This and that

Fun and yummy at the same time

2011-08-30T10:49:00.000-04:00

I've gotten hooked on dealnews.com, a site reports on great deals from all the web. There are a lot of other similar sites but since Mike introduced me to dealnews, that's where I go for the deals. A couple of weeks ago, there was a 50% off sale on Williams-Sonoma Star Wars vehicles cookie cutters. The cookie cutters not only cut the shape, but then you can stamp the imprint on the cookie, making it easier to decorate. While I was on the site, I noticed they also have Star Wars Heroes and Villains cutters so I had to buy that set also.

Once I got the cutters, I decided to start with Heroes and Villains since they seemed easier to decorate. I made the sugar cookie recipe suggested on the box (less rising during baking means better imprints) and made about 5 cups of royal icing.

The cookies came out great even without any icing. The imprints stay strong so you don't actually need to use icing. Note: since Yoda has less mass and more pointy corners, he does cook a lot faster in the oven than the other ones so keep an eye out for browning.

Once the cookies were cooled, it was time to make the mess. A fair bit of the cookies require flooding (cover the entire cookie) so you do have to wait until the first layer dries before making any further decorations. Plus anytime you change colors, you have to wait for the layers to dry so they don't bleed into each other. The good news is since there were about 4 dozen cookies total, by the time I finished the first layer of colors, cleaned up all the piping tips and made new colors, the first set of cookies were dried and I could work on them. As long as I continued to rotate the cookies in the right order, it worked out ok. It did take me about 1.5 days total to finish everything (baking and decorating). The cleanup wasn't as bad as I imagined but that's because I would clean up between each color change. It definitely made the mess a lot easier to handle.

Last of the mess to clean up.

I love the way they turned out. I also figure it was a good practice session for me for the upcoming Christmas baking season. There is obviously room for improvement but still really pleased with the results. I did take notes so next time they will look even better! Mike did suggest that I flavor the cookies next time (chocolate for Darth, mint for Yoda).

Next up is to try the Star Wars vehicles.

Yet another new skill

2011-08-28T12:51:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago, we attended a friend's BBQ/Housewarming party at his new home. They had custom-built the home and it had a lot of really great features, including huge picture windows, wire cabling for stair rails, a very open first floor plan, and a single basin kitchen sink.

The sink really caught my attention and I thought it was the coolest thing. We have a double basin sink which probably comes in handy for those who like to have a soapy area and clean water area but we usually soap and rinse at the same time. If anything, the double basin is more annoying than helpful since the divider makes it difficult to fill large pots, clean baking sheets, and often causes me to spill water everywhere if I'm washing large items.

Our old kitchen sink

Mike and I talked about it and decided since we needed to replace the kitchen faucet (it had been leaking for a while and replacing the washer and o-ring didn't seem to help), we decided to indulge in a new kitchen sink too. I found a great looking single basin sink at Lowes that got some very good reviews. It's made of composite granite and many reviewers stated it didn't chip, stain, or scratch.

After removing the sink

We bought the sink and faucet and decided to install it ourselves that upcoming weekend. The internet (the Google is great) stated it's much easier to install the faucet before placing the sink into the counter so on friday morning I decided to at least attach the new faucet before saturday. That only took about ten minutes. Once finished, I got really antsy and decided to just finish the install completely.


New sink sitting on top of the drain loop

I unhooked all the plumbing, removed the old sink (hardest part of the job since it was cast-iron), and placed the new sink into the countertop. Then I ran into a snag. The new sink is about an inch deeper than the old sink. That meant the drain loop was too high and the sink wouldn't sit flush. I had to make another trip to Lowes and pick up some pvc and cement. Hack-sawed the old pipe, fitted the correct new length and cemented it all together. The rest of the work was cake. I had to buy new piping since we were going from two drains to one and the location of the new drain was different but that was relatively simple. Putting the garbage disposal back and reattaching the dishwasher drain was also quite simple. Caulked everything and crossed my fingers.


This is when naughty words came out of my mouth

Once the caulk dried, I ran the sink and there didn't appear to be any leaks. It's now been two weeks, the dishwasher and disposal has run successfully, the drain doesn't leak, and I am absolutely thrilled with the new sink and faucet.

Neato XV-11 Review

2011-07-31T09:33:00.001-04:00

Dog hair is the bane of my existence. In a house of 3 labs and a revolving door of fosters, the house is constantly full of dog hair and dirt trekked in by paws. To keep up with the dirt and hair, I have to vacuum every other day. We could get away with not vacuuming as often but the hair and dirt drives us both a bit bonkers.

A few years ago, we heard of the Roomba but just didn't think it was right for us due to the openness of our house and because of the amount of dog hair it would have to pick up. Recently we started talking about the Roomba again and a friend of ours lent us their Roomba to try out. Unfortunately the battery didn't hold a charge longer than 10 minutes but it gave us a really good idea of how the Roomba worked. It has a spin brush similar to a vacuum but it has no actual suction. So it wanders around the room and sometimes the brush will just move the hair around and sometimes the hair goes into the Roomba. Unfortunately since there isn't suction, most of the dog hair just stayed around the bristles and didn't make it into the dirt tray. However we were both intrigued by how it worked and researched reviews of Roomba's competitor, the Neato XV-11.

Since costco.com sold the Neato, we decided to give it a try. Costco has free shipping and a really generous return policy so that would allow us to try the Neato and return it to the warehouse if we didn't like it. We liked it...a lot.

Instead of rotating bristles, the Neato has rotating rubber squeegees and suction. Some reviews state that this makes the Roomba far better for carpets; however we have a small rug in our kitchen table and the Neato does a good job grabbing dog hair and dirt on both the carpet and hardwood. Since the Neato also has suction, it is MUCH louder than the Roomba but all the dirt/hair make it into the dirt bin instead of getting swirled around the floor.

The Neato uses lidar to map each section of the room. Once mapped, it will follow the edges of that section then methodically move back and forth in rows until that section is complete. Then the Neato will move to the next section of the room and do the same thing. It has magnetic strips you lay down across the floors to act as boundaries which works great.

We have the Neato programmed to vacuum at 8pm every night and it takes 50 minutes to complete our entire kitchen. Originally we left our chairs in place around the tables and counters. While the Neato was mostly able to maneuver around and through the chairs, it just couldn't clean as well in those areas because of the tight spaces. So every night we put up all the chairs, dog toys, and dog towels.

Prepping the kitchen for a Neato run

I clean out the bin and put in a clean filter after every cycle (It only takes me 2-3 minutes to rinse/wash the filter every night). I only need to rotate out two filters since one is washed and drying, the other is placed into the robot. I am surprised at how much dirt/dust/hair ends up in the bin every time.

I haven't had to vacuum the kitchen since we've gotten the Neato. It does a really good job getting into the edges and handling our oddly shaped kitchen overall. I've also noticed when mopping that there is a lot less dirt on the cloth than in the past.

The Neato is loud and can be distracting so running it when you're not in the same area is preferable. It's very convenient and keeps our high-trafficked hardwood floors cleaner. Unfortunately it is a bit pricey so you'd have to decide whether the trade-off of less manual labor is worth the cost. It took us less than a week to decide that it was worth it.

The interface is intuitive and needs little directions to get it working; cleaning out the dirt bin is simple; it gets into tight spaces easily; and it requires little maintenance. Definitely a fun little household toy and helper for us.

Costa Rica Day 8

2011-02-16T14:30:00.001-05:00

Our plane wasn't due to take-off until about 3pm but since the airport was in San Jose and we were on the west coast, we planned to spend our last day driving from Playa Flamingto to San Jose. From the research Kathie did, the drive would be anywhere between 4.5-6 hrs depending on the traffic and conditions of the road.

To be safe, we decided to leave by 7am to give us enough time in case we ran into any delays. We munched on our supermarket food while making sure we packed everything up (we've forgotten our phone chargers in the past).

The roads ended up being pretty good. Most of the roads weren't too crowded and when we did get stuck behind trucks, we simply followed the customs of Ticans and passed in the other lane when it was safe. We were on Rt 27, one of the new paved double-laned roads near San Jose, making fantastic time when it ended up completely closed. We think it was due to the earthquake from the night before but we had to detour and that road took us on VERY twisty one-lane roads up mountains. We couldn't pass simply due to too much traffic in front of us so we just relaxed and followed the rest of the cars. We finally made it to San Jose with more than enough time for our flight.

Costa Rica requires everyone to pay an exit fee, so we took care of that, got our boarding pass and got on our plane home. It was nice to finally get home although the temperature difference was a bit of a disappointment.

Costa Rica was definitely a fantastic place to visit. The people are super-friendly, the country is beautiful, and most speak English so we didn't feel too out of our depth. This would definitely be a country worth visiting again in the future.

Costa Rica Day 7

2011-02-07T12:39:00.000-05:00

We didn't have any real plans for today since we would be leaving Costa Rica tomorrow morning. Yesterday our surfing instructor pointed out a kayak rental area near our hotel and we liked the idea of doing some kayaking on our own so we walked over to the rental place and they brought a kayak right to the beach behind our hotel. It was a bit dicey getting the kayak past the breaking waters and we did flip the kayak over once but finally managed to get through the water. We kayaked out towards the ocean but realized that it might not be smart to get too far out into the ocean. Kathie's slightly paranoid mind kept running through scenarios of falling into the water and getting eaten by sharks. Mike was more pragmatic and realized that it would take a lot of energy to paddle through the waves and come back into shore afterwards since the water was a bit choppy that far out. So we turned further towards the land and followed the shoreline for a while. After about 45 minutes we turned back around and really had to fight through the currents to make any headway. We finally made it back to our beach and rode the waves back to shore.

View of the beach from the restaurant terrace

Since it was still such a beautiful day outside and we hadn't taken advantage of the pool, we dumped our things into the room, grabbed some towels and headed into the warm, empty pool. The pool has two swim-up bars and two really shallow areas with chaise loungers in the water. We did a fair bit of wallowing, floating, sunning, and resting in the pool until Mike was beginning to feel a bit baked (and both of us were getting hungry).

We headed out and stopped at Outback Jack's for lunch. It's very much pub/bar type food and it felt very Americanized with all the junk hung on the walls and ceilings; however it was open and had more than one other customer there.

After lunch, we made a quick stop at a nearby supermarket. Since we were leaving the hotel early in the morning, we needed sustenance for the trip back to the airport. We grabbed some rolls, yogurt, and soda then came back to the hotel and packed up.

We grabbed dinner at the hotel and spent the rest of the night just hanging out and reading. Sometime in the early evening, we both noticed the bed shaking. We both shrugged it off as a big truck passing by but found out the next day that Costa Rica was hit with a 5.9-magnitude earthquake. Fortunately it hit pretty deep in the earth so there wasn't a lot of damage. We were about 60 miles away from the quake and still felt the tremors.

Costa Rica Day 6

2011-02-01T09:25:00.000-05:00

We signed up with a small surfing company recommended by a few on trip advisor. Basically it's one to two instructors and no more than 8 students. Since it's off-season, we were the only two signed up for the day. Matt picked us up from the hotel and drove us to Playa Grande, a good area for surfers, especially beginner surfers. Playa Grande is one of those nice small beaches that are mostly used by locals so it isn't crowded at all, apparently even during the busy season.

Matt brought two 9 foot surfboards and one 11 foot board; obviously the bigger the board, the more stable and easier it is to learn to surf. We did some practice on the beach for a little while then headed into the surf. It's funny how small the waves look from the beach, but they sure seem to get a lot bigger when we're actually in the water.

Instead of riding the boards out to where Matt was waiting, we walked the boards in since it's a little faster and easier. We'd then get on the board, he'd guide us into position, and when an appropriate wave came, we would paddle like mad while he gave us one big push. While Kathie was the first to get up and ride a wave successfully, Mike had the longest runs, a couple all the way to shore. We weren't good enough to move to the next stage where we actually ride the boards out to the right wave and surf in, so we spent the time walking the board out to the surf each time we finished.

Surfing is exhausting! It took a fair bit out of us to fight the waves to go back out, then try to stay on the board. Even though it was tiring, both Mike and Kathie immensely enjoyed the lessons. Both of us had some good runs and both had some serious wipe-outs.

After 1 hr 40 min both of us were exhausted and called it a day after we were both happy with our last runs. We came back to the hotel, washed off and headed off to find some lunch. While we really love avoiding crowds and going on vacation during the off-season, we've discovered that Playa Flamingo goes really off-season and a fair number of places are closed until December, including a highly rated restaurant we wanted to try. So we went to a nearby restaurant that was opened and ate there. The prices were a little higher than most places we ate at, and the food was much more Americanized. We're going to try to go a little further out tomorrow to find better eatings tomorrow.

After lunch, we came back to relax some more in the room (yes, we enjoy just vegetating and reading while on vacation too), then Kathie couldn't resist getting a facial through the resort. Spa services were 20% off which made it a really nice deal. The facial was really well done and Kathie looked a bit dazed after her facial. While Kat was being pampered, Mike got back in touch with civilization via the ipad and the free Wi-Fi in the hotel's open-air lobby next to the pool.

It was a great day.

Costa Rica Day 5

2011-01-06T09:49:00.000-05:00

We decided on a lazy morning since we were just going to do a lot of driving to the west side of Costa Rica today. Of course with Costa Rica right near the equator (therefore the sun gets up really early), a lazy morning means getting up at 6am instead of 5am.

We had our last breakfast at the Volcano Lodge restaurant and packed up our things. Both Mike and Kathie liked the Volcano Lodge since the rooms were very quiet, the area was filled with beautiful plants and the lodges are not crowded together. The wifi never did end up working in our room but we would just sit in the main office and do our surfing on their computers there.

We decided to stop into town to get gas before the long drive; however on the way into town we got stuck in the middle of a bicycle race of some kind — the were lots of police cars and motorcycles escorting cyclists, and closing off parts of the road. The local Ticas turned out in droves to watch and take photos. Once we got into town, getting to the only gas station turned out to be a challenge since the main road was completely closed. We had to wait for the bulk of the cyclists (probably 40-50) to go by before we could pass some police barriers and fill up. After that, we headed west towards Playa Flamingo.

View of Arenal volcano from our drive

Once we got a little ways out of Arenal, the road conditions deteriorated a bit, but were still quite manageable. The weather was great, and it was pretty much the first time we'd seen more than a glimpse of sun during our trip. The drive around Lake Arenal was very winding and hilly, and at one point there was a river flowing across the road. Once we got out of the mountains, the road leveled and straightened quite a bit, letting us pick up some speed (80kph instead of the 40-60 typical of most of our trip). The drivers in Costa Rica are a bit aggressive, and the double-yellow line is essentially meaningless—we ended up following suit and passing frequently where it's not allowed. As soon as Kathie mentioned how nice the weather had been, we ran into a torrential downpour—fortunately it only lasted a few minutes, and then it was sunny again!

The west coast of Costa Rica is well known for it's beautiful beaches. The most popular is Tamarindo, especially for the surfers. We decided against the popular and went for a much smaller beach area with a reputation for pristine beaches and clear water. We made it to Playa Flamingo in about four hours and checked in a the Flamingo Beach Resort. This hotel was much more of a typical resort with a huge swimming pool, swim-up bars, spa area, casino, and parked right by the beach.

Flamingo Beach Resort view from the lobby

We ate a late lunch in lieu of dinner, checked out the beach for a bit, then relaxed at the hotel and set our alarms for the next morning's surfing lessons!

Costa Rica Day 4

2010-12-15T10:48:00.000-05:00

The rafting left us a bit achy the next morning so we decided to take it easy today. After a slow morning and breakfast at the hotel, we drove about 20 minutes to get around to the other side of the volcano to visit the Hanging Bridges.

Hanging Bridges is a private reserve of about 600 acres of protected rainforest. There's a two mile trail through the rainforest including many suspension bridges to get back and forth across the valleys in the volcano's shadow. The bridges provided some great views of waterfalls and Lake Arenal. We didn't see a lot of wildlife but it was a nice, peaceful walk.

After the hike, we headed back to our hotel and had a light lunch. We then spent the afternoon reading and napping (we make sure we include that into all our vacations). For dinner, we headed to La Fortuna to find a steakhouse mentioned in our Lonely Planet guide. After driving back and forth a few times, we gave up and have to assume the place has closed since the book was published. Instead, we ate in town at the Lava Lounge. While the place was clearly a bit Americanized (Mike had a cheeseburger), it was nice in that it was a bit busier than anyplace else we've been--the downside of going off-season is that almost everyplace is deserted! Like all the restaurants we've seen, it's an open-air building.

There were several street dogs wandering in and out of the restaurant (we'd seen them on our walk through town a few days earlier and Kathie pet them for a bit), so once our food came Kat gave them some treats. The dogs were very well-behaved; they come up to the tables but if you show no interest, they just walked away. Even when they want food, they just lay down by your table and wait for scraps without begging. One of the waiters noticed Kathie feeding the dogs and said that the owners of the Lounge would often give scraps to approximately 14 of the street dogs in that area during the day. The waiter did offer (jokingly) one of the dogs for Kathie to take home but we're pretty sure our dogs wouldn't have been pleased with that vacation souvenir. After dinner we headed back to the hotel and called it a night.

Costa Rica Day 3

2010-11-15T12:31:00.000-05:00

We signed up with Desafio expeditions for a rafting tour to the Rio Toro (Bull River). They picked us up from the hotel and then picked up a group of 5 and we headed to the river, about 1 hr and 20 min away from La Fortuna. Along the way we stopped at a gift shop/cafe to stretch our legs. Behind the shop was a river with trees along the shore. We saw multiple large iguanas lounging in the trees and grabbing breakfast at the foot of the river. At the entrance to the river, they gave us some quick instructions and we practiced at the beginning for about 5 min. With only 7 of us, we only had two rafts. Our raft had Mike, Kathie and Rick (from Holland) with our guide, Luis. The other raft had the 4 remaining rafters and their guide, Jonathan.

The group of rafters

The weather was great, a little cloudy but warm and no rain. The rafting on the Rio is definitely a lot more exciting than the rafting we've done on PA or WV. First, since it was only two rafts, we just kept moving through all the rapids without having to wait for the rest of the party to catch up. Second, the Toro is much more narrow than the rivers we've done in the past and there are a lot more rapids with very few areas of calm waters. Last, the views are a lot more beautiful with gorgeous vegetation, birds, butterflies, waterfalls, and we saw some howler monkeys in the trees. The water, while cool, was also much less cold than the waters we've rafted in the U.S. since those are generally winter snow run-off.

Halfway through the trip, we took a break at a calm area of the river and snacked on fresh watermelons and pineapples. Fruit always taste so amazing in the tropical countries, probably because they are picked when they're ripe.

We got to do some fun things during the rafting trip. There was one area where Kathie got to sit on the very front of the raft and"ride the bull" through some rapids. She had a great time with that. Another section, Andrew (the riders switched out halfway through) and Kathie turned around so they were facing backwards while Mike on the right side continued to face forward. Through the rapid all of us were rowing forward (respective of our positions) and therefore spun the raft around and around while going through the rapids. Riding the Toro was a fantastic experience and one we would definitely recommend to others, especially using Desafio expeditions. The whole ride was about 2 hrs long through 10 miles of river.

After the rafting, we were driven to a small cafe and had some delicious costa rican food: rice, chicken, salad, Spanish rice, beans and passion fruit juice. The food was quite delicious, especially after a couple hours of intense rowing.

After driver took us back to the hotel and we crashed in our room for about an 1.5 hrs then drove to Ecotermales, one of the hot springs spa in the area. It had been recommended by multiple guides and tourists from trip advisor. It's much quieter and low-key than some of the other spas and only allow 100 people for each 4 hr slot. Since it's off-season, we didn't see more than a dozen people at the springs. ecotermales has a series of cascading pools filled with volcanic heated water that was around 95 degrees F. The water coming into the highest pool is supplied by a stream. Each cascading pool is a little cooler but even the last pool is still nice and warm. The last pool then emptied back into the stream which continues downriver. It is a bit odd to see a hot stream in nature but in Arenal, there are a fair number of the hot springs you can access, including a public hot spring.

I wish we had thought to bring a camera to the springs; EcoTermales is quite beautiful. If you ever go, definitely bring a camera with you. The spa provides locked lockers so you can put the camera in a safe place while soaking.
The spring water is crystal clear and doesn't smell like chlorine, sulphur or any other chemical. It was so relaxing to just sit in the various pools. We also bought the dinner option so we had some rice, beans, salad, and chicken for mike and tilapia for kathie. The chicken was a little bland, the grouper was a little salty but it had very good flavor. They also have a bar so we each got a drink. Kathie's piña colada was the best she ever had, and Mike's rum and coke had lime juice added for an extra flavor. We stayed at the springs for about 3 hours enjoying the water and relaxing on the loungers. We really liked Ecotermales because it was so quiet and private.

It was definitely a fun-filled beautiful day for us.

