzing around on the computer...Todd is downstairs in front of the tube, watching American Chopper...we had grilled steaks and baked potatoes and fresh green beans for dinner...things are nice at our place tonight.

House stuff is buzzing along. Financing is set up. Interest rate is locked in. Deadline for the original buyer to get her act together is Tuesday, and no one seems to think she's going to be able to pull it off. So on Tuesday, we'll know if the house is ours.

I pulled out one of my Mary Emmerling decorating books last night...first time I've looked at a home decor book in three years. You could say I'm all a-twitter.

Other good news: Fiskars picked up a card I made to use in an upcoming Hobby Lobby craft flyer, and also picked up a layout that will appear on the Fiskars website. And Therm-O-Web requested two projects to display in their booth at the Memory Trends show next month. So although I'm not going to Las Vegas, my work is. I hope I can get to the next big show, I hope, I hope!

Weirdly intermingled with all these good vibes is the dread we have as we watch TV and wait to see what will happen to Texas and Louisiana. To know that people's lives will be changed in the sweep of wave and wind and to know we're all powerless in front of it...it's humbling.

My friend Becky lives in northern Texas, and I thought she expressed this well:

"So much sadness lately--it weighs so heavy on the heart, and makes you realize how frail these 'homes on earth' we've set up for ourselves are."

We're wrapped up in our own lives right now, for sure, but we are also thinking about the lives of all the people in the path of this storm. We know how lucky we are and how quickly that luck can change.

Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up...

Anybody remember the old Carol Burnett show? The look she'd get in her eye when she'd play a deranged person?

This is sort of what I'm talking about...I felt a little bit like that today, LOL.

I'm still trying to track someone down to get my car fixed. I finally went back to my insurance agent today and asked them to get on the phone, because I feel like I'm being passed around at the other insurance agency. The problem is that the accident and the driver situation are both complicated. But I think I made some progress today. I still have to try to deal with it myself, though, to save having to file a collision claim on my insurance and having to pay my $250 deductible. Fun times!

My job has really been a...fascinating...experience. Watching a business take a nosedive is very educational. My boss asked me yesterday for ideas to try to improve business. I gave her some back in July when business was already bad, and nothing much came of it. Today I gave her a couple more. Nothing will come of it. I can't go into a lot of detail on a public blog, but it ain't pretty, and there's not much I can do. I feel bad but she's the one who has to take charge, and she's not. Slightly stressful.

Aaaaannnnnddddd....***drum roll***......the offer we made on the house was accepted today! But don't strike up the band just yet--the contract with the previous buyer has to expire before the house is ours. If she scrapes together the financing she needs, we're out. But everyone seems pretty dubious about her actually being able to pull it together. According to my friend whose boss is the friend of the sellers...they're giving the original buyer until next Tuesday. After that, the house is all ours. Yipes!

I'll wait to gush about the house until then...no gushing until I know it's mine, all mine.

Anyway, feeling a little deranged, but generally cheerful. Kinda like Carol.

House-hunting sucks.

Such a chaotic weekend it was!...first the wreck, and then on Saturday my friend Cheryl called me all a-bubble about a house that had just come back on the market.

The house belongs to friends of Cheryl's boss, and the buyer's financing fell through, so the house was re-listed on Saturday.

As chance would have it, we were right in the neighborhood when Cheryl called, so we headed off to look at it, and it's wonderful--nice neighborhood, lots of amenities--a real "apple-pie" house. down to the maple tree by the front porch. But at the very tip-top end of our price range. A squeak beyond the tip-top end, actually.

And although we've been talking about calling another realtor and starting another house-hunt (we pursued it briefly in February-March), we hadn't gotten around to doing it yet. So Saturday was spent tracking down an agent, running mortgage/house payment numbers, and bringing our checking account up-to-date. We were balancing statements from November forward--how sad is that? We're slackers, what can I say.

Sunday while I was at work, Todd got the scoop on the house and talked to a banker about getting us pre-approved, which was no problem. The house situation, on the other hand, is complicated...apparently the current buyer has until October 9 to come up with the cash shortfall that prevented her from being able to close.

We met with our new real estate agents on Monday, and Todd went over to look at the house with them after work--however, five or six other agents and clients decended on the house while they were there. So much for the inside scoop.

This disheartened me greatly...we can afford to offer the list price, but not a cent more, which doesn't make us very strong against so much competition. I felt that writing an offer was a waste of time, but we sat down and did it anyway. In our favor, we can close on the house right away, and our financial situation is excellent--good credit scores, good pre-approval, etc. But if anyone offers them five, six, seven thousand more than the list price (not uncommon in this market) then we can't compete.

Without telling the story of our past few years, I'll just say--we have terrible house karma. The house gods hate us. St Joseph has us at the top of his shit list. So I am not expecting much from this venture, even though Cheryl tells me that she and her boss are calling the house "Janelle's house." LOL. Our agent dropped off the offer last night and 24 hours later we still haven't heard anything. But if nothing else--this has pushed us into finding agents, getting pre-approved, seeing a new neighborhood, and starting the process. I wish I didn't dread it so much!