PurrAnna

Swimming

2008-03-21T13:56:00.002-04:00

I found a pretty good and affordable masters program 12 minutes from my house. I've been to practice twice in the past two days (Thursday night and Friday morning).

Things I like about swimming:

actually being competent at a sport
the endorphins

Things I forgot I hated about swimming:

the smell of chlorine
the bathing suit hickeys

Things I lost after not swimming for 3 years:

my massive shoulder muscles (it was awesome not looking like a man, but I forgot how much you do use them in swimming
my arm muscles (as someone who depends greatly on arm muscles for propulsion, it sucks when you don't have them)

2008-02-20T16:31:00.001-05:00

Apparently I only get sick after one.

Day two of 101 temperature.

The Flu

2008-02-20T10:15:00.002-05:00

I am home. I am bored. I'm too sick to be at work (waffling voice, violent coughing fits, small fever, possibly contagious), but too well to be sitting on the couch all day. Also, daytime tv sucks and I don't feel like playing video games. I don't have essays to grade (did those on Monday).

The cat is happy and has been sleeping with me all morning.

Hopefully I'll feel better by the afternoon so I can get the loft put together.

Also, it sucks to be both nauseus and hungry at the same time.

2007-10-30T20:06:00.000-04:00

Thank goodness I currently have two more friends than my dad. It's not like I'm trying to break some Facebook record, but I think it'd be throughly embarassing if my dad had more friends than me on Facebook.

On a related note, it must be really nice to be retired. Too bad I have 37 more years until I can find out.

Facebook

2007-10-23T16:25:00.000-04:00

1. I was never going to join a social networking site (mostly because I know my kids will eventually find it and some of you all don't get the whole let's not mention certain things as to help me keep my job with its weird rules and morality clauses) and would have to censor myself to make it worth my while. Then my sixty some year old parents got on my back about not having an account. So, through parental pressure, I joined Facebook (I bet I am the only person who gets to say that).

2. I would like to point out the approriateness of my dad's profile picture. It's like he actually knew what he was doing when he put a picture of he and my mom drinking.

OMG....

2007-10-22T19:12:00.000-04:00

I have no possible way to explain how much this makes my mind spin and spin and crash and reboot and spin and spin to fully let you appreciate how ridiculous this is.

At first, I thought, this has got to be a joke. Apparently, not so much.

I live in a nice area -- Or, shit always happens when I'm out of the building

2007-10-17T17:16:00.000-04:00

Two years ago I took of a couple of days to make a five day weekend and went on a minivacation with Ben. The last day I wasn't there, there was a bomb threat at school. The kids didn't even come into the building; they sat outside on the field, in the 90 degree heat, all day. Apparently it was pretty bad. I don't know, I wasn't there.

I was out of the building today at a department chair meeting (the theme, bling it on -- I kid you not. We got plastic, fake gold, dollar sign necklaces). When driving home, I noticed a large number of unmarked and marked police cars speeding down route 1, in the general direction of my school. I thought, great, we had a fire near us on Monday that delayed the start of school, and now there's something going on now, stopping the kids from getting home (it was around 3 in the afternoon).

I went into the local bookstore to see if they had a book someone suggested at our department chair's meeting, and when I came out about fifteen minutes later, there were two more unmarked police cars weaving in and out of traffic, heading in the same direction. An interesting side note, one was an unmarked white ford taurus (classy) and a white suv truck thingy.

So, I came home, finished reading the book I bought (I had been listening to it on CD today while I drove to my meeting and it was so good, I had to come home and finish reading it -- and I can read a lot faster than the people on the CD can), Ben told me that route 1 was closed between Lockheed and Fordson, two roads right before my school. I looked it up, to his suggestions, on WJLA's website. Yes, someone was holding a bus hostage at gun point.

Fairfax County police are engaged in a standoff with a gunman on a Fairfax Connector bus in Hybla Valley.

Police have closed Route-1 at Fordson Road in both directions.

SWAT teams are on scene. Authorities say the standoff started around 2:45 p.m. Wednesday afternoon. The suspect allowed the other passengers as well as the driver off the bus unharmed. Officers are currently negotiating with the gunman.

ABC 7/NewsChannel 8's Jay Korff has learned that Fairfax County Police are also working a suspicious death near the area of Telegraph Road and South Kings Highway.

Police are investigating whether or not it is related to their ongoing standoff.

Note to readers: I used to drive by South Kings and Telegraph all the time on my way home from work (I now live near the intersection of South Kings and Route 1). There is this weird place called Crossroads near the intersection of South Van Dorn, South Kings, and Telegraph. I think that it's a rehab place of some sort considering that it has locked doors and a security entrance and what appear to be dorms of some sort. My prediction: someone left there after killing someone, got on the bus (the stop is near the place), and then drove along until he decided to take the bus hostage. Now, let's just see if my predictions are true.

And now, it's time to play video games with Ben.

Ice Cream

2007-10-08T18:08:00.000-04:00

This is a pretty good ice cream recipe. I've made vanilla ice cream from it and mint chocolate chip ice cream. Both were very good. Up next to try is cinnamon, chocolate with peanut butter cookie dough, maybe strawberry, and maybe an Indian like ice cream with cardamon, pistachios, and honey. I think that last one would be delicious. I need to find people to eat this ice cream because the batch made a lot more than I thought it would. I've already managed to pawn off two of the six containers on my team and a third one on my mentor to take home to her kids.

Now, if I could only not be at school 55 hours a week, I could make more delicious ice cream, and work out enough to eat it.

Bullet Points

2007-09-11T20:12:00.000-04:00

1. I hate being so busy. I've been working 10 - 11 days for the past week and a half and 12 - 13 hours the week before that. I got home today at 5 (only worked for 9.5 hours today) and read a book. It was decadent.

2. Went to Staunton for Labor Day. Apparently, when Ben and I want to go some place and can't think of anything else, we go to Staunton. We decided to go at like 5 on Saturday (after spending the morning dropping off his new car, yes, new car at the dealership to get protective wax barriers applied and finishing up putting my room together - note to self: Ben is very good at hanging posters). We got to break in the new car, went to Cracker Barrel, and went to sleep early in our separate double beds ... it's like a honeymoon from the 1950's! The next morning Ben made me get up early so we could do the things I planned. We went to Monticello -- which is surprisingly interesting and it was a very lovely day -- I saw pineapple plants. Then we went to the Green Valley book fair where I purchased way too many books -- but who doesn't love books? We went to Mill Street for dinner. Interestingly enough, the two new teachers at our school on 8-5 (my mentee and the new brand new math teacher) knew about Staunton and one had even gone to Mill Street (my mentee is from Roanoke and the math teacher went to JMU -- small world). I feel asleep after dinner and my expensive eye cream decided to commit suicide and spill itself all against the hotel toilet. We came back on Monday after stopping at the Baldwin book store for window clings and flip flops.

3. I like my kids this year. Like most of them. I really like my fifth period, which is odd, because I've like hated them for the past three years. Like have nightmares about them. Other things suck about this year, like my old mentor doesn't have the same planning period as me which significantly limits the amount of time I get to talk to her and Peggy doesn't have 7th period planning, which significantly limits the amount of fire drills I can skip out on.

4. People keep asking me how married life is. It's not that different, except I have to think about what to call Ben when I refer to him. I do enjoy being married; I love Ben more than ever -- especially when he brings home ridiculous soda and make delicious things with it. You know, and when he's all sweet and cute and stuff.

5. However, I must amend the list of people I would leave Ben for:
Kevin Smith (because he's probably one of the few people who makes me laugh more than Ben)
I swear there were some other people -- I wouldn't leave Ben for Jonathan Rhys Myers because he's just a pair of ridiculously sexy lips
John Green - because he writes possibly the best books I've read in a long time -- rivaling Chris Crutcher (who is totally on some sort of mortality exploration). And I am very jealous of our librarian who got to eat breakfast with John Green at the ALA conference.

6. My cat has this adorable new habit of sleeping on the back of the couch on the armrest right by my head. It's absolutely freaking adorable. Almost so adorable that it almost makes up for the fact that he keeps pooping on the floor in the bathroom. Hello! I cleaned your litter box on Monday -- you can still poop in it. It's super fresh.

4 Weeks

2007-08-29T21:21:00.000-04:00

Ben and I have been married for four weeks now. We got out Bermuda marriage certificate in the mail. I was fairly confused when the envelope came in the mail because it said "In her Majesty's service" and couldn't figure out what junk mail says that on it.

On our four week anniversary Ben purchased a new car. He got one to match mine. We now have two dark blue Toyotas. Mine was a lot cheaper and now a luxury edition of the Rav 4 (which are no longer as small and ridiculous as they used to be).

I spent 13 hours at work today. I was in meetings for 6 hours (1 three hour meeting - the information in it was condensed from a 16 hour training module - about the school improvement plan, 1 one hour team meeting about what we're going to do next year, and 1 two hour meeting planning what we're going to actually teach this year with the new pacing guide). I spent 4 additional hours talking with my mentee or team members about school related things. Non-school related conversations totalled about an hour. Out of the building time limited to a fifteen minute trip to Starbucks.

Tomorrow is an all day conference for all middle school personnel in Fairfax. We leave the school by bus at 7:15 in the morning and won't be dismissed to get back on the bus until 4. This means that we'll probably get to leave the parking lot by 4:30 - 4:45. I am not looking forward to tomorrow.

2007-08-10T12:15:00.000-04:00

1. 2G Roses has ridiculously cheap flowers. The flower market in Silver Spring sells orchids for $13 a branch. 2G sells orchids (now these are just basic orchids --the SS place sells much more exotic orchids) for 10 stems for $30. Yes, you have to pay shipping, but I got 30 branches of orchids, two bunches of bear grass, 50 champagne roses, 6 floating gardenias, 10 white mini callas, 10 orange mini callas with shipping for $270 (which is like $60 cheaper than just getting 30 branches of orchids from the flower market. Also, 2G is based in Watsonville, CA and is all good with the environment and flower politics.

2. Our thank you notes just came in from Vista print. They look pretty awesome.

3. I'm working on our slide show in photostory. Yes, the program is free, but it could be a little easier to see. Everything is small and you can't maximize the window.

4. The seating chart is pretty much finished.

Left to do:
1. mend my mom's card box with glue and more pearls and ribbon
2. get vases for reception arrangements
3. make labels for treasure chests
4. assemble treasure chests
5. get labels
6. write thank you notes
7. decide/research getting someone to take pictures at the reception (although last time I checked, this was not really an option due to the cost)

Wow. That's not too much left. Too bad I have two all day trainings to go to next week...

One Week Anniversary

2007-08-08T09:54:00.000-04:00

Menu: Shirley Temples (with blue cherries) in light up blinky glasses
Raspberry and Date canapes (whole grain baguet with ricotta, honey, and black pepper)
Watermelon picante salad (a delicious mix of jalepeno peppers, cilantro, watermelon, honeydew, and lime juice)
Corn polenta tart with chipotle cream (meh. The recipie was missing something. It was fairly bland. Next time I think I need to double up the soyrizo and add some spices.)
Dessert - peanut butter pie. Also needed something. The crust was wrong. It was basically the same crust from the white chocolate raspberry tart, but it needed more sugar and more chocolate. I think it would be much better with a chocolate cream layer on the top.

And all this was followed up by a marathon session of picking a first song. It involved Ben finding his favorite wedding website -- IndieBride, appreciation of my dancing ability, two more cds for us to purchase, a plan for next time Ben sees Karel, and lots of stick time for the cat.

Favorite Professional Wedding Pics

2007-08-04T18:02:00.000-04:00

This one is my favorite. Ben doesn't like it because he thinks the veil makes his skin look really bad. I think it is an awesome picture.

So, our photographer took us to the cigar lounge to take this picture. I'm kneeling on a couch looking out a porthole. I've lost my shoe. Ben has to lean in behind me on the like inch of couch left while not smushing my dress. He is about to fall off. It made a great picture, though.

Apparently everyone else loves this picture. Our photographer said to get it printed on canvas so it looks like a portrait.

