Organized? Not so much.

Yesterday I forgot my wallet and today I forgot my cellphone. I just can't keep all of my pieces together! I never could. I cannot even tell you how many times my parents had to bring me things at school that I had forgotten - backpack, assignment, violin, forms... you name it. Or Girl Scouts! I always forgot my permission slip. Sometimes we had to swing by my house on the way out of town to get my mom to sign it. More evidence of my lack of organization.

Forgetting my wallet yesterday sort of messed me up all day. I realized I did not have it when I was at Starbucks in the morning. I had already ordered at the drivethru and when I pulled around to pay, I had no way to pay. Really embarrasing. I had a handful of change. The Starbucks people were super nice and spotted me the drink, and I had enough change to pay for the pastry. I seriously love that place. I tipped them big time today for their kindness yesterday... which is I am sure what they hoped for. LOL. Anyways. I did not have my wallet, so I could not get my normal "mid morning" snack, so I did not feel well pretty much all day.

Today forgetting my cellphone means two things... one, I will be bored most of the day, and two, I can't check to make sure everything is alright in Duluth. Normally I would assume everything was alright with my family unless I heard otherwise, but I had a bunch of bad dreams last night, some of which involved my family in Duluth, so I would really prefer to just get an "all OK!" from their neck of the woods. I have an email feeler out to try and get the confirmation I want, but its so much slower than text. I might have to give them a call from my work phone a bit later today if they don't respond!

I painted pottery w/friends two weekends ago and just got to see the results yesterday. My piece turned out well, and the process reawakened my creative drive. The problem is I really want to go paint pottery again, or do wheel throw or something, rather than completing the artistic/crafty projects I have going already (mostly sewing) that need completing. I also have felt a bit more motivation that last few days w/regards to cleaning, which is definetly a good thing! DH and I sorted a giant mound of laundry on Monday night, and the bedroom is cleaner (or at least less cluttered) that it has been in several weeks. It still could use some vacuuming and such. The pet hair really tends to build up in their because the dogs are in their all day and our larger dog sleeps on the carpet up there at night.

On Sunday we went to a baby shower for our waitress. I know, that is not a sentence one hears very often! We got to trivia every single week, and we have had the same waitress for trivia for the last 2 yrs. Once a week for two years... that is more often and regular than I see most of my friends! She is 8 months pregnant, due August 1st, and had her shower on Sunday. It was a very chillaxed shower - couples (not just girls), basically hanging out on her back stoop/yard, eating food and talking. We did play one relay game and she opened presents, but mainly we just sat there. It was super relaxing, even though we did not know anyone.

In addition to our waitress being pregnant, many of our trivia friends are moving soon. The result is that the era of trivia is about to either end, or change drastically. July 13th will be the last day of "regular" full teamed trivia. If trivia continues after that it will be with a reduced team and a different waitress - it will never be the same. It is sad, and really increases the urge for us to get going on our own move out of town. J&L, the leaders of our trivia team, move to Kentucky on 7/20. Our other friends S&J move to Georgia by 8/2. We have friends moving just north to Sunbury, but they won't come down to Hilliard for trivia and thats the only place we see them. My friend M is leaving for her field research at the end of July, she will be there 2-3 months. So who will still be here? My friend R and her DH J are here for now, but they are like us in planning to move as soon as they can get jobs (for them it will likely be Colorado). Our good friend T is staying in town for at least another year, but as much as we like him, we see him very rarely. That might change with all these other people leaving! I of course still have my nestie friends, and DH has a few work friends, but our base of friends is shrinking dramatically - especially the type of friends that we call up and say "hey, you want to do something?". I guess that is just life. Maybe if trivia fully disinegrates, as I predict, I will start taking a wheel throw class on Wednesday nights.

I had a facebook friend predict that everyone would get migraines today (that gets them) because the temperature was expected to drop 10 degrees in a very short ammt of time due to these big storms moving through. I don't think it got as hot as was expected yesterday, but there still was a big temperature drop. I was pleasantly surprised to wake up without a migraine, but I had to admit things are touch and go in the sinus dept - some tightness and looming problems. Hopefully nothing comes of it, because I definitely don't want to miss trivia tonight given the above information!!

PS: My Dad emailed me back. Everything in Duluth is fine. Good to hear.