Costa Rica Day 2

2010-11-14T11:20:00.000-05:00

We set our alarm but ended up waking early, before sunrise, probably because CR time is two hours later than Virginia time. Our room has a fantastic view of the volcano but it was mostly shrouded in clouds this morning.

View from our hotel patio

We took our time getting ready, then drove into the local town of La Fortuna for breakfast. Even though Arenal is a big tourist destination, and La Fortuna is the only town nearby, it doesn't have any of the usual tourist traps or shops; it's basically just another Costa Rican town (with a couple of tour operators). We picked up pastries at the bakery where the locals were buying huge loaves of fresh bread, and our breakfast ended up being very inexpensive.

Center of La Fortuna

After breakfast we walked around town for a while. There is a small park in the center, and a large church nearby, but not much else to see. Our main event for the day was the rain forest canopy zip-line tour (for Kat) and gondola ride and nature walk (for Mike). We drove to the sky tour site, and half the drive ended up being very slow, on rough, unpaved, bumpy road. These were the types of roads that we were expecting based on reviews from other visitors but in general, most of the other roads weren't that bad.

From the gondola we could see much of Lake Arenal, which was created to provide hydroelectric power to CR, and could see the volcano when the cloud cover allowed. The rainforest was mostly beneath us during the ride up the mountain and we could see the huge leaves, trees, and branches, with a fair number of butterflies flitting about.

Once we got to the top, the tour guides, Katya and Leo gave us a few minutes to enjoy some fruit juice, admire the scenery, and take some photos.

Then Kathie joined the other six zip-liners and we got started. The first two zip lines are considered test lines. If you discover you cannot handle it, you can still back out and go back down the gondola. You have to take the"chicken trail" back to the gondola. After the first 2 lines, it's time for the real deal. Once strapped into the line, they given you a gentle push and off you go! You move pretty quickly down the zip line and have a fantastic view of the lake, trees below and the volcano. There are 5 "real" zip lines we get to traverse. The first two lines are practice and the last line is a photo opportunity. The longest zip line is almost had a mile long and the fastest zip line goes up to 50 mph. The last line takes you right through the middle of the forest. The canopy tour with skyadventures was a fantastic experience. The guides were a lot of fun, stayed enthusiastic and really made the tour enjoyable. One of the advantages of going off-season is the small number of other tourists doing the same activities. Leo mentioned that during high season, there can be over 40 people for one trip down the zip lines.

Mike took a small hike through the rainforest with another guide and small family while he waited for Kathie to finish her zipping. The guide pointed out a few local plants and trees and explained a bit about the Costa Rica ecosystem.

After we both finished, we ate lunch at the small cafe there. Kathie really liked the fried yucca fries there. They taste a bit like French fries but has a slightly different taste to them.

Since it was on the drive home, we stopped into Arenal Volcano National Park. You cannot see the lava from the park but there are some nice trails to take to see the forest and the old lava flows. We took the recommended 5km hike which takes you to the 1992 lava flow area, then a hike through the secondary forest. We didn't see any monkeys but we did see some toucans, butterflies, hummingbirds, big spiders, and a 100-year ceibo tree that was enormous. It's hard to believe it's only 100 years old. We did hear a lot of odd insect and bird calls during our walk.

After the hike, we headed back to the hotel and soaked in their jacuzzi for a while. A 5km walk is a fair bit for us so it felt nice to relax in the warm water with a great view of the volcano.

Costa Rica Day 1

2010-10-19T13:26:00.000-04:00

Mike and I took an 8-day trip to Costa Rica at the beginning of October. Our friends who had visited Costa Rica only had good things to say about the country. August through September is considered the rainy season in Costa Rica and therefore the off-season. I did some research and found that even though it's rainy season, most of the morning and early afternoon is fine and the rain usually starts around 2pm until the evening. We figured it would be perfect for us; we could do activities in the morning then relax and read in the evenings. We decided to hit two different locations at Costa Rica; Arenal, the location of an active volcano, and Playa Flamingo (Flamingo Beach) located on the drier Pacific coast.

Below is the first day of our trip:

First day of our trip started really early for us. It feels like our starting flights always start so early in the morning. Our flight was at 8:30am which isn't too early except when it turns into an international flight, so we ended up at the airport at 6:30am. At least it gave us enough time to check into our flight and grab some breakfast without rushing. Mike also got to experience the new and improved dulles airport with the trains instead of the mobile lounges.

Our flights were smooth and on time so we made it to San Jose by 1:30 CST. We had already decided to drive from San Jose to Arenal (our first destination) as soon as we arrived. Unfortunately we came in during quite a deluge and Mike had to drive for 3 hours in pouring rain through VERY twisty one lane roads as it got steadily darker and continued to rain. It was a baptism of fire for Mike's first drive through Costa Rica. Mike did a fantastic job of avoiding the Tico drivers and made it ok to our hotel, Volcano Lodge and Gardens. We checked in, and grabbed dinner at the hotel restaurant, Sura. The food was pretty good; Mike had the pork, Kathie had the grouper. We were the only ones in the restaurant for the majority of the night. After dinner, we headed back to the room and crashed.

We have noticed that everyone we've run across so far in Costa Rica have been exceptionally friendly.

World of Disney

2010-04-21T14:19:00.000-04:00

Thursday was our Magic Kingdom day. We had been told about two behind-the-scenes tour from friends. Backstage Magic is a 7 hour tour that spans across Magic Kingdom, Epcott, and Hollywood Studios. Keys to the Kingdom is a 5 hr tour just at Magic Kingdom. Since we haven't been to Magic Kingdom in over 10 years, we wanted to do the half-day Keys to the Kingdom and then spend the rest of the day at Magic Kingdom.

The Keys to the Kingdom tour is quite good. The tour guide explains the various names written on the windows on Main Street, the history of Walter and Roy Disney, and the history of the company. She also took us on two rides: Jungle Cruise and Haunted Mansion and gave us a lot cool information about the rides and also some of the tricks to create the rides. Then our tour guide took us behind the gates to some of the backstage areas: trash collection, parade float storage, back of Splash Mountain, etc. I can see why this tour is not allowed for anyone under 16 years old (we weren't allowed to take any photos). It definitely brings the stark reality of Magic Kingdom to life. Lastly our tour guide took us into the Utilidors, the underground tunnels below Magic Kingdom. Cast members use the tunnels to move from place to place within Magic Kingdom without disturbing the "theme" of each area (heaven forbid you see a Tomorrow Land cast member in Frontier Land) and basically get the day-to-day business of running a park completed without disturbing the visitors to the park.

After the tour, we took our time walking around Magic Kingdom and just having fun riding the rides and enjoying the entire atmosphere. We did figure out that Universal was so empty because EVERYONE was at Magic Kingdom instead. The place was quite packed with people, but it was still less crowded than the busy seasons. The rides only took about 15-30 minutes total, including Space Mountain. We had a great time at Magic Kingdom, it really is easy to get sucked into the atmosphere.

We spent friday just wandering around Orlando's tourist section. We wanted to take it pretty easy so we caught Clash of the Titans and did some of our Disney shopping then just relaxed at the hotel for the rest of the day.

We had a fantastic time in Florida. It was nice to get away for a week, and I know the dogs also had a great time in their vacation homes. I'm quite surprised they didn't sulk when they got home!

Roller coaster fun!

2010-04-21T14:02:00.001-04:00

On Tuesday morning, we drove to Orlando and prepared to do some amusement parks. Gray and Cindy were heading up north on their sailboat but the timing worked out so they met us on tuesday for dinner. They had a great suggestion to meet at California Grill at the Contemporary Hotel. California Grill is on the 15th floor and overlooks Cinderella's castle. We hung out in the lounge grabbing various appetizers and wine for about 4.5 hours until the Magic Kingdom's fireworks show started. The view was very very cool, plus California Grill pipes the music/sounds from the fireworks show into the restaurant.

We headed to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure for Wednesday. Since Spring Break had just finished, the two parks were virtually empty. We tried the new Studios coaster, Rip Ride Rockit. The two unusual things about the ride: 1) you choose the music to listen to, it comes out of the speakers by your head, 2) the incline to the first hill is straight up. The ride is very smooth and surprising long. The coaster is fun but not one I found to be outstanding; however it's ALWAYS fun to ride a new coaster.

After doing some of the other Universal rides and walking around, we headed over to Islands of Adventure to ride our old favorites: Hulk coaster, and Dueling dragons coasters. They are definitely still classic rides. Dueling dragons is very cool because they run two coasters on two different runs, but in two places, the two coasters intertwine so it feels like you're about to run into each other. We rode several other rides at Islands also but the coasters are definitely our favorite.

Ahhh, Florida is so beautiful

2010-04-21T13:42:00.000-04:00

We took a nice, long, overdue vacation to Florida last week. Usually we visit Mike's mom down in Port Charlotte around February every year but this year we waited until I was finished with work (that's a WHOLE different blog entry).

We found pretty cheap direct flights straight to Fort Myers from National and headed down to gorgeous florida to be pampered and fed silly on April 10th. The weather in Florida was absolutely gorgeous. Mid-80s and sunny pretty much the entire time. We stayed with Mike's Mom from Saturday until Tuesday morning. Mike did some computer tech support while I made sure the chaise loungers didn't float away. We did help Mom pull some dead bushes out of her front garden and did a little bit of weeding but really spent most of the time being completely spoiled. I think Mom felt like she should take us somewhere like the beach but both Mike and I really wanted to just nap, eat, swim, snack, and read so we were quite happy staying put.

View from Mom's pool

Always an adventure!

2010-02-20T22:07:00.001-05:00

So this is a "catch-up" blog entry since I was really bad about blogging for the last 6 months.

We foster for our local lab rescue and we've been fostering for about 8-9 years now. After we adopted Pete, we tried to foster for a while but Pete had so many various issues we had to stop so we could concentrate on Pete only.

Pete has gotten so much better and sometimes he really looks like he wants someone to play with. Max doesn't play with Pete so we thought fostering would be good for all of us again. So at the end of November 2009, we got Coco, a little petite chocolate lab.

Coco was an owner-giveup to LRR because the woman was having back surgery and the man was going to be overseas for a while. She's a little petite cute girl that LOVES people. She's definitely more a people dog than a dog's dog. She'll follow us around the house and just sit next to us waiting for belly rubs. She loves to sleep on the couch, especially on her back, or lay on top of you given the chance.

Coco loves to rips apart stuffed toys but unfortunately she eats the stuffing and fabric so we had to give her rubber toys instead. Coco had such a love of fabric that one morning she must have grabbed a pair of my underwear and eaten it while we were getting ready for work! Neither of us noticed at all but then all of a sudden she started getting really sick. She couldn't hold down any food and she was in distress. Mike and I had no idea what was going on and talked to our rescue director and gave her little bits of rice/chicken and water. For one night (5pm to about 5am) we were really worried. We kept an close eye on her and didn't sleep while we waited for her to get better or else take her to the vet. By the morning she was fine and we didn't know what the heck was going on!

During that evening's walk, Coco finally pooped and when I went to clean it up I realized that she had pooped out one of my underwear!! I cannot BELIEVE she passed that through her system without surgery.

Needless to say we find the situation a bit humorous now but it was definitely one of those "Oh my god" moments. After that she was completely fine and had no issues at all. She moved to other foster homes and was quickly adopted which wasn't surprising since she was such a great easy foster dog.

We were also very surprised at how well Pete behaved with Coco. Coco was with us for 4 weeks and Pete did fine the entire time so we decided to continue fostering.

NASA PM Challenge 2010

2010-02-20T21:47:00.001-05:00

Every year NASA has a Project Management conference. It's a way for NASA to share experiences, lessons learned, and basically all sorts of knowledge with everyone else in NASA, including contractors. This year the two-day event took place in Galveston, TX right near Johnson Space Center.

I was lucky in multiple ways. Our company contracts to NASA HQ and allowed about 24 of us to go to the conference. Unfortunately it took place RIGHT during the snowpolcalypse in february. Almost all flights out of DC, MD, VA were cancelled so only 3 of us were able to make it to the conference from our company.

The conference was pretty darn cool. There are multiple seminars going on at once, with various "tracks" or focuses. Some of them included: Ares 1-X, Case Studies, Lessons Learned, International Forum, Systems Engineering, and on and on.

I started the first day out with "The Space Exploration Mission", an overview the space exploration past, present, and future. Very well-presented, high-level, and informative with a really good speaker. The next seminar was "Stop doing Stupid Stuff" which I really enjoyed. A lot of these items are either common sense, or things you learn as a PM or manager but it's always good to have it reiterated. The speaker was very good and the material was engaging. This was the one seminar where I took lots of notes. Went on to learn about the first stage of Ares 1-X program, how to balance work/life as a manager/project manager/program manager, and leadership panel discussion. The first day had a lot of really great programs and speakers and I loved every minute of it. We had scientists, analysts, program managers, and previous flight director speak.

The second day had some hits and misses with the seminars I attended. "Observations of Crew Dynamics during Mars Analog Simulations" was fascinating and I knew Sue would love to have listened since it involved a lot of behavioral observations and social interactions. "Lessons Learned: STS-107 Columbia Accident" was a tough seminar to listen to. One of the scientists who had to evaluate the impact of the foam hitting the wing gave the seminar and talked about what happened during those three days while NASA had to decide what could be done before landing the shuttle.

The really good thing is that NASA puts the presentations and podcasts on their webpage for public availability. Unfortunately they are still working on 2010 so it might be a while but if you are interested in the presentations, just bookmark the page and check back in a few weeks.

I lucked out on the way home too. During the week more snow fell in DC so the other two people had their flights cancelled out of Houston and had to reschedule for saturday. My flight was on time so I left on friday and made it home with no issues. THEN on friday a snowstorm hit the south (Dallas over to Atlanta) which caused even more delays for the other two still in TX so they ended up getting even more delayed before they got home.

So not only did I get to go to this very fantastic conference, my flights were not cancelled or delayed at all. Kudos to Airtrans in getting me out and back on time!

October cruise

2010-01-21T10:20:00.004-05:00

At the end of october, Mike and I finally took a nice long vacation. The last previous vacation we had was in February to Aspen. We usually take vacations about every 3-4 months but since I just started a new job in June, we had to wait a bit before I had the time away from projects to go someplace nice.

Due to the amount of stress we were both under, we decided on a cruise again. Caribbean cruises are great for us to do absolutely nothing and just de-stress. We don't read our mail, no phones, tiny tvs so we're disconnected from the world. We spend a lot of time relaxing, reading, and wandering around the ship and ports.

Most of our cruises have been on Princess but this year I found the Norwegian cruises were cheaper and so we booked Norwegian instead of Princess. We flew to Miami and did a 7 day cruise to the Dominican Republic, St. Thomas, Tortola, and Stirrup Cays (private island).

The cruise was a very typical caribbean cruise. Since we've done all the snorkeling, catamaran trips, sea animal tours in the past, we kept our excursions pretty low-key. We did some tours, and spent a lot of time just walking around ourselves. On the boat, we did a lot of reading, took naps everyday (pretty remarkable for Mike, he never naps), snacked, soaked in the hot tub, and basically avoided the people on the ship. It was a VERY nice vacation for us.

Near the end of the trip, I wrote up a comparison between our cruise on Norweigian and Princess. Below is the writeup in case anyone is interested in the differences we found. Interestingly reading the comparison, it sounds like the Pearl and the Grand end up averaging out but for whatever reason, we found we preferred Princess to Norwegian.

Our photos from our trip are located here.

Norwegian vs Princess

For us the point of a caribbean cruise is to decompress. We've done a few caribbean cruises that all the islands and activities blend together after a while but it's a great way to get away from it all and just relax without people, email, phones.

Most of our trips have been with Princess. We've also cruised with Carnival, I've cruised with Celebrity, and this is our first time on Norwegian. We had heard a lot of good things with Norwegian and it had the lowest rate for the time period we were looking at. Since this is the first with Norwegian, I thought it would be nice to see what the differences are. This will be a comparison between the Pearl and Grand.

The Norwegian Pearl seems to be a bit smaller than the Grand Princess. There's only one pool area (2 pools, one is for adults only) and four hot tubs. Having all the hot tubs in one place is nice since if one is crowded, you don't need to go searching all over the ship to find another that isn't crowded. The hot tubs on the Pearl also haven't been broken while we've been here. On our Grand cruises, hot tubs were regularly broken which made it even harder to find space in the working tubs. Pearl pools are salt water, the Grand are fresh but both pools close in the evening although Grand hot tubs stay open much later than Pearl.

We usually choose the interior cabin for our temporary home. First, it stays dark so we can sleep whenever we want and not worry about the sun. Second, we don't spend that much time in the cabin so it seems silly to pay for a large room. Lastly, it is the cheapest option. So far the Grand cabin seems a little bit bigger than Pearl rooms. It's probably not by a lot but when these room are this small, sometimes a little extra space does make a big difference. However on that same philosophy, the Pearl showers are significantly larger than Grand showers and it's nice not bumping my elbow or knees into the walls. For all interior beds, they usually push two twin size beds together to make one queen size. On Grand, they have a joiner between the beds so the middle isn't so obvious. The Pearl does not do this so there is a noticeable split between the two beds which is a little annoying when you want to try to cuddle in the middle of the bed. The room service is excellent on both ships.

For all cruises, the emergency muster drill is mandatory. This is done on the first day of the cruise where you have to don your lifejacket and find out where you have to meet in case the boat is sinking. Princess has this drill down much better than Norwegian. For muster, Princess makes the announcement in your cabin, warns you when it will take place and has staff direct you to the right areas. Norwegian announces the drill in the hallways so if you're in your room, you miss the instructions. There's no set time to head to your muster station, you just pick up your jacket and wander to where you think you have to go. It's not one big area, it's small areas all over the ship and if you're not paying attention, you end up in the wrong area. It's disorganized at best and would not be helpful in case of a real emergency.

Both Princess and Norwegian have freestyle or anytime dining. Princess will let you either choose "traditional" set dinner times (where you sit at the same table, same waiter, same group of people) or eat in the anytime dining room where you walk in and get a table. Norwegian only has free-style where you walk into any dining room and choose to either share a table or eat with your own party. Mike and I tend to be private people with no real set schedule so we really enjoy the freestyle/anytime dining options. The Pearl is definitely more casual than Princess with no formal nights. You can go to dinner dressed in jeans all the way up to formal wear depending on your mood. Most on the Pearl have been very casual, jeans, shorts, slacks. The Grand dinners have been a little more formal. While both ships have restaurants with a cover charge, the Pearl has a lot more restaurant options (ranging from $10 to $25/person). There's mexican, chinese, teppanyaki, italian, spanish and even a small restaurant (no cover charge) that does bar-type foods (potato skins, mozzarella sticks, buffalo wings). We like the extra restaurants because after a little while, the rich sauces, and non-spicy food gets a little old. The chinese on the Pearl was very good and had some nice spice to it. Overall, Mike likes the Princess food a little better, I think it's about the same for Norwegian and Princess.

I think the port you leave from really tends to dictate the age range and demographics you'll find on a cruise ship. Leaving from Miami on the Pearl, there's a huge range of age on the ship. Lots of families, overall a much younger average age than Princess cruises we've been on. There's also been a fair number of internationals on board this cruise. My guess is since Miami is an international airport, there would be more from various countries than our cruises from Ft. Lauderdale, Baltimore, or San Juan.

We usually expect production numbers (singing, dancing) to have a certain level of cheese on cruises, the production we saw on the Pearl was exceptionally awful. The singing was pretty awful, the dancing was boring, the production was uninspiring. This was the first time Mike and I walked out in the middle of a show.

The music aboard the Pearl seems to be a little more modern and hip than the Grand music with dance/techno music often playing in the main Atrium on the Pearl. On the Grand, we usually found a nice quiet spot to hang out, read, play with our electronics. On the Pearl, we've been spending a lot of time at the main atrium watching people play wii on the giant screen, or watching the flock of people descend on the sales while we just hang out, read and play with our electronics.

--

Mike noticed poor attention to detail in much of the literature handed out each day: typos, grammar errors, spelling mistakes, etc. Not a big deal, but surprising.

It's 2010 already??

2010-01-21T09:33:00.003-05:00

It's been a while since I've posted on the blog, perhaps my New Year's (albeit a little late) resolution should be to update it more often. While I do use Facebook and Twitter more often, I think there is a place for blogs.

Let's see, I guess this entry should probably be a catch-up/summary of all the various things that have happened in the last few months.

Mike and I took a VERY much needed vacation at the end of October. Poor Mike hadn't had a nice long vacation for a long time and I was getting a bit burned out in my new job. We tried Norweigian cruises this time around (we usually book Princess Cruises but the Norweigian cruise was significantly cheaper this time around). I did do a write-up on the difference between Norweigian and Princess, and I'll post it on the blog, but overall I think Mike and I prefer Princess Cruises.