Cruise in Review

2007-08-04T16:17:00.000-04:00

Sunday - So, due to my inability to remember time, we left about an hour after we had intended and were further delayed by the incompetent people at the Delaware house. Ben's mom called three times to see where we were and to brag that they were ahead of us. We arrived at the sea port around 1:30. We had to drop our bags off and then drive to a long line to park. About thirty minutes later, we got to wait in line again to check in. Idiotically, we missed the sign with the priority check in for suite guests, but luckily found it before we had to waiting in line for 40 minutes to take a shuttle to the boat. We got on the boat by 2:30 and went to have some lunch. It turns out we beat Ben's parents on. We win! Go us! After lunch, I ran around putting together the oot bags and unpacking. My mom yelled at me the first time she saw me about not giving her a room list (when I hadn't seen her yet ... how was I supposed to get it to her?). We called our wedding contact on the boat only to learn that she was sick and the other coordinator was in a wedding. In retrospect, I am very glad to not have gotten married in New Jersey before we left. The port was UGLY. Look at Tim's pictures on the wedding website for photographic proof of the crappy industrial park that is the cruise sea port. I ran around and gave every oot bags and unpacked. We stared at the balcony for a while, ordered room service with Nick, Drew, and Greg. Tried to take a nap. Went to dinner. I had a delicious brie and asparagus tart. After dinner, I went to the hot tub while Ben stared out on the balcony only to fall asleep cuddling Infinite Jest.

Monday - We finally got in contact with Melanie, our wedding coordinator (picture in gallery) to take about how tomorrow would go. We scoped out the chapel and game rooms where our reception would be held. Ben went to a black jack tournament and I went to sign up for the nerdy science tour later that afternoon. I worked on making copies of the best man scavenger hunt. Kayla helped me write them. Ben came back as Kayla, Ducore, Tim, and I were going to head out for the art auction. My goal for the next cruise I go on is to drink as much free champagne as possible. The art auction had a preview session with free champagne. They also had art work for action. Expensive art work. They had some original Dali's (from his religious phase), Rembrandt stamps, and Picasso sketches. It really seemed like a scam for those who don't know much about high priced art work. We left before the actual auction since they said it would go to about 4:00 (the preview started at 1:30). We all went to eat lunch. I went on a tour with my parents of the science lab aboard (BORING!). Ben took a nap. I came back and joined him in the nap. He got up and looked out over the balcony for a while. We took showers (it was humidly gross on ship due to the rain) and got dressed for dinner. I think we might have gone for second lunch to the cafe due to the late time of our dining. We went to dinner (I had like an eggplant tower). After dinner, we went to a honeymooner's thing (more free champagne!) and won a couples facial in the spa. We were supposed to meet everyone in the hot tub, but I was tired. Everyone eventually showed up and we did the picture judging of the scavenger hunt. Tim won mostly due to fact that he was the only one brave enough to take a picture of himself and a hot man. People finally left at like 1:30 and I finally got to go to sleep.

Tuesday - Due to the fact that I'm an idiot, I couldn't sleep. I left the balcony door unsealed and it kept rattling during the night. I was freaking out and thinking someone was knocking on our door at all hours of the night. We got up and went to breakfast in the dining room. We sat with frog people. Seriously. It was the most boring meal ever. It was also raining. A lot. Once we got back to the room with much time to spare, I realized we could have slept in for another hour and been fine. After taking a short, ten minute nap, I ran off to salon to get my hair done. I then went to my mom's room and got dressed and put on makeup. Karel and Kayla arrived and had to button up the back of my dress. Fun for them! When we were within like 30 minutes of wedding time, I realized the boys didn't have their boutonnieres and our bouquets needed their bows. Yeah, good planning on my part. Apparently Ben and the boys had a hard time turning off the possessed TV in our room. My mom, Karel, Kayla, and I went up to the chapel, and had to wait. Apparently the island wedding coordinator was not let on the ship and Melanie had to go down there to let her on. Our minister came to meet us, he wore pink Bermuda shorts, and is a Scottish Bermudian. Now, let me slow things down so I can remember them in the future.
1. Our wedding coordinator thought the idea of a bridesman was unique and hilarious. (They are very conservative in Bermuda.)
2. They have a hard time getting Ben's grandma (who fell and hurt her knee the day before) up into the chapel, so we start late.
3. Once we get into the chapel, and I'm standing there with my dad, ready to go in, the coordinator can't get her boom box to work. Eventually Melanie puts the CD in the sound system and we start. I honestly can't remember what the music sounded like.
4. My mom makes fun of me as we walk in because I'm leading my dad. No duh, it's the only way to walk in without him stepping all over my dress.
5. I walk down the very short aisle and no one fixes my train (which I step on multiple times walking up the steps).
6. I honestly can't remember most of what the minister said, although I do remember how weird it was. Do I look at Ben? Do I look at the minister who is speaking?
7. The ceremony was nice and short.
8. Ben can't put my ring all the way on my finger and I had to jam it on.
9. I kept looking for the photographer and was impressed that I couldn't see him. Turns out, he wasn't there.
10. We walked down stairs and couldn't decide if we were doing a receiving line or not. Then the photographer shows up. We head back upstairs to take pictures.
11. After a lot of pictures, we go downstairs to drink and eat cake. Someone just needed to tell us exactly what to do and move us along. Weddings are way too hectic and my head was spinning. I wish someone would have just told me what to do.
12. Our cake was delicious.
13. Karel's speech made me cry.
14. We said hello to everyone, Ben kept getting pulled into conversations with his brothers (who were not as important to talk to as say his grandmas). We left early to go take pictures with the photographer around the ship. He apologized and said that it was not his fault that he was late, apparently his manager never told him he had to work.
15. After like an hour of picture taking, we headed back to our rooms to change. I realized that I couldn't leave for the island because I didn't have my SeaPass or wallet.
16. We ran into our families and bridal party in the cafe and I finally got my stuff back. My mom yelled at Kayla because Kayla took some of my bags that my mom left in the game room. Hello! The bag with my wallet! Thanks Mom! And thanks for yelling at Kayla for picking up on your slack.
16. We went out to Bermuda where it had cleared up. We took a ferry to Hamilton. Once we docked, it started pouring again. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking down the boring street in Hamilton looking in overpriced shops. We had to had back to the boat around 6:00 because there was no other shuttle until 8:00 that would take us back to the boat in time for dinner. I was tired and grumpy and annoyed that Fuzzy was taking up all of Ben's time and attention. I was obviously not feeling well and he was spending all of his time looking at useless maps with Tim. What a great way to start a marriage.
17. When we returned to the ship, we went into the hot tub. That was relaxing. We then went to dinner. I got something really good, but I can't remember what it was. I think it was the chili. The alcohol pusher came by with the special of the night -- blinky glasses. We all got one except for Zach (we had condensed tables tonight due to the fact that Nick, Drew, Greg, and all of Ben's family weren't at dinner). After dinner, we went back to our room. Everyone kept bugging us to the to the ship's ripoff of the Honeymooners show. I wanted to have sex. Call me crazy, but it was our wedding night. Ben ended up doing a light show for me with the glasses that night in our room.
18. Everyone else went to a couple of bars in Bermuda and didn't get back until Wednesday.

Wednesday --
We had all planned to leave for Bermuda and go to Horseshoe Bay at 9:15. We were going to leave later because we had facial appointments. I went to get a facial. It was very relaxing and nice. Well, except for the part where it felt like the woman was going to break my nose when she was getting rid of the blackheads in my nose. Ben and I went to breakfast and then headed out to the bus. We got to Horseshoe Bay and found his family. We walked around and looked for Tim, Kayla, Ducore, Karel, and Jason to only find the last two, who were leaving. We sat on the beach, went into the water, and decided to leave about an hour later. It was windy and the pink sand kept getting into our eyes. The water is super salty, and with the increased waves due to the storm that we experienced yesterday, Ben's vision was destroyed within fifteen minutes of playing in the waves. As we were leaving, we ran into Kayla, Ducore, and Tim. It was like the law of conservation of bridal party members. When one group arrives, the other must leave. We took a bus back and went back to our room to take a shower. We grabbed something at the cafe and headed back to the dockyard to go shopping. Everything was extremely over priced or crappy. Considering that Bermuda's main industry is tourism, you'd think they'd have better things to bring home. The pottery was not unique and way over priced. The glass stuff at the glassworks was amazing, but even the littlest little glass penguins
(like the height of a nickel) was $25.
We got back on the boat before it left and headed to the cafe to get some food. We then met with the photography manager and yelled at him for his mistake. At the time, I wasn't too mad, but now that I look at the armature pictures of the wedding ceremony taken by our friends and family, I'm a little more pissed that we don't have any good pictures from our ceremony. Anyway, we ended up getting a pretty good deal for their fuck up. We went to show our pictures to our parents. We played trivia in a bar with my parents, Joan, Tim, and Ducore. My dad didn't know the capital of Austria. It thoroughly shocked our view of my dad and his knowledge of geography. Then it was off to dinner. I had ziti with marinara. It sucked.
After dinner, we went to the Quest game show. We saw many interesting things. Including, but not limited to, Tim in his boxers, Zach taking it from behind from his dad, a random woman's white bikini underwear, and my dad being really, really drunk. Due to the suckiness of dinner and the slowness of service not allowing us to get second entrees, Ben, Tim, and I went to the midnight buffet thinking that, since it was after midnight, that it would be open. It wasn't. It was still preview time. Why is there a preview for a buffet? We went back to our room disappointed. Thank goodness room service had left our food on our bed and I got some cheesecake before I went to sleep.

Thursday --
Thank goodness Kayla woke me up at 10:30 in the morning, or I might have wasted my last day on the cruise in bed. We got up, went to breakfast, and stopped by the photographers to finish up some last minutes stuff (picking out a photo for the announcements, getting our cd of the photos). Ben went to the casino to gamble and I went to the pool. Since it was the only sunny day that we were stuck on the boat, the pool deck was packed. The idea of sitting there with everyone and their mother did not interest me, so I talked Kayla into coming back to my room. We sat on the balcony and caught up on the going-ons of Tuesday night. Ben came back from winning money. We sat on the balcony longer and looked at all the flying fish. We also saw a hammerhead shark. It was cool. Ducore thought he was special because he saw a big flying fish, but we won with our shark. We got hungry, ordered room service, and Tim showed up. We ate and broke out the bottle of champagne from our wedding reception. We finished up the last third of our cake. I made deliciously strong drinks and we went to play shuffleboard. I am not a good shuffleboard player. Or, I am not a good drunk shuffleboard player.
It was back to our rooms for a shower and dressing for the ice show. Ben went back to the casino. I've had two glasses of champagne and a concoction of vodka, Kahlua, and Baileys when we go to the ice show. I ordered a margarita. It was awesome. I think mostly because I was fairly drunk at that point. I went with Tim and Ducore to the duty free shop to buy some alcohol. I went back to the room to start packing. After about an hour and a half of packing, Ben left to go to the casino and I went to go get my dress bag. I took the pictures with me to dinner and met him in the casino. I got bored and went back to the room. We all met up at dinner. I had a delicious vegetable curry. We tried to get out of taking a stupid picture of all of us in our t shirts, but Ben caved in to his mom's pressure. After that, we went back to our room where I pressured everyone to drink the alcohol I had left over. I finished packing while we all sat around. I kicked everyone out at 12:30 and I think the rest of them went out to do crazy drunken things on the ship.

Friday --
I woke up really early because I was afraid we would miss departure. We went to breakfast and waited for everyone else to get up. We hung out in the Solarium until we were called. We took naps. It was a good time. Right before our color was called (we were fairly high up there in the color code), we got paged to guest services. Turns out Ben was over his credit card limit, which would make sense considering that we had an $800 charge for additional pictures and he put all the tuxedos on his card. We fixed that and went to the gate to depart. Ben's card made a funny noise and they made him go back up to guest services. Apparently the cards do not get reprogrammed to show that we had fixed the billing situation. Ben finally comes down again, and the card beeps for a third time. He's about ready to kick the computers over when they finally let him out. The trolley ride off the boat to customs wasn't bad. And, surprisingly, customs was a breeze. Apparently they didn't even want to see my passport and didn't give us a second look. We could have smuggled in all sorts of stuff. Extra booze, the flowers from my bouquet, etc. We dragged all four of our bags to our car and took off. Traffic was sucky in some places and we managed to stop at the same restaurant for lunch as our parents and some of Ben's extended family. We didn't get back home until 4:30 and sat on the couch for hours. Today, the floor still seems like it's moving.

Wedding Update and What Would You Think?

2007-07-17T18:44:00.000-04:00

Wedding things are going as well as expected. Steamer is going to be here on Friday. Ben bought a tux. Wedding ceremony location and time are set. Everybody has their outfits. Yay! To do list is as follows:
1. get acid free pens
2. bouquet for Fuzzy
3. print invitations
4. assemble MIBs - raffia, sea shell, sand, etc.
5. finish welcome letter
6. create funny statements for each person in the wedding party
7. tie raffia around towels
8. figure out how to put treasure chests together
9. pack all the stuff for the OOT bags
10. set up picture sharing site
11. print welcome brochure
12. make anklets

And packing, beautification things, house cleaning, etc.