The More You Know

Things I learned in the last few days:

"paczki's" are polish pastries (sort of jelly filled donuts) that are served on Fat Tuesday. Someone was surprised when I had not heard of them. Apparently Cleveland is SO POLISH that its weird not to know this. I suppose it is sort of like being from Duluth and knowing what Lutefisk and Lefsa are. But really, Polish Paczki's are very similar to the apricot "krapfen" I was fed in Austria.

"rap groups" exist. Apparently. I mean, when it turned out the answer to this "rap group" question was Beastie Boys it made sense, I am not sure what else you would call them (of course my knowledge is based on the one song of theirs I know from Rock Band)... but I always think of rap artists, not rap groups. I prefer rap artists I think.

I also meant to post about Oscar Fashion, there were some beautiful dresses, fewer totally ugly things that normal. Here is Mila Kunis, love the dress on her but I could never pull it off:

Then there is this beauty. I mean, I wish I could have looked this adorable when I was 14...

Don't get any ideas Benjamin, I am sure she is too tall for you.

And here we have my pick for worst dressed. One person described it as looking like she had spilled mustard on her shoulders and back, I have to agree. The colors are so hideous together, and this is coming from ME, queen of mismatched.

One last comment, this is Helena Bonman Carter, she is Tim Burton's wife and appears in most of his movies. I don't like this dress, but was surprised by how tame it is compared to her normal get-up. Perhaps actually being nominated calmed her down?

Here is an example of what I mean by crazy outfits:

The interesting thing to me is that the media hardly even comments on her get up. I think she has just made it so clea that she doesn't give a damn what the fashion experts or media say about her clothes that they don't even bother. She is cast off as an "eccentric" who shouldn't be expected to wear something anyone else will like.

Weekend Installment #3 - Lack of Cable

The third and final installment is supposed to be about the effects cancelling cable has had to this date. It certainly is an adjustment. I think it was felt most acutely by Aaron when the first commercial came on during the college football game on Sunday and he had no other game to flip to. I don't mind this so much. College football is OK, but NFL football is where my heart really lies - which means that I felt the loss of cable greatly on Monday Night when we did not have Monday Night football, which plays on ESPN now.

I watch football in so many ways. We have it on in our house almost all weekend. Some games I really watch. Some I watch while I do something else, like read or clean, or back in the good old days - do calculus homework. In high school I loved collapsing on my parents living room floor on Sunday with 6+ hrs of football ahead and a good math assignment. I know, I am a total nerd. For a long time, football and studying went together so well for me that I would be rejuvinated in my studies by the start of the football season. So, some games, I watch, some games I sort of watch, and some games I nap infront of. There is no nap like a football nap. They are wonderful. I can nap just as well infront of network football as I could infront of cable football, thats for sure!

So, besides missing out on some football, the loss of cable also has us watching more movies - we may get netflix soon. I watched Sleeping Beauty over the last two nights and it was quite enjoyable. It also has us watching a bit more network television. We watched House on Monday night. It was horrible. Seriously. What happened to that show? It was SO BORING. They did not have a case. They were not witty and funny. There was not emergencies and drama. It was all House being too sweet to Cuttie and emotional angst. Blah. I won't be following it this season. Last night I watched the premier of biggest loser (while reading Les Miserables, which is an entirely other blog post all together). The show makes me think of work SO MUCH now. (BECAUSE the majority of people applying for disability are obese). According to the show 2/3 of all American's are obese. I am not sure I see that in society, but whatever the number is it is very blatantly too high and getting higher. Its sad that two of the potential contestants collapsed during the pre-testing for the show. It is also sad that the way they set the show up, some of the people who need it the most didn't "make the cut" so to speak. I probably will marginally follow this, as I usually do, until it started to get old. I have been trying to lose a little weight and so far its going great, though I am confident that most of what I have "lost" so far has been water weight. We are making a pretty chart, when it gets far enough to be interesting, I will post it.

Other Random Thoughts : I am reading Les Miserables. I am going to Trivia tonight. I am going to the OSU game this weekend. Today is the first of fall and it was supposed to be hot. I don't know if it actually was hot because I have been inside. It looks cloudy out which is awesome. I hope it storms. I hope it pours rain and thunders and lightenings. Life is already good, and that would make it even better.