My sister had a baby in early August! KJ (Kat Jr) as she will be named in my blog is an absolutely cutie-pie (and that's not a biased opinion at all)!! Jen is still mad at me for going back to work but at least I can be a weekend auntie. Both sets of grandparents are absolutely enthralled since KJ is their first grandbaby. Pretty soon she'll be crawling, I can't wait to watch KJ's parents run around trying to keep up with her!

Lastly we've started fostering again. For a long time we've had to stop fostering because Pete would become a jerk with a new dog in the house. Pete would either bully the foster dog, or bully Max if the foster dog stood up to Pete. Over time and with some patience, Pete seems to have mellowed a bit and we thought fostering was worth a try again. At the end of Thanksgiving, we tried fostering Coco for a month and was surprisingly successful. Pete did quite well with a new foster in the house and didn't become a jerkball so we've continued fostering. We're now on our second foster, Miles, who we've had for less than a week so far.

I promise I'll post a bit more going forward (I hope) but at least it's a start!

Too fast, too fast

2009-09-22T14:30:00.003-04:00

Once a year, a few of us get together to stitch, knit, goof-off, bitch, and just enjoy ourselves. The last couple of years we've used my parents' house in WVa. It has the convenience of being close but private enough with no tv or internet that we can really just cut ourselves off from the world.

This year was no different. Five of us (Sue, Cindy, Debbie, and Catherine) headed off on Friday evening stocked with a WHOLE bunch of junk food. My awesome mom had also made us some korean bbq beef, and ingredients for Bi Bim Bap (basically mixed rice with meat and vegetables). With our stash of food, there was no need to leave the house for the entire weekend.

We all set up our stuff in the main room and just had an amazing time. There's nothing quite like wonderful friends who can really talk to each other and be relaxed. I think this was the best time yet for me. We did our various crafts, played some multi-player DS games, trash-talked a lot (OK, I trash-talked while gaming....it's a weakness), and enjoyed being silly.

I loved this weekend, it gave me a chance to just relax and get away from work mentally for a while. I got to just concentrate on stitching, knitting, gaming, and gabbing. The weekend did go by too fast though. I think we all agree that next time we've got to make this a 3-day weekend at least.

Dogs & food

2009-05-30T21:59:00.008-04:00

Our dogs love food, any kind of food. As Scott can attest to, on our daily walks Pete will even try stuff on the roads that just looks edible. One of my favorite activities involves tossing bits of food and watching the dogs grab it from the air (ok, so I entertain easily). While watching them, I've always wondered what a high-speed picture would capture since Pete looks like Jaws when he catches food. A couple days ago the circumstances came together so that Mike was able to take some good shots of the dogs while I tossed treats at them. Below are a few of my favorite pictures from the session:

Stay on target...

Aw, nuts. There it goes!

And another miss (Don't worry, Max got lots of treats)

And obviously Mom can't throw very well.

Here's Jaws

Tasty!

Caught it off the side!

The Daily Grind

2009-05-20T09:54:00.004-04:00

For the last two and a half years I have been happily unemployed. Mike and I had left AOL together and spent about a year together just enjoying traveling, friends, xbox, working on the house, etc. Mike went back to work after the year and I put out some resumes at that time. I did get a couple of interviews but nothing panned out. I did use that time to get my PMP (project management professional) certification since that seems to be hot thing for project managers recently. After the certification, I kept my eye out for jobs but most were looking for specific qualifications I didn't have or else the job was in DC. I'm in one of those incredibly lucky positions that I didn't have to get a job, so I got to be picky on what I was looking for.

After some time, I decided I liked staying home. I chose my own hours, worked on the house, made dinner for us, took care of the dogs, etc and still had the afternoons to just relax, stitch, read, knit, and vegetate. Mike loved it because the house was pretty darn clean, the dogs were taken care of, dinner was ready, all the various chores were finished.

A couple of months ago I saw a PjM position on the aol-alumni group that I'm part of and thought it sounded interesting. I honestly turned in my resume as a whim, I didn't really think they'd call me. After all, I haven't worked for 2.5 years, the job market is depressed, and there are a LOT of applications out there. I did get a call and interviewed with the company which is located in (yep, you guessed it) DC. The people, culture, and job sounded fantastic and they offered me the job.

I start on June 1st and I've decided to take public transportation instead of driving so my commute will be the exact length everyday and I get to do something else (DS, read, knit, podcast, audiobooks) during the commute other than get road rage. Mike has mixed feelings about the job. He's glad that I'm doing something new, (hopefully) fun, and getting out of the house; however he really liked all the things I took care of while he was at work. I'm really excited and can't wait to start working again. Wonderful Scott and Sue have volunteered to check in on the dogs during the day for walks and company so Pete and Max will be ok while we're gone all day.

I broke 100

2009-05-09T17:45:00.005-04:00

We bought bikes a few weeks ago and I've been enjoying some fairly good rides with Mike, Scott, Sue, and the girls. I've been keeping a bike journal of the stats for our rides so I could see the trends. Mike also has some cool stats he gathers from his iphone here. Today I've hit over 100 cumulative miles on our various rides and I'm quite pleased at how it's going.

The nice thing about bikes is how far you can go. A 2 mile walk with the dogs takes me about 45 minutes while a 15 mile ride will take about 1.5 hrs. I've also noticed that my endurance appears to be getting better. I'm able to increase the average speed on our rides and also stay in higher gears for much longer.

My biggest hope is to have buns of steel by the end of the year however there may be a small snag to that wish. I've been finding that I tend to overeat after the bike rides (ice cream, milkshakes, burgers, junk food) which puts me in a positive calorie range, not negative. I need to change my thought process so I don't put so much food/junk into my body after our rides.

I think Mike and I have gotten bit by the bike bug. I hope we continue to keep up with it especially when the icky humid summer comes.

Rain, mud, friends, food

2009-05-06T19:22:00.005-04:00

Every year there's the MD Sheep & Wool Festival at the Howard County fairgrounds. It is probably one of the largest events for needlecraft folks in this area. There are lots and lots of yarn, fibers, fiber animals (sheep, alpaca, bunnies), and fun stuff to buy.

This year we convinced two newbies to come with us to experience the stashing awesomeness. The five and a half (a miniature person) of us headed up to the festival on sunday. Unfortunately it rained the entire time we were there, starting with our drive. Thankfully since we knew it was going to rain all day we had our raingear (did you know strollers have raingear too? It's so cool!) so we stayed (mostly) dry. Fortunately the rain meant there were a LOT less people on sunday than saturday. Many of the vendors said saturday was literally full of people elbow to elbow in the booths with very little space to move. I'm a grumpy old person (mentally) and I hate crowds so I was just fine with the steady rain and less people.

We all trekked around, watched Noah (the mini-person) have a grand time with the sheep and alpaca, ate lots of carnival foods (YUM, one of the best parts!), and bought some fun stuff. Ok, so everyone showed some restraint with purchasing but I decided to go all out!

I ended up buying some cool ribbon yarn and a tank-top pattern. I saw the tank top last year at Stitches East but didn't buy it. It was still calling to me this year so I figured that meant I really wanted it. I've also made a fair number of socks but I've never tackled fair isle (multiple colors) before. I love the bright colors and since this came as a kit, I had to buy it. I also got a sock blank dyed in a neat pattern. I'm very curious to see how it looks after being knitted into socks. Lastly Sue noticed a great swirl shawl that I had fawned over at Stitches East (but didn't buy) so she enabled and bought me the pattern! Now I have to find cool yarn to go with it. Course I have to hurry up and finish some of my other projects so I can add these to my queue (HA, that's funny, I'll probably just start these without even finishing my other stuff first).

All in all I think we had a really good time. Purchases were made, new crafts were discovered, bunnies were lusted after, and lots of great food was consumed. Oh, and did I mention that the rain stopped RIGHT as we were leaving the festival?

It was a slaughter

2009-05-01T21:53:00.005-04:00

Jen got us great Washington National (baseball) tickets for tonight. Nats were playing against the St. Louis Cardinals. We had such a great time the last time we watched the Nats that we were looking forward to tonight's game. We still got kick-ass parking (literally inside the stadium) and seats about 12 rows behind the home dugout (on the first base line).

(there's a red circle around the area we were seated, almost directly opposite the picture)

The evening weather turned out perfect even though it had rained through most of the day with weather in the high-60s with clear skies. We wrestled through friday DC traffic and made it to our seats by the bottom of the 1st inning.

I should have known it was a bad sign when the score was already 0-1 Nats vs Cards when we sat down. Basically it was a massacre. By the 7th inning stretch, the score was 0-6 with no signs of comeback by the Nats. We decided enough was enough so we headed out. By the time we reached the parking garage, the Nats had batted a triple followed by a home run so the score became 2-6. We gave some thought to watching the rest of the game but decided against it and headed home. That ended up being the right decision since 2-6 was the final score of the evening.

Don't get me wrong. We really enjoyed being out in the nice weather, watching a free game from really great seats, eating ballpark food but it would have been SO much more enjoyable had the Nats made an effort to win!

The best part of the night was a brief conversation Mike and I had during the game. I noticed there seemed to be a large number of Cardinal fans in the stadium tonight and mentioned that to Mike.

His response, "That makes sense, they are awfully close to here". I gave him a puzzled look after his response so he said, "Aren't they just north of here?"

I told him, "No, those are the Baltimore Orioles, the St. Louis Cardinals are from Missouri."

Mike's response? "Oh! Well, Orioles, Cardinals they're both birds." Boy, and I thought I was bad with sports!

Very large dog doors

2009-04-25T13:09:00.009-04:00

I finished the world's largest dog door for our back door yesterday. The dogs often like to go out to sun themselves or explore the backyard but also like to come in and see what we're doing. When they get bored, they want to go back outside. Since we get tired of opening and closing the backdoor, on nice days we just leave the door open so the dogs can go in and out as they please. Unfortunately that means we've had flies, bees, wasps, and birds (!) coming into the house.

I always wanted to just put a screen mesh or something so the dogs could come in and out since a doggy door wasn't an option but I wasn't sure about the logistics. Then Cindy had a fantastic blog post about a companion screen that she created for their boat. I really liked that idea but would need to make a few changes for our backdoor. Our screen would have to be temporary with very little hardware needed. Then I didn't give it anymore thought since it was getting chilly and no longer an issue for us.

This spring I have to replace a few screen windows that have holes so I bought a very large roll of screen mesh. I thought this was a great opportunity to put the screen in place on the backdoor too but still wasn't sure about the logistics of it all. Then the Google answered my prayers. I found this site that sold something that was exactly what I needed. After looking at the pictures I knew I could build this easily. I stopped at Home Depot and picked up a tension rod and some magnets. When I got home, I measured out the screen I needed and started sewing the edges and top with the magnets.

The whole process took about 3 hours to finish but I'm very pleased with how it worked out. The dogs were a bit hesitant to go through the screens but I think they're getting used to it. I'm looking foward to using this for the spring and fall.

Curse has been lifted!

2009-04-25T12:32:00.024-04:00

I'm finished Finished FINISHED!!! Hee hee the garage doors are completed after so many issues! Back in August we had a small oops with our garage doors and got new ones. We found really nice garage doors at Costco so we got them within a month after the incident.

(original doors before the incident)

After we got the doors installed we wanted to paint them to match the house. Unfortunately I had a hell of a time finding the right grey color to match the house (the right grey color was too light to see as an accent on the doors) so I went a little darker. Then I painted the interior squares of the garage door to match the trim which is an off-white. Unfortunately the off-white paint looked WAY too yellow so I left the other two doors with their original bright white and painted the grey accents. So that part was easy.

(new doors, pre-painting)

After the grey was finished, I had to go back and repaint the interior squares of the first garage door, easy right? Unfortunately straight white paint was too white (since the doors are steel with white paint meaning the overall tint is slightly grey-ish). After painting one square and realizing it was too light, I got the lightest grey paint and found that was too grey! So I started mixing the two paints together to try to find the right mix. It took me about 3 tries then I just decided whatever color I had is the one that was going on. By this time winter had reached us and it was time to quit.

Spring finally came back so I tried again. While I was painting this time I ended up spilling half the paint on the driveway! Since I needed that paint (custom paint now) I started scooping the paint back into the can. My hands coated in paint, I headed back inside to clean up but ended up leaving paint on the entry rug (my sneaker had white paint on it). I cleaned up and headed outside to hose down the driveway. While hosing it all down, I accidentally sprayed my ipod and speakers so I had to clean that up. At this point I'm just fuming cause nothing is going right but I continue and finally get most of the paint cleaned up. I cleaned everything up, and shut down operations. While I find the whole thing amusing now, I was so frustrated at the time that I called it quits for a few weeks. If Mike would mention the incomplete paint job I would shoot him an evil look and ignore him. The weather and frustration level finally worked out so I finished the garage doors yesterday while it was beautiful outside.

(finished doors)

I love the garage doors and the colors but I think I'm finished with garage doors now. (Oh, and for those smart-alecky friends, the grey accents are the same colors for all doors, it's simply the angle of the shot)

Who knew the outdoors could be fun?

2009-04-23T21:26:00.007-04:00

A few weeks ago a bunch of us headed to W&OD trail so I could try out my Landrollers on more than our neighborhood streets. I got to have some company from Scott/Sue/kids and Mike. Mike borrowed Scott's bike while Scott roller bladed with me.

Well the trip turned out to be a success. Mike enjoyed the bike ride, I didn't fall on my butt (or anything else), and all had a great time. Unfortunately blading is a lot more intensive than bike riding so I decided to get a bike to keep up (I plan to keep blading but practice on my own). Performance Bikes is having a sale so Sue, Mike, and I bought entry-level Fuji bikes last weekend for pretty good prices. I took my bike in on wednesday for some further tune-up and instead upgraded to a better bike for $34 (little bit of haggling and other bonuses got the price down).

Today we took the bikes on the W&OD trail out by Rt28 and headed west. We made it all the way to Luckstone quarry in Ashburn (about 6 miles) before heading back. Round-trip took us about 1hr 15 min (way back was MUCH nicer...downhill with the wind at our back). It was a good relatively leisurely ride ending with really good food at Cheeburger (have you noticed how wonderful food tastes after working out?). We really had a great time biking and the trail is relatively flat and easy to handle.

Now that we've got the momentum going (HA, one bike ride so far, that's momentum?) we're trying to bike more often at least until the weather gets ridiculously hot and humid.

Toxic friendships

2009-04-21T10:20:00.015-04:00

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More flitting from project to project

2009-03-05T10:17:00.008-05:00

We had a fantastic time in Aspen but I was rather surprised at the jet lag I suffered after coming back. I mean, come on, it was only 3 time differences away and the flight was only about 4 hours! I think I'm just a wimp about traveling as I get older.

Since we've gotten back from Aspen, I've been a total slack-ass. I need to get started with our landscaping outside but we ended up with about 4-5 inches of snow earlier this week. That makes it a bit tough to get to the weeds so I had an excuse to stay indoors. I have to also get back on painting the interior of our house but I had a ready excuse for that too. We're watching our friends' chocolate lab, Jackson. He follows us around everywhere and I don't want to paint while he's here since it could get a little hairy. So instead I tidied the house a bit and spent a lot of time just stitching and knitting (yes, I am spoiled, yes, I know it, yes, I love it).

Right before Aspen I did more work on Cirque du Cercles but I didn't get a chance to post my progress. It's a fun one to stitch since it's just one variegated floss with a lot of bright colors.

Also I had worked on Frises & Alphabets before Aspen but had to frog the whole thing out due to color bleeding into the fabric so I restarted the whole thing. I got a little further than my first attempt. Sue helped me choose all the colors on this one (it's usually monochrome) and I love the choices she picked! It's another fun and easy one to stitch.

I also continue to work on some baby knits and I've started a toe-up sock. All the socks I've previously knitted have been cuff-down so I figured I'd try something new. I've definitely got shiny object syndrome since I can't seem to stay on one project for too long recently.

Aspen Day 4

2009-02-23T16:03:00.006-05:00

We woke up this morning with the expected aches and pains, but ready to do some more skiing. We headed back to Buttermilk, but decided to skip additional lessons, and instead focus on practicing what we learned yesterday and just having some fun on the easy and intermediate slopes.

We got there shortly after 9am. At the base of Buttermilk it was raining pretty steadily all morning, making things cold and uncomfortable. Once our lift was halfway up the mountain, the rain turned to big heavy snow flakes. It was a pretty different experience than the previous two days. For one thing, we could barely see, with the mountain top covered in clouds, and the snow coming down pretty hard. Each time we went back up there was a LOT more snow on the ground. Within an hour or two there were several inches of fresh powder covering the top half of the mountain.

Skiing in fresh snow was a bit harder than we expected. For one thing, it's slower, meaning we had to work harder to push ourselves along the occasional flat area. Also, the powder masks the underlying terrain, so an area that looks smooth might actually be bumpy or rough. Once the snow got deep, it was also harder and more tiring to steer and control our skiing. After a couple hours we both decided we were done for the day. The combination of the declining conditions and our tired muscles convinced us to "end on a good note" rather than push ourselves too far. Most people appeared to feel the same way since Buttermilk was just about deserted all day, we had each slope almost completely to ourselves.

Mike and I headed back to the condo to clean up and relax while our friends continued skiing at Snowmass today. Once they got back that afternoon, we unanimously agreed to get food delivered to the condo instead of making dinner or going out (three of them had tackled Longshot, a 5.2 mile long ski slope that afternoon). We all noshed on pizzas then played poker until bedtime.

Overall a fantastic vacation. Aspen has some breathtaking views, especially while on the chair lifts. The skiing is a lot of fun and the weather is gorgeous. Strangely 35 degrees in Aspen (with the sun out) feels a lot warmer than in VA. Aspen is small enough that you can walk to just about anything around town. Unfortunately it is also not a cheap vacation spot (Course we already knew it was going to be expensive so we just enjoyed ourselves and really had a great time). The restaurants are expensive but the food is mediocre. The rentals, ski lift tickets, and lessons aren't cheap but with the type of skiing available in Aspen it shouldn't be a surprise. The lessons were great since the groups were so small and our instructor really did help each of us improve our skiing.

I'm hooked, I'm ready for more west coast skiing now. Course I'm eager for East Coast skiing too (preferably New Hampshire or Vermont).

Aspen Day 3

2009-02-22T18:55:00.009-05:00

Mike and I are really enjoying Aspen so far. The weather has been absolutely wonderful this week: mid-30s with sun (it actually feels close to 60 degrees when the sun is out), it hasn't been crowded, and we've completed adjusting to the altitude change.

Today we headed to Buttermilk Mountain (smallest mountain here, a lot of greens and blues, couple of blacks, no double blacks) for our lesson. We signed up for a full day lesson (10-3) at Level 5 (Levels 1-9, 9 being double-black). Our friend Dan suggested taking lessons at Buttermilk instead of Snowmass Mountain since Buttermilk has better slopes to learn on and it's a lot less crowded. There were a fair number of skiers taking lessons this morning but the school provides a lot of instructors so each little group was no more than 4 people (ours had 3 people).

The class ended up being a huge benefit to both Mike and myself. My biggest issue with skiing is not turning or edging but slowing down properly on steep slopes without doing an emergency brake/turn. George (our instructor) said it best: "On the black slopes you're not skiing, you're surviving". I wasn't finishing my turns properly and instead of turning and edging together, I would turn sharp, edge, then speed up. The lessons taught me how my feet needed to feel, the proper way to edge, and how to complete the turn. By the end of the day I had made huge improvements to my skiing and I was very happy with my form. Mike learned how to turn properly and edge so by the end of the lesson, he looked very confident and quite good at his turns and stops. The lesson ended up being pretty much a private lessons, since our third person only did a half-day so after lunch it was only Mike and I with George.

We both had a fantastic time today. We started on greens and did a few blues through the day. If we do another class tomorrow, it would be concentrating on tighter narrow turns and going on some black slopes.

The view at Buttermilk is quite breathtaking. One of the chair lifts passes right by Pyramid Peak through the valley and a fantastic view of Aspen Highlands (another ski mountain in Aspen). Unfortunately I ran out of space on the camera right before we went through the valley so I wasn't able to get a picture of the view.

Tomorrow is our last day of skiing, we're not sure what we're going to do yet. We may head to Buttermilk Mountain again since there are a lot of intermediate slopes, it's not crowded and we might do another lesson. Otherwise we will go back to Snowmass since it also has a fair number of blue slopes, while Aspen Mountain and Aspen Highlands are definitely for more advanced skiiers (not for us).

Aspen Day 2

2009-02-21T17:39:00.009-05:00

If I had to put our Day 2 into just a few words, it would be: huff huff, puff puff, ow, Ow, OUCH!!

Now for the longer version. We started our day pretty early at 6:30am, rest of the group was up by about 7-7:30. We did an informal breakfast of carbs, fruit, and coffee in the condo and headed out to Snowmass mountain (the furthest mountain from Aspen). The weather was absolutely gorgeous today with a high of 38 degrees at the base and about 28 degrees at the high elevation. There was very little wind and since it was so sunny outside, it was fantastic skiing weather. Snowmass' base elevation is 8,100ft and the summit elevation is 12,500ft. We were already having some issues adjusting to the Aspen altitude so we knew skiing would be quite a challenge.