And, now for the WWYT section of the entry. Ben and I got this card from a friend of his family on Sunday. Please explain your reaction if you were me.

Although you did not meet us before today, we feel that we know you through the wonderful things we have heard from your family. (Anna - you are very lucky to be joining the Custead family, they are special people) Hope this helps in a small way toward your beautiful future together.

2007-07-08T10:06:00.001-04:00

I think I'm about to have a panic attack. I went to this website where people post their reviews of cruises and things. And now I'm panicking that my wedding is going to suck. I'm not getting additional decorations. I haven't thought of vows. I haven't picked any readings. Our reception is short with cake and champagne (but really, you don't need extra food on a cruise). They are talking about things I've never heard about on the ship. My wedding is going to be lame and not special or unique. Ben's talking about going out with people the night of our wedding. His mom asked him to make sure he "babysits" his brothers when Bart takes them out drinking the night of our wedding. I honestly don't think I'm being too selfish assuming that Ben would be mine for that night. I think I'm just going to sit in a corner and cry.

Also, Ben's grandma is one of those mothers that you hear about in wedding horror stories. To her son's wedding, she wore a cream colored (looked white in the pictures) short dress. Like 1970's mini dress short. Like you could see a good three inches above her knees (and she's not a tall woman). Not to mention that in their family photo, she has managed to be in the center of the picture and push the bride out to the side. I didn't think that people actually did that.

OMG, I wish I had a baby kitty!

2007-07-06T08:50:00.001-04:00

OMG! How adorable! I want a little baby kitty that can barely climb up the side of the bed. All cute and snuggly and helpless. EEEEHHH!!! I want a kitten!

Invitations out

2007-07-05T19:01:00.000-04:00

So, I go to the post office to mail my invitations today. It's pouring down rain. Like woah. So, this time I get a much nicer man to help me than the bitchy lady who I had weigh my invitations before. So, yeah, my invitation weighed 1.10 ounces. Umh, if I would have lost the inner envelope, I could have used a 41 cent stamp instead of a 58 cent stamps. Urgh. That makes me a little pissed off. The invitations got placed in the mail, so, yay. Now Ben just have to finish getting a couple of addresses.

Wedding List To Do Update:

1. Do second fitting of wedding dress
2. Hair trial and cut
3. Make anklets
4. Bottle invitations
5. Welcome letter
6. oot bags
7. ahr decorations
8. get dress steamer
9. get face wash stuff
10. consider getting snazzier make up for wedding

Also, today is Spotty's three year anniversary. Yay for having Spotty for three years. Tomorrow is Jackson's 2 year anniversary. Yay for Jackson! Jackson is sitting on my lap while I'm typing this; he seems pleased for the shout out.

Also, we need more people to live near us so they can come over and eat food when we make too much. Because, honestly, there are like twenty pot stickers that Ben made (from scratch) that I'm not going to eat. Seriously, like seven were enough. Also, I'm going to have left overs tomorrow. I am going to make zuchinni, black bean, and corn enchiladas with grilled vegetables. I am also making Amaretto margaritas (I made the sour mix from scratch today). If I'm ambitious, I'm also going to make a lemon pound cake with cherry compote.

Wedding List Update

2007-06-27T12:12:00.000-04:00

Done:
1. bouquets and boutaineerers
2. ring doesn't need to be resized, I just need to eat less sodium
3. invitations glued
4. postage ordered
5. majority of invitations addressed
6. bridesmaid and groomsman gifts ordered
7. oot bag stuff purchased
8. favors for ahr purchased
9. wedding jewelery purchased
10. bridesmaid jewelery decided - parts purchased
11. alteration appointment scheduled
12. list of cruise guests sent and checked
13. plethora of bathing suits, dresses, sandals purchased for cruise (yay for online shopping). I just need to make sure they fit once they get in.
14. bachelorette party planned
15. thank you notes finished

Left to do:
1. get cake topper or make one with leftover fake flowers
2. find bags and decorate for oot stuff
3. make cruise invitations for ceremony
4. print boarding passes for cruise
5. decide on excursions
6. make sure Ben gets everything he needs to get the tuxedo situation settled
7. write cute letter for oot bags
8. finish making table cards
9. figure out decoration scheme for ahr
10. make programs

I'm sure I'm forgetting things.

Why People Hate The Post Office

2007-06-25T16:06:00.001-04:00

I've settled to the fact that I'm not going to get the Jamestown stamps I want. Whatever. I found lighthouse ones that would be an acceptable replacement (I think the forever stamps are ugly). Also, I decided I can do the ugly heart love stamps for the 58 cent stamps. Whatever, those aren't as important. Well, I went to the Kingstown post office today on my way to Costco. I wait in line for half an hour. I get to the counter. They have no light house stamps. Okay, they just came out last week, maybe they haven't gotten them yet. So I ask for 58 cent stamps. They don't have any. At all. None. Hello! They changed the postal rate last month! All the post offices should freaking have 58 cent stamps. It's wedding season, people. There are probably 100 million people mailing wedding invitations in this four month span. We have big invitations. We need 58 cent stamps. I can understand only having one stamp choice for that denomination at the post office, but really, there's only one stamp worth 58 cents available, period. And it's of a republican. I can't do that. Apparently the new love wedding stamps come out on Wednesday, so I may just have to suck it up and get those. Grr!! I'm going to check to see how much shipping is if you order stamps on line. I'm sure it's a lot.

Because it's better than anything I'd have to say...

2007-06-22T23:08:00.001-04:00

Because I would ramble on about:
1. The kickass piratical elements that we're adding to our AHR.
2. My new need for candelabras because they would be a nice, elegant touch to said piratical theme.
3. My baby Jackson is so cute and has been sleeping on me all day (cat's aren't really nocturnal, they sleep all the time during the day and night ... in fact, Jackson and Waffles are looking at Ben and I with anger because we're not going to sleep and it's 11 and they want to go to sleep for the night ... only to wake up when the alarm goes off at 6 and then they'll demand to be fed)

I am poor.

2007-06-20T19:59:00.001-04:00

Okay, so with all the house and wedding stuff, I've pretty much gone through all of my secondary savings account money. Now I'm down to an amount that makes me fairly uncomfortable in it's not big enough of a cushion in case of emergencies. That means I'm buying nothing else for the wedding. Oh, the towels bled a little on themselves when I washed them, too bad. Y'all are getting towels with some color transfer on them because I'm not buying anything else. Oh wait, I still have to get chocolate coins, bags, a dress steamer, and jewelry. Also, clothes for the cruise. I'm going to go and be sad now. Sad and poor.

Argh!

2007-06-18T18:49:00.000-04:00

So, I've spent a lot of time looking at postage before I got my invitations weighed. I had picked out the perfect RSVP postage. They were blue triangles with ships commemorating the anniversary of Jamestown. They were perfect! Now they don't sell them online any more. Hello! They were on there like three weeks ago! Now I'm going to be a crazy bride going to all the local post offices to buy enough ship stamps for my RSVP envelopes. And yes, I have considered using other postage but A.) all the other 41 cent stamps are ugly (liberty bell, flag, star wars). 2. ) there are some neat 39 cent stamps, but none of them match with the ugly 2 cent additional postage stamp. III.) Zazzle custom stamps are cool, but are $70 more than just getting regular postage.

Also, the only 58 cent stamps they have online are of a republican. I can't have a republican on my invitations.

Now I shall go to many different post offices to procure all of their Jamestown stamps and create an elaborate combination of Katherine Anne Porter, long horn sheep, and Navajo necklaces to create 58 cents worth of postage.

Wedding List

2007-06-12T20:42:00.000-04:00

Things completed recently:
1. purchase guest book stuff (more challenging than it seems since we're doing a Polaroid guest book)
2. purchased wedding present for Ben
3. told my sister what I want for a bachelorette party
4. wrote half of my thank you notes for my work shower
5. bought dress
6. got ring
7. bought flowers
8. purchased invitations
9. order wedding enhancements for cruise wedding

Things that I need to do:
1. get ring resized
2. get dress altered
3. get wedding jewelry
4. practice walking in shoes
5. glue invitations together
6. weigh invitations and purchase correct postage
7. address invitations
8. make bouquets
9. make boutonnieres
10. create/purchase acceptable cake topper
11. finish thank you notes
12. figure out bridesmaid jewelry
13. strongly remind Ben to get the men in order and order/purchase their wedding wear
14. send list to wedding people of room numbers and people attending wedding
15. make wedding ceremony decorations
16. figure out/purchase/create center pieces for AHR
17. buy steamer for dress pressing on the ship

Ugh, weddings are hard work.

Knocked Up

2007-06-10T08:44:00.000-04:00

Ben and I went to see this last night. Very funny. Highly recommended. It is possibly the funniest movie to come out this year.

Kitties

2007-06-02T22:53:00.000-04:00

Waffles, sleeping in the cat bed. What? A cat sleeping in a space dedicated just to cat sleeping?

Jackson likes to sit on shoulders.

Jackson also likes to sit on backs. I was taking his picture when he had to give Ben a headbutt of love.

New Things I've Cooked This Week

2007-05-24T20:13:00.000-04:00

1. Jerk chicken (and fake chicken). I like the spicy rub on veggie nuggets. Very good.
2. Okra. Yes, I've had okra, I went to school in the "south," but I've never cooked with it. It was pretty good, for slimy okra not deep fried.
3. Plantains. Surprisingly delicious. Like a banana-sweet-potato-ey potato. I made sweet plantains. Next time I'll make the mashed potatoey version in the magazine.
4. Edamame. Okay, so I've heard it's delicious, and it is. Buttery, soft, chewy. Giant delicious protein rich peas of goodness! I've always looked at the big containers of edamame at Costco and thought about getting them. Now, totally going to make them a normal part of my food bag of tricks.
5. Panna Cotta. Delicious sour cream custard.
6. Cookies with dried strawberries. I thought these would suck, but they wer surprisingly good. Now I just wish I had more people near me to come and eat food so I can try to cook more things.

Weekend in Troy

2007-05-20T17:47:00.001-04:00

Karel graduated from RPI on Saturday. Ben and I drove up there on Friday. We left the house at 9:15 in the morning. We stopped to turn in his passport papers (yay for fairly empty passport office in Aspen Hill!) and mail our wedding liscense stuff to the wedding cordinators. Then, we drove. And drove. And paid tolls. And paid more tolls. And drove some more. Then, we finally arrived in Latham, NY at 5:40. We had dinner reservations at Juan O'Flannigans or Jose O'Toole's or some other combination of Mexican and Irish names (because it was a Mexican-Irish restaurant). What, you're probably asking yourself, do they serve at a Mexican-Irish restuarant? Well, lots of alcohol, of course, and regular and interesting Tex-Mex stuff. And then, some really interesting fusion cusine. Ben tried the fusion stuff. He liked it. I can't imagine how a corned beef and cabbage quesadilla would taste. But, his mashed potatoes and carrots were delicious. I had a fun time ordering. At first glance, the menu was full of meatless meals. After ordering for the fourth time, (1. The roasted poblano enchilados couldn't have the mushrooms removed from them, 2. they were out of vegetable tamales, 3. the grilled vegetable empanadas had mushrooms that couldn't be removed from them, and 4. the bean burrito, which I told the waitress to simply order for me if the third option came with unremovable mushrooms instead of having to come back a third time to retake my order) I finally got my food. It was okay.

Friday's weather was nice. Not rainy. Not too shiny. Not too overcast. Perfect weather. Saturday, on the other hand, sucked.

Saturday was cold. Cold and rainy. We had to be at graduation at 8:00 am to get seats together. Really, we could have come in after it started and still been able to sit together. It was raining. A constant, all day rain that wasn't bad enough to have them cancel the ceremony, but was bad enough for them to give us ponchos and plastic bags (to keep the programs from becoming unrecognizably soggy). It was cold. The kindof cold that chills you to the bone and keeps you shivering all day. Well, at least it kept me shivering all day.

The speaker, the guy who wrote The World is Flat, was good. Best graduation speaker I've ever heard. Another point of interest, the doctoral robes for RPI are kickass. They are red with black stripes and their hats look like floppier mountie hats. New consideration for choosing graduate school -- find out what their robes and hats look like in order to end up with kick-ass purple robes and hat or cool blue robes.

So, we finally left graduation after Karel got her diploma around 1. Then Ben and I went back to our hotel and walmart to procure dry clothes. I got pants and velcro shoes. I like my velcro shoes. I sprayed them with waterproofing stuff and they kept my feet dry for the remainder of the day. They were very much worth the $9 Ben spent on them for me.