Strawberry Derby Cake and UN Members

All the things I wanted to post about this week, and here comes another weekend and I have not posted anything.


Last weekend was a bit crazy! DH went to the Kentucky Derby with some people he works with. I was invited, but not interested. So, it was just me and the dogs. Friday night I had a girls night, we forced a poor soul to watch The Princess Bride. Saturday I spent the morning baking and then headed to Cleveland for a family BBQ. On the way up my car decided to have its exhaust start dragging. Luckily, my Uncles and BIL kidnapped it and wired it back together before I had to drive home. There was a lot of good food and good company. I made up another cake recipe that turned out very well, here is the recipe.

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Strawberry Derby Cake

The Cake:
One box of white cake mix
Eggs, Oil per Boxes instructions
1 1/4 cup pureed strawberries

Mix ingredients together until they are thoroughly blended, bake slightly shorter than instructions on box, until the cake is cooked through.

The Topping:
1 container cool whip
2 8oz pkgs softened cream cheese
vanilla
powedered sugar
sweet & condensed milk (1 tbsp)**
2-3 cups chopped strawberries


Using a mixer, blend cool whip, cream cheese together, add vanilla and powdered sugar to taste, if it seems thick you can add 1 - 2 tbsp sweet and condensed milk (or just put in less cream cheese to begin with!!). Stir in strawberries. Try to make this at least an hr or two in advance so it has a chance to blend in the strawberry flavor.


When the cake is cool (still in pan), spread on topping, let sit for 1-2 hrs (again, to meld flavor), enjoy!!


Also, this recipe I ended up with 1-2 cups extra of the topping, so you might want to experiment with the consistency to cut down on leftovers.


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Sunday was a nice and quiet day. We went and poked around CarMax once DH was back in town. DH and I are car shopping - always the debate, to go for value or follow heart's desires? We will see. Dh is hankering for a Chrysler 300C, but its a bit extra over other things we are looking at. Maybe we will just buy me a new car first and wait to see if he still has the urge in a year or two when its time to replace our other beater.

Monday night we went to our first obedience training, puppy left at home. We have been trying some exercises with puppy all week to start easing into clicker training. They are not going so hot. River is just not interested and has a tendency to lay down instead of trying to figure out how to earn the treat like she is supposed to.

Tuesday I went to J's house to bead, lots of fun, good company, good artwork. I am getting quite the jewelry collection. Maybe sometime I will take pictures on here and show you all the stuff I have made.


Wednesday we went to Trivia, where I was pretty much useless, but it was still fun.

Thursday morning I started training for a new computer program at work called E-Cat. It is the first step in homogenizing the disability process between states. I think it will work well. As usual I found training pretty boring, so I spent a lot of it memorizing the countries of the UN in alphabetical order. Like this (believe it or not, this is written by memory):

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua & Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangledash, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darsallum, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Croatia, Costa Rica, Cote D'Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic People's Republic of South Korea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equitorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kuwait, Kyrgestan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morroco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Omen, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papau New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Phillipines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar....

I did not do R-Z yet. It might get done today though because I have no work to do. I got my 8 month review and it went very well, as expected. I closed 45 cases in the past month, which is a lot. I received 58. Therefore, my caseload is still rising, but much slower than other peoples' who are closing less cases. My pending caseload is 124 as of right now. I gained three cases this week. We also input requests for our cost savings days for July 2010 - July 2011 (this is ten days unpaid leave we are required to take). Once my days are approved I can start plotting for a trip to Duluth at Thanksgiving.

Anyways, that was my week! Hope everyone else had a good one.

Cleveland Jaunt

Tuesday I made a quick trip up to Cleveland. My little sister and mom are on a cross-country mother-daughter road trip for my sister's 16th Birthday (which was back in January), on her Spring Break. They stayed in Cleveland a few nights with my mom's family that is up there. I took the afternoon off on Tuesday and headed up. I met my Mom and sister and we went to a metro park (state road) where we walked an exercise course and my little sister showed off her athleticism, then we met the entire gang (aunts, uncles, cousins, cousin's kids), for dinner at a chinese buffet where I sampled Prawn and Frog Legs for the first time. It was a good time, always to short seeing family, but still nice. I had to leave first because I was exhausted and had the two-hour drive home to contend with.