We got our lift tickets and rentals for the next 3 days (whew, Aspen is not cheap), got fitted for our stuff, and headed straight to the top on the high-speed chair (14 minutes to the top). Our experienced friends started with a blue slope while we headed for a green slope. Since the mountain is so tall, there are a lot of mid-point chair lifts so you only go down half the mountain, then go back up. Right after the green, Mike and I ended up taking the lift to the blue section (very few greens at Snowmass, especially at the top of the mountain) and skiing those until lunchtime.

Skiing in Pennsylvania/W.Virginia vs Colorado is quite a difference. First big difference is that all the slopes in Aspen are snow, real snow as opposed to the man-made snow/ice created on the East Coast. Second is the height of the mountains. In Aspen, it takes us much longer to ski down the hill than waiting in line and riding the chair back up to the top. In our area, it is the exact opposite. Aspen's green slopes are comparable to blue at home, and their blue slopes are comparable to the black slopes at home. Lastly, the views at the bottom, top, and skiing are breathtaking in Aspen.

We met our friends for lunch at the top of the mountain and relaxed for a while. After lunch, both of us were pretty tired due to the thin air and amount of skiing we've done. My feet were also pretty painful due to blistering under the ankles. We decided to do a green slope down to the rental place so I could get a more comfortable pair of boots. Unfortunately the way down took a VERY long time and I ended up in a fair bit of pain. We made it back to the rental place with Mike chivalrously taking my skis for me. I got another pair of boots to try for tomorrow but we decided to call it an early day for today since my ankles were pretty sore.

Our friend Dan (his parents own the condo) had been here for a week with his family already. Earlier in the week he took a skiing lesson to help weed out some of his bad habits. He really liked the class, so Mike and I have decided to take a skiing lesson tomorrow at Buttermilk (the smallest mountain in Aspen) to help us improve our skiing and make sure we're doing everything the right way. Mike hasn't had a skiing lesson since he was a kid, and I've never had a skiing lesson so we're both interested to find out the correct way to do things.

Aspen Day 1

2009-02-20T21:49:00.005-05:00

The parents of a friend of ours owns a condo in Aspen and he invited us (with a few other friends) to spend about 4 days there so Mike and I jumped at the chance to do some real snow skiing.

With Scott acting as our chauffeur, we headed to Dulles this morning. We were shocked to find Dulles was almost completely empty on a Friday morning. We zoomed through check-in and security and our plane took off on time, it was a red-letter day for traveling!

Once in Denver, we took a quick food break and got on a very small plane to Aspen. The trip only took about 30 minutes but the view from the plane was quite amazing. We could see the ski slopes as we started our descent. From the air the slopes didn't seem so overwhelming but once on the ground Kathie realized how much difference perspective makes.

The condo is a nice 2-bedroom suite with pull-out bed couch. There's six of us staying but since Mike and I are the only couple here, we lucked out with the master bedroom (king-sized bed w/NO DOGS!!) From the balcony we can see one of the gondolas going straight up the mountain.

Surprised to see how small Aspen is overall. There are four different mountains to ski on and the village at the bottom. We can walk to a fair number of places in Aspen and the condo transport will take us pretty much anywhere else.

Since most of us trickled into Aspen this afternoon (and one comes in close to midnight tonight) we won't start skiing until tomorrow at Snowmass mountain (good to start here since it has more green slopes so we can warm up). The weather here is supposed to be wonderful tomorrow too, about 35 degrees and sunny.

Stitching pictures

2009-02-17T09:42:00.008-05:00

I've said it before and I'll say it again. My blogging has seriously lagged since I've discovered Twitter since it's just so easy to do quick updates there instead of blogging. While twitter is great for microblogging the daily stuff, the blog is good for pictures and updates, especially regarding stitching. I do hope to have more to blog about in about 2 weeks. Mike and I are headed to Aspen to try our hand at west coast skiing (ok, not really west coast but definitely not east coast skiing). I'm really excited about doing some skiing on "real" snow and I think Mike is just pleased to go on vacation.

Since my sister is pregnant (yay!), I've been doing some knitting for the baby but I don't plan to show those pictures online since Jen is one of the few who reads my blog, so those will just have to wait for a while. I have been alternating between knitting and stitching so I've finally been getting more progress on my cross-stitching.

Naughty Sue enabled me (she is good at it) to buy Frises & Alphabets from Nouveau Encore as a reward to myself for making it a month sweets-free (LONGEST month of my life!). She even helped (& supplied) me choose fantastic colors for the sampler. I LOVED stitching on it and got the corner border, A, and B finished. Then I realized I miscounted somewhere and frogged out the part I screwed up. Unfortunately the silks I used bled into the fabric so I tried to spot-clean it which made the whole thing worse. The water travelled to the other floss on the fabric and that bled everywhere so I had to rip it all out, wash the fabric, and start over again. Needless to say, I have NOT started it again yet but I still have the urge to work on it soon.

In the meantime, I've also been working on various other works in progress so I'll just post those pictures here:

Celestial Dragon (TW) has been hibernating for a while but recently I had the urge to work on it so I pulled it out. I finished the left corner and lettering and I'm very pleased how it's turning out so far.

Spanish Bleu (Sampler Cove) is also quite enjoyable to stitch. It's very different for me since I'm only using one strand of floss so my tension has been be really light.

Red Velvet Inscription Sampler is another fun one using Belle Soie silks. So far I've finished A-E and G-K (each one of those blocks contains a letter disguised in the design).

So those are my stitching updates so far. Hopefully I'll have some great snow pictures in a couple of weeks to post.

Some stitching updates

2008-12-17T20:25:00.008-05:00

I've been very flighty about my needlework recently. For a while I didn't have much of an urge to cross-stitch but to knit/crochet instead. So I started and finished off a pair of fingerless mitts (which ended up being a bit too large, I need to rip them out and restart on a smaller size needle).

A couple friends and I meet once a week to just hang out and grab some lunch. I needed a mindless easy project to work on while we gabbed so I decided to crochet a marketbag since it was only dc stitches the entire way around. I finished that up relatively quickly.

After those two project were finished, I started another pair of fingerless mitts for my mom but lost interest in knitting so I flitted back to cross-stitch. I've been moving from project to project since nothing seems to hold my interest for longer than a week (I've always had follow-shiny-object syndrome). After working on a few projects, I thought I'd post some progress pictures of those since it's been a while.

Autumn Abstract (Vervaco) is currently one of my favorite projects. It's probably cause it's relatively easy, has great colors, and since there are so many motifs I get a sense of accomplishment just by finishing one little area.

Spanish Bleu (Sampler Cove) is also becoming a fast favorite. I have to admit I had a hard time getting into this project because I was stitching 1 over 2 on linen and my tension had to be pretty loose. It took a while but I finally got the hang of it and I'm now quite enjoying the project.

Celtic Banner (Butternut Rd) has been quite fun to stitch for a while but I got distracted with Spanish Bleu and Autumn Abstract so I pushed it aside but I worked on it for a short while recently.

Lastly but definitely not least, Coeur De Chiens (Rouge Rubis). A stitching angel named Sue bought me this chart and even provided me with fabric and floss for it! Obviously love this cause it's dog-themed but it's also different since it's negative space. It's a little tough for me since I'm doing 1 over 2 on 40-ct linen but I love the way it's turning out so far! It's not a big project so if I can get back into it, I could finish this one relatively quick.

Cirque du Soleil

2008-11-04T17:12:00.007-05:00

Mike and I have loved Cirque shows ever since Scott and Erci introduced us to Quidam at Tysons Corner several years ago. Since then we've seen over half a dozen various Cirque shows, some of them touring, some of them in various vacation spots (Florida, Vegas). Cirque is quite a unique experience, if you've never seen a show, I'd highly recommend going to their website to see whether they have a show coming to your area. Cirque shows are visually stunning, highly choreographed, the music well done, and the acts are breathtaking (literally). Each show has a theme running through which tells a story but it's pretty loose and is mostly used to move from act to act. Each show is amazing but after a while, the shows start to blur together and most of them are very similar so we stopped going to them.

Last thursday Cirque du Soleil's new show Kooza premiered in DC. One of Mike's vendors at work is a sponsor for Kooza so the vendor offered us two seats to the premiere. Since we hadn't seen a cirque show for a few years now, we couldn't turn down the offer, even if we had to travel over the Wilson bridge right in the middle of rush hour. We got there with plenty of time to spare, so we wandered around the outside tent filled with cirque merchandise while noshing on free popcorn and soda. We got to our seats (third row from stage!) with an amazing view of the stage.

Kooza tells the story of The Innocent, a melancholy loner in search of his place in the world. He meets a myriad of characters during his journey which is used to pull the acts together. This cirque is a little different from the previous shows we've seen in that it seems more "traditional". There aren't as many weird/cool contraptions but a lot of acts involving balance, contortion, acrobatics, and clowns. The acts show off the endurance, agility, and flexibility of the human body (how do they DO that?). If you're in the DC area, definitely try to grab some tickets to see this show, it's a lot of fun.

Finished knitted blanket

2008-10-19T08:15:00.005-04:00

With the addition of twitter into my repertoire of "stuff" I have, I've been blogging a lot less these days; however I do need to show off a recent obligation piece I did.

A friend of mine is expecting a baby in December. A while back we were chatting and she was poking a bit of fun at the "crafty" group of people (knitting, scrapbooking, etc) without realizing I was a knitter. Once I admitted that I also did a lot of needlecraft work, she started poking a bit of fun at me (all in good nature). Honestly I don't care if someone doesn't understand the pull of "crafts", I really enjoy doing them so defending my hobbies isn't a bit deal. We had a bit of fun and moved on. Shortly afterwards I found out she was pregnant so I thought it would be perfect if I knitted something for the baby.

There's a free pattern out there called Moderne Baby Blanket. It's modeled after quilted blankets but instead of piecing fabric together, you piece together blocks of knitting. The pattern is super easy since all you do is knit (garter stitch) the entire piece. After finishing the knitting, I did a half-double crochet around the entire piece to give it a finished look. I'm very pleased at how it turned out and it's not a traditional blanket so I knew my friend would like it. The blanket was very well-received at the shower and I got to poke some gentle fun at her.

Bailout bad or good?

2008-09-29T21:13:00.006-04:00

Obviously it's on everyone's mind and there seems to be some very strong opinions about it. I've read a LOT of people who are against the bailout but I'm having a hard time understanding why there's so much resistance to the proposal (keep in mind I am NOT an economist). I get that there are those out there who believe a capital market should be left alone and not nationalized. I also get that there are those people out there who think those banks and institutions screwed up and therefore should pay for it. I also get (and very much agree with) the issue that compensation for the CEOs of these companies are ridiculous when they are "bought" out.

I understand all those points that people bring up but most seem to forget one major point and this doesn't even take into account the credit crunch/freeze that will happen if we don't do anything. The FDIC and Federal Reserve already have the right (and obligation) to deal with failed banks. The FDIC comes in as a bank fails, finds a healthy bank to take over the failed one, protects the deposits, and often takes over bad loans from the bank. Usually the FDIC has a reserve of money but that is FAST running out. This is their job and they will continue to do this as banks continue to fail. This is without Congress' approval or any oversight committee.

For the Citibank takeover of Wachovia, the FDIC is sharing the risk on a $312 billion portfolio of loans (without needing the express approval of Congress). They have already provided money for IndyMac, Freddie and Fannie Mac, and AIG failures, again without Congress' intervention. Without Congress and this bailout the FDIC and Federal Reserve is completely reactive, chasing after each failed bank and figuring out what to do with it, spending money it doesn't have (ultimately coming out of the taxpayer's pocket), and slowly running out of healthy banks for mergers. Getting the $700B from Congress with rules, regulations, and oversight committees will allow the FDIC and the Fed to be proactive and hopefully allow for transparency on the entire process. Until that happens, the FDIC and Fed will continue to bailout the failing financial industry and taxpayers will continue to pay for it. No matter what happens, the taxpayers will pay for this financial disaster. Wouldn't you prefer to have some limits, regulations, and committees making sure the money is used properly and something like this never happens again?

Woo-hoo....HAWAII!

2008-09-10T22:26:00.006-04:00

So Mike and I have headed to the Big Island of Hawaii for our anniversary vacation. We usually vacation around the beginning of september for two reasons. First it's our anniversary (9/12) but most importantly it's usually off-season pretty much anywhere. Kids are just in school so parents aren't taking them on vacation, the weather is still fantastic, and vacationing tends to be a bit cheaper this time of year.

This year we've gone to the Big Island of Hawaii for 8 days. We were in Maui and Kauai for our honeymoon. We loved Hawaii so much that we wanted to come back but try a different island.

The time difference is really wreaking havoc with my system (6 hrs) and I'm surprised at how long it's been taking me to adjust to the time. We've already been here 6 days and I'm still waking up in the middle of the night. Unfortunately I'm resigned to the fact that I'll get used to Hawaii time just as we have to leave on friday. Oh well, that still doesn't detract from the really great time we're having here.

We've been slowly updating our activities on Mike's blog so I'm just going to link to it here. I'll update more on my blog but it'll just be random bits of thoughts and opinions that didn't fit in our daily activities.

Another room down, a gazillion more to go....

2008-08-31T10:29:00.006-04:00

Okay, maybe not a gazillion but I don't think I'll ever be finished painting this house. Next house will be MUCH smaller. Least I finally finished painting the first floor hallway though. Since it's such an open space, I wanted to keep the colors relatively neutral but change it from the current color of off-white. After much consultation with Sue (she's my color consultant) I decided on stripes on the bottom half, below the chair-rail, and the lighter neutral color on top. Sue also made a really good suggestion of different glosses for the stripes so the darker color is semi-gloss while the lighter color is eggshell. The overall effect is subtle but definitely nice.

Unfortunately after painting the hallway, I realized how beat-up, dirty, and smudged our trim has gotten so my next step is to wash, patch, and repaint the trim. Then it'll be onto the garage hallway and back door vestibule next.

Pete is Mr. April!

2008-08-24T19:44:00.005-04:00

Every year LRR (the lab rescue we volunteer with) puts out a calendar with LRR alumni dogs. All adopters are encouraged to enter pictures of LRR alumni and the twelve best are chosen for the yearly calendar. The calendars are well-made and all proceeds go back to helping LRR's dogs; they make great Christmas gifts for those dog lover friends and co-workers (*hint hint*).

We entered some photos of Pete and Max for this year's calendar (Max made it in LRR's 2007 calendar). Unfortunately Max did not get chosen, but Pete's picture below was chosen for April, yay! I still think Max's bee picture should have been chosen, I love that shot (yes, the bee is still alive)!

Surprising benefits of the Wii Fit

2008-08-19T19:12:00.007-04:00

Mike and I have had the wii for a while now (Eric was kind enough to send us one when they got lucky purchasing two) and we haven't used it much. Unfortunately most of the games haven't lived up to the hype of the wii, and one of our all time favorite game franchise, Metroid Prime, seemed a bit disappointing with the wii. Once we bought the xbox 360 there was no contest and the wii just gathered dust.

When wii fit came out, I was curious about the effectiveness of the game but couldn't find a copy anywhere (without the inflated price of ebay). After a couple of gentle nudges from Mike I decided to just sell our wii since we just weren't using it and the demand for wii consoles was still high. Before I sold the wii I was able to borrow a friend's copy of wii fit.

The wii fit focuses on aerobics, yoga, balance games, and strength training. The aerobics are interesting but don't last long enough for a real workout. The balance games are fun and help you to control your sense of balance but I think the most useful are the yoga and strength exercises. The yoga exercises help me stretch and strengthen a very stiff out-of-shape body while learning to balance myself correctly. The strength exercises uses your own body to tone and train. After the first day of wii fit, I found myself with some sore muscles and a profound respect for those who can be flexible enough to do some of those yoga poses.

I'm using the wii fit as a supplement to the aerobics and weight-lifting mostly to improve my balance, stretching, and muscles. However one surprising benefit of the wii fit has been to increase my focus on what I'm doing when working out. Since the fit uses a balance board, you have to be aware of your form, position, and balance when doing the various exercises. I've used this ability while weight-lifting and realized that I haven't been doing a lot of exercises correctly. Notably because I can feel the right muscles working now and I'm also rather sore this evening although my weight-lifting regime hasn't changed at all.

So I think we're now going to keep the wii and continue (hopefully) to use the wii fit to help us get into better shape. The fit is what you make of it. You can do a half-assed job and think the game is stupid or you can really work at it and get a pretty good workout. Granted it's not a replacement for regular aerobics and strength training but it is quite good as a beginning or supplement.

Heheheh.....OOPS!

2008-08-18T09:48:00.005-04:00

The truck is just fine, it'll pull through with just a couple of scratches but no major injuries. The garage door however is on major life-support with little chance of a full recovery. Let me start from the beginning.

Usually every saturday and/or sunday we take the dogs to the nearby dog park in the mornings. It keeps them socialized and it's nice to give them a change from their normal walks in the neighborhood. This saturday was no exception. We popped the pooches into the suv, I opened the garage door and we headed out. CRASH!!! Unfortunately the garage door opened much more slowly than we anticipated so the top of my truck hit the bottom of the garage door. We pulled back into the garage and got out to survey the damage. Unfortunately the bottom portion of the door had bowed out enough that we couldn't move the door in either direction so Mike and I unscrewed the bottom half of the door and put it aside. Once that was removed, the rest of the door moved on the rails just fine so we've kept it in the open position. Since there was nothing else we could do about it that morning, we headed to the dog park and grabbed some breakfast afterwards.

When we got back, I called a few companies for estimates to replace the door; Mike was too disgruntled to talk to anyone on the phone. All the companies said that no one uses wood doors anymore (too much maintenance, no insulation) so they would have to special order a new door. Everyone apparently uses steel instead....obviously except for cheap-ass builders like ours. One company came out to give us a quote (most over the phone) and showed us that replacing all our doors would probably be a good idea. We haven't done any maintenance on our doors so you can actually see water damage in the panels, the rollers are mostly rusted so they slide instead of roll. Plus everytime the garage opens and closes, it sounds like it's going to shake the rails apart. Surprisingly Mike agreed with the company so he started to research steel doors instead. These days garage doors use torsion springs (incased in a black box) with no cables or springs so it makes for a very quiet smooth door. I got some quotes from other companies on steel doors and Mike found Costco sells good steel garage doors too.

On Sunday we headed to Costco to see what they had. Our timing was good since they didn't just have the typical small area with pamphlets but there was an actual section with garage doors that day so we got to see how they looked, the differences, etc. The cost is MUCH better than most of the quotes we got. We're looking for something a little more fancy than the typical garage door this time around. If we're going to upgrade to steel, we might as well get something that looks a little nicer especially since the garage doors are the first thing that people see as they come towards our house.

Mike is rather excited to get new doors, and I'm excited to get nice and quiet doors so this little incident turned into a good thing....right?

Surprisingly exciting to watch

2008-08-03T13:51:00.006-04:00

Jen gave us 4 tickets to see the Nationals (baseball) at their new stadium last night. Unfortunately all our friends have other lives and we were therefore unable to pawn off the other two tickets which was unfortunate since these were kick-ass seats. Unlike Clark Construction's tickets to RFK, these were not right behind homeplate and we didn't get free food but it was still pretty amazing.

These tickets were about 20 rows behind home dugout (on the first base line) so the view was fantastic. Actually I think the view from these tickets were a lot better than from behind homeplate. Plus we had pre-paid garage parking right next to the stadium. Mike took a picture from his Blackberry from our seats but the picture doesn't convey quite how close we were to the field.

The new stadium is impressive, large, and spacious. It still has the "new stadium" smell. There are vendors around the entire stadium so you'll always have over-priced food no matter where you are.

We aren't baseball (or sports) fans but it's always fun to sit in the stadium and watch what's going on while stuffing our faces. The Nats were playing Cincinnati Reds and by the bottom of the 2nd inning we were sure the game was over. The Nats had 2 runs in the 1st but Reds came back with 5 runs in the 2nd inning. The 6th inning had the Reds adding 1 run and the Nats adding 2 for a score of 4-6. Then it got really good! In the 7th inning, the Nats came back with a vengeance with 4 runs, then added 2 more in the 8th inning for a game winning score of 10-6! So we really ended up getting into the game as the score got closer and closer.

It was a lot of fun to watch and cheer but like all live games we had a VERY loud heckler/"encourager" a few rows behind us who did a LOT of shouting through the game. It definitely annoyed a fair number of people and I'm sure his voice carried to the other side of the stadium!

Definitely lots of fun to go watch the Nats plus it was just a bonus that they won that night. Jen, thanks for the tickets, they rocked! We'll take any other sports tickets you send out way.