After getting dry clothes on the replace the wet ones, we returned to Karel's dorm room where they (her roommates) had made way more food than was necessary to feed the entire senior class. Somehow Ben and I got roped into grilling the vegetables under the tent. The tent was just small enough to mean that I had to stand right under the edge and get dripped upon. My dry clothes were now wet again.

I don't think I finally got warm again until I had slept. Well, I don't remember being warm up 3:46 in the morning when some stupid siren went off. Twice. Right outside our window. Fun times.

Ben and I met my parents and sister at a diner for breakfast this morning. It was good. We then hit the road around 9:15 and got home around 4:30. We stopped in Gibson, PA for diesel and snacks. It was like a whole other world. They had a sign on the front of the shop part that had the current terror warning alert. Hello! They're in Gibson, PA! No one knows where that is. You are not a terrorism target! You are a bunch of crazy, hillbillyish white people in a sparsely populated area. On another note, there are a lot of massage places near I81. Most of them cater to truckers. I'm assuming that massages are simply euphamisms for something else. Like hair highlighting. No trucker wants to let their friends know that they highlight their hair. It would be embarassing.

In conclusion, I'm going to make Karel come to one of my future graduations and I will spray her with water and fan her.

Kitties

2007-05-13T12:01:00.000-04:00

Kitties both sitting on Ben in the old apartment. Apparently they love him more than they love me. They suck.

Here's Waffles sleeping with Ben again. I rescued you from a parking lot! The least you can do is sleep with me instead of with Ben!

And here's Jackson stealing the chair I was sitting on. This is the only picture of him with his cute bow tie id charm. It's so cute! Too bad he lost it in the basement. How the heck do you lose your collar in the basement? Apparently Jackson knows how.

Moving In

2007-05-13T11:57:00.000-04:00

So, I finally got around to uploading the pictures from my camera to my computer. Here's what it looked like when we moved into our house. If you don't remember, we had a large snow and ice storm that closed school for three - four days right before we moved in. Our side yard, with our walkway, is pretty much shaded all day. That meant that by the time we got the house, the whole side yard was ice. Thick, thick layers of ice. The furnace man who came like two days before us actually slid down our side hill and into the drainage manhole thing.

There's a sidewalk there. I swear. We didn't move in all of our stuff until the following week, but it was difficult trying to get all the painting things in here without falling.

When Ben and his family were at our apartment bringing our furniture our, my parents and I were prepping the house to move in and unpacking things. There was also a falcon eating a bird on the fence next to our house.

Stress

2007-05-04T21:30:00.000-04:00

SOL Reading test is in a week and a half. My kids are idiots. I had to bang my head on the overhead five different times today to dull the pain from their idiocy.

Nobody wants to go on the cruise with us. No, wait, that's not true. No one can take off enough work to go on the cruise with us. So, we're probably going to have to pay for an extra spot and either give it away or have it empty.

Ben has yet to get his passport.

Interim grades are due on Tuesday and I have no desire to grade my kids' poetry tests.

Our living room is still not painted and our loft is still messy.

I am prickly.

I need a vacation.

Apparently, our cat's litter box isn't the only thing that smells.

2007-04-29T18:11:00.000-04:00

And boy, does it smell. Ben and I bought and air filter/purifier for that room because it is so stinky. It probably doesn't help that we use corn based litter in an attempt to fix Jackson's snorting issues (and I think it's helping -- I think he is allergic to clay litter). Hopefully the combination or carbon and hepa filter will clean up that stink.

Also, apparently we smell because we are having a very hard time finding someone else to go on the cruise with us. We have one spot on a five day cruise to Bermuda. The boat leaves at 5:00 pm from Cape Liberty, New Jersey on July 29th and returns August 3rd at 7:00 am. We're asking for $800 (or best offer). We need someone soon (the money is due the second week of May). Anyone interested? I promise, we won't bring the stinky litter box on the boat with us.

Notes

2007-04-18T18:33:00.000-04:00

1. House is nice, but still a mess. There are a few things that need to still be changed and redone and more painting needs to happen.

2. Wedding stuff is getting checked off in rapid succession. Dress, check. Bridesmaids dresses picked, check. Shoes, check. Tiara, check. Veil, check. Rings, ordered yesterday. Registries, finished yesterday. Invitations will arrive tomorrow. Guest book thing picked out (now to convince Ben!).

3. Ben got his yearly Christmas present from his bio-dad's grandparents. They sent a picture card with the present. It's funny because Ben has no idea who these people are. I mentioned that the guys were all ugly (I'd punch them in the face for being ugly tools). But, the girls aren't that bad looking at all. I said I'd have a lesbian affair with one of the women in the picture. We can't figure out who she is. I may have said I would have just slept with Ben's step mom, cousin, step-sister, etc. That's kindof oogy. Also, I said I want to punch this one kid in the face. I was very adiment about punching him in the face because he looks like an obnoxious tool. Opps...turns out it's Ben's half brother. I've just went on for five minutes about punching Ben's half-brother in the face. Much different than my constant threats to beat Nick and Drew with my flip flops.

4. Jackson lost his lovely, handsome man necklace. It had a yellow bowtie id tag. It was cute. He got it lost in the basement somewhere.

Ben is still making fun of his maybe step-mom and bio-dad. It's creepy. Ben covered the top part of Bob's head with his thumb and he looked so much like Ben. Same expressions, eyes, ears, face shape. It's oogy.

Ben's step-mom is a hobo the like of Tim's mom.

VA Rocks Again

2007-03-02T15:50:00.000-05:00

While my new current home state does suck in many aspects . . . at least when you move, you can change your driver's license address online and they'll mail you a new copy of your license for ten bucks in less than ten days. Yeah, no waiting in stupid lines at the MVA for me!

Our house is a mess and is not at all painted yet. But, it'll get done. . . eventually.

More updates to come once we get internet and when I have some time to myself. With the writing SOL being next week and the moving, it's been a pretty stressful winter for me. Maybe I should stop moving in the winter, maybe I won't break out in hives then.

2007-01-30T20:40:00.000-05:00

Okay, so for picky people who don't already know what's happening, Ben and I have a contract in on a house on South King's Highway in Alexandria, VA. It's really in Fairfax County, but it's called Alexandria. It's the one mentioned below as Creme Puff Manor. It is closer to both Ben's and my jobs, therefore it is a step in the right direction. Hopefully we will close on it before the end of February (well, we have to considering that we just gave 30 day notice to our apartment complex that we're leaving).

Anyway, my mom is going to be in the hospital probably for at least another day. Turns out she has three blood clots. Two are in her lungs and another is in her leg. I went and visited her for like five hours today and almost threw up/passed out only once! This is a big improvement over the last time I visited her in the hospital and threw up. No, wait, last time I took her to the hospital everything stayed down and I did not lose conciousness. Go me!

I've taken off work tomorrow and am going to spend the day entertaining my mom in her little hospital room. I'm thinking word search puzzles and knitting. I am also going to bring her a latte so she won't be super crabby. My dad was nice and snuck her in a bottle of wine for her dinner tonight.

Holy Shit

2007-01-29T17:50:00.000-05:00

Most frightening thing ever.

I call my mom to tell her about the house. This guy answers the phone saying something like "Montgomery County" something or other. I say, I'm sorry I must have the wrong number. He says I probably don't and asks who I'm calling for. I say that I'm trying to reach my parents. He says here, I'll let you talk to your mom.

I talk to Mom. He was the paramedics. She's being taken to the hospital for heart stuff, again. She says to call my dad to make sure he knows because she's left him a message. I call the number I have for his work cell phone and it says it's been disconnected. I call his personal cell phone and he's not answering. I call his office and they've already left. I call Karel to see if she has his updated work cell phone. She must be at practice or something.

So, I have no idea where they took my mom, if my dad knows that she's in the hospital, or if I need to go home or anything.

I think I'm just going to sit here and freak out until we go drop of the contract at our realtors.

My life is never dull.

2007-01-29T17:36:00.000-05:00

So, Anna, what did you do today?

Bought a house.

Even though people may have gotten engaged and married before us, Ben and I can win by buying a house first. We wrote up a contract last night, and after one round of negotiations this morning between my classes, we've come to an agreement. Now all we have to do is finish signing the contract and get it back to our real estate agents. Well, then we have to like find the money to finance it and all that jazz, but we're pretty close. YAY!

I want to go by the place and get a picture of Ben and me in front of the SOLD sign on the property.

So, in my quest to be a real grown up I've:
1. Gotten engaged and will be married before I'm 25
2. Will buy a house when I'm 24
3. Became a team leader when I'm 22
4. Probably become department chair before I'm 26

I feel I will have a nice midlife crisis when I'm 40.

Housing Search

2007-01-28T13:28:00.000-05:00

Ben and I want to buy a place before we get married. In order to have time to rebuild cash reserves to pay for the wedding stuff that will be due in May, and since this is the winter and a better time to buy houses, we're looking now. We've gone out on three different days so far and seen more houses than we can remember. However, I've blogged about the ones that I have pictures of (there are about two I don't have pictures of for various reasons). You might want to go down to the bottom and start at the beginning or read backwards -- but I definetly write in a chronoically important way starting with the older stuff and moving forward.

Creme Puff Manor

2007-01-28T13:19:00.000-05:00

Okay, so when Ben heard I was bringing him to this place I saw that was $15,000 more than I was told to look for, he was pretty peeved. This was the last place we took our parents to yesterday and I think it was everyone's favorite. It is an end unit town house in a nice neighborhood conveniently located near my work and very near the beltway for Ben. In fact, this place is even closer to both of our workplaces than where we currently live. It has a bay window, which I like, that in fact is a bay dining room. This is the living room with a fire place.
The kitchen is small, but all the other things make up for it.
The upstairs has a master bedroom with bathroom and a small loft. I love lofts. This makes the living room has a super tall lofted ceiling.
There is also a small bedroom on the first level and a full bath. The basement is unfinished, but when we finish it it'll add like 700 more square feet. The dryer is busted -- the owner put a door latch on it to keep it closed. But, honestly, it's my favorite place we've seen and it would cut down on both of our commutes. The real estate agent just called Peggy and basically said they'd be willing to throw in $10,000 to finish the basement, so I guess we could negotiate. I'm trying to convince Ben to get a move on it so we can call and like start the process, but I think he's not ready yet (or lazy and doesn't want to do anything today).

1950's Duplex

2007-01-28T13:14:00.000-05:00

Okay, so Ben didn't come to this one which is why it doesn't have an awesome name. Here's the 1950's redon kitchen. Yes, those are normal height cabinets, and yes, they are installed at the ceiling. I can only reach the bottom shelf comfortably.

Also, they have no dishwasher. WTF? Who doesn't have a dishwasher now a days.
These are the ancient washer and dryer in the basement. The basement has a seperate efficiency kitchen and full bath, along with a nice sized room. Peggy thought this tree was cool in the backyard (the yard was good size).

I know this looks like the kitchen is small, that's because it really was. That is the door to the basement right next to the fridge.

Nice Vanity

2007-01-28T13:09:00.000-05:00

This was the nicest vanity house we went to. The railings on the left of the photo is where the vanity is. The closet, unfortunately, has a heating duct going through the middle of it, so there's like three feet of closet space in there. The second bedroom is light and has basketball nobs on the closet. It also has a football light switch cover.
Notice the toilet seat. It overhangs the toilet.

It also has a large basement. Ben's parents are considering giving us one of their children to live with us next year when they go to community college. They would sleep in the basement. If their grades were bad, then they would sleep under the stairs like Harry Potter.

Crack House # 2

2007-01-28T13:04:00.000-05:00

3. It smelled funny.

4. They kindof just left a whole bunch of stuff when they left -- like they had been kicked out.
For example, this dresser would match nicely from the desk in the golden door house. And 5th, what's that on the right of the door? Catty corner to the porch light?
A security camera. Yeah, that's normal.
This place was nice in that it had a beautiful lake view and a nice sized back yard and porch.

Crack House

2007-01-28T13:02:00.000-05:00

So, this place was out of our price range, but in a closer neighborhood and touted many upgrades like new flooring. However, that's where the new stuff ended. Here are the crappy stairs. Here is the origional kitchen with the lovely 70's butcher block counters.

Now, here's the evidence that makes me think this place used to sell drugs.