I also returned to Trivia last night, where I was completely useless. But, that is relatively typical. We were doing well as a team until the final question, which we totally f'ed up. Put these shows in order of their premier date (oldest to newest) - Coach, Full House, Roseanne.

Trivia Rockstar

Once again, I find I have many things to post about and will probably be posting three posts in a short ammount of time. Thats just how I roll. LOL.

First, I want to thank Allison for pointing out my math was wrong in the reading update post. The reason it was wrong was because I had a typo, the reading goal I set for myself was 40,000 pages, not 10,000.

Second, answers to last weeks trivia questions:
What year did Coldplay release their first Album? -- 2000
What type of lens sends light rays away from one another? -- Concave
What is the name of the first Harry Potter book, as released in the UK? -- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
What movie is the quote “Open the Shuttle Door, Hal” from? -- 2001 A Space Odysset

Then, finally, to tell you about our great trivia success. Our team, FYC, used to be very good and frequently score in the top three, "in the money" as the top three get gift certificates for the resteraunt where the trivia is held. Well, all that success was before DH and I started coming. Maybe we were bad luck, maybe the people we replaced were trivia geniuses. Whatever the case, DH an I had never seen the top three. That changed last night. We got third place, and I played a major contributing role for once!! I single handedly got the anagram, which is unheard of, I am really bad at anagrams, that is just now how my brain works. Here is the anagram.

Rearrange the letters in the following phrase to form the name of a famous actor:

african led field

It should be a huge giveaway that I am the one that got this answer!! Here are the other questions I helped with:

Who wrote the novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
Where in Europe was hops first used to brew beer?
How do you spell the word commiserate? (clearly the question was asked verbally)
What two countries border Liechtenstein?

Then there is the one question on which I utterly failed, and my sister will be so disapointed. I just could not remember: What is the offspring of a male horse and a female donkey?

Sorry LEKT!

Too Much Mental Illness

It was a good week at Trivia, how could it not be, we got a Harry Potter question!!!

Here are some more trivia questions for your viewing pleasure! (again, only the ones that I got right/helped get right).

What year did Coldplay release their first Album?
What type of lens sends light rays away from one another?
What is the name of the first Harry Potter book, as released in the UK?
What movie is the quote “Open the Shuttle Door, Hal” from?

Other than that, things chug along. Puppy has not managed to escape her crate again, yet. I am sure she will be very happy that we both stay home tonight. The reading challenge for spring has been released. It starts March 1st. There are plenty of books that I am looking forward to reading, but there are a few I am not looking forward to (and I probably won’t even get to these since I never finish). There are all sorts of mental health awareness days and months in the Spring, so there is always challenges based on that. This year there are two challenges, read a book featuring a character that has a developmental delay, and read two books, one of which features a character that has a mental illness and one of which is non-fiction about that same mental illness. Since starting my job here at the bureau of disability, I deal with mental illness everyday. It has very much raised my awareness. It is now so common for me to see mental illness in books where before I just saw interesting characters that it is ridiculous. To search out a book where this is the case is not so interesting for me. On top of that, I have read two of the most popular books concerning developmental delays - The Curious Incedent of the Dog at Nighttime and The Memory Keepers Daughter. I did not enjoy either and the latter was absolutely horrid. If anyone has any recommendations for these challanges, that would be great.

Only Tuesday?

Yesterday evening turned out to be crazy. We had nothing planned but DH called me at work and said his coworkers were going out to dinner and we should join them, and it sounded like fun. I was supposed to meet them at the bar. I got the dogs walked and played with River some, crated her up, and headed out. When I backed out of the garage my garage door opener would not work. This has been happening intermittently for no apparent reason. So, I got out of the car and went to close is manually. There is no handle on the outside of the door of course, and in trying to close it I managed to get my finger stuck between two of the slats as it came down and crush my finger. It hurt like crazy and a glance revealed that I had basically managed to remove my finger print - peel back the top few layers of skin on the pad of my right middle finger. I did not think it was bad enough for the urgent care, but I was also unsure if I could clean it (the skin was folded under and there was dirt in it), without some sort of pain relief. I called DH and he came home, though by the time he got there it was mostly for moral support as I had decided to try and deal with it at home. (Also, thanks Mom for the moral support!! Whenever I get hurt I call my parents since my Mom is a nurse and Dad is a sports physiology professor). I managed to get it cleaned out, then we headed back to the bar to see DH’s coworkers. I have only met them once or twice. It was fun, though some of the spouses that were their were a bit too vocal and offensive for my liking. The vast majority were fun to hang out with.