Only six months late

2008-06-15T12:02:00.004-04:00

I finally finished Jen's last pair of socks I owed her for Christmas 2007. Needless to say, I don't think I'm going to promise her socks for this year but it was definitely fun. Socks knit up quickly so I have the instant gratification thing, plus it has enough different stitches that you don't get bored. For these socks, I used the Charade pattern, DPNs (double-pointed needles) #1, and Cherry Tree Hill Cherry Blossom yarn. I loved the yarn color but because it has so many different types of colors, I had to find a pattern that was relatively simple or else it would get lost in all the colors.

These came out quite nicely. The stitch pattern is stretchy enough to fit nicely on the leg/feet but will easily go over the heel (my Jaywalker socks I made were a bit tough to get over the heel). I really liked the way it turned out and I think Jen liked it too. After finishing this last pair, I was sure I wouldn't want to do anymore socks for a while but I already have the urge to start another pair!

I also finished square 4 for my Great American Aran Afghan (GAAA). There will probably be around 20-24 squares total so I still have a ways to go. I started this one for a slight change of variety. With the afghan squares, usually you're working on 2 or 3 different types of cables but it's pretty much the same thing the entire way up. For this square the pattern changes depending on what you're working on. Still was an easy knit, I am very very pleased by the chart diagrams and written instructions for GAAA. They are very clear and concise so knitting these squares is quite a pleasure.

Woooo-hoooo weeeeee!!!!

2008-06-04T11:17:00.004-04:00

Mike and I took a road trip to Cedar Point Park, the roller-coaster capital of the world, last weekend. Both of us are roller-coaster freaks and love finding the newest best rides around. We've been to various amusements parks but Cedar Point is sort of the mecca of parks due to its multitude of coasters (17) and other thrill rides. We've been there a couple of times but the last trip was in 2003 so we were due for another trip.

We shuffled off Pete to Scott/Sue's house and Max to Timo/Nancy's house so they could also have their own vacation being spoiled and pampered and drove off on thursday afternoon. It took us about 7 hours to get there, overall a very easy drive.

Originally we had doubts about going because Sandusky, OH was to have pretty awful weather (thunderstorms, lots of rain) during the entire time we were there. We thought we'd postpone but Mike couldn't quite stand the thought of going to work on friday and if the weather was bad, we could always stay until sunday when it was supposed to clear up so we decided to go anyways.

Friday dawned a bit cloudy but the weather reports stated the rain and thunderstorms weren't going to hit until late afternoon so we figured we'd head to the park. The park was a little more crowded than expected but apparently we hit a day when a fair number of ohio schools (middle and high schools) were taking field trips to the park (I don't think my school EVER had a fun field trip like that). The lines still weren't too bad but I definitely felt old.

Top Thrill Dragster was our first stop. It's a fantastic coaster that uses magnetic induction to go from 0 to 150 in 4 secs, then shoots you straight up 420 feet and back down. There's nothing quite as thrilling (except maybe jumping out of a plane) as being shot forward that fast with your cheeks flapping. The only thing more thrilling is the chance that you might not make it over the hill! There is a sign that states that sometimes the car will not clear the top of the hill but not to worry since it will come back to the station. I found a great video online that shows this happening. After our first thrill, we headed to various other coasters in the park.

My other favorite is the Millenium Force, a 310-ft steel coaster. It's first drop is 80 degrees with a top speed of 93 mph. I believe it is currently the 4th highest coaster in the world (Top Thrill Dragster is #2). Due to the height of its first hill, they use a special lift mechanism that takes you much faster than the typical chain and the seats are very open so it's a bit freaky looking around and down while getting ready for that first drop. I love this coaster because it's very smooth and the hills are fantastic. There aren't a lot of turns, twists, or loops but some great stomach-dropping hills.

Overall friday was a great day, we never saw any rain, the weather was warm, and most of the lines were no longer than 15-20 minutes (with the exception of the big rides which were no more than 45 min). We rode all the coasters we wanted and had a great time. Unfortunately since we thought it was going to rain we didn't apply any sunblock and got a bit toasted in the diffused sunlight.

Saturday morning the weather report showed the rains and thunderstorms that night had passed and the day was to be clear and cloudy with no showers in sight. We headed back to the park and it was PACKED! I guess those in Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois felt like riding the coasters that day. It was a lot more families and packs of older people (our age and older) than on friday. Since we wanted to head home by saturday afternoon, we just hit our favorite rides: Top Thrill Dragster, Millenium Force, and Maverick (newest coaster, was closed on friday). The lines were much longer, our average weight was about 45 minutes. We called it a day after that and headed back home.

Cedar Point is definitely a fun place but better to go during the week than weekend, especially before school gets out. I think we've got enough thrill that it'll be a couple more years before we head back but we're definitely gonna check out the amusement parks on the East Coast for new thrill rides!

Longest paint job...EVER!

2008-05-26T13:08:00.010-04:00

After over six weeks, I finally finished painting the kitchen. This was definitely the longest paint job I've ever done although it really shouldn't have taken quite that long. We've wanted to paint our kitchen (and hallway and foyer and....etc) for a while but we haven't been able to pick a color. Finally found some paint chips from Home Depot (new paint product called Fresh Aire, no VOC chemicals) in shades of red and green so I brought those home. Fresh Aire (just recently released) was also giving out 3 free paint samples so I got a few and we liked the green the best. Painting that green took me less than a week to complete, although I got really tired of all the nooks and crannys of the kitchen.

I left one wall blank because we wanted to do an accent wall. Picking a new color for that wall took me about two weeks! Originally we were going to do a darker green but after speaking to Sue and Jen we were advised that lighter would be better. Sue picked out a color and said it would look really good but did I listen??? Instead I decided to try a couple of other colors first but nothing looked quite right. I finally bought the paint that Sue recommended and of course it looked fabulous. It took me about a week to finish because by this time I had somehow screwed up my back so it was pretty difficult to do any painting.

After finishing the wall, we realized that the niche wall and the staircase wall (originally left unpainted) would look better with the kitchen colors than with the hallway colors. Unfortunately by this time my back was really pretty painful so I didn't attempt to work on it until last week. I finally finished the darn thing last thursday so our kitchen is finally complete. Now I have to find window treatments, who knows how long that will take!?!

We are really quite pleased with the paint colors in the kitchen. It's subtle and clean but it also transitions really well into the family room. Next paint job will be the foyer/hallway area which is a doozy. I think I'll save that job for later...much later.

It's about time!

2008-05-19T17:11:00.008-04:00

For the last couple of months, I seem to have lost my needlecrafting mojo. I would put a cross-stitch WIP on my stand and after only a few days I'd lose the urge to stitch on it so I'd put it away. It was the same for my knitting, I could only do a couple of rows before I would completely lose interest. Even looking through my kitted projects, nothing caught my interest. I have been lusting after Celtic Banner by Butternut Road but I didn't own it. Thanks to some gentle nudging by Sue, I caved and finally bought it and the materials for it. As soon as I got all my materials, I put it on my stand. FINALLY my mojo came back! I LOVE LOVE working on this project. It's gonna take me a while to complete it, but I really enjoy working on it and when I'm not working on it I want to work on it. That's always a good sign. And to top it off I've started stitching Jen's fourth pair of socks (for her 2007 Christmas present) and I'm enjoying that project too.

I've completed my first felted project (a purse) and I'm quite pleased at how it turned out. It's a very simple pattern called a Booga Bag, basically knitting in the round. I originally bought the skeins of yarn to make a scarf but after knitting a part of the scarf, I realized how itchy the fibers were and put them aside until I realized I could use them to felt a bag. The knitting went really fast since it was pretty mindless. After finishing the bag and icord (aka handles for the bag), it sat around for a while until I finally got around to felting the bag. After felting it sat around again while I figured out how I wanted to finish the purse since I didn't want to just assemble it the way it was.

I bought some metal feet, grommets for the handles, metallic clasp to close the bag, and plastic mesh to stabilize the bottom of the bag. I also lined the bag since I thought it would look nicer than just the interior felting. It came together quite well, hopefully my mom will like the bag.

Always something new

2008-05-03T12:20:00.004-04:00

With such a beautiful day outside, I thought it would be nice for the dogs to spend it in the backyard. So I got two large beef knuckle bones for Max and Pete to gnaw outside. They are only allowed to eat these things outside because they do get a bit messy. The bone is smoked long enough the dogs just gnaw away at the bone. They both found cool areas to lay down in and started working away.

Well, after a couple of hours, I guess Pete had enough for the day. I keep an eye on them to make sure they don't wander around and just make sure they are doing ok. We noticed Pete started to get up and walk around with the rest of his bone in his mouth so I went down the deck to see how he was doing. Going down the stairs, Pete was in the small garden making odd head movements (obscured by our rhododendron) so I went over to see what he was doing. When I got to him, he was using his head to move piles of mulch around the plant then tamping it down with his nose. I watched him do this for about 3-4 minutes and realized he was burying his bone! We've never had one of our dogs (or fosters) show this behavior so it was fun to watch. Incredibly he was neat about digging the hole and putting all the mulch back where it should be. If I didn't come down while he was doing this, I never would have known he had dug in the garden. Just to be sure, I dug up the bone (surprisingly hard to find, he had buried it deep and close to the plant) so Pete wouldn't dig the garden back up to get to it in the future.

I wonder what else he's buried in our yard?

Happy Holly

2008-04-10T10:21:00.007-04:00

I'm a bit late writing about Holly, a foster we had for three weeks. You'd think I have more time to blog without a job but I seem to be blogging less.

On April 5th we got a new foster dog, Holly, a 3.5-yr old yellow girl. She was given up because her owners weren't well. She's a little more nervous than most of our other foster dogs and it took her about 2-3 days to settle down and relax. The first few days she was extremely skittish and would scamper away if we reached too quickly for her. She still freaks out a bit if she starts to feel trapped (ie grabbing her collar, grabbing her feet) but she just tries to get away from the situation without getting aggressive. Now that she's more comfortable here, she loves affection from people. She'll often sidle up and lean on us for LOTS of petting, then she'll fall over so we can rub her belly.

Interestingly Holly is either on or off, there is no in-between right now. Other foster homes say she will relax in about a week but for now she's either crashed on the floor resting or else running/trotting around to see whats going on, never walking.

Holly is starting to play with Pete but she plays like a boxer. She'll rear up and "boxes" with her front feet but Pete keeps up with her pretty well and they'll start wrestling then chase each other over the house and backyard. It's always nice when we get a foster that will keep Petey occupied. Unfortunately her boxer tendencies also seem to influence her interactions with people. If she's really playful she'll use her paws to do some smacking but it sounds like she's better than when she first came into the system.

She's one of those funny dogs that LOVES to eat water. As soon as we're near the hose, she goes bonkers waiting for us to turn on the stream of water. She'll stay outside and attack the sprinklers for as long as they stay on. She's perfectly content to get drenched and play with the water as long as you keep it on.

Holly treated Pete a lot like a younger brother. She would hassle him to play and wrestle and then push him around to get the the water first, out the door first, etc. Pete is not a very good alpha dog (I think he's much more happy as a submissive but we don't have an alpha in this house so Petey is trying to be the top dog) so I think he gets frustrated when a foster dog easily pushes him around. Unfortunately that meant he was taking it out on Max. Pete started to attack Max a lot more, often breaking the skin, and unfortunately at random times. So we ended up having to move Holly after three weeks. Thank goodness Pete's behavior improved after Holly left the house. The Max bullying got a lot more mild, less frequent, and a lot more controllable.

Unfortunately without a playmate in the house, Pete's been looking to us for a lot more chasing around. Guess you can't always win.

The problem with high ceilings...

2008-04-09T18:57:00.014-04:00

is that most of the stuff attached to the ceilings tend to be high too. Specifically the chandelier, second floor windows, recessed lights, and the fan have been the bane of my existence. We've been in the house for over 8 years now and we've never cleaned the chandelier in the foyer or fan in the family room and over the years I've watched dust accumulate on these two items till it really really bugged me. So I finally rented a 12-ft scaffolding for a week and cleaned the suckers up!

The chandelier was definitely a challenge since it had over 1600 separate pieces that I had to remove, clean, and replace back on the chandelier; however only 4 of the 38 bulbs were burned out. The chandelier alone took me 4 days to complete but I'm ecstastic at how clean and sparkly it is now (yeah, I get excited about the weirdest things).

The ceiling fan was a LOT easier since I just removed the blades and washed them outside. Our ceiling fan in the family room was the largest we could find and is made of fishing rods and cloth so the dust really sticks to it; very noticeable since the cloth is off-white. While I had the scaffolding, I washed the second floor windows in the family room too since it was about time. I usually wash those things about every 2 years but I have to use the extension ladder and it's quite cumbersome.

And one last picture to post of some blackwork I've been working on last week. This is Jardin d'Amour by Papillon Creations. The design is inspired by the garden of the same name in France.

Super Pet Expo

2008-03-30T19:27:00.005-04:00

Took the pooches to Super Pet Expo at the Dulles Expo Center this past saturday. The expo contains local vendors that sell all sorts of pet items. The expo seems to get more popular every year especially since pets are allowed. We got there shortly after it opened and it was already extremely packed.

This is the first time Pete has attended such a large function and we were curious to see how he would do. Unfortunately he did not start with a stellar performance. While we were waiting for Scott and Sue outside, Pete decided he needed to "own" Mike so he peed on his shoes and pants! Needless to say, Mike was NOT pleased so I took Pete and he took Max (I did not get peed on).

This year it seemed all the dog bakeries were out in force and Pete found every single one of them. Poor Pete didn't understand why he wasn't allowed to eat any of the wonderful items he kept smelling, especially since they were all out in the open (and almost at nose/mouth height). Both Pete and Max got a lot of loving from strangers. Pete because he is a chocolate lab (not seen as often as yellow or blacks) and Max because of his lab/dane mix. At one table, Max charmed the vendors into giving him more than a few pieces of chicken jerky because his head easily rested on their table and he gave them his best sad-eye stare.

Overall the dogs were very well behaved and handled themselves better than I expected. They got lots of extra goodies from the vendors, Pete got a nice new collar, and I got a cute dog bookmark.

Stitchin stuffages

2008-03-27T17:50:00.008-04:00

Haven't blogged much about any of my stitching or other needlework stuff recently so I figured it was due time. I've been rather lax about my hobby recently. Instead I've been doing a lot of reading of various fantasy books. I rediscovered a book I loved as a teenager (which probably got me started in the whole fantasy novel vein) and was finally able to read the entire series (Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness quartet). I read the second book when I was in middle school but never found any of her other stuff. I thought of her recently and found all the books in the library so I gobbled them up in a matter of a few days, then I went and found other series she's done and went through those. Obviously as they are geared towards teenagers, the reading is easy but the storyline is very entertaining. I would consider the books on par with Harry Potter readings. Unfortunately when I do find books that intrigue me, everything else is excluded so I'll just spend my entire day reading instead of anything else.

After reading most of her books, I finally got back to my knitting and stitching. I've finally started on Jen's other half of her Christmas presents (she only got 2 of her 4 pairs of socks). I'm using a free pattern called Jaywalkers for these socks just to try something different. It's working out well so far except that the pattern isn't as flexible as regular stockinette stitches so it's a little bit tough to get over the heels.

I've also finally taken some updated pictures of some of my cross stitch pieces I've been mostly been picking at (just a couple of stitches added here and there). I seem to have mostly lost my stitching mojo so I can't stay focused on one project very long.

I've gotten a fair bit done on Wedding Sampler so far, with only one more page to go. It's not a hard pattern and it really shouldn't take me very long to finish it once I bear down and just do it.

Cirque des Cercles (CDC) is moving along quite nicely. The black fabric makes it a bit tough to find the right holes so I'm forever frogging bits of my stitching. Another easy one because I'm only using one variegated floss color so I don't have to switch around.

Then I've got my monster Chatelaine projects. Egyptian Garden is only about 35-40% finished so far AND I've got a LOT of beading still to do. I love the brilliant colors on this one.

Sue and I started Mystery X (Secret Victorian Garden) together at the beginning of 2008. We were trying to keep up with one part/month but the second part is just so large we couldn't stay on track. We're still working on Part 2 for this thing.

Mongo-huge church

2008-03-24T14:55:00.007-04:00

On Easter we went to church with my parents, Jen, and Din. Usually on the main holidays we'll go to my parents' church but my Dad was very interested in visiting McLean Bible Church near Tysons Corner. MBC is one of those HUGE church with auditoriums and a very large parking garage. There is police there every Sunday to help direct the flow of traffic.

The entire service seemed a bit over-the-top to both Mike and myself. There's a stage with a full ensemble of stage lights, screens, and a full orchestra. There are cameras throughout the auditorium to film the entire worship so those further back can see close-up views on the screens. It's very similar to the services seen on tv on sundays. The sermon seemed a bit arrogant and rigid especially regarding Christianity vs other religions. While I understand that each religion thinks it is "the one", my parents' church is very tolerant and focuses on more important issues rather than differences of religions.

I do understand how people are drawn to the church and the message but I think I prefer a much more relaxed and smaller atmosphere in church.

Carrie, lovebug & kisser

2008-03-08T17:24:00.006-05:00

We've had Carrie, our newest foster, for a week now. She's a cute little (56 lbs) black girl who loves people and other dogs. She's only a year old and is still quite a puppy. Since she loves to play with other dogs, she's kept Petey quite occupied with tug-o-war, chasing, and wrestling. It's kinda nice to see Pete playing so much with another dog. Max is Max and he's quite content just to lay down and watch.

Carrie loves people but she tends to be pretty pushy when she gets excited. She literally starts wriggling with happiness and that crazy tongue of hers starts darting all over the place trying to lick/kiss you as much as possible. Definitely still a puppy since she can get into trouble if she's not watched. She's not too bad in the house since we have lots of toys everywhere and our trashcans are out of reach (previous experiences w/Pete); however she does loves to explore outside and she's found a specific area in the backyard that just NEEDS to be dug up. For the last few days she's come back up the deck with a very brown nose and front paws, the rain has NOT helped with clean-up.

She's actually a very good girl for a puppy. While she gets excited with strangers, she tends to be pretty calm indoors. She sidles up to you and constantly wants attention. She'll lean on you, and gently put a paw on you if you stop petting. Her favorite position is definitely on her back with her belly exposed for lots of belly-rubs. The other foster homes have been working on her housebreaking so she hasn't had one accident here (one of our biggest priorities).

Surprisingly she's been in the system since November, but she just had a visit from adopters today and they'll be adopting her next week. She should be quite happy with three young (human)boys to give her lots of affection and playtime.

PMP test finally finished

2008-02-25T13:56:00.003-05:00

I PASSED, I PASSED! I am now PiMP certified, wheee!

The exam was this morning for 4 hours. Thank goodness Mike and I did a practice run on Sunday cause it was a bit tricky getting to the testing center. The test wasn't quite as hard as I expected but that's probably due to 1.5 months of almost straight studying and taking a multitude of practice tests.

I thought I'd find out my test results from PMI in a week or so but I got the results as soon as my test was over, one of the advantages of computer-testing.

I plan to spend the next week vegetating, then it's time to dust off and update my resume and go job hunting.

I finished something!

2008-02-21T13:56:00.007-05:00

Ok, so it's not something that will contribute to the improvement of humanity (or even myself) but I did finish three xbox games recently. For someone who gets bored easily and always looking for something new, this is quite an accomplishment. I finally got all achievements for Viva Pinata and I finished the storyline for Half-Life 2 and Overlord.

Viva Pinata is a similar to a simulation game, more information on Mike's blog. I've been playing it on and off for a while. It's very enjoyable but can be a bit slow at times. I usually play it as a nice distraction after getting frustrated with FPS games. I only had about 6 more achievements to complete the game so I just finally sat down and finished it up. This will probably be the only game I'll ever get all 1000 pts.

Half-Life 2 is a fantastic FPS game, Mike's review here. I thoroughly enjoyed the game since it wasn't just a straight out shooter like Halo 3. There is a rather involved storyline with exploration and puzzles involved. I still half Half-Life 2 Episode 1 & 2 to complete although those are much shorter. Apparently Valve (the makers of Half-Life) didn't want people to wait 6 years for the sequel, so they released smaller episodes instead. Half-Life 2 episode 1 & 2 are actually misnomers, they were meant to be Half-Life 3 episode 1 & 2. Valve plans to release episode 3 sometime in the near future, hopefully with Portal 2 added in!

Lastly I finished the storyline for Overlord. Overlord is an interesting game, similar to Pikmin (gamecube game). You are the Evil Overlord and control minions (4 different colors - each has their own strengths/weaknesses) to do your bidding. I found Pikmin to be much more fun and easier to control but Overlord was still enjoyable. I finished the game with 0% corruption (I was a *good* Overlord). If I want to collect more achievements, I need to replay the game to get 100% corruption (*evil* Overlord).

Three games down....infinite more to go.

There's a party in my mouth!