1. Crappyily cared for house, but the owners needed a safe in the bedroom that they didn't take when they left?

2. There's a peephole in the outside shed's door?

Crappy Upgrades

2007-01-28T12:53:00.000-05:00

This house is the same as the one before. However, the owners decided to put in new stuff, but they picked crappy stuff. Crappy counters, appliances, tile, etc. This woody kitchen is the first area that would have to be redone. Notice the lack of stripping on the edge of the counter by Ben. They also picked the cheapest bathroom vanities. And yes, they look slanty, don't they?
But, Ben said, we'd buy this house over the last one because this one had fan remotes with digital screens. I guess we all have priorities.

Talk about lovely chandeliers! This one is plasticriffic!

Interesting Color Choice House - Part 2

2007-01-28T12:48:00.000-05:00

The master bathroom is also full of interesting details. For example, the green and gold sponge painting on the wall and the fountain in the recess above the toilet. Also, what would possibly make that bedroom better? A security view thingy into the hall way. Do you not know who would be knocking on your bedroom door?There were also some impressively ugly ceiling fans in the house. This was in one of the three bedrooms.

The bedroom was also baby blue and had really gross carpet that needed to be replaced.

Interesting Color Choice House

2007-01-28T12:39:00.000-05:00

This was another looker from the street. It has a contemporary design. Contemporary apparently means "Ugly funky house from the 60's and 70's.

So, this paint color is actually pretty nice and the moulding makes the house look very classy. However, the picked the cheapest, ugliest carpet to put in this room. They also laid down new floors. Instead of staggering the planks like you are supposed to, they laid them right next to each other. So, basically, you'd have to pull up the entire new floor and put a new, correctly installed one in.
The bedroom has mint green walls with awesome shelves in the wall.
It also has a mysterious burgendy wall in the bedroom and crown molding spray painted with the flecky spray paint with both dark green and dark red specs. The carpet is also quite lovely.
And then, in the master closet, there is this lovely border.

Funky House

2007-01-28T12:35:00.000-05:00

These owners have lived in their home since it was built in the 1970's. They have not done any upgrading. We looked at this place because it was large -- four bedrooms. However, the pictures peak for themselves. Well, really, you can't see the condition of the house due to all the stuff that's in it.

Here is the formal dining room that they've changed into a playroom for their grandchildren.
Here is part of the living room.
Here is the kitchen.

Upstairsian # 2 - Cat Lady

2007-01-28T12:29:00.000-05:00

This was another of the lived in houses that made me feel inadequate with my cleaning. This is the same model as before, but without the redone kitchen. This is the dining room, it's larger and more squarish.

The kitchen is smaller, but it's still remodeled and fairly large. The living room does not have the messed up bulk head and the whole has has a really nice paint job.
For example, the master bedroom is a lovely green color.

So, Ben and I also seriously considered this place.

Pros: really well maintained, nice neighborhood, three bedrooms, upgraded kitchen, really nice paint job all through the house.

Cons: seller not really in a rush to move, $210 a month condo fees, and same stupid walkout to tiny lawn, also, people living below.

Upstairsian 1

2007-01-28T12:19:00.000-05:00

This is a cute little development up in Burke. It turns out that my mentor lived here for a year with her husband when they first moved to the area. What a weird coincidence.
This place is nice because the kitchen is totally redone. Those are awsome brand new cabinets and appliances and lovely Corian counter tops. The kitchen is large and airy. However, in order to do this to the kitchen, they left an interesting bulkhead in the living room behind this kitchen. There are nice "woodlike" floors on the first floor, but it would be fairly difficult to decorate and place furniture in the living room due to the remodel.

However, they did also redo the master bathroom. Here is a picture of the nice shower head and part of the tile in the shower.
This has a lovelier chandelier than Pohick, but there was no mention of it in the listing information. Ben and I were seriously considering buying this place, but here's a list of the pros and cons:

Pros: very nice neighborhood, brand new amazing kitchen, three bedrooms, fireplace (which I don't care about, but seems to help with resale value), and a long stay on the market to help us negotiate.

Cons: no basement (well, there's a stairwell down to the teeny tiny back yard), there are people who live below you, and there are like $210 a month in condo fees.

Fenestra

2007-01-28T12:14:00.000-05:00

This looks like a small condo and is a small condo. It follows the same basic model as the Flair mentioned earlier, but this one has a more awesome kitchen! The curved drawer nobs add so much flair to the earth-theme room.
Yes, you're right, that's brick behind the counter!
Someone decided that the way to sell this place was to put baskets of pine cones all around the place. This one is in the kitchen, but there were others in the bedrooms.

Deveraux Vanity

2007-01-28T12:08:00.000-05:00

We looked at another Vanity house in a nearby neighborhood. This woman was funny, even though she wasn't home. Nice kitchen.

This is a much nicery entry than the other vanities.

4 Cat Lady

2007-01-28T12:05:00.000-05:00

The next place we went to was a place that Peggy picked. It was a bit out of our price range, but in a nicer neighborhood. The place was okay.
This lady also had four cats. Now, this was one of the cleanest houses I've ever seen. There was no cat hair anywhere.

I took a picture of one of the cats. Also, it had a very large yard. There is a cat sleeping on one of the chairs.

This is what I mean by clean. This is one of the houses that made me question my cleanliness.

Gold Door -- Part 2

2007-01-28T12:00:00.000-05:00

So, I'm really impressed that I got the following pictures from the basement. Since the electricity was messed up, you would turn a light switch on and nothing would happen. Then, two minutes later the lights would come one and then in another minute, they'd shut off again. That screams safe to me!

Not to mention the unusual smell the permiated the place, there was also a good deal of junk.
Here's a lovely, personalized bathroom full of awesome stickers!

Too bad this place was such a dump, because it was actually really large. The following picture is a testament to the power of my flash, because I took this by blindly pointing my camera someway when the power was out in this windowless basement. It's fairyly big and blue.

The odd thing about this house is that at one point it was very well taken care of. While the color choices are unusual, the painting was done very well and nice paint was used. Also, all the wooden floors were awesome. They were in excellent condition and installed well. It was just kindof sad that someone had let the house go to crap in the past couple of years.

Gold Door House

2007-01-28T11:55:00.000-05:00

I liked the small pictures they have of the houses on the real estate listings. For examples, this looked like a large brick town house with a cute gold door. HAHAHAHA... Oh boy.

First, there are signs on the front door that state that this house has been secured in behalf of the mortgage company since it was vacant or unoccupied (umh, that's not creepy at all).

Next, you walk into the kitchen. Yes, you're right, your computer screen's colors aren't messed up, the kitchen walls are mint green and the cabinets are a dark forest green with gold trim. As Ben says, "Those cabinets were popular for the same week that Shaft was a television show." Also, wouldn't you want a hot pink dining room and family room? I sure know that I would.

And how about a lime green upstairs? It's totally relaxing to have a lime green master bedroom.

One of the bedrooms upstairs was painted purple. The daughter decided to customize it by spray painting all over the walls, too. Excellent.

Pohick

2007-01-28T11:46:00.000-05:00

As much as Ben loved the name of the last place, he was hesistant about living here because now he would need another name to use in polite society instead of saying "buttfuck" (referring to a place out in the boonies).

The kitchen in Pohick is sortof small. For example, the fridge is to the bottom right of the picture. If you open the fridge and stand right in front of it ... well, you actually can't do that. While the front room on this place is fairly large and is a plus, the dining room poses some interesting problems. 1. The blinds suck and I broke them (but fixed them). 2. There are mirrors on the wall. 3. Ben hits the light fixture because he is tall. and 4. Anna, what is there in the back of the picture? Are those the washer and dryer in the formal dining room? Why yes, you are right, the washer and dryer are in the formal dining room behind cheap, plastic acordian doors. Hot.
However, this place does have the nicest, largest yard of any place we looked it. It has that large shed for storage and another locking closet right outside the sliding glass doors. It has enough grass to actually make it a yard!

And, it has a lovely chandelier. Just lovely!

It also has three bedrooms. However, there is no pantry, no bathroom on the main level, and no basement. We went to look at this place again on Saturday, and the front of the house gets very hot. The sun just bakes the front of the house and there are no large trees.

Cockburn -- Part 2

2007-01-28T11:41:00.000-05:00

The only problems with this place is that there is no seperate dining room (the dining area is shared space with the living room. There are also only two bedrooms (but they were large bedrooms). But it is oh so nice looking. Look at the lovely gas fireplace and mantel.
And, we're right near the trash (I'm not sure how positive that is, but it would have been a nice change from having to drive our trash across the complex now).
Also, this 61" TV conveys. Ben asked if the cock burn conveyed, too.

Alas, the next weekend, when we were looking at things again, this place had already sold. This would be the first example of someone putting a contract in right after we saw the place and decided that we kind of liked it.

Cockburn

2007-01-28T11:38:00.000-05:00

Ben liked this condo just because of the name. Yes, someone did actually name a street Cockburn.

This condo was awesome! The kitchen is big.

There are all these nice touches in the place like the lovely wall mouldings in the stairwell.
Also, there are glass french doors into the kitchen.
And the master bedroom has a large soaking tub.

Red Light Special -- Part 2

2007-01-28T11:34:00.000-05:00

Now, on to the basement.

Ben: What's that on the ceiling?
Peggy: I don't know.

Peggy: It's silly string!

Yep, that's right, purple silly string stuck to the basement ceiling.

You don't really need a bathroom counter, do you? I mean, setting the bathroom sink in plywood totally works?

Notice the look on Peggy's face. She, like Ben and I, are totally disgusted by this place. What you can't see is the half an inch of greasy dust on the fan blades in the kid's room.
To further add creepiness to the place, the lights in the master bedroom had blue light bulbs in them. I think it's just a nice extra decorative touch.

Red Light Special

2007-01-28T11:26:00.000-05:00

Anna: Why is this house so cheap? All the other houses in this neighborhood are at least $320,000. Why is this house under $300,000?
Ben: Well, it probably needs some work. Let's look at it and see if we could fix it up.
Anna: Okay

Well, when you walk up to a house and it has a bank foreclosure notice on the front door, you know you're in for a treat. Then, while waiting for Peggy to open the lock box, Ben and I notice that there is a red light bulb in the porch light. It was an indication for awesomeness!

First of all, the kitchen is a mess. In the lower right corner of the picture below, there is just a counter made just of like ply wood! Classy. Also, it has stick red stains on it from ketchup.

But it gets better, see all the crumbs on the counter? Apparently the people being evicted did not bother to clean before they left. This was confirmed when Peggy opened the fridge and Ben caught the whiff of decaying food in the fridge.

But, on the plus side, this awesome big wheels conveyed!

Yeah, junky backyards are always a sign of quality.

Vanity Houses

2007-01-28T11:20:00.000-05:00

So the next four/five/six houses we saw were all the same model. We refer to them as "Vanity Houses" because there is a vanity in the master bedroom.

The first one we went to, we set off the alarm. Oops. It is now called "The House Where We Set Off the Alarm." The vanity houses have a nice sized kitchen as shown below, a smallish living room with a teeny dining area, two bedrooms upstairs, a full bath upstairs, and a basement. Some basements have a half bath while others have a full bath. Some are in good condition and some are repossed brothels. "The House Where We Set Off the Alarm" was in pretty good condition, but there were some interesting color choices we would have to change. Also, this one had a fire place in the living room. It took up too much room.

The second vanity house was green. I like green. Here is a picture of the front steps. This house is called the "Cabbage House" because the woman there was cooking cabage when we came by.
The next vanity house is "The Fly House" because it had huge collections of dead flies near all the windows and doors. It's pretty gross. All those specs are dead flies by the basement window.

House # 3 -Flair

2007-01-28T11:11:00.000-05:00

With a house with this contemporary of a style, what could you call it but "The Flair" (which is the actual model name of the house). Yeah, it really could have used more windows on the left side of the house.

The Flair's kitchen is long and thin. Also, the washer and dryer are right next to the sink. You know, I never thought I cared about this until I saw the house, but I want my washer and dryer in a seperate area from the kitchen, not next to the sink. Also, the owners pushed the units apart which makes the dryer stick out about two inches from the kitchen wall, and when you walk in, you can see the overhanging back of the dryer.
However, this place does have a nice dining area in the kitchen that we would have to do a lot with to increase the working space in the kitchen and solve the weird washer/dryer issue.
Looking back on all my pictures of occupied houses, these people were by far the messiest and make me feel like a more normal person.

House # 2

2007-01-28T11:03:00.000-05:00

This is another two story condo in a nearby development. This one does not look like a ski chalet, but since this was the second place we saw, I still didn't have to whole picture taking thing down. The blonde woman in the picture is Peggy, our real estate agent, and the science teacher on my team. She keeps trying to dart out of the pictures I'm taking, so sometimes you can just see her hand.

