Escape!

Post-Christmas winter was a bit blah around here, severely lacking in events to anticipate, motivation to better ourselves, warmth, etc.--in short, there was no trip to Hawaii in February this year to make cold, dark winter bearable. By the end of January we were borderline depressed, by mid-February we began to despair that the sun would ever make its appearance again...and that fear was only partly caused by working from dark-in-the-morning until dark-at-night.

The solution? Florida. Specifically, Miami, where we aired out our pasty legs and cranked up Will Smith while driving down the coast to South Beach. I'm pretty surprised that you couldn't hear my ginormous sigh of relief all the way across the country.

We got in on Friday, where we ended the evening watching TV in bed and started Saturday morning the same way (we don't have a TV in our bedroom, if you can't tell. I do love hotels). Then we hit the beach, walking a bit along the Hollywood Beach Broadwalk and then sitting and reading for hours by the pool and on the beach. Luuuuuuuurrved it. Here is me with a real Florida orange that we bought at the grocery store.

Saturday night we hit South Beach for dinner. After strolling around a bit, we ate at a good Cuban restaurant. I was not dressed for South Beach. And by that I mean, unlike everyone around me, I was actually dressed. In clothes. My skirt was not short enough, my shirt not tight enough (and basically not non-existent enough), I felt positively prudish. Oh, well.

Sunday it was a bit rainy and cloudy, and we determined by the pinkish hue of my skin that I'd had enough sun for one weekend, so we drove down to the Everglades and the Semanole Reservation, where we went on a buggy tour and looked at alligators. My favorite part was watching bright pink flamingos fly out of the swamp along the road.

I think a weekend in the sun was just what the doctor ordered. This is the last week in session before Congress goes out for two weeks, during which time my goal is to find my desk underneath the stacks of paper on it. It could be scary to see what is lying under there...

Sabbath Year

I started to refer to 2009 as my "Jubilee Year," but after re-checking Leviticus, I realized that it was really my "Sabbath Year." You see, the ancient Jews would sow their fields for six years, but in the seventh let it rest. After seven cycles of seven years -- in the 50th year, the Jews would celebrate the Jubilee. Well, I'm not quite to the Jubilee yet, but the idea of re-energizing the earth at the end of every six years by letting it fallow for a year is a remarkably interesting principle to apply to one's own life cycle.

It felt at times, particulary as I approached the end of the year, that I had sowed as much of myself as I could working on Sudan/Darfur over the last six years, and that the time had come to let the land fallow. The beauty of my current assignment on Capitol Hill is that it permits me to do just that -- to explore new policy areas and achieve a much more rational work-life balance. This new balance has allowed me the opportunity to go the gym more often (with a goal to condition for playing hockey), finish projects up around the house, and plan for an aggressive lawn and garden strategy for the Spring/Summer.

I must be inspired by the book I finished this week (see next entry under) and Ravi Zacharias' book, which I'm now well into. Well, that's about as philosophical as I'm prepared to get tonight. Thanks for reading.

A Book Recommendation

So, escaping to Florida for the weekend provided an opportunity to do one of the things Missy and I like best -- read on the beach. I started and finished a fabulous book -- cover to cover -- in the space of two days, and had to recommend it. "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga is a story of a man growing up in India. It is a tale of morality, society, murder, and entrepreneurship. If you enjoyed the film "Slumdog Millionaire," you will like this book.

Since the new U.S. strategic plan for Afghanistan-Pakistan has become one of the issues du jour in my job, I found the book particularly enlightening on the issue of governance and corruption in South Central Asia. Beware -- it contains language and mature themes, so don't wander in blindly. But if you are looking for great fiction that stirs the mind -- dive in!

Birthday ... Part Deux

Since it is about 11:30 pm on Sunday night and Missy is downstairs feverishly churning out her literature paper due tomorrow, I thought I'd blog about the rest of her 30th birthday week. People ask me how I was able to pull all of this off. I suppose it comes down to planning and a little luck.

Monday - Day of anticipation.

Tuesday - Missy's friend Dawn, who celebrates her birthday on March 17 (St. Patrick's Day!) came over with her husband Brian and brother Aaron for dinner. We made "snow on the mountain" as it is known in southern Idaho, "haystack" as it is known in northern Idaho, and a "bed of rice with various toppings" as it is known everywhere else. Missy made Dawn a cherry cheesecake for dessert. Dawn is pregnant with twins.


Wednesday - The Big Day. Home-made Swedish pancakes, tea, and Canadian bacon for breakfast. Opened up gifts from family. Dark chocolate cake celebration in the Simpson office. Bouquet of flowers delivered. Dinner out with the Kings and Gambills at Olives. More gift opening.