2008-02-19T20:35:00.004-05:00

Ok, so this is gonna be a bit graphic about infections and stuff so I'm giving you fair warning. If you're squeamish stop reading now!

Last friday I had to get an old root canal retreated since it had gotten infected. The endontologist went back in and packed it full of meds. She said it looked pretty infected and gave me some antibiotics. She also warned me that with the change in environment (the dental work, added oxygen, etc) the bacteria may go a bit nuts and multiply. She wasn't wrong! After the Novocaine wore off, I felt some aches and pain but it really didn't start hurting until saturday and my left cheek and gums starting to swell. By Sunday, I had upped my Motrin from 2 to 3 to 4 pills and it was still just taking the edge off the pain. I gave in and called the endontologist on Sunday. She switched my antibiotics to a stronger type and called in a prescription painkiller (a very very mild narcotic).

In the past I haven't done well with any products containing codeine/narcotics. Darvocet (what she prescribed) didn't appear to have codeine and it's supposed to be an extremely mild narcotic so I figured I'd chance it since the motrin wasn't eliminating the pain. That was a very bad decision on my part, I ended up extremely nauseous and in the bathroom for about 4 hrs until the meds left my system. NO MORE NARCOTICS FOR ME.....EVER! I switched to motrin and hoped for the best.

Monday morning I saw her again. She said the infection hadn't localized so she couldn't drain it. She doubled my antibiotic dosage and gave me prescription ibuprofen. The antibiotics are finally doing their thing; I no longer look like I'm chewing on a golf ball and the pain is finally eliminated when I take the meds. I see her again on wednesday but I think the infection is finally under control.

Unfortunately I had already scheduled my PMP exam for next monday 2/25. I was torn on whether to postpone the exam or just study through this week. Studying won out, I'm so darn tired of waiting to take the exam and studying that I decided to just get it done. If the pain became problematic, I could always postpone the exam up to 48 hours before Monday.

It's been a doozy of a week so far and it's only tuesday!!

Valentine's stuffins

2008-02-16T18:58:00.004-05:00

We had a fantastic Valentine's dinner with Jen and Din at Filomena's in DC. I was nicely surprised when Mike was able to get reservations in early January there. Traffic was less than optimal, but it was a thursday and Valentine's day to boot so we weren't surprised.

It's always fun to hang out with Jen and Din. When Jen and I are together, we always end up getting so silly. I think Mike was just glad that we weren't driving home in the same car together.

Filomena's is a fantastic Italian restaurant located in Georgetown. We've been there only a couple of times, but the food is outstanding. Everything is homemade and the portions are huge. The food was definitely as good as I remembered but Jen's chicken ravioli was ...interesting. We all tried each other's food (except mine... no one's really a fan of seafood at the table), and when we tried Jen's ravioli, we were trying to figure out the unique flavor and realized it was smoked chicken. Mike tried it and was more direct in his assessment. He said it tasted like a fireplace, then said, "No, it tastes like an ashtry." Jen mulled it over and replied, "No, it tastes more like a fireplace." The chicken was definitely oversmoked, but it still tasted ok. I got the cheese ravioli with giant scallops and shrimp in a creamy lobster sauce....YUM. Even two days later the leftover is still delicious.

Then of course we all had to get dessert. Mike and Din got the chocolate cake while Jen and I got the white chocolate macadamia mousse. Both really good but by the time we finished, I think we were all ready to explode. Sleeping on a full stomach is quite uncomfortable, needless to say both Mike and I had a really light breakfast the next day. Excellent way to spend Valentine's day - good food and family.

Finally!! More studying ahead

2008-02-07T21:39:00.001-05:00

After almost 2 weeks, I finally heard back from PMI. I have successfully met the requirements of the PMP certification audit so I've been approved to take the test. That means no more slacking off like the past week. I plan to schedule the test for the 20th or 21st of this month which gives me a week and a half to cram all the info into my brain. Let's hope it's good enough to pass!

Dogs: Neurotic, Houdini, & Hallucination

2008-01-30T19:56:00.001-05:00

Pete has been a Fischer for almost a month but we're seeing all sorts of interesting behavior come outta this little guy. He seems a bit neurotic where he'll act up but it's not regular. After a few weeks of trying to fix his behavior, I called up a friend who has a LOT of experience with dogs. It appears that Pete wants to be #1 in the pack, we're enforcing that Max is #1, and Max is not enforcing that. No wonder why Pete is so confused! Pete is trying to work out pack order and we're interfering which is making it much more difficult. So we're going to let the dogs work it out and just make sure no one damages anyone else. Hopefully since Max has no wish to be #1 and Pete does, they'll work it out relatively quickly.

We moved Elmo to a different foster home today. He had adopters come see him last sunday and they absolutely loved him. Actually they originally met Elmo at a different foster home during Christmas and knew he was the one so they applied to LRR with the sole purpose of adopting Elmo. LRR made them see other dogs to make sure Elmo was the one. I think they'll make a fine home for Elmo and will help him through his puppyhood. While he was here, he got a LOT better about night outings. After a few more days of 5-6am wakings, he moved to 7am so we were MUCH happier. He does have a rather unique trick though. He's the only foster dog we've ever had that can open the crate door. Elmo hates crates and can't be left alone in a crate for more than a few hours or else he turns pretty destructive which is why he was sent to us. Well, earlier this week I went out for a few chores and put him in the crate. Imagine my surprise when I came home and three dogs met me at the door! I think he banged the door enough times to loosen both latches to get out. He's escaped twice while I've been out, thank god he didn't cause any damage to the house at all.

Lastly, on tuesday night I had the best dream. I dreamt I was walking our street with Sheba by my side. The dream was incredibly clear and the day was beautiful outside. In my dream, I knew Sheba was gone and she was simply a hallucination that only I could see, but I could also bend down, hug her, and pet her. She was happily trotting next to me with a grin on her face. I'm amazed at how real that dream felt. When I woke up, it didn't feel like a dream, it felt like a memory. It put me in such a good mood through the day.

Now for the waiting (& studying)

2008-01-28T15:18:00.001-05:00

Finally mailed off my audit package to PMI so I can take the PMP exam. Since the global center is located in PA, they should receive my package in the next couple of days. It takes them up to a week to process all the information and if I pass the audit, I'll get an email with a confirmation to take the test. If all goes well, I should be able to take the test by the end of next week, early the week after.

The audit package wasn't too hard to put together. Mostly just need all my old managers to verify and sign my work history records. One of my bosses retired and lives in Ohio..thank GOD for facebook! He was more than happy to get the paperwork, fill it out, and send it back to me. I met my other two managers for lunch (at different times) where we chatted about old times and I got their paperwork finished. I have to thank PMI and the audit since both my lunches were quite enjoyable.

I have to also provide proof that I've attended the PM-related classes in the past that I put on my application so I had to track down my certificates from those classes, copy them and add to the packet.

Lastly, I had to prove that I did have a bachelor's degree, again adding a copy in the audit package. That provided me a chance to relive a comic memory of Sheba. For those of you who graduated from College Park knows that during graduation you don't get your degree. It gets mailed to you in a brown tube several weeks later so there isn't a chance of any mixup. I got my degree in the mail and just tossed the tube in my room as I left for work. When I got home, I realized I made a small boo-boo; Sheba thought the brown tube was a toy and chewed a large section apart....OOPS. So I finished my illustrious educational career by having my dog eat my degree!! I thought it was fantastic so I never replaced the degree and just stored it away in the (mostly) intact brown tube. I found the tube a couple of days ago and copied the degree to add to the packet. Picture of degree below, pardon the coasters but it won't lay flat after 12 years in a tube. Plus I thought the themed coasters were rather appropriate to use.

So really, although the audit was a bit of a pain since I have to keep studying so all the information doesn't dribble outta my ears, it allowed me to meet up with my old managers and relive a great Sheba story. All in all, that's not a bad outcome at all.

Oh boy, he's one of those...

2008-01-21T11:32:00.001-05:00

After getting Pete, we were going to wait a month before fostering again so Pete could acclimate; however we realized that Pete needed someone to play with and Max wasn't up to the job. So we've now got a new foster in the house that may be too much even for Petey. Yet another chocolate foster named Elmo. He's a year old, and definitely still a puppy. We seem to have hit the jackpot on chocolate fosters in the last 6 mos. He and Pete are extraordinarily similar in appearance. They both came out of Caroline County shelter, so they may be at least half-brothers.

While I've mentioned the term puppy in the past, I usually mean mentally since most labs don't settle down until 3-4 yrs of age. In this case, Elmo is both physically and mentally a puppy. He still needs to fill out a bit, he's got the attention span of a gnat, he definitely has energy to burn, and he's still got puppy-bladder. That means for the past few nights, he tells me about 4-5 hrs after bed that he needs to go outside pretty bad. Thank god he's housebroken and he knows to at least notify me but it's tough getting up in the middle of the night. As a puppy, he still has a hard time settling down at night so he spends a lot of time moving back and forth from the dog bed to the couch. Unfortunately as a light sleeper, I get to hear his entire walkabout.

Doesn't help that the night before Elmo came, we woke up to a small Petey crisis. Pete had ripped open a stuffed toy and eaten some of the fluff inside (first dog I've ever seen that actually ate the stuffing). That night his body decided that it was not digestible. Mike and I woke up to Petey jumping off the bed and making retching noises. Quinn had trained us very well. Mike grabbed Pete and moved him into the bathroom. I up-ended the nearest trash can and guided Pete's face toward it so the mess would be contained. What a team!

At this point, my brain is rather fuzzy from lack of sleep and I don't see any end in sight. I have a feeling I'll be up every night to let Elmo out sometime between 2-5am. At least Mike will take care of Elmo on the weekend evenings so I can drug myself into unconsciousness and hope to catch up on sleep then.

PS. Elmo is really rather sweet and well-behaved for a puppy...now he just needs a bigger bladder!

Various bits of life

2008-01-18T10:36:00.001-05:00

We got a nice beautiful snowfall yesterday which is already starting to slowly melt away this morning. It was even more enjoyable since we were at home in the warmth, watching the snowfall outside. We had to take Max to the vet that afternoon so I called them to verify they were still open. They wanted to close early so we took Max a little earlier than the original appt. This was the best and fastest vet visit EVER! Since lots of other people had cancelled, and the vet office had rescheduled other appts, we were the only ones there. When we arrived, most of the staff was just up front dawdling, including the vet. We got there and immediately got taken into the office where Max's vitals were taken. Our vet came right after that and we were out of there in 30 minutes flat with no waiting. It was wonderful, I wish we could have snowstorms everytime we needed to take our dogs to the vet. (Max is fine, just a little conjunctivitis. He got some antibiotic eye drops)

With Mike back at work, I decided I better start looking for a job too. I put my resume out there back in late November and December and only got one nibble but it didn't work out. I've noticed that PMP (project mgmt certification) seems to be the new "in" thing for PM positions now, so I figured I might as well work towards mine. I took a PMP bootcamp (one LONG week of class) and put my application (which took FIVE hours to complete!) in for the exam. I got a response back yesterday of approval so I submitted my payment for testing. Unfortunately I was one of the 10% that is randomly audited. That means I have to track down my previous managers, have them review and verify my application for accuracy and sign the verification record. So now I'm in the midst of finding my various managers so I can do this. Unfortunately that means I can't take the test when I was hoping, originally the end of January. I have to wait for all the paperwork to be signed, send it back to PMI, wait for their review and approval, then I can sign up for the test. I've been spending this week studying like mad to cram all the bootcamp info in, but I've lost some steam knowing that I have to wait now. Hopefully I'll be better motivated next week to restart the studying cause this is a tough exam and I really don't want to have to retake it. I think the entire PMP cert process is very much modeled after the CISSP cert process. I can't wait until the whole thing is finished. I better find a job after all this work!

Late Xmas stuff

2008-01-12T21:27:00.002-05:00

I meant to post this stuff much earlier but silly me forgot to take pictures before I gifted the presents. This year my sister, Jen, asked for some knit socks. I had made my first pair around Thanksgiving and she liked them so much I gave them to her. So I ordered 4 different colors with the plan to knit up 4 pairs of socks for Christmas for her. *snort*...this is where you knitters and needlecrafters will start laughing hysterically. I admit being a bit overly ambitious but I was still at least able to finish 2 pairs by Christmas. I used the same pattern for the previous socks just using different colors. I still have two more pairs to do, which I promise to complete before next christmas *big grin*. I plan to use different patterns this time to give them a little more depth, plus it gives me a bit of challenge too.

Coincidentally one of Jen's gifts to me was late too so I can post it in this blog. I had to share even though she and I are probably the only ones that "get it". When we were growing up we weren't really exposed to a lot of popular culture. We'd listen to the radio but really we didn't listen to anything specific except for one record that we LOVED! Keep in mind we were still in elementary/middle school so we hadn't formed opinions on music yet. Anyways, our parents had a 45 (remember records?) of the Bay City Rollers single "Saturday Night". We would play that over and over and sing with it. It still brings back fond memories. So Jen found an actual record album from the Bay City Rollers, framed it and gave it to me for Christmas! It's definitely one of those cool memorable gifts you never forget about. I can't wait to find a place to put it.

It's 2008 already?!?

2008-01-05T17:41:00.001-05:00

I can't believe it's already 2008! It feels like just a couple of years ago that we were oncall for the famous Y2K bug in 1999, waiting with bated breath for all the ATMs to fail, the traffic lights to lose their minds, and the world to come crashing to a halt. Was that really almost 10 years ago? Time definitely seems to move faster each year and I have to get used to dating everything '08.

2007 was overall a very mixed year for us. Mike was stuck in chemo for the first few months of the year but he had a successful surgery to remove his stricture and for the first time in years he seemed to be in remission from his Crohn's disease. All of Mike's various health issues made us realize there was more to life then just working. We made the decision to leave work and spend 9-12 months traveling, spending time together, visiting friends, and visiting family. The second half of the year was great with our long-awaited 17-day Mediterranean cruise, visiting family and friends in NY, working on the house, spending time together and just enjoying the time off. I lost Sheba to cancer in October which was a major blow for both of us. There are still times when it literally hurts to think about her but other times when I can reminisce at all her silly antics.

This was also the year that my parents did some major cross-country driving sometimes causing Jen and I to worry. They spent three months traveling in their minivan all over the US. Most of the time it was great, but there were definitely some moments when we wouldn't hear from them that Jen and I would think all sorts of terrible things were happening. I think we learned that our parents can actually take care of themselves and not to worry so much, which was good because they also spent a few weeks traveling to Canada and a couple of weeks traveling south to FL later in the year.

I'll be interested to see what 2008 brings us. We've already added an addition to our family. Mike's got a new job with Comcast. I plan to get my PMP certification with the intention of finding a "real" PM position in N.Va. Hopefully we'll also do a really fun vacation this year too.

It's a boy!

2008-01-05T17:15:00.001-05:00

Today Mike and I signed the adoption contract for Pete, he is now a Fischer. We're quite thrilled to have another dog in the house. Pete has such a cute face, I'll have to be very aware of Pete's good looks so that he doesn't "cute" me into giving him things (ie food). Sue put a Pooh "It's a boy" blue balloon on our mailbox for us to see when we came home this afternoon. She's so silly, and we loved it.

I've had mixed feelings about adopting Pete for the last couple of weeks. I wasn't sure I was ready to adopt so soon after Sheba's passing but I also knew I really liked this dog and felt like this was the perfect home for him. The longer he stayed with us, the more I bonded and a few days ago I was ready to admit that I didn't want him to leave. Pete's been returned twice to the rescue for his incessant barking and apparent separation anxiety but at our house he's completely comfortable, he doesn't bark, and he couldn't care less if we leave the house (other than to make sure he gets his treat). It's also great to have a dog that plays with the foster dogs and keeps them occupied. So hopefully the third time really is the charm.

Since Pete still has some puppy tendencies and he can be a bit of a bully (more on that later), I've been working with him daily on obedience training. I'm happy to say that Pete is a smart cookie. He's quickly learning the basic commands and variations on those commands. Next set of sessions will be done outside where there is more stimulus to keep him challenged. He's definitely enjoying the sessions and I keep them only 10 minutes long to prevent boredom.

So we've learned that Pete is not a submissive dog, unlike the past three dogs we've had. Strangely though, Pete is also not a dominant dog based on his behavior with strange dogs outside and at the dog park. Pete is just a plain bully! He'll boss dogs around at home that he knows will give in. Petey doesn't bully Max (unsure why), but he's bullied Austin and Simba. He doesn't do it often, just once in a while to show he's the boss of them. At first I thought it was a pack thing, but when my sister-in-law's dog was here, Pete did not bully her at all. Faith is a dominant dog and I think Pete knew that so he didn't give her any trouble. I don't really think it's an issue as long as Pete knows we're the boss of him. That means I can't spoil him as much as I spoiled Max, Quinn, and Sheba but I think (hope) I can manage to keep some limits and boundaries with Pete.

We're currently taking a month break from fostering so we can continue to work with Pete and get him acclimated to his house without constant changes of new dogs. I'm very interested to see if he's going to be better or worse with the foster dogs once he knows this is his permanent home.

Simba, the prairie dog

2007-12-30T21:22:00.001-05:00

We've had Simba for a little over a week now and he's a total cutie-pie! He doesn't have quite as many quirks as Austin did, although he does have a few. Simba is a yellow (very American) lab about 2 yrs old. His previous owners were having a child (unsure if it was their first or second) and felt they couldn't give him the time he needed. *sigh* I wish people treated their dogs less like disposable creatures and more like members of their family; however that could just be unfair since I have no idea what their situation was like...besides I digress, time to get off my soap-box.

Anyways Simba is an incredibly sweet dog that thinks he's a wookie and a prairie dog. He loves playing with Pete, they have some pretty good wrestling matches and you should see them zoom around the yard playing chase. Without Pete in the house, I think Simba would be more annoying to people about playing but he gets his energy out with the dogs and just comes to us for affection. He has the softest fur, a lot like Herbie and Harper had, so he's pretty fun to pet. If you stop petting him or just aren't giving him enough attention, he'll put his paw on your hand. If you still continue to ignore him, he'll stand up on his haunches with both front paws on your hand/arm and just stare at you. This would be his prairie dog impression. Simba has great balance since he'll do this until you give him the attention he so richly deserves. Course if he can't reach you to prairie dog, then he'll make soft wookie noises at you instead. It's humorous how much he sounds like Chewie sometimes; Mike and I just stare at Simba and start laughing.

Given the chance, Simba would hop on the couch and bed but Pete makes it pretty clear those are his territories now so Simba only gets on the empty couch sporadically and only on the bed in the morning when we call him up for his morning scritches. He moves to a different foster home on saturday but he's quite enjoyable while he's been here. I've even heard Mike state that if we weren't seriously thinking of adopting Pete, he'd be tempted by Simba. I have a feeling that Simba will be an easy one to adopt out in 2008.

Look Ma, one of each color!

2007-12-21T08:02:00.001-05:00

We've had Austin for almost two weeks now and we're going to be moving him tomorrow to get Simba. I meant to blog about him earlier but since I never got around to taking any pictures, I kept putting it off. Mike finally took a couple of snapshots of him last night so I have no further excuses.

Austin is a 1.5-yr old yellow lab, surprisingly calm for a puppy. He is extremely cute but his face doesn't seem quite labbish. His face is rather wide, the eyes are a little further apart then most labs, and his ears are too small and they don't lie flat like the typical lab. We're not sure if he's mixed with something or if he was just a badly bred lab. Either way he is still quite cute.

He's a relatively easy foster except that he's a bit skittish about noises and new people. He'll bark like mad when he meets new people and takes about 5 minutes before he'll approach them. He'll also bark at various noises in the house (heat turning on, door closing, noises from the other room). Thank goodness he's finally settled down a bit and doesn't bark quite as much as he used to. Austin does love to steal toys/bones/balls from other dogs. It doesn't matter how many identical toys are on the floor, he wants the one in the other dog's mouth. Max seems to actually enjoy that game and will play keep-away by swinging his head away from Austin. Strangely enough Austin is the first dog that Max has actively played/wrestled with in a long time. They had some nice bang-up sessions around the family room, right up until Max lunges onto the couch (usually with one of us already on it).

So things were moving right along, then we got a call on Monday from Pete's family. They were giving Pete back to LRR because he started suffering from separation anxiety (eating the crate, the carpet, anxiety, etc). Since none of the foster homes ever noticed the problem, we're assuming it's because Pete needs another dog around if no one is at home. Pete's family knew they could not get a second dog, nor did they want to medicate him. Lastly, separation anxiety is so tough to work on, they knew if it continued further Pete might have permanent issues. So as difficult as the decision was, they gave Pete back because they knew it was the best thing for Pete. We felt so awful for the couple, they loved this little guy so much. So Pete is now back here with us.