One of the running jokes of the house hunting trips is the mention of a "lovely chandelier." I asked if this was the house that mentioned it, but alas, it was not.

The nickname for this house is "Owner Stopped By" because while we were there, the owner stopped by.
Since the owner was there, I asked him if the door configuration below bothered him. See, when you open the doors on the left that hide the washer and dryer, you cannot move since you are blocked by the fridge. Also, when you open the fridge doors, you are trapped until you close them due to the doors behind you. Very stupid. However, the owner mentioned that he never noticed the problem. Maybe he never washed his clothes? Or, maybe he never ate food?

This condo also had a loft, but this one had better stairs. This unit also had a large storage area. However, it also had this little room. The room was about three feet wide and ten feet long. It had doors that closed it off from the office off of the loft. I see no point in having a small, long closetish room before the storage area. It makes no sense!

House # 1

2007-01-28T10:53:00.000-05:00

I freaking already did this, but I guess I have to go ahead and do it over. Stupid Picasa and Blogger interface!!!

The first place we looked at was a condo in a near by development that I always thought looked like ski chalets. Well, the model is called chalet, so I gues that was the developer's idea.

Point one against this place -- it's on the third floor. There is an entrance on this side of the building, and then there is another entrance on the other side of the building. The doors are like blocked from each other by a wall, but the doors are about two feet from each other in the living room. It is very weird.

This place does have a loft (yay! loft!) with a large storage area, but you have to get your storage things up this lovely spiral staircase. Yeah, that's really practical.

Also, it has a crappy stacked washer and dryer. I don't like that. I want to be able to wash all of my clothes in a washer at a time. Maybe that's a little bit of a lofty dream.

People in November and December

2007-01-07T21:09:00.000-05:00

The day after Christmas, my family drove up to Pittsburgh to visit my grandfather. This is us in Panera having lunch.

This is my dad and sister. Karel is trying to show my uncle a picture of Jason, but Panera's wireless wasn't working.

This is Nick and Drew showing their mad monkey arm skills on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Apparently being like forty pounds lighter helps Nick be more flexible than Drew.

Ben and I before leaving for Fuzzy's New Year's Eve geekfest.

Stranger Than Fictions and Cats

2006-11-12T09:04:00.000-05:00

Ben and I went to see Stranger Than Fiction last night. It was good. It worked. The ending was appropriate to the movie, and it all worked together.

There was a very different audience than at the Borat movie. There were a lot of old people at the theater last night. They laughed at stupid things like the Coca-Cola let's-pretend-that-we-support-education-and-trick-some-film-student-into-making-us-a-free-commercial commercial about the nature photographer who tries to film monkeys and gets tricked by a monkey offering him Coke and then gets filmed by the monkey who is wearing his hat. I hate that commercial, but not as much as the lonley man movie ticket commercial. That makes me want to choke people.

On a more exciting note, here are some pictures of my cats chasing a laser pointer.

Borat

2006-11-07T21:39:00.000-05:00

I saw the Borat movie for the second time today. Hillarious! If you haven't seen it yet, you should go.

People I will leave Ben for:
1. Kevin Smith because he is so hillarious.
2. Sacha Baron Cohen because he is also hillarious and quiet attractive in a yellow banana hammock.

There was totally a third man I'd leave Ben for, but I can't figure out who it was. I know I thought of someone when I went to visit Kayla, but I know that it's not him. I should really figure out who it is.

Also, I want to leave Virginia because it is being intolerant.

Anna in VT - Part 3 - take 2

2006-11-06T20:54:00.000-05:00

I totally already wrote this, so this will be even briefer.
Saturday: made french toast, ate Mexican food again, went to Dartmouth art museum, saw exhibit on Aboriginal women's art (basically mythology drawing with lots of dots and lines), and ate again at Kayla's house with some of her VT peoples.

The book someone left at a parking meter on the Dartmouth campus. It says something like Men: Do We Really Need Them? I think it's funny because we weren't on a women's college campus.
Sunday: More eating, shopping in New Hampshire (yay no sales tax), and Kayla taking me to the airport. This picture is of Kayla whacking her camera on her leg. She had to do this to make it work. It makes me giggle because the camera doesn't work because it's experience so much trauma. Irony.

This is what I think Ben did when I was gone. This is an old picture of him (his hair is shorter now). He also apparently threw his stuff willy-nilly around the living room. But, he was a good boy and put his pants in the washing machine instead of leaving them on the living room floor.

My trip to Vermont was awesome and it was really great to spend some time with Kayla. However, it was butt cold and snowed a bit. But, I guess it was worth it.

Anna in VT - Part 2

2006-11-06T20:36:00.000-05:00

Kayla is at the entrance of the grave yard. The flavor grave yard, that is.

If anyone wants to take both of these pictures and merge them into one, Kayla and I would be really appreciative. I guess that's one problem you can have when going on an ice cream factory tour when it's cold and snowing outside . . . there really aren't any people hanging outside volunteering to take your pictures.
After the ice cream tour on Friday, Kayla and I went to go see the Borat movie. Hillarious. I think we also had a good audience for the film. The theater was packed and there was no one there over the age of 25. Also, there were maybe ten girls in the whole theater. We were sitting in the hottest row because we had at least five girls (it was really the highest concentration of estrogen in the theater). After the movie we went to a tex-mex place nearby. It was weak. I told Kayla to go and get salsa for us. She came back with a green and a red salsa. I tried the green, it was good and cilantro-y. The second was red and had a delicious chipotle smoked flavor. Kayla mentioned to me that the red salsa was labeled as triple hot. I could have drank it like a milk shake and not have my mouth heat up.

Anna in Vermont - part 1

2006-11-06T20:21:00.000-05:00

Monday: Training on the InterWrite School Pad at Sandburg. I dislike the middle school Lang. Arts specialists. I made four batches of pumpkin cranberry bread for school
Tuesday: Got to school early to help set up for the kick ass English breakfast. Taught some school, went home, and went out with Ben for his birthday dinner. Mmmm... Cheesecake Factory.
Wednesday: Taught some more. Went out with my team for dinner. Didn't get home until around 8:00 pm and had to do laundry and pack for my trip to Vermont.
Thursday: I left from work at 4:00 pm on Thursday and Peggy, the awesome science teacher, took me to the airport. I arrived in Manchester without incident. Although, when I was packing the night before and freaking out about which bags to bring on the plane with me, Ben suggested that I just bring it in a trash bag. I laughed at him. While eating my burrito and drinking my margarhita (airport food courts have lots of alcohol choices), I see this guy walking in front of me. He's carrying a roll of construction plans and a trash bag full of something. Apparently Ben wasn't totally joking when he suggested trash bags.

Friday: While I almost got to go visit a nuclear power plant with one of Kayla's classes, I was unfortunately forced to go to a seminar on physcians adminitions of sorrow and explainations of why something bad happened to patients. While the nuclear power plant would have been really cool, I enjoyed the lecture.
After the lecture and a delicious free lunch of couscous and vegetables, Kayla and I headed to the Ben and Jerry's factory. We went on the factory tour (interesting), ate a free sample of apple pie ice cream (mmm...), shopped in the gift shop (they have a lock you can put on your pints and pint koozies), and got some more ice cream. I enjoyed pumpkin pie cheesecake ice cream and coconut, almond, chocolate ice cream. Kayla got one of my favorites, oatmeal cookie. She liked it a lot. I had ice cream envy. I still have ice cream envy.

I am sobbing ove the death of ice cream. Okay, I don't really like Ben and Jerry's more than other ice cream, but I thought this would be a good picture.
Kayla is pounding the ground over the loss of chocolate peanut butter cookie dough ice cream. If it had cinnamon in it, she'd pee her pants.
My attempt to take a self portrait of Kayla and I in the B&J lid.
Kayla uses her money arms and gets a slightly more focused shot.

Things to Know

2006-11-06T20:19:00.000-05:00

My camera apparently has a self portrait function. After trying to take bad self portraits with Kayla all weekend, this interesting setting would have been useful. What's up with figuring that out now?

Here's a self portrait I took after learning of this feature.

2006-10-28T12:21:00.000-04:00

I had a dream where the skin was peeling off of my legs in big chunks. It was gah-rowse.

Shoe update: I bought five pairs of shoes weekends ago. Black t-strap mary janes, black heeled mary janes, black chunky heel loafers, black flat mary janes, and awesomely cute brown flats. They were out of both the black and brown version of the flats at the store, but I tried on a half-size bigger but not in wide version of the shoes. I assumed that in my size in a wide they would fit. They arrived at my doorstep the day before the Garker wedding. They were freaking too small. Like a lot too small! I haven't had time to take them back to the store in Columbia. Maybe I can do that tomorrow with all the other things I have to do. It makes me sad again.

Neutral Face

2006-09-22T18:31:00.000-04:00

So, I went to print out my return stuff to send my Zappos shoes back, and now they have the black loafers I want in the size I think I need! Yay! So, I am ordering them.

I can't decide if these shoes are awesome or ugly. I think they walk that line.

I do not know why the text above is trying to be a hyperlink to no where. I think it has something to do with me being picky that the post starts before the picture...oh well.

I cannot find black Mary Janes. I think that's what I really want and I need to replace the pair I had to throw away last year (I had them since I was in middle school ... they were my band concert shoes) when the heal detached from the rest of the shoe.

But I still kind of secretly want these boots.

Unhappy Face

2006-09-20T19:14:00.000-04:00

I went shopping all last weekend to find a cardigan, jewelery, and shoes for the Garker wedding. I bought nothing. I decided to just order some shoes from Zappos and possibly wear some jewelery that I already own. Well, I just got my shoes from Zappos (cute Mary Janes and some awesome black loafers to replace the ones I wore out last year and threw away at the beginning of some in hopes of making work hard all summer to replace them -- but totally forgot). The Mary Janes don't buckle and the loafers are half a size too big. No problem, I thought, I'll just return them and order new shoes in the correct size. Yeah, that would be great if they actually HAD them in the new size I need.

So, now I'm shoeless again. I was looking for different shoes on Zappos, but they really don't have anything in my size. I think I'll look at Lois's big feet size catalogue.

Now I have an unhappy face. I was so looking forward to getting some new shoes today!

Listening In

2006-09-08T21:20:00.000-04:00

Things Ben’s Discussing with his Grandma

1. Our wedding. The pros and cons of a cruise wedding versus Newton White. The patio and atrium.

2. His nickname for the caterer I like.

3. Why he doesn’t want to have children now and how waiting until we’re thirty until we have children will save us a lot of money.

4. That I want to have beach wedding … (No, I’ll have a wedding in a botanical garden or other lovely place like that, but I don’t want to get married on a ship in a Baltimore harbor. I mean, really, I’d just rather get married in a cesspool. Oh wait, that’s what most of Baltimore is.)

5. Apparently someone in his family is having a kid. I think they’re young. Ben, Bart, Nick, and Drew are the young ones – mostly everyone else has kids or is old enough to have kids without comment to their youthfulness.

6. He’s trying to get his relatives to name their child either Benjamin, or, the ever popular Benjamina. Well, his grandma’s name is Alfreda and his aunt was Freda, so it might not be totally impossible.

7. Unrelated but Al Pachino said, “Get out of my face you lactose-intolerant f***.” This would be a good thing to say if you ever ran into Jerry Seinfeld and he was really pissing you off.

8. I was wrong, it’s not a young person having a baby, just a person that I don’t think most people expected to have a baby.

Pathetic

2006-08-29T19:54:00.000-04:00

Today we did a practice ice breaker thing to use with students on Tuesday. It was a fairly innocuous name tent with additional information on the inside. Around your name you were to put where you were born (half of the people in the English department were born in DC even though most of them moved away as children and returned as adults), a good book you read over the summer, a place you'd live to visit, and your hobby/interest. Three of those requests were easy to fill: Washington, DC; The Pirates in an Adventure with Scientists, Alaska. However, I couldn't think of a hobby or interest. I would usually say swimming, but I haven't done that in two years.

I have no hobbies. All I do is work, come home, watch tv, read stuff on the internet, cuddle with my cat, go to sleep, repeat. It was a huge blow to my self worth to realize that I have nothing in terms of outside interests and activities.

Who am I?

I am not alone.

2006-08-23T19:02:00.000-04:00

I am not alone. Really, he should look into the attic. That was my plan at home. My plan in the apartment is to get on the balcony and jump. However, due to the height of my apartment and the multitude of people below me, I don't think I need as much of a plan.

My new sub plans. F the SOLS, here's something students really need to know.