Thursday - Dinner out with Taiya and Rob at Lebanese Taverna. (Not birthday related, but still fun!)

Friday - Casey and Kim's flowers arrived. Simpson office lunch at a Thai restaurant.

Bye Bye Bushes

The infant days of Spring this weekend tempted us with mild warmth, so we decided to get a jump on yard work. After nearly two years of lamenting the overgrown bushes out front, I purchased a hedge trimmer and put it to good use. Having little experience in the bushwhacking business, I proceeded cautiously. After a few quick slices, it turned out to be much easier that I expected. It can be a little addictive though. Before I realized it, I was sawing down low hanging tree limbs and clearing small jungles in the side yard. Look out!

Notwithstanding the seduction of the buzzing blade, we were able to make good progress. We cleared away ugly oversize branches and gave our bushes a bit more shape before they start growing in earnest. Missy especially disliked the two hedges that guard our entry steps like imposing terra cotta warriors, choking off views of the flower beds about burst with tulips. So, with the additional help of a sabre saw, bye bye bushes.

This photo shows the shapely round hedge I created -- and the missing spot in the far left corner where I sawed away a despised bush.


The remains of the bushes ...


Next project: expanding the vegetable garden, building better tomato cages, and installing a do-it-yourself drip irrigation system paired with a moisture sensing timer.

Basement Redux

Forgive the blogstraveganza, but our goal for the weekend was to get the basement finished...or at least to a point where we can post pictures to respond to Shaanti and Jenny's requests for updates. If you remember from way back in 2007, when we moved in, our basement looked like this:

Seriously, check out the exterior brick, the sweet paneling, and the creative insulation hanging down from the "ceiling" (cuz, yeah, there is no ceiling). You can't see it in these pictures, but my favorite is the clip-on desk lamp hung from the "ceiling" to provide extra light. Awesome.

Today, our basement looks like this:

Please excuse the ridiculous placement of the pictures, which are NOT cooperating at ALL.


We have (with lots of help) sheetrocked, moved doors, put in light fixtures, shifted plumbing, installed a new sink and lots of cabinets, painted, and built a laah-haah-haht of Ikea bookshelves. We now have a utility room that is not only functional but quite pretty and a library that puts to good use the space that we have, until recently, been referring to as "that little in-between room where we have the futon."

Since it's still a small space and hard to capture in photos for those who haven't actually been here, I've made a little video of the "tour." If it's not here now, check back later--I still need to post it. I will not be watching it, as my voice on video is scary.

There is still a little finishing work to do, including building the real workbench at the end of the room, finding a rug and wall hangings for the library (I'm totally open to ideas!), putting knobs on the cabinets, etc. But overall I consider this project officially complete. Perfect timing, too--this weekend the weather was very grumpy, but gardening season is right around the corner, we already have seed packets and hedger in hand!

When I can get the computer working properly, I will post more pics of the new space on flickr on the sidebar.

Surprise Launch of Birthday Week

I quickly learned that for Missy, birthdays are quintessential events. On my birthday, I prefer a quiet and relaxing night at home. For her, this is inconceivable. As such, I begin planning for Missy's birthday weeks in advance (it is not hard to forget, as she continually reminds me of the upcoming big day about once a week, starting the day after Christmas). In the past, Missy has also spread her birthday over several days, celebrating with her friend Dawn (who has a birthday the day before hers), and then traveling to Idaho for a follow-up celebration with family, usually at Red Robin. The latter not being the case this year, and it being the big 30th birthday, I knew I had to start the week off with a bang.


As social coordinator of our church group, Missy had already planned to have an after-church lunch today (March 15). To her surprise, I concurred with her recommendation to hold the event at our local Red Robin (while a fine establishment -- it is not my favorite restaurant spot). After she sent out the invitation to our class, I hijacked the event by sending a subsequent invitation that turned it into a surprise birthday party. I stumbled on a perfect solution. I essentially let her do the planning for the lunch, while I surreptitiously arranged decorations and a dark chocolate cake (her favorite)! Everyone in the class kept mum and Missy was caught completely unaware. Her decorated seat, complete with helium filled birthday balloons, was fit for a queen.

And so begins birthday week 2009. More to come ...

Bustin' a Move

Last weekend's other activity involved a dance floor and some very rhythmic clapping by a strict, sorta-scary salsa instructor. Our friend Steven's birthday was on Saturday, so we celebrated by heading downtown to Adams Morgan for salsa dancing lessons and Cuban food at Habana Village.