Since we liked Pete so much the last time he was here, we're giving some serious thoughts to adoption. We have two weeks to make a decision before anyone else can see Pete. We plan to take him to the dog park and see how he does. He's adjusted to our household (and our couches and our bed) pretty quickly. We've noticed he does have some touches of dominance with other dogs (not with Max....yet). This will be new for us since the last three dogs we've had were all quite submissive.

Petey goes bye-bye

2007-12-01T12:23:00.002-05:00

We had Pete's adoption today, so he now has new parents. This was the first time we've met them since they visited Pete at his previous foster home. They definitely seem like good dog people who will be really good for Pete. I think they'll provide Pete with the proper boundaries but will also love taking him for walks. Their previous dog had a lot of issues with other dogs so they always had to be on high-alert when walking and couldn't take their dogs to any dog social area. With Pete, they are really excited about taking him around the community and visiting other dogs/people. The cool thing is they live pretty close to my sister and like visiting her community area so I'll have to tell Jen to keep an eye out for Pete when she's out.

I've definitely bonded with Pete while he's been here, and he with me. He has a lot of great characteristics plus he's just a fun-loving puppy that has the perfect amount of energy. I'm gonna miss him, but I think Max is quite happy to be the only child again. Since we've had Pete, I've noticed Max withdrawing a bit even though the two of them got along so well. I think Max immediately takes the omega position when other dogs are in the house so he doesn't get on the bed or couch without some coaxing. Unfortunately I don't know how that will work when we find a second dog to adopt. We don't want Max to think he's being ousted but only one dog in the house just isn't enough. Hopefully the problem will work itself out when we find out perfect second dog.

Birthday stash!

2007-12-01T09:47:00.001-05:00

The stitching girls (ahem...women) got together on thursday to celebrate my birthday (belated). With everyone really busy with holidays and life, it's always tough to celebrate everyone's birthday at the right time, so we get together when we can.

This year I got some great stuff from everyone which makes starteritis a big issue (ok, a bigger issue than usual). In the stitching area, I got a 2-yr subscription to an online stitching magazine which is cool! First, it's all online so when a new issue is released, I get an email, then I just go download the issue and only print out the patterns I like. The internet is cool! I also got two great patterns: Autumn Fairy Spirit and Stained Glass Tabletopper. I also got the specialty fibers for two Liz Turner Diehl patterns I have (from Sue who ALREADY gave me 25 skeins of yarn for my afghan!). Jenni gave me a whole handful of stuff: the Peacock Feathers shawl I've been drooling over, then she also included 2 hanks of Peacock green laceweight yarn AND a pair of circular knitting needles I could use! It's funny that the two best gifts I gotten this year are both for knitting stuff.

The timing is great since I just finished my Angel Lace Shawl so as soon as I finish my second afghan square I'll be starting the Peacock shawl. What a great haul this year!

Black Friday shopping

2007-11-24T18:17:00.002-05:00

We're hooked on xbox 360, it's a horrible horrible addiction with so many great games out, but it's a lot of fun. Since the 360 has been out for over a year, there are a lot of great titles out there, plus really good ones coming out all the time (unlike the PS3). We've already got several good games we're playing (and some we haven't even started) but there was a sale at Target we just couldn't resist.

A good friend of mine is quite a gamer and knows the type of games I enjoy. He highly recommend Orange Box as something I'd like. Orange Box contains 5 games: Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Chap 1, Half-Life 2: Chap 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. Half-Life games are shooters, but with quite an immersive story-line, unlike Halo. Portal is an extremely interesting puzzle game. I decided it would be a great (belated) birthday gift but I was waiting for a sale from Best Buy before getting it. Mike is a big racing fan, and is currently playing Project Gotham Racing 3 (PGR3). PGR4 has been released for a month or so, but he wanted to wait on buying it since he wasn't finished with PGR3, plus it would be a birthday or christmas present for him.

Imagine our surprise when I open the Target circular and find out that both Orange Box and PGR4 are on sale for $48 (regularly $60) after Thanksgiving. We decided to brave the crowds since we wanted these games. We headed to the Target in Reston at 9am, surprisingly there were absolutely no crowds at all. The Target was no busier than a typical saturday or sunday morning. We were in and out of there in about 5 minutes with the games in our grubby sweaty little hands.

I've already opened Orange Box and started Half-Life 2. It is quite fun, but I really need to hone my shooting skills...I suck! Portal is very very cool, I find myself thinking of solutions at the oddest times of the day on puzzles I'm stuck on. Mike is going to wait to start PGR4, but that's because he has more willpower than I do.

Third time's the charm - too late

2007-11-24T18:09:00.001-05:00

We've got our third chocolate foster in a row now. We've had Maddy, Brownie (only for one week so I never blogged about her), and now Pete. Pete is an extremely cute 1.5 yr old chocolate male. He has one of the cutest faces we've ever seen, and he's very very good for a puppy (mentally labs stay puppies till about 4 yrs of age). He's pretty small, around 60 lbs, he loves to hang around people, and he can entertain himself quite well. He'll take a stuffed toy, throw it around, chase after it, and just run around. Pete is fantastic, even gets along with Max and they play tug-o-war with towels (or my shirt...whatever is more convenient). Unfortunately Pete was seen by a couple right before we got him and they've decided to adopt him. Unfortunate because Mike and I really like this dog and would have seriously thought about adopting him ourselves.

He fits in perfectly in this household - loves the couches, people, and just hanging around. He is a little more active than Max, but not so active that it drives us nuts. Pete is fantastic around kids, adults, and other dogs. We took him to the dog park this morning but he seemed more interested in smelling and marking the perimeter than actually playing with other dogs. He did do a little interacting, but much less than we expected.

We only have him for one more week until the adoption, but I plan on enjoying him the entire time.

Thanksgiving yums

2007-11-23T11:09:00.001-05:00

This has been a really great year for giving thanks for us. Not only is Mike in remission from Crohn's, but his last PET scan was all clear for Hodkins. We've spent lots of time together, went on a fantastic Mediterranean cruise and discovered the joys of xbox 360 (I'm still not sure if that's a good thing or bad).

This year, we celebrated Thanksgiving with both sides of the family. Unlike Jen and Din, who had Thanksgiving twice only a few hours apart (that has GOT to be filling), once with us, and once with Din's family; we had both sides of the family at our house to celebrate. So it was my parents, Jen, Din, my cousin, and Mike's mom, sister, her kids for a total of 11 of us.

Jen came over early on thursday to help cook...actually she did most of the side dishes, I took care of the turkey. I think that worked out great since she's got our Mom's gene for cooking (YUM) and I spent a lot less time running around ragged. I brined the turkey using Alton Brown's brining method, and we had stuffing, mashed potatoes, spinach casserole, green bean casserole, mac&cheese, bread, corn, and a couple of korean dishes that my mom and aunt brought over. I'm surprised our table didn't start groaning with all the weight. The turkey came out perfect this year, very juicy, tender, and flavorful, and the sides were all fantastic. Definitely great eats, and having a lot of the family here was actually quite enjoyable. The kids played some xbox, the parents chatted, we caught up with various family news. Given the chance, I would definitely do that again next year. I thought it would be a bit crazy, but it turned out wonderful.

Knit craze

2007-11-23T10:49:00.001-05:00

I seem to have exchanged my stitching mojo into knitting mojo in the last couple of months. I've put away all my cross-stitch stuff and pulled out my knitting. Course I think Sue's birthday present to me had a lot to do with this sudden urge for knitting. She's seen me drool over the Great American Aran Afghan for over a year so she finally told me to pick out some yarn and bought me all the yarn I needed to complete this afghan for my birthday! So by the time 25 skeins of yarn came in, I was giddy with anticipation. I finished my first square (there are 24 total knit squares) after restarting the sucker more than a few times (gauge was wrong, knit too tight, read pattern incorrectly, etc). The advantage of re-doing the square a few times is by the fourth retry, I'm already familiar with the pattern so I'm whizzing through it pretty fast.

After I finished my first square, I thought I'd try making some socks with some sock yarn Cindy got for me a couple of years ago. It only took me about 2 weeks to finish a pair (with lots of breaks in between). I'm extremely proud of how well they turned out! Since they fit perfectly on Jen, I gave them to her since she loves all sorts of goofy socks. Now I've been told I have to make her more of them.

Now I'm trying to finish up a shawl, only about 13 more rows to go, but I really should be good, put down all my knitting and get started on my christmas ornament exchange. If I'm not careful, I may not get it done in time.

Halloween Christmas

2007-11-19T10:09:00.001-05:00

In an earlier post, I mentioned the Halloween exchange I've participated in and the project I sent forward. Well, I got mine in the mail a few days ago and it was a doozy! Vicky sent me an amazing Halloween bell-pull! Unfortunately the picture doesn't quite do it justice, it is quite sparkly and gorgeous. I can't wait to hang it up for next year.

Vicky also sent me a whole lot of loot. I got a really cool Blue Ribbon Designs Halloween Sampler, some yummy Lindt chocolate, some hand-dyed fabric, and a LOT of gorgeous floss. Now I have to figure out how to use all this stuff but for now I think I'll just fondle it and dream.

Roughing it

2007-11-16T11:38:00.001-05:00

Ok, we didn't *really* rough it much. Since we've both starting job hunting and (hopefully) will start working by mid-dec or early jan, we decided to take a short vacation away from the house. With the pretty leaves starting to sprout, we booked a cabin in Luray for a couple of days and took Max with us. The cabin had a fireplace, great view, and all the regular amenitites we could want. We spent a few hours at Shenandoah, drove Skyline Drive and hiked one of the trails (only 2 miles long). Max really enjoyed the hike, he was all over the place sniffing everything he could, and of course marking everything he could.

We spent a lot of time together at the cabin without interference from the internet, tv, xbox or the phone. We got to play some scrabble (yay, I won!), work on a puzzle together, read, talk, and sit in front of the fire. It's not like we were stressed and needed to get away, but it was nice to go someplace else and actually spend time together. The view was quite nice, the leaves were still colorful, and the weather was in the low-60s. Overall a relaxing fantastic couple of days.

Strangely, we think Max is more of a homebody than us. He seemed a bit off while we were at the cabin, we think he just likes being at home where he's used to his routine and all his comfort areas (dog beds, couches, bed).

Halloween exchange

2007-11-16T11:28:00.001-05:00

This post is way overdo. I originally put it off because I had to wait for my recipient to receive the package, but after she got it, I just never got around to posting about it.

Back in late August, a group of us decided to do a halloween/finishing exchange. The idea was to stitching a halloween theme piece and actually finish it into something neat (ie ornament, biscornu, fob, needlecase, etc). I found a cute Lizzie Kate design so I stitched it and finished it into a box ornament. Finishing a project is always a bit scary since you don't want to mess up your stitching by doing a crappy job. In this case, Sue and I did our finishing together to give each other some encouragement. I'm quite pleased with how the whole thing turned out and mailed the finished box with a lot of neat goodies (stitching chart, chart pack, chocolates, and yarn) to my recipient.

Whew, next is my Christmas ornament exchange! I don't think I'm going to do as many exchanges this year. As soon as a project because an obligation I always lose interest!

Halloween for Max

2007-11-16T11:15:00.001-05:00

Max has always been a bit of a chow-hound and will take advantage of situations where we've left food available. In the past, he's learned how to self-feed from the dog container and if we leave the pantry door open he'll eat whatever he can reach. We've learned to keep things off the counter, shut the pantry door, empty the open trash cans of candy/snack wrappers, etc. One of the places he's never gotten to is the middle of our kitchen table so we've placed items there to keep out of Max's reach. Right after Halloween, we had a large bucket full of candy left and we kept it on the kitchen table so we can randomly grab a snack when we wanted. Max had left it alone so we never worried about it (can you see where this is going...?). Last friday, I went out for some chores and came back a couple of hours later. I walked into the family room and noticed an empty skittles wrapper. Realizing that skittles wrapper used to be full of skittles and in the middle of the kitchen table, I walked back into the kitchen and realized Max had got between two chairs, put his front half on the table and slid the bucket of candy close enough wherein he began to graze like a horse out of the bucket. He must have had a fair share of candy because he left about 15 pieces in the bucket (and left the bucket on the kitchen table); however he had eaten about 50 pieces of halloween candy -- wrappers and all!

I was a bit worried about how all that sugar, chocolate, and wrappers would react inside of Max so I decided to keep an eye on him for the afternoon. If he took a turn for the worse, I would take him into the vet. He spent most of the time sleeping and wasn't in any discomfort. I knew he was perfectly fine when I was making my lunch and he came begging for food like nothing had happened. It took about 3 days but he finally started passing all the wrapper out which made picking up his poop REALLY interesting. Needless to say, we've stopped putting food on the kitchen table.

My pretty girl

2007-10-26T21:35:00.001-04:00

Sheba crossed the Rainbow Bridge friday, 10/26/07 at 11am. She was 13.5 years old. I think Mike and I are reeling in shock since this was rather sudden. Sheba's been feeling poorly on and off since tuesday night. On tuesday evening she suddenly stopped walking, she could only take a few steps before collapsing and refusing to get up. On wednesday we called the vet but that evening she started feeling a lot better and by thursday she seemed to be almost back to normal. She was alert, walked around outside, and even fetched the ball a couple of times. Unfortunately by thursday evening she was suffering again, her stomach was a bit bloated, she didn't eat dinner, and seemed a bit out of it. We made a vet appt for fri afternoon, but took her to the emergency vet on friday morning because she had gotten significantly worse.

Sheba had a cancerous mass in her spleen that had ruptured and was leaking into her abdomen. The vet guessed that it started around tuesday but the body tried to clot the leak which is why she was feeling better on wednesday. After doing an ultrasound, they found a mass of tumors (hemangiosarcoma) on her spleen, major part of her liver, and on her abdomen covering. Even if they removed her spleen and patched her up, another mass would burst within a few weeks putting her back in the same situation. We had no choice but to let her go.

We were able to spend time with her until we were ready. She seemed more alert and curious about her surroundings. She even gave me a couple of kisses while we were all together and then it was over. I have no regrets, not even about waiting until friday morning because it gave me that much more time to spend with her.

I miss her terribly. I see her ghost everywhere I look. I see her lying on the ac vent cooling off, on the couch with her front legs hanging off and eyes watching for a hint of food, and laying on the dog bed with her head hanging off the end. It's strange not to hear her tail wag in the morning when we come downstairs or have her follow me into the bathroom.

I've had Sheba for almost 12 years, longer than I've even known Mike. Right out of college I wanted a dog and my sister's friend had a lab she could no longer take care of. When I first got Sheba she was the perfect little robot. She didn't beg, she heeled without a leash, didn't got into rooms without permission, extremely submissive--the perfect dog for some. It took me over 2 years to turn her into the mercenary spoiled diva she became. Everyone loved Sheba and she knew it. She had a wonderful face, great personality, and she was gentle with everyone. She shared her home with her brothers, Quinn then Max, and all the fosters that came into her house. Sheba was responsible for several small kids getting over their fear of dogs and learning to love dogs.

While all our dogs are special and wonderful, she will always have a special place in my heart.

Wine party

2007-10-25T14:28:00.001-04:00

Last weekend we had our second wine tasting party, this time with white wines. We didn't have quite as many attendees as our red wine party which was good for two reasons. First, it wasn't quite so crowded and people all had chairs this time (last time there were a lot of standers and floor-sitters). Second, I could pour more wine in each glass instead of just a smidgeon. Rules were the same as the last party, everyone brings a wine under $20 and the group winner gets a small prize. We decided on Lord of the Rings theme this time so Mike made a cool scoring sheet with various LotR references.

When we had sent evites out for the party, we noticed a bit of a trend on the responses back. Several people were undecided because they had to work out childcare issues so we decided that wouldn't do at all. We ended up hiring a neighborhood teen to watch the kids in the basement which turned out to be quite a success. Not only were more people able to attend, but the kids (six total) ended up having a blast in the basement (ping pong, twister, snacks, movie, other kids). I think we'll definitely use that idea in future parties.

We had a total of 11 different wines, the winner was Leonard Kreusch Piesporter Michelsberg wine. Apparently Ben (the bringer of the wine) took his wine tasting seriously this time and tried 6 different wines before deciding on bringing this one.

The party was a lot of fun for us, we got to see friends we haven't seen for a while (not working makes it harder to see people regularly). Now we just have to decide what our next party will be about....perhaps mixed drinks?

Miss Maddy

2007-10-14T23:48:00.001-04:00

Maddy is our current chocolate foster. She's about 5 yrs old and has a fair bit of gray on her already. Even her eyebrows are gray which sometimes gives her an "angry" appearance. She definitely does not act old though.

Maddy is one of those all-around fitting dogs. Most of the rescue dogs have certain preferences (w/o other dogs, prefers dog, low-energy, likes children, etc) when we place them. Maddy seems to adjust to pretty much everything. Overall she's extremely mellow in our house because we tend to be low-energy. She's happy either finding a dog bed or laying right next to your seat for the occasional petting. She is very sweet and just loves people, she's also a HUGE licker and always goes straight for the face.

I think I'd like Maddy a lot more if she wasn't so pushy about attention for herself. I can give her tons of attention but as soon as I go to pet Sheba, Maddy is all over us and she's pretty intent on getting all the attention for herself. She'll wedge herself between Sheba and I, then wiggle her whole body to knock Sheba out of the way. If Sheba is laying on the ground while I'm petting her, Maddy will walk all over Sheba to get closer to me. Mike and I have taken to either keeping her at arm's length when we're petting Sheba or double-teaming her. One of us will keep Maddy occupied while the other one will pet Sheba. I guess I feel pretty protective about Sheba so anything that causes her more discomfort makes me upset.

Favorite thing in the world (currently)

2007-10-13T18:32:00.001-04:00

Hard to believe earlier this year we were in the upper-80s, lower-90s since we're in the 60s now and it's gotten quite chilly especially getting into bed at night. As I was huddled under the sheets trying to get warm, I realized Sue was right, I needed a heated mattress pad. I figured I'd order one from L.L.Bean but lo and behold, Costco was selling them! It works great with dual-controls and pre-heat setting and they've come a long way from the electric blankets of my youth.

Having pre-warmed bedsheets is definitely a wonderful luxury and one I intend to keep using this entire winter.

Bye Herbie, Hello Maddy

2007-10-06T19:03:00.002-04:00

We moved Herbie to a new foster home today and got Maddy (Madison) in exchange. Herbie has really grown on us in the past two weeks we had him. He's such a mellow, shy dog that he doesn't quite have a lot of personality (goofiness, affection, counter-surfing) that other foster labs have had; however some of his playfulness does start to come out after settling into the house.

I'm quite curious about his history because while he craves attention, he's not terribly affectionate. Unlike any other lab I've ever met, Herbie NEVER licks or gives kisses! He'll get close to us and sniff but the tongue never comes out. He never licked our dishes after dinner, even after watching our dogs. He sits as close to us as possible to get pet (and can get QUITE pushy about it), but he never just lays on us, or tries to climb into your lap, or any other lab-type behaviors.

Herbie is also the most submissive foster dog we've ever had. He's submissive even to Max! The most ridiculous is watching both of them submit to each other. They walk face to face, and both will turn their heads away and avoid eye contact. When Max play-bowed and pounced towards Herbie, Herbie ran to the far side of the room and hid --silly dog.

As long as he finds a home that wants to give him lots of attention and spoil him, I think his confidence will build (after all, Sheba had no personality until I spoiled her rotten). I do hope that is soon, he is a really sweet dog.

I'll post about Maddy in a week or so.

Knitting needle case

2007-10-04T15:25:00.002-04:00

For years my knitting needles have been stored in a pillowcase jumbled together. I never really thought about it much other than when I had to find matching needles and realized what a hassle it was. Then one day a few months ago, Cindy pulled out this really cool knitting needle case. It had individual pockets to store her needles and rolled up to make it easy to carry around. I thought it was very cool but not enough to buy one for myself.

A couple weeks ago I found myself rummaging for needles again and realized I had to do something so I went online (I love the interweb) to see what I could buy for needle storage. I didn't find anything I liked until I found this site. This was perfect! Not only did it store various needle sizes but it also stored dpn (double pointed needles) and circulars. Course the only problem is that I had to make it myself.

After reading the tutorial at least a dozen times over a few days, I felt confident enough that I understood what needed to be done. Picked up some fabric from Joann's, borrowed Sue's sewing machine and got to work. It took literally all afternoon and evening to complete the case but I think I did a really good job. The only difference from the tutorial is the binding on the outside of the case, I felt it gave more stability and looked nicer. Hardest part was cutting the fabric and making sure everything was the correct size. Its definitely not perfect, but the binding covers a lot of the little mistakes. I'm extremely pleased because I created everything from fabric, including the bindings and ties and it only cost me about $10. More pictures of the completed needle case are here.

Herbie the love bug

2007-10-01T11:36:00.001-04:00

We've had Herbie for about a week now. He's a great yellow lab, about 3 yrs old. He looks very similar to Harper, our previous foster so I would continually call Herbie Harper accidentally. Course I don't think Herbie knows his name yet so I'll just continue to confuse him while he's here with us.