Cats and Ben

2006-08-19T18:47:00.000-04:00

The cats like the fact that Ben sometimes has to bring home rolls of plans. These plans are paper and large. If you have cats, you know what they like to do when you put paper in front of you that you need to work on.

This is Jackson trying to help Ben by eating his engineer's scale. Spotty is embarassed by his bad behavior.

Spotty tries to help by holding the engineer's scale for Ben while he's working. Notice she is not sleeping on the actual plans, but the blank page next to them.

This picture is significant because Waffles never sleeps anywhere comfortable. She always sleeps on the carpet with her feet underneath her. As she drifts off, her nose comes closer and closer to hitting the ground. Here, she's sleeping on a blanket on a cushioned ottoman.

So, Waffles got that playtime with Ben was over. Jack missed that message and decided to plop right down on the plans and take a nap. Kindof like how he's sitting on my lap now and whacking me with his tail when I move my forearm to type since he's placed his head on it.

Goo

2006-08-19T18:42:00.000-04:00

This is what happens when you leave a half-full bag of gummi bears in the car when it's like 100 degrees outside. All my gummi bears melted into one giant gummi snake. The first picture is of me holding the goo and the second is of the goo on the bag.

Also, the goo was delicious and after a while I could pull of hunks of individual melted bears.

I think they should sell gummi candies like this.

Urgh

2006-08-13T16:14:00.000-04:00

I spent the past week with Ben and his family in North Carolina. It was nice. I didn't realize how nice and relaxing it was until we got home Saturday morning at two and I put my head down on my pillow. Apparently I was able to forget all the things I needed to do while on vacation, because it all came back to me. I don't think I've slept well since I've been home.

Stressors:
1. Finish proof reading my paper, make my slides, and send it all off for the conference on Aug. 22nd (waiting for Ben to proof for me).
2. Finish my unit for honors.
3. Make a decision about the wedding. IE, meet with Ben's mom's friend, the travel agent, to figure out what the cost would be, how it would work, etc. (Waiting for Ben to set this up -- which he just said he wouldn't do today, or this week.)
4. If we are not going for the destination wedding, then I need to book some vendors for Newton White. If we are going with the destination wedding, then I need to have my mom cancel our reservation on Newton White so we don't have to pay my mom the $750 cancelation fee if no one else reserves the mansion for our date.
5. Clean up all the stuff from vacation and before.
6. Go to parent's house and clean up all my childhood stuff from the basement.

And it looks like I'm going to have to do this all on my own.

Pictures of people

2006-07-10T22:31:00.000-04:00

Here are some pictures of people from Saturday and today. This first one is of me taken today by Ben.

This second one is of Ben on Saturday. We had just gotten back from lunch with Kayla and I was loading the pictures of me from wedding dress shopping with Kayla onto my laptop. Ben refused to have his picture taken in interesting ways.

Here's Kayla entertaining herself while waiting for me to put on another dress. We looked at a lot of dresses on Saturday. The other picture of Kayla is uber scary, so I decided that this one was a better representation of her attractiveness instead of her ability to scare little children in picture form.

Since I believe that everything balances out, I know I'm going to get screwed.

2006-05-31T18:09:00.000-04:00

Ben and I took of Friday and Tuesday to extend our three day weekend into a five day weekend. We had a nice time in Staunton. Well, some of it was nice, and some of it was painful. The Natural Bridge debacle, stinky duck pond with apathetic ducks, and me making us miss our free breakfast that probably had omelettes on Sunday were the not nice parts. It was nice spending time with Ben and eating at Mill Street.
Well, it seems that the best part of not being at work on Tuesday was missing the bomb threats. That's right. Bomb threats. Multiple of them. The whole school was outside from seven -twenty in the morning (kids don't enter the building until seven-thirty) until around noon. Now, if any of you remember, yesterday was an exceptionally hot day outside. Supposedly four kids were taken to the hospital across the street and at least one teacher passed out. So, I missed not sitting outside in the excruciating heat all day. I was a little angry because my A day kids were going to be two days behind my B day kids, but that didn't happen because I had to proctor Algebra testing all day and basically deserted my kids today. I didn't get back into my class until noon when someone had already started a DVD for my fifth period class. I guess that made my day easy...
So, since I missed the bomb threat, I guess I've got something coming to keep the universe in balance.

Herpes

2006-05-23T17:06:00.000-04:00

So, I come home today and my cat is sneezing up a storm. Waffles is sneezing every so often and is sneezing like seven times in a row. Last time she did this, we took her to the emergency vet and spent all evening waiting to have her seen. Well, as the title of the post suggests, she has herpes. It's like a cold sore type of herpes, and it is brought out by stress. I think she knows that she might be going to Grandma and Grandpa's house this weekend when we go away. I think that stress has caused another outbreak. It almost wants to make me stay home this weekend and watch her to make sure she doesn't get worse. I don't trust my parents with cats so much since my cat disappeared a couple of weeks ago and is probably dead.

Ah, Waffles is looking so pathetic. With the herpes, along with the sneezing, are watery, pinkish eyes. She totally has those and they make her look so sad. I guess she's really not that sick since she just chased Jack around the whole apartment and bit him. I guess I now have two cats with herpes.

Welcome to 2000, Anna

2006-04-29T10:10:00.000-04:00

Last night, while enjoying having disposable income, Ben bought a Playstation 2. Since he went out of his way to get games that I would like to play, like We Love Katamari and The Sims: Busting Out, I have been forced to play it. It's weird. It has two analog sticks. It's three dimensional.

I like how we get a PS2 when it's going to be outdated in a year or so. As Ben said to the clerk who checked us out, "Why would I buy a two year service plan? There won't be any new ones in two years."

Oh well, it's probably better than getting a N64 and being really outdated.

It's official - well, almost

2006-04-16T09:38:00.000-04:00

So, the wedding will take place on July 29, 2007 from noon until four at Newton White Mansion. Well, it's official in the way that we still have a hold on it and my mom is faxing over the rental agreement on Monday. So, three wedding things down (getting engaged, setting a date, and picking a place) and so much left to do (caterers, cake, favors, dj, invitations, photographer, videographer, flowers, table settings, my dress, bridemaids' dresses, jewelry, shoes, tuxes, officiant, rings, etc).

Great Falls Grange

2006-04-14T17:53:00.000-04:00

Today I was going to go the the American Horticultural Center and Great Falls Grange to look at two more wedding sites. Well, the AHC lady emailed me the cost for renting River Farm - $5,700 for Sunday. That's a lot of money. So, after my mom got her about forty minutes later than she should have been due to massive traffic (right now, the beltway is backed up in BOTH directions outside our apartment), we decided to nix the ridiculously expensive locations, both the American Visionary Art Museum ($2,000 or something like that for the outdoor garden and $6,000 or so for the third floor reception place) and the AHC. So, we drove over to Great Falls for some lunch and location viewing.

On the Fairfax park site, the Grange looks a lot nicer. The stairway shown here seems really big, and not like half a flight of stairs. However, it does have a lot more trees out front. However, it is RIGHT next to Georgetown Pike - a relatively busy road, so, no out door ceremony in the front.

When my mom saw this place, she knew it wouldn't be my style. Well, from the basement, it's not. This really looks like someone's basement in their house. As you can see from the people in the picture, the ceiling is low. The floor is actually nice and there is a fairly large kitchen (the guy giving the tour said you could even cater an event here by yourself!).

Here is the upstairs. It's nicer. It smells like new paint. It has this neat stage and nice floor. It also has a fairly nice piano in the back. It also has a complete sound system and theatre style lights. So, playing with that could be fun. We really wouldn't need a dj as long as we programmed someone's laptop to play whatever we wanted. However, it's not that big and we couldn't fit everyone and dancing up here.

If we rented the Grange, there is a historic schoolhouse next door that we can add to our rental for only $100. Yes, that's right, $100. It's actually a pretty neat old building with absolute lovely wood work. The windows are old glass. However, there is no air conditioning which makes it not so nice a place. This location on its own is too small to have the wedding in, but could make for some lovely pictures or ceremony or a nice place to get ready before the wedding. This whole package is a steal at only $1300 for the Grange, schoolhouse, and liquor liscense. However, Newton White is much nicer and I think that's where we're going to have the wedding. It really does seem like a steal for $2800.

2006-04-13T09:15:00.000-04:00

Want to hear some stimulating conversation? Listen to Tyra Banks interview Carmen Electra.

Jack's New Method

2006-04-13T08:07:00.000-04:00

Jack's new method this morning to wake me up and feed him was to sit on my back, bite the straps of my tank top, and snap them against my skin in rapid sucession to get me up. It's probably the most annoying thing he's done so far!

I missed it yesterday. I was lounging in bed and Jack came in a laid down next to Waffles. They were cuddling. Well, Jack was sleeping right next to Waffles and she was tolerating it. It's the most affection you can hope for from two unrelated cats where one isn't playing parent to the other.

Now Jack has decided to come and sit with me again. This is how I got nothing done yesterday. It's hard to get up when you have a soft kitty cat cuddling with you all the time.

Cats - Take Two

2006-04-11T09:50:00.000-04:00

I don't know if I hit the wrong button, or what, but I wrote this post and now it disappeared. Grr. Now, again, in shorter form.

Kramer - still big, white, and nippy.

Squeekie - she's getting older, her coat is getting duller, and she's getting even more starved for attention.

My fluffy princess actually acknowledged my existance. She is looking better - her fur looks good, but I think her thyroid is still not functioning properly.

Toby was quite grumpy when I cleaned her ears out with Q-Tips. However, she was nice and did sleep me with on the bed.

Ben said my apartment kitties were a little distressed by my absence. I think they were afraid that they wouldn't get fed. Ben never feeds the kitties - it's my job. So, when I wasn't there in the morning, Waffles got a little frightened that she wouldn't be fed again. Never did it cross the cats' minds to bug Ben for food. For example, this morning, I told Jack to wake Ben up instead of me and ask for food. The cat didn't get it. Ben started to pet him, but Jack would have none of it and came back, sat on me, meowed in my ear, and started poking me in the face. Stupid Ben has trained them well.

Newton White - Part 3

2006-04-11T09:04:00.000-04:00

More on Newton White. Here is the view from the side porch. This is where they suggest serving drinks and munchies during cocktail hour. But, this is also a good picture to show the view, again.

Here is the patio where the ceremony would take place. It is quite lovely. The mansion also has cute, white folding bistro chairs for people to sit on during the ceremony.

Here is a larger picture of the patio. It's quite spacious. I have a hard time picturing what it will look like in the summer with the trees actually all green and lovely. However, for an outdoor spot, I think it'll be fairly cool and shady.

Here's a picture of the fountain and the mansion. I rescued a frog from the fountain. It was stuck in there and not looking so lively. So, I got a stick and tried to have it climb on the stick. Well, it was too tired to do that, so Ben's mom got it to hold on the stick and then I reached in and pulled it out. Hopefully it'll live.

This is a view of the side of the mansion. The big window is that bay window in the ballroom. The white windows on the left are to the large porch.

So, I guess I like Newton White mansion. And, the price is a lot better than what it's advertised on the website (there's like a $900 county resident discount for people who live in Montgomery or PG counties). This makes the price for seven hours on a Sunday $2800. That is a lot more reasonable than the $4000 quoted on the website.

I don't know. When I saw this place online I loved it. And, it is quite stunning. However, I don't know if I don't like it because I've talked myself out of it because I thought it was ridiculously expensive. I don't know. I want a just gut reaction that says that this is the place. It is so odd for me to go out for a day and not know what I want. I kindof make up my mind really quickly on things like this once I actually go and see them. For example, I went to go look at cars one day and ended up driving off with one that day. Ugh. I kindof need to figure this out before my courtsey hold on July 29, 2007 expires on April 20th. I think I'm going out with my mom again on Thursday or Friday to look at more places.

Newton White - Part 2

2006-04-11T08:44:00.000-04:00

Here is the atrium at Newton White. They are breaking it down from another party. The trees in the room are put there by the caterers, but the atrium is so lovely with its picture windows looking out on the golf course and it is so full of natural light. It would be a lovely place to have brunch on a Sunday.

The woman in the left of the picture is another woman whose daughter is getting married in June of '07. Oddly enough, she is from Olney (which is right next door to Ben and mine's parents' houses) and she went to Chevy Chase Women's Club the same day as us, but before us. It was weird. Her daughter is also having a brunch wedding with an omlette guy. Weird...

Here is another picture of the atrium. This looks out onto the trees next to the patio.