We got the second surprise and part of the craziness when we got home. Remember when I said I left River in the crate? Well, when we got home River was running free and there was various chewed up items piled in the center of each room, as if she had gone searching for little things in the corners. And of course she pooped in the house as well. Luckily nothing she got was too valuable, she seems to have similar cheap tastes as Grim when it comes to chewing things up. We went upstairs expecting to find the crate door popped open somehow. We got up there and the crate was upside-down several feet from where I left it, with the door still seemingly closed. Upon closer inspection, the door was actually only half latched, the top latch having not snapped into place. As far as we can guess, River figured out the top half was not latched and in her attempts to push through it flipped the crate, then somehow squirmed through the still mostly-closed door, and had her way with the house. She is quite the little Houdini, and we will be using the locking feature from now on.

This morning my finger is still very tender, I am keeping a close watch on it, and it is slowing down my work - typing and using the mouse, etc.

Trivia update – I am going to trivia tonight and never had a chance to share my victories from last week! Pixel is a combination of picture element. The questions I got right last week were:

(1) Who played Romeo in the 1996 movie remake of the classic story?
(2) What video game features a main character named Snake?
(3) What type of bird has varieties named burrowing, little, and Eurasian Eagle?

Snowpocalypse

The answer to last week's trivia question, if you are curious, is that OPEC stands for Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. I know, you are all thrilled with this information.

The big news in Columbus this week is the weather. We had snow over the weekend, as I reported - around a foot in most places. Then, a second storm came through that they said would drop another 8 inches from Tuesday morning to Wednesday evening. It did not pan out to be nearly as severe as predicted, but a lot of people got time off because of it, which is nice. I was not one of them. We did get about 4-5" on Tuesday during the day, but virtually none overnight. After I shovelled on Tuesday night I made a snow-lama (or as DH calls it, a Snowpaca). It was supposed to be a horse, but looks much more Lama-esque. I also made a nice snow angel. In that sense I am glad it did not snow more on Wednesday, because my art is still there for the neighborhood to enjoy. We might be the only house that does not have kids with snow art.

I went back to Trivia last night, since the weather permitted. I was very successful! I actually made significant contributions on two questions, lets see if anyone can answer them:
(1) What two words were combined to form the word "Pixel" ?
(2) What Animal is the character Meeko in the Disney Movie Pocahantas?

Time is rushing by here. We are seriously considering getting another dog (by considering, I mean we plan to get another dog, a puppy to be precise, its just a matter of finding the right one). I need to make a conscious effort to slow down. I turned down an invite for tonight, and thats a start. Its hard because in general I want to slow down, but when I think of each individual event I go to on a regular basis (book club, classics book club, nestie dinner, classic movies nights, beading with J, trivia, project runway, etc), I do not want to give any of them up. It is a matter of priorities that I am still sorting out.

I do have an ambitious reading list to finish by the end of February (the end of the winter challenge) - Ulysses being the most challenging part. I also want to read or finish reasding Living History, Extras, Picasso, Cry the Beloved Country, and as many others as possible. Wish me luck!!

Geez - Slow Down!!

Not to give just another list of what I did post, but that's exactly what I have time for and what I am going to do:

Monday night: dinner with the nestie girls at Aladdin's, tasty and good company!
Tuesday night: beading with a friend. I swore I was not going to make something with orange in it. I made a blue, yellow, and orange necklace. LOL
Wednesday: Trivia!! I only could answer one question - what does OPEC stand for - your turn to answer this one!! I also know how to spell evadable, but no one listened to me.
Thursday: Coffee w/a friend from the econ department, nice seeing her (its been 5 months!!) Then my sister and her husband came into town!!
Friday: Tried out Quaker State for the first time. It was more expensive then I thought it would be, the food was decent. I would go back on all you can eat wing night, and I think my family would love the decor. (over us a motorcycle had just crashed sideways through a glass window). Then we watched Year One, which was quite funny, I am not sure why it did so poorly at the box office.