Herbie has been very well-named by the rescue. All he wants to do is sit next to you and get lots of petting. He's got the arm-nudge down perfectly. If your hand is resting on your lap, he'll get his head under your arm and nudge it onto his head or neck for petting. He'll keep scooching closer until he is RIGHT next to you to make it easier for the petting. Herbie can get a bit annoying about the petting. Since our game chair is right at dog height (ie on the floor) he'll keep pushing at us while we game which gets very distracting.

No one knows his history. He wandered into the DC shelter with lots of scrapes, bumps, and bruises. The vet looked at him and said they were consistent with being hit by a car and scraped by the road. You'll notice lots of shaved areas on his body, those were his boo-boos that needed mending. He's doing great now.

Herbie is a hit-and-run eater. He'll grab a few bites of food, then wander around the kitchen, check out what we're doing, then grab a few more bites and repeat. It takes him 10-15 min to finish his food. As long as we're in the kitchen during this time our dogs don't eat his food; however there are times I forget and leave. That's when Max makes his move and eats the leftovers. Course that isn't the case for human food. Herbie seems to understand that human food tastes MUCH better than dog food. He's taken a potato chip right out of Mike's hand as it's come out of the bag on the coffee table. When there is food around, Herbie is intense at begging. Otherwise Herbie is a fantastic foster. He does really well at the bus stop with lots of parents and kids around. He'll go right up to the nearest person, plunk his butt down and wait for the petting to begin. Not much of a retriever but he does have random puppy-crazies when he's in the backyard. We only have him for one more week until he has to move to a new home.

Mailart received

2007-09-24T11:23:00.003-04:00

Wow, got my mailart a few days ago. This is related to the Mailart Round 2 post from earlier in September. Brandy did a fantastic envelope with motifs from I Still Do (Ink Circles) and she did everything in my favorite color....BLUE! She must have put a lot of time into the envelope because not only are there designs on the front and back, but she also took the time to measure the flap and put a design there too! I love the idea of the button/ribbon closure on the back, it looks rather elegant and pretty simple to do. If I ever do another mailart, I may have to use that idea.

Brandy put some great stuff into the envelope too. I got three skeins of very soft overdyed (variegated) blue silk flosses (Dinky Dyes, Gloriana, and Gumnut) and a neato Sweetheart Tree chart called Friendship. Can't wait to try the design and some of the floss!

Ahhh, finally organized

2007-09-22T14:45:00.001-04:00

My stitching stash (as well as knitting and crochet stash) has slowly been growing over the last few years as I find more cool stuff (or *ahem* have friends enable me to buy cool things). I've been using a spare closet in the foyer for couple years for all my storage but its been very ad hoc with various storage drawers and wire shelves in there. I've been thinking about putting in an elfa system for about a year to help with organization but I would always decide against it since the current system worked well enough.

This year I finally got sick of all the wasted space and cramming everything together the best I could. Container Store was having their bi-annual elfa sale so I finally just took the plunge and bought some shelves. I didn't realize but they cut everything to the right size before you leave the store with all the parts. Mike and I took two days to rip out the closet rod and shelf that was in the closet, putty the holes, sand everything down, and paint it all. We certainly could have put more effort into making it professional but we figured the shelves would cover most of it. After the closet was primed, it only took me about 1 hr to put in the hardware and set up all the shelves, very simple to use. Then of course the fun part of organizing all my stitching stuff.

Unfortunately I didn't think in advance or I would have taken a before picture; however I do have an after photo. I'm quite pleased with all the space I have now and its all so much easier to get to.

Course this means I have more space for more stash now!!

New York friends & family

2007-09-20T08:13:00.000-04:00

As Mike's blog mentions, we made a whirlwind trip up to NY last weekend. We left on thursday morning and didn't stop moving until Sunday evening, it was full but very fun.

Our friends Marc and Shannon are located in Manhattan right in the middle of everything! While it's tough to give up the space that suburbia provides, I definitely see the advantage of living right in the city. They must have at least 40 restaurants (most of them non-chain!) in a quarter-mile radius to them. The Zabar's right near them has fantastic looking pastries. You can walk to everything, which is nice since parking in NY is EXPENSIVE. It took us a little while to find a garage that allowed 24 hours of parking. I could easily visualize living in NYC for a year (without the dogs) but I think any longer than that and all the noise would be tough. It was great to see them, since it was only for one day we spent it at their place just chatting and catching up. In my opinion a great way to spend a day.

Kris and Jen's home is located in a small town called Red Hook, quite a difference from NYC. They have 7 acres of land and lots of privacy. Their fourth child is on the way and I have to say that Jen is definitely made for motherhood! She looks so content and unruffled with three active kids running around and very pregnant with the fourth. Their kids are fantastic, absolutely trusting and outgoing. Within 5 minutes of meeting me, Zoe was walking hand-in-hand while telling me about her day at school. Ellie is full of personality and so much fun to be with. Aaron is still a bit shy around strangers but has a wonderfully sweet grin once he warms up. I can see why they would want a fourth child.

Then off to Long Island to see Mike's brother and sister-in-law. Like us, they love animals but its more focused towards cats. They've neutered/spayed the neighborhood strays and feed them. They also have a number of indoor cats, most are pretty shy so we only saw a couple of them. Thanks to Benadryl I was able to pet Scout and Moe (the two friendliest cats) while they sat right next to or on me.

On Sunday we had a nice brunch with Mike's family before heading back home. Lots of driving that weekend so by the time we came home we were exhausted. It's really nice to visit people we haven't seen for a while but we both gained a few pounds a piece from all the food we were given!

LRR Reunion picnic

2007-09-12T09:37:00.000-04:00

Last saturday was LRR's 14th annual reunion picnic. Every year, LRR reserves a large pavilion and provides food, games, and free rabies & bordatella shots. All volunteers and previous adopters are invited to come on by and brag about their dogs. Usually we'll have close to 80-90 dogs and over 100 people at the picnic. This year we kept it short (only three hours) because next year will be LRR's 15th year and we want to hold a large picnic with lots of activities, catering, games, etc.

On our way to the picnic, we moved Harper to another foster home. Actually this is a home she's been in before but she still had a lot of trouble re-integrating with the dog there. Harper is such a cutie-pie, I did really enjoy her company. I have to be honest and say if I didn't have Sheba, I'd be very tempted to adopt Harper. Unfortunately there can only be one Queen in our household and that is Sheba. I really do hope Harper finds a fantastic home.

This year we only had two games for the dogs: food eating contest, and egg carry. Each lab gets approximately 10 different foods; to win the labbie needs to eat every single item. The first few items are usually pretty easy (cheese, doritos, egg) and they get progressively harder (orange, cauliflower, snap pea, raw potato). We didn't enter the contest simply because Sheba is too picky (I know, can you believe it?!?) and Max is so methodical about his food he actually tastes it before it goes down his gullet so we knew he wouldn't get through it either.

For the egg carry, two lines are formed (similar to Red Rover game). One line has their dog and a raw egg, the other line is the receiving end. The egg is placed into the dog's mouth and sent to the other line (approx 50 ft away). The dog needs to carry the egg, without cracking it, and drop it (without the person prying it out of the dog's mouth). I am proud to say that Max co-won that contest! Max has such a gentle mouth that he's perfect for this game and he's won it in the past. He got a great little rubber squeaky toy as a prize.

The rest of the day involved eating grill food (or in my case feeding my food to the dogs) and swapping dog stories with everyone else. We got to see a few of our old foster dogs there, Maggie, Winston, Libby. Its always nice to see how much the adopters love and spoil their dogs, totally makes fostering a joy seeing what great homes these dogs have.

I'm looking forward to the huge picnic next year and hope to see lots of our old fosters there.

Longest vet visit EVER

2007-09-08T09:22:00.001-04:00

Like any doctor's office, we've often had to wait a long time to see our vet; sometimes as long as an hour before we're ushered into the room. In the past, we've had the brilliant idea of calling ahead to see how far behind they are but we've been told "Come on in, we're only about 10 minutes behind".....right.

Since we needed to take Sheba in to check on her increased wheezing/coughing and her weakening back legs, we decided to try for the earliest time available for our vet. She doesn't have office hours in the morning so we got a 4:20pm appt, first available in the early evening. Wonderously we only waited for about 10 minutes before we were brought in, and only another 5 minutes before our vet came in. Unfortunately in the middle of the exam, an emergency patient came in and she had to run out to take care of the cat. We found out the cat had problems breathing when he was brought in. The hospital did all they could but unfortunately the cat had to be put down.

I can certainly understand the need for being bumped for an emergency and I hope that would be the case if I ever had to bring one of ours in for an emergency. Unfortunately this happened to be one of those rare days I didn't bring my bag with me full of electronics (Nintendo DS, iPod) to keep me occupied so I had to just stare off into space while we waited.

We finally got back in to see the vet and continued our exam. We mentioned that in the past 6 mos, Sheba has mentally regressed in age. She's more playful, more affectionate and constantly ARFs at us. The vet said it is common in older dogs and compares it to senior senility in humans. It makes sense so we've decided that Sheba has doggie dementia but as long as she's happy, we're ok with it. Otherwise Sheba is just getting older and having all the normal issues of age. With luck though, she'll be with us for at least a couple more years before crossing the Rainbow Bridge.

By the time we finished the exam and paid for the bill (one of our smallest ever), it was 7:30pm, 3 hours after we first arrived! Definitely not something I'd care to repeat again.

Mailart round 2

2007-09-07T11:10:00.000-04:00

One of the stitching forums I belong to has been doing a mailart exchange amongst members. This is my second time I've participated and it's a pretty neat idea. Mailart is exactly what it sounds like, you stitch the actual envelope that is being sent in the mail. Then a few goodies are placed into the envelope and shipped off to the person you were given.

The first time I did the exchange I was so paranoid the entire thing was going to get lost in the mail so I sewed the stamp on the envelope AND got delivery confirmation. This time around I was a lot more relaxed about it so I just had the post office put the stamp on it (they were nice enough to also put an extra piece of tape on top) and forgo the delivery confirmation. I think most people at the post office are so impressed by the mailart they tend to take better care of it.

Since my recipient got my mailart (whew), I thought I'd post a few pictures. The items surrounding the envelope are the goodies I stuffed in the envelope for her. The envelopes are fun to make and pretty quick projects but I think I'm going to probably skip round 3. I still have a halloween exchange and a christmas ornament exchange coming up.

Take me out to the ballgame

2007-09-02T09:30:00.000-04:00

Jen had four season tickets to go see the DC Nationals vs SF Giants last night so she asked us along. I haven't been to a baseball game in years, last night was an excellent night to go back. Not only was the weather gorgeous, but season seats are definitely the way to go. Up to the bottom of the 2nd inning, you can get free food at the private area (alcohol extra). When we got there we stuffed our faces full of hot dogs, popcorn, crab cakes, beef flank, salad, nachos, and cookies. Then we headed to our seats a couple of rows RIGHT BEHIND HOME BASE! Those seats also get free food/drink through the game (minus beer and cotton candy). Servers just walk through the aisles with drinks, hot dogs, soft pretzels, popcorn, snacks, ice cream and hand them out when you ask for one. I haven't eaten this much junk food at once in a long time.

Baseball is probably one of the more slow sports (disclaimer: my opinion only!) but it's much more interesting to watch it live while munching on junk and chatting with friends. We also got to see Barry Bonds, one of the most hated players in the league. Everytime he stepped up he was booed loudly but ironically also the most photographed player of the night. Everyone was hoping to catch him swinging another home run (no luck last night).

We must have been good luck since the Nats broke their 6-game losing streak last night, 4-1 against the Giants. That night was a lucky night for a lot of fans since a large number of baseballs made it into the stands.

I guess a great thing about Jen working for Clark Construction is that she gets these sports tickets fairly often (baseball, hockey, basketball, (rarely) football) and they are great seats. Now that she knows we had a good time, she'll be tossing more tickets our way in the future.

Too many consoles, so little time

2007-08-30T22:26:00.000-04:00

Video games are insidious, evil, and totally addictive. We got the xbox 360 a couple of weeks ago (bought from a friend for cheap) so we now have all three game consoles in this house (we are such kids!). The good thing is my friend also has tons of xbox games so he loaned a few to us to start out with. In the few weeks we've been playing I've learned a few things about the various consoles.

The Wii is a great family console with some very fun games but nothing too serious. Zelda is a nice launch title and they did finally release Metroid Prime 3: Corruption on tuesday but most Wii games are cutsy and fun and the graphics are average.

The PS3 has really nice graphics and we like it as a blue-ray high definition dvd & network player. Unfortunately since it's only been out for a short while there aren't a lot of good games yet. I have really enjoyed Ninja Gaiden Sigma for the PS3 and Super Stardust (a downloadable arcade game) but no other games have really caught my attention.

The Xbox has been out a year longer than the other consoles so there are a lot more games out for it. Plus the Xbox does a fantastic job of online play with a web interface. Most of the games have online play ability and all games have achievement points you unlock as you progress through the games. This score is part of your gamer tag (name). This is a fantastic way to sticky a player to the xbox since you want to increase your gamer score so you continue to play games on the xbox.

The PS3 and Wii are supposed to have online play ability but doesn't even compare to the current capabilities of the xbox.

I like the Wii controls--more simplified, less buttons, easier to use. I'm also a huge fan of Metroid Prime and I'm hoping they create a Pikmin 3 in the near future. I'm very disappointed with the online abilities of the Wii and wish there were more games out there that I liked.

I would consider the PS3 and Xbox similar-type consoles--more RPG, sports, action, horror games--but the xbox is far advanced in games and online play than the PS3.

If I only had a choice of one console, I think I would have to choose the xbox over the other two (with Wii as a close second). That's saying a lot as I've always been a huge nintendo console/handheld fan.

Annual stitching weekend

2007-08-21T08:52:00.000-04:00

This was our 4th (my 3rd) annual stitching weekend retreat. In the past, every summer we'd reserve a cabin at Coolfont WV for a long weekend (fri-sat) getaway of just snacking and stitching. Coolfont was a great place because there is nothing but nature surrounding us, very little cell signal, and massage services. Unfortunately Coolfont was bought by new owners last year who decided to shut it down and completely renovate it (which is good because it was getting pretty awful) so we needed a new location. Luckily my parents have this great little house in Harper's Ferry WV right by the Shenandoah River and its only an hour away from home (less for those out further west). We all packed up our stuff and headed there on friday.

The weather was just gorgeous. First two days were warm enough to head out to the water, wade in, and enjoy the warm sun. The rest of the time we stuffed our faces and stitched whatever we felt like. I think the sleep-deprivation from Harper made it really hard for me to concentrate. I had to frog out my stitching on three different occasions! After I accidentally dumped out my floss box (Sue was nice enough to put it back together for me), I called it quits and knitted a dishcloth instead. Course being a bit batty, I chose one of the more difficult dishcloths to knit (lots of various cables) so I had to restart it after a miscount somewhere. As frustrating as the stitching was, I had a fabulous time hanging out with the girls (7 of us total) and a pretty little Noah baby.

Can't wait to do it again next year!

Howling house alarm

2007-08-16T08:44:00.000-04:00

I don't know how parents can be sleep-deprived for months without losing their sanity. Three days so far and I'm feeling pretty nasty. Harper is still rather high-strung about noises and she's now including a bit of howling within her bark, very beagle-like. When she hears something unfamiliar, she'll start barking/howling loudly; not just one or two barks but several in a row. She's been sleeping in our room at night on the floor, but the past three nights some noise wakes her up and she starts barking like mad. Mike and I are light sleepers so waking up to full volume barking wreaks havoc with our systems. We were hoping that she'd calm down to the various noises in the house after a few days but that doesn't appear to be happening yet. The next step may be to crate her in the family room at night and close our door. Course I don't think that will stop her barking but at least it won't be directly in our face.

Harper initiated play with Max last night! I was so proud when Max actually played with Harper for a short period before escaping into the crate. They've played a little tug-o-war with toys so far and a little bit of light wrestling. Harper is getting along quite well with our babies, although she is still really smitten with Sheba! Poor Sheba hasn't been this pawed in years.

Picture of Harper playing ball outside (she tore up a pad playing so we had to wrap it up). Couple more good shots of Harper here

Harper foster

2007-08-14T10:06:00.000-04:00

We got a new foster in the house on Saturday. Harper is a 2.5 year old yellow girl. She looks very american/field but she has the softest fur which makes her extremely pettable. She's terrific with people, she loves affection and she behaves well, very much a sweetie-pie. Harper is a retrieving maniac! Not only will she play for as long as you throw for her (or until she passes out for a few minutes), but she has a nose that will sniff out ANY tennis ball ANYWHERE. She found old shredded balls all over the yard, even one under a pine tree. When we're indoors, we take away the tennis balls, so she brings us stuffed toys to retrieve.

While she's a really sweet dog with people, she has some issues with other dogs. Introductions with new dogs is always tough, lots of snarling, growling, snapping but after some time she settles right down and is fine. After the first intro, she's been fine with ours with the exception of a couple small incidents. At one point while retrieving, Max decided to get the ball thrown for Harper cause he was close to it. They both went to retrieve the ball, Max got there first and began to pick up the ball. Harper did NOT like that and bit poor Max on the chin. Max is fine, at this point he's gotten bullied, bitten, and intimidated by so many foster dogs that we expected this to happen. He just has another war wound to brag about. They've been fine together since then as long as Max doesn't get too close to Harper's face when she has a ball in her mouth.

Funny about Harper is that she plays EXACTLY like Sheba used to. Harper will dance on her front feet, playbow, then paw at Sheba's chest and back. Sheba is old and cranky at this point so she'll just bark at Harper. Too bad Harper doesn't want to play with Max, I think they could get some good wrestling/chasing sessions in.

Still haven't taken any pictures of Harper but I'll post them once we do.

Arfing maniac

2007-08-11T10:36:00.000-04:00

For the past month or so, Sheba has become more frisky and energetic. The odd thing is that she doesn't want to play more (as evidenced when we try to play ball or go for long walks) but she wants more attention! She's decided that arfing is the best way to get attention that she so richly deserves. Unfortunately the frequency of the arfing has increased to the point of annoyance. It was very cute in the beginning but now when she starts, she won't stop! Sheba tried this while I was in the middle of a frustrating bout of Ninja Gaiden Sigma a few days ago. In my annoyance, I tossed her and Max outside and shut the door on them. In exasperation, I actually banished my baby outside for a good 5 minutes.

Mike and I decided this behavior has got to stop so we broke out the spray bottles of water. Last night when she arfed at me, I gave her a good squirt in the face. She looked so surprised and hurt but she did stop. When I tried to approach her to praise her, she shied away afraid I would spray her again. Boy, did I feel awful. We had to spray her one more time that night but it seems to have worked (so far). She's back to chuffing and one arf but none of that consistent, mind-piercing arfing. I'm hoping not to use the spray bottle again, so I hope she's learned.

Gaming fatigue?

2007-08-07T19:55:00.000-04:00

Is it possible to play video games long enough to temporarily fry your brain? Spent a large amount of time today playing Ninja Gaiden Sigma on our new PS3. After reading through an FAQ, I realized I missed a large number of various jewels and misused my funds in the store (buying the wrong things) so I figured I'd start the game over again. I was able to do much better this time around but it still took me a few hours to back to Chapter 3, then I got a little further but had to stop before the third boss because i just couldn't work my brain any further. I tried Super Stardust but I couldn't get my mind wrapped around it either so I had to call it a night. I would definitely say I'm addicted to Ninja Gaiden Sigma (although I do die a LOT) and Super Stardust.

Unfortunately my stitching has been suffering because of my console playtime. I have got to finish my mailart and send it out the first week of September, but I haven't even started it. Thank goodness I already planned it out, I just need to stitch it at this point. THEN I have an autumn/halloween exchange which I haven't started either. So many things to do, so little time.

The Joy of Ebay

2007-08-04T19:51:00.000-04:00

Whew, busy couple of days for us. We actually bought a PS3 to replace our dvd/network drive. The network drive player is awesome in that we can download movies/tv shows and watch them on the tv, but the dvd player was AWFUL. We finally pulled it out and put in one of our old dvd players, but that one seems a bit on the fritz too. Mike decided to get the PS3 because its one of the cheaper better high-def players AND it now has network functionality too. We used our Visa reward points to get some GC for Best Buy and splurged. Course we've also gotten hooked on some great download and PS3 games: Lemmings, Super Stardust, Oblivion (Mike), and Ninja Gaiden (Kathie).

We did take a few hours out of today to sell our old loot on Ebay though. Actually Mike had put the link player on ebay last week and it finally expired today. We got a nice chunk of change for it, so I decided to put our Gamecube and some games on ebay today. With a "Buy it Now" option, it went in literally 5 minutes so I did the same with our PS3 and games and that sold in about 15 minutes!! Ebay is great!!!

Now to play more PS3 until we drop.