This is the ballroom. It is fairly large and the woman showing us around said this is where people usually have their cocktail hour. However, my feeling is that this could be our bad weather location for the ceremony in case it's raining or the air quailty is teh sux. So, this place does seem to have a lot. It has a really nice place to have the reception. It has a lovely patio to get married on. And, it has a built in rain location. Also, it has a bride's and groom's room. The bride's room has a large three way mirror, lounge, and bathroom complete with bath tub. I don't know why you'd need a bath tub, but, whatever. The groom's room has a shower. But, I guess that's nice because Ben and I can arrive there when the vendors do an hour or so before the thing starts to get ready there.

Here is the bay window in the ballroom. What a lovely place to get married, if it's unbearable outside.

Newton White Mansion - Part 1

2006-04-11T08:32:00.000-04:00

Okay, so when Ben showed me this on the web, I fell in love with it. This is a mansion is in PG county next to a golf course and a park police horse place. I am going to do two posts on this because I have a lot of pictures.

The posts on the columns near the entrance have chickens on them. They are bricks, mortarted together. I think that's neat.

This is looking down into the entrance. The mansion is nice looking. There are nice things like lamps, tables, carpets, etc. The mansion would require little extra decorating because it is so lovely.

I don't know why I have more pictures of the entrance, but here's another picture of the entrance.

I forget what this room is called -- maybe the dining room? Anyway, it's one of the many extra rooms in the mansion that we may not use. But this room does have lots of places like this corner that need decorations, maybe. So, either I'm going to go to a lot of thrift stores to purchase decorative things or make a lot of things to put in places.

Sandy Spring Ballroom

2006-04-11T07:56:00.000-04:00

The very first place we (my mom, Ben's mom, and I) went on Monday was to the Sandy Spring Ballroom. This room is in a fire house (it oddly works out well for my mom because she said alot of the people in her family got married in fire houses). It's a really nice room. It looks new, it has lots of fake plants already in it, already lit up. It has sconces on the wall with greenery. You have to use BJ Pumpernickles (Shwartz Catering) with the place, but I really liked them. The people at this place were by far the nicest and most bubbly we met all day.

One really nice thing about this location is that it's pretty much already decorated. We would have to spend a very minimal amount (and effort) on decorations.

Here is an example of a nice element of the room. The florscent lights do, in fact, turn off and there are other light sources (I think).

Here is a larger picture of the ballroom with my mom and Ben's mom.

So, there are only a couple of draw backs to this place. 1.) We can't have the ceremony here (I refuse to actually get married in a ballroom -- it's like getting married in a hotel - it's just ugly). Since the ceremony is going to be short -- like fifteen to twenty minutes -- it seems a bit stupid to go somewhere far. My plan was to get married at Brookside Gardens and then get pictures taken there, but it's like $500 for just an hour of rental time. So, that means that this place would be about $15oo and would be in two different locations (which is not so appetizing to me). However, I can look at different ceremony locations to see if we can find one closer and cheaper. 2.) There is no choice in caterers. We have to use Schwartz Catering. Not that this is a bad thing, I really liked the people and Ben says their food is awesome. However, there is no room for negotiation and playing different companies off of each other. But it would be a good thing because they pretty much do everything. Clean up, decorating, set-up, everything. So, that's nice. If we went here, there would be nothing to worry about (hopefully).

The Lodge at Little Senenca Creek

2006-04-11T07:40:00.000-04:00

The last place we went yesterday was the Lodge at Little Senenca Creek. This is a neat, rustic cabin with a beautful view of a large, open lawn and trees. It is a log cabin and therefore looks like a log cabin. The walls are made of wooden boards that fight nicely together. However nice it is, it's not the place for my summer wedding. I don't want to go in the whole rustic-campy-log-cabin theme. This would be a nice location for a fall or winter wedding, and I would probably choose this place if I were getting married in those seasons. The $1600 Sunday price tag and free one-hour rehersal make me wish that this place worked out better.

This is the back wall of the cabin. It has lots of windows (but they have ugly blinds - wood veneer blinds...). One big drawback of this place is the amount of decorating required to make it look nice. It would need some sort of swags above the windows and a lot of plant life to make it feel fresh for the summer. Also, notice how rustic even the lights look on the ceiling.

I really wish I were getting married in the fall/winter because this fire place actually works. See my mom on the left for help in scale. The woman who showed us around said a lot of people actually have the fire place cleaned out in the summer and put and light candles in the fire place. That would look lovely.

Here is the back poarch and lawn in the back of the cabin. This would be a lovely place to have our short ceremony. This location also has white picnic chairs that we could set out on the lawn for guests to sit on (yay for not having to rent things!). One big draw back at this place is the wood-boring bees. They are the size of unshelled double peanuts. THEY ARE HUGE! The lady said that they don't bite people, and they didn't seem to be interested in us when we got close to them, but they still freak me out.

Here is the front entrance to the cabin and my mom.

So, no Lodge at Seneca Creek. This disapoints me because I was looking forward to not spending lots of money here.

Wedding Location Search - Chevy Chase Women's Club

2006-04-10T22:36:00.000-04:00

The second stop this morning was the the Chevy Chase Women's Club in, you guess it, Chevy Chase. My mom picked this location to look at for a couple reasons: 1. It's where she got married almost thirty years ago (yay for sentimentality). 2. We thought it was relatively cheap (not so, it turns out to be $2200 to rent the place for eight hours on a Sunday and that's all it covers -- renting the building, using the ugly tables and chairs). When my mom got married there, it was actually nice looking and a relatively nice place. However, while a lot has changed in thirty years, it seems like the people at the women's club have not. 1. All the members there were OLD. Like great grandparents old. 2. No updates have been made to the facility in the past thirty years. I found a pile of old Christmas cards from the sixites in a pile in the upstairs "Board Room." The place smelled like and looked like my grandmother's basement. So, this place is definetly out for us. Also, the building manager is a crazy old man who kept raving about how these kids did grafitti on stickers and put them places. Not only did he mention this to us at noon when we arrived, but he also mentioned this to another lady we met later on who had an early appointment there today.

Okay, I'm doing this without actually being able to see the pictures I'm uploading, so here goes my guesses about what each picture is about. I think this is one where it shows the chairs the place provides. Yeah. They look pretty bad. The scary thing: my mom pulled out her wedding album from 1977 when she got married there. They're the same chairs. As Ben says, it doesn't look like they've been cleaned since my mom used them.

I think this is a picture of the main room - the auditorium. This could be a really neat place to rent. The room has columns and a nice stage. However, it needs lots of decoration to make it look updated and inviting.

Okay, this is the back of the auditorium with my mom and the old codger who kept yelling at the janitor to do better and clean faster and answer the phone.

This is the library with one of the fire places. There are some cute aspects to this place, but it's just not worth the money to rent it at all.

2006-04-03T18:27:00.000-04:00

Ugh. Sinus pain is so extreme that I feel like I'm going to barf. This is icky. Also, the cats are going CRAZY and running around the apartment full blast.

Four more days until spring break! WOO HOO!

After we get back from spring break, only two months and a week until the end of school! Too bad I have a lot to do before the end of school. I can't wait until it's over, but I don't want those deadlines for papers, presentations, and units to come up.

I think the cats just broke something sticky. Nope, it was Ben. He balanced GLASS BOTTLES on tofu in order to press it. Bottles of sugar free flavor syrups....

I'm going to take some drugs.

Kitties

2006-04-02T18:37:00.000-04:00

Okay, remember how I said before that I was probably going to take lots of pictures of my cats, well, I did. Here are three of them. Spotty (Waffles) and Jackson.

New Toy

2006-04-02T18:33:00.000-04:00

So, I bought a new digital camera today. It will be helpful for school and all those crazy parties I'm always going to. Okay, I'll probably take a lot of pictures of my cats and things for school, but, whatever.
Here are various pictures of my ring.

Why I love Ben

2006-03-22T20:36:00.000-05:00

1. After working for almost 24 straight hours out in the cold, Ben came home and before crawling upstairs to fall asleep on the couch, scraped the ice and snow off of my windshield so I wouldn't have to do it and be cold.

2. He called me today to tell me that he was coming home and then picked up Taco Bell for me, even though the drive through is awful.

3. At midnight, he wrote me a letter telling me how much he missed me and how happy he was to be my fiance.

4. He is totally going to let me eat some of his fries right now...

5. He bought me a really nice engagement ring.

6. He apologized for all the times in college when I called him and he was less than enthusiastic to talk to me.

7. He is actually wanting to spend time with me because he loves me and tells me this. It's nice to be told you're loved.

Wow.... It's been a while

2006-03-04T08:08:00.000-05:00

I just looked at the date of my last post, and while it seems like the stuff I was writing about happened very recently, I've gone almost a whole month without blogging. I blame NCLB and the SOLs. My kids are taking the eight grade writing test on Tuesday and Wednesday. They have gone three years without a standardized writing test... I'm responsible for teaching/making sure they know and remember three years of writing instruction in six months of classroom time while also preparing them for the reading test in May. Anyway, it's been a crazy short month with me grading lots of essays and worrying a lot. Although I do see lots of improvement in some of my students' writing, there are still a lot that I don't think will pass the test. Unfortunately, since they only get tested in eight grade, they bad scores reflect on me. I think we're running close to the deadline to make our failing sub-groups (African Americans and SPED) improve enough to near the passing percentage. But, oh well, I've poured so much of my soul and heart into teaching them how to write that if they don't do better this year, my feeling of self-worth is going to be trashed. I can't imagine how I can teacher where I am and have children. One group of kids is going to be severely slighted. Being a good teacher (I am going to say good teacher because there are plenty of teachers who don't care and who leave at 2:30 and don't do anything at home and don't wake up at three in the morning worrying about how many of your students understand the necessity of the three part parallel thesis statement) takes everything you have and everything you didn't think you have. I just come home and crash everynight. I don't know how much energy I can give to my own kids.

Okay, enough ranting about how much my job drains me of energy. I just have to say that I love my cats. Jack is so cute and is sitting on my shoulder and headbutting my ears. He was a good pick. Waffles is sitting on the Christmas tree box upstairs in the loft and looking at me. I feel like I've been neglecting them. Jack took a receipt our of a plastic bag, balled it up, and started whacking it around the apartment. Then, he started attacking the windows. Poor baby just wanted to play so badly. He was mewing up a storm last night when I started to play with the cat wand thingy.

Things to do this weekend:
1. Work out (since I've been too exhausted to do it much this week)
2. Go out to lunch with Antonietta
3. Clean up kitchen and living room
4. Go laptop shopping (I really want one, badly)
5. Purchase waning supply of beauty products (I haven't bought anything since Christmas!)
6. Put together wedding planning binder (Woo hoo! Planning! Wedding!) (I went to Staples yesterday and picked out a periwinkle binder - Ben's thinking about that as one of the colors for the wedding)
7. Go check out wedding sites (You know, it's really hard to plan for something a year and four months away and not want to do it sooner)
8. Plan meals for the next week and go grocery shopping -- I've been eating cream of wheat and bagels for dinner most of last week, well, on the days we didn't go out to eat

So in the tradition of Ben and I being totally untraditional, like, I knew exactly when my ring was ready, he's been helping me pick out wedding dresses online. How bad is this? It's hard getting married to your best friend who you share everything with.

Matchpoint

2006-01-21T22:16:00.000-05:00

I went out on a date with my wonderful boyfriend tonight. We went to the new movie theatre near our apartment and went to see Matchpoint (it was a compromise between what I wanted to see ( Brokeback Mountain and what he really didn't want to see, Tristan and Isolde). I had not heard much about the movie, so I didn't know what I was getting in to. Here are some highlights without giving away the ending.
1. It has the hot guy from Bend It Like Beckham and you get to stare at his sexy face and bone structure thought many parts of the movie since there are many intense close ups of him brooding.
2. Excellent chemistry between him and the leading lady
3. Sexy British accents
4. An ending that stays true to the whole message of the movie

Then we went to TGI Fridays. It sucks for vegetarians. I wish I would have gotten the Cinnabon cheesecake because it might have saved the lackluster food. However, I did see an awful example of stereotypical behavior. There was this Hispanic guy in his 20's or 30's who came into the restaurant wearing a polo shirt from McDonald's or some place like that. He asked this guy who was waiting if he had to wait in line, or if he could just go up to the bar, but, he said it in the stereotypical Hispanic guy voice. His rambling went like this, "Hey, esse, do I have to wait to get to the bar. Man, all I want is a cerveza." Teenage girl walks past him. "Hey senorita, looking good." Looks around and stares at her ass while jeering and making a clicking noise with his mouth. It was so wrong.

After that, to top off the date, we went to Safeway for grocery shopping. So romantic.