So, dancing really isn't, to put it mildly, Jason's "thing," and when he dropped me off to go park the car, I wondered if he wasn't just high-gearing it back to Virginia and away from anything resembling a disco ball. There are times when I really miss being surrounded by Nazarenes, and this was one of them--to say that "Jason doesn't dance" to our Baptist friends just elicited confused looks, not understanding nods ("ahh, he's one of those") and whispered references to "Nazarcising." Sigh.

Regardless, we had a good time learning our 1-2-3...4-5-6s, and at the end of the night we had managed to avoid flattening each other's feet. (On the other hand, who is actually leading the dance is still under debate... :)) And we were rewarded with really good food afterwards! Steven is a photographer (like, a real photographer), so kudos to him for all these shots, and thanks for sharing with us!

(Ironically--or, maybe not so ironically--on Thursday night we were making dinner and decided to do an impromptu dance session in our (unfortunately window-filled) kitchen...and couldn't remember a single thing. Those Nazarene roots run deep...)

So, Bruce Willis Called Today...

Yeah. Just thought I'd share. Usually I hate constituent calls, but when the constituent starred in "Die Hard" and "Armageddon" and is, let's face it, really hot, well, I try not to complain.

In other news, it is officially March, which means that in one week the flower beds went from covered in snow to this:

We had an absolutely gorgeous weekend of 70 degrees and sunshine. March weather is a lot like the stock market--it rallies for a couple of days, then it plummets again. Sadly, there's a chance that we will wake up to snow again tomorrow. Sad face.

It was an action-packed but delightful weekend. On Saturday morning Jason tolerated me prancing around, getting ready for a tea party (tea party!) with some friends from church. We had a book club where we read "Pride and Prejudice" and the proceeded to talk about everything BUT the book for three hours. So. Much. Fun. I want the book club to keep going. Does anyone have good reading suggestions?

I had to rush out so that Dawn and I could give ourselves an early birthday celebration and go get massages and pedicures. Mmmm...I like this tradition. (And so does a doubly pregnant Dawn!) We have back to back birthdays, and when we lived together we always celebrated over breakfast--when I turned 26, we had an "Incredible" breakfast. Massages is probably a good substitution... Oh, and for the record, I didn't actually talk to Mr. Willis, the intern did. That's what I get for making the interns answer the phone at work.

Scoring One for Green

The final night of the six-week ice hockey drills class climaxes with a full 90 minute scrimmage - the most highly anticipated session -- and quite a step up from the 30-minute scrimmages we normally do.

My first go out on the ice was exhilarating. I played right wing and pulled up on the right side of the net just as a sweet cross-ice pass slid my way. I one-timed it for a goal -- putting the green team up 1-0 in the first minutes of the game. The momentum surged from that point, and by night's end, we destroyed the blue team by a final score of 9-1. What a game!

It is hard to believe that less than one-year ago I decided to get out on the ice for the first time and learn basic hockey skating lessons. I still surprise myself each week when I strap on the pads! I can't wait for the next six weeks!

March Comes in Like a...Polar Bear?

This is the view from our house this morning. I absolutely love snow...in December or January, even February. But NOT IN MARCH. Unbelievable. On Friday, when it was 61 outside, I started jabbering to Jason about how we should get out and do some weeding around our tulips from Amsterdam (which are peeking out of their bed). This morning we have five inches of snow and counting. Un.Be.Lievable.

One nice thing about the snow is that we are not going in to work until nine this morning, even though we got up and dressed as though we were leaving at 7:45. That means a little time to drink tea and blog before heading back into the "hot zone" that is work these days. As Jason-the-Blogger aluded to recently, I have been basically living at the office the past few weeks. Mom called me on Friday night when I was still at work and jokingly (I hope) suggested that I am a workaholic. Ha. There is not a workaholic bone in my body! It's just that there are so many hearings to prepare for and meetings to take a constituent letters to respond to and tops of desks to find... There is a light at the end of the tunnel, though--today (if we ever make it into work) we have a new staffer starting, and I'm already feeling much better about my day!

In other news, we are inching closer and closer to finishing our big basement project, which is very exciting. Mom was here last weekend, which was fabulous as always--we ate at Chili's and went early-birthday shopping and generally had a good time. This past Saturday we went to the Melting Pot with some friends, where we consumed copious amounts of cheese and chocolate. And I'm really hoping that school is cancelled tonight because of the snow (which would make snow in March all worth it)--even though it looks like grad school might be redeeming itself this semester (more on that later).

Whew! I think I'm all caught up! If it IS going to snow, at least I have been able to make a reappearance on the